Cap-Francois and force out the French. I’ve received word a British squadron is approaching to blockade Rochambeau, and an attack on land could decide the issue. To which side are you actually allied?”
That was the question, wasn’t it? “To whichever side helps me get wife, son, and emerald. Which is your side now, and I must succeed before British and French catch up to me.”
He nodded. Ambitious men understand expediency. “You promised an idea of how to surprise the French lines, and you must first help me win my battle before I help get back your wife or son. Otherwise, it’s easier to impale you on a pole and plant you, alive and screaming for your mother, in front of the French fortifications. This will demonstrate what will happen to white men when we finally win. Your shrieks would dampen their morale, I think.”
He suggested this alternative rather matter-of-factly. In thinking back to forbidding acquaintances such as the Egyptian Rite’s Alessandro Silano, Djezzar the Butcher, the warrior chief Red Jacket, or Pasha Yussef Karamanli, the one thing that unites them is an appalling indifference to my health. There seems to be a discouraging correlation between power and ruthlessness. My instinct for sympathy probably disqualifies me for high command; I couldn’t bring myself to execute as many innocents as seems to be required.
I am, however, a clever adviser, with no desire to be left on a stake. “I will win your battle, or help win it, at least, with a scheme that will crack the French lines and bring an end to this war. But I am a white man, so you must promise you’ll let the defeated French flee, once they give up.”
“They don’t deserve to escape.”
“What they deserve is irrelevant. If cornered, they will fight even harder.”
He considered, then nodded. “I might let them go if it saves the blood of my people. But how do you propose to win the siege when my entire army cannot?”
“With an idea from my three-year-old son.” And I explained in detail what I intended to do.
Chapter 29
Two storms gathered before the morning of November 18, 1803. One was the tower of rain cloud building on the horizon, a roiling interplay of sun and impending shower. The other was the final approach of the black rebel army toward French lines.
It was a human tide that couldn’t be disguised. Cane fields were trampled as regiment after regiment moved into position, cannon were hauled, temporary breastworks built, shot stockpiled, and bivouacs pitched. The French were equally busy, and through a glass lent to me by a Negro officer I could see the bustle of a defense readying against attack. Bugles called. Earthen redoubts were heaped a little higher in hopes that a last spade full of dirt might stop a fatal bullet. More tricolors were raised to snap in the tropical wind, to convince those charging that they faced impossible odds. Cavalry rode importantly about on both sides to advertise menace with the thunder of their hooves. French artillery fired ranging shots to reinforce their point. Dessalines’s cannons barked in reply. This pawing and snorting reminded me of stags in the dust and heat, which know that the key to any fight is not just to rip the throat, but to open the gut of churning fear on the other side. War is bluff, shock, surprise, desperation, and scarcely contained panic.
Precipitating more panic was my job.
While the armies postured, I prepared to lead a night march in the hours before the final attack. Jubal, Antoine, and a dozen handpicked comrades would follow me to the left of the rebel lines toward the mountains that anchored the French flank.
We deliberately kept this party small. A large black force could be spotted and ambushed as it slowly climbed the tangle of jungle that matted the hills around Cap-Francois. But my doughty group would trot in bare feet without a firearm among us so that no gun would accidentally discharge and give us away. Instead, we were equipped with captured cutlasses and plantation cane knives. Dessalines had decreed me a captain and offered a pair of blood- spattered epaulettes that I declined, but as their leader I was armed with a spear. It was an African weapon the rebels had forged, with a tear-shaped spearhead as long as my forearm that was attached to an ironwood shaft.
“Our forefathers used this against the lion,” Dessalines told me.
“Had to get rather close, didn’t they?”
“They smelled its hot breath.”
“I prefer to use my brain.”
In fact, I was inclined to leave this prehistoric baggage behind. But Jubal persuaded me that it was foolish to go into battle unarmed, and that the spear made a rather convenient standard, walking stick, tent pole, and mark of authority. The spear seemed entirely savage, but once my hand closed on the polished wood I did feel rather fierce. This was the first real weapon I’d possessed since losing my rifle in Tripoli, and it fortified my confidence the way a primitive might have felt when going up against one of Jefferson’s woolly mammoths. The former slaves seemed to regard it as a badge of rank, signifying the trust Dessalines had placed in me, and followed my lead without complaint. I was so unