The Treasure of Robert Surcouf
This is an extract from my forthcoming novel Tambalacoque
The fact that Robert Surcouf was named captain in his teens _ he was nineteen and a half _ shows what a unique individual he must have been. He had been the Royal Navy’s biggest headache for over twenty years, capturing nearly fifty ships, most of them English. First he had made his name as captain and owner of slave-ships, and at the abolition of this lucrative trade, he turned privateer, and misbehaved on the high seas for emperor and country, and above all himself. Many English lives were lost to him and his ruthless men, including Captain Burnyeat of the pride of the Royal Navy, the HMS Triton. A tactician of exceptional skill, he developed many a strategy, often imitated in warfare on the high seas later.
In January 1896, he was in his new ship the “Emilie,” and had ambitious plans, but he had been refused a lettre de marque by governor Decaën of the Ile de France (now Mauritius). That did not deter him. A lettre de marque was a certificate issued on behalf of the French government, by either the Ministry of Maritime Affairs in France, or his representative in the overseas possessions, for instance the colonial Governor, giving the bearer the right to raid enemy ships. He would have loved to harass English and Portuguese ships on his own account, but as the Emilie was a small vessel with only thirty two men and four six-pounder guns, at first, he had thought it best to beat a temporary if hasty retreat when facing bigger and better-armed vessels. Instead he had made for the Andaman Islands and secured a lucrative contract to deliver 6000 bags of Burmese rice to the Mascareignes, the islands in the Indian Ocean, comprising of the Ile de France, Reunion or as it was then known, the Ile de Bourbon, and Madagascar, which is now the Malagasy Republic.
They had just crossed the equator when his second-in-command, Lieutenant Nicolas Surcouf, his younger brother, informed him that Portuguese “skirt” had been spotted. On land the brothers chased skirt, so they extended the metaphor to include the equivalent hobby at sea. It was the “Oriente.” Although he knew that he was both outmanned and outgunned, he had heard rumours to the effect that the ship was ferrying gold from Mozambique to Lisbon: the dowry of the Infanta Beatriz de Braganza who was affianced to the nephew of the King of Belgium, Prince Aymeric, who was seventh in the line to the throne. According to his intelligence, the poor Infanta was not well-endowed in the beauty department, and as is well known, this needed an inflated dowry. Inversely proportional to her beauty score. This was literally a golden opportunity. Surcouf did not acquire his reputation as a fearless and crafty operator by looking the other way when treasure-laden ships were in his sights.
‘When we see skirt, dear brother, we chase it,’ Robert said. ‘Call Joseph.’ Joseph Cottier who happened to be their first cousin, was the only other man on board that the brothers trusted entirely. The trio were closeted in the captain’s quarters and they elaborated their plans.
‘I would hate it if we were chasing shadows,’ said the timorous cousin, ‘specially as it is a much larger ship than ours. I would guess it to be a 32-gunner, at least, and at a guess, I’d say they have at least ninety men on board.’
‘Ha!’ sneered Surcouf, ‘one Frenchman being worth four Portuguese, it’s gonna be an unequal combat.’
‘It may not even be true what we heard in the bars of Tamatave,’ volunteered Nicolas,
having had second thoughts after hearing Cottier’s cautious remark.
‘If there’s no gold, there’ll be bound to be a cargo of ebony, of palm oil, dried fish…’
However, once Robert had made up his mind, he never backed out. The two others knew that the man known as the Prince of Corsairs did not go into any venture without a plan. The English were in awe of him and his “tricks”. He had sound, well-tried techniques, but he could improvise new strategies on the hoof.
‘I think we shall once more have recourse to some prestidigitation,’ he said darkly. The two cousins knew he meant the “Méduse trick.” It was surprising how even hardened sea-dogs fell for this one.
Surcouf was loth to spend more money than he needed to, and would shop around for equipment for his fleet. However, when it came to optical instruments, he was ready to acquire the best, damn the expense! In his experience the Dutch made the best telescopes by far, but as a member of the Coalition (against Napoleon), they did no direct business with the French. Robert first had to bypass this embargo. He did this by sending in Turkish agents to the Hague, first, to do some spying for him, then reporting to him about what they had seen there. When he had made his choice, as he was an excellent English speaker, he passed himself for an English captain and went there himself with his shopping list. As a result, he had a singular advantage over his enemies at sea: He saw them much before they saw him. Having espied the “Oriente”, and studied its course, he planned his action.
He ordered his men to bring up “La Méduse”. This was a raft, the parts of which were kept
in a hold, conceived and built for quick assembly. It became an elongated wooden structure with empty drums fixed to its bottom for buoyancy, and fitted with powerful, specially converted Argand Lamps attached to firmly fixed posts carefully positioned along the fake hulk.
It is naturally ill-advised in these times of conflict for ships to advertise their presence to a putative enemy, so once the decoy was spotted, the impression was that it was a much bigger vessel. A proper brig with eighty men and perhaps 40 six-pound guns at the very least? La Meduse was assembled at record speed and lowered onto the waves on a stream leading to Guardafui. There , the currents are so strong that it will drift on its own, leading the “Oriente” to take evasive action. The strategy worked like a charm, and the Portuguese ship changed course to avoid the potential danger. Worse luck, it glided full tilt into Surcouf’s trap. The Emilie had been waiting at the most advantageous spot. Although it was much smaller, Surcouf’s men were among the most highly trained fighters on the sea. The Portuguese man-of-war did not have time to prime its guns. They were boarded by the force of lightning quick Emiliens. The second-in-command, Lieutenant Gonçalvo Camoes was killed by Lieutenant Péru in a sword fight, Captain Antonio Lobo Herculano was taken prisoner for ransom and his men were promptly disarmed. Robert Surcouf himself did not, as a rule, participate in the action. He had seen enough action, and had no need to spill more enemy blood. Now, he simply gave the orders and his job was to make sure that everybody was doing as instructed, watching with detached amusement. He saw Cottier hold a dagger to Herculano’s throat and was surprised at the speed with which the Captain revealed the location of the chest containing the dowry.
Surcouf was not squeamish about killing the enemies of his nation, but remembering that he had been destined to the priesthood as a boy, he was pleased that there had been relatively little blood spilled during the action. On the day of judgement, he used to joke, he will tell Saint Peter, ‘Think not of those I have killed, but of how many more I spared.’ Having taken possession of the booty, the Emiliens made for the stream in the Guardafui to pull their valuable decoy in. It will serve more than a few times in the future.
The Emilie now had a cargo of rice to deliver and changed course to Port-Louis. Robert Surcouf believed that no one in his shoes could be fairer when he had captured booty, but as he did not envisage an equal share between the 33 of them, not a single member of his crew shared this view. They feared the Captain, but few among their numbers respected him or were devoted to him.
He was not unaware of this.
He summoned Cot-tier and brother Nicolas, and poured them a large rum.
‘Mon cher frère et mon cher cousin,’ he said after drinking a toast to the Emperor, ‘wouldn’t you agree with me that we worked jolly hard for what we ended up with?’ They had counted a total of nine hundred gold moidores. The younger men loudly signified their agreement to that sentiment.
‘Decaën refused me a lettre de marque, but he will not be backward in coming forward to claim the booty. Don’t you agree that he does not deserve any of it?’ They did not acquire the trust of the great captain by disagreeing with him.
The non-existence of the lettre de marque meant that he was not properly empowered to harass the enemy, let alone deprive them of any treasures they were transporting. Which did not mean that France would not happily pocket this dubious gain if he was foolish enough to hand it over to them. He would be entitled to next to nothing but crumbs. They would be heaped with praise and thanks of course. The hypocrisy of it all.
‘But cousin,’ said Cottier, ‘we won’t stand for that, will we?’
‘You can bet your life on it, mon p’tit Joe. I have a plan.’ Not that p’tit Joe doubted that.
They were going to keep to themselves what he was going to tell them. He loved his men, they will certainly get a share, but he did not trust them. Should anyone but close family know this secret, they would lose everything. He was going to mislead the crew into believing that they were taking the Emilie towards l’Ile de Bourbon, to the west of Mauritius. The men would be told that they were hiding the Oriente loot on the small rocky island of Ile Noire, off La Pointe des Galets.
‘Is there an Ile Noire?’
‘No, of course not, but the men don’t know that. They are a bunch of illiterate dogs who do not know which end of a telescope to use and who believe that a magnetic compass worked by magic. We’ll swear them to secrecy and tell them it is forty kilometres from La Pointe des Galets. We inform them that we will leave it there until it is safe to come back and collect it, when they will
get their fair share.’
‘They won’t like it.’
‘Do they have a choice? Better still, how could they tell? We don’t aim to let them know our course. Surely they’ll remember what I did to Caissac when he grumbled?’ The luckless matelot was flogged to within an inch of his life, and then stranded in Djibouti _ pour l’exemple! What happened to him, nobody knows. Or cares.
He instructed the two younger men to map a course to the Ile aux Dauphins, in the north of the Ile de France, but to keep talking about the Ile Noire. He had been there before, he knew the one small sandy stretch permitting landing, and he knew exactly where to hide the chest. The two young men opened their eyes wide in admiration as their wise older relative revealed to them the incredible spot where he aimed to hide his treasure..
‘Oh, ask Chauleur to double their share of grog until we get to Port-Louis. It’s best to keep them befuddled.’ No wonder, it was later said that had Nelson found himself against Surcouf at Trafalgar instead of the inept Villeneuve, the outcome would have been completely different.
The men had no reason to doubt what they were told. Cottier and the younger Surcouf loudly talked about a course of twenty one south fifty five point five west, but they were really making for twenty south and fifty seven point five east, with none of crew the wiser. Since none of them had been anywhere near the Ile aux Dauphins, not a single one of them entertained the slightest suspicion of what was being trammelled. As Surcouf expected, the two tell-tale Round Islands were hidden from view by a thick mist. It was only years later that some of the men on board the Emilie began to ask themselves questions.
A man of singular wit, later in life when the two channel neighbours were relatively at peace, Surcouf was a guest on board the flagship of Admiral Wipps. After drinking a few toasts, Wipps teased, ‘Captain Surcouf, do you not admit that you French, fight for money, whilst we, English fight for honour.’
‘Volontiers mon amiral, I’ll grant you that. Everybody fights for what he does not possess.’
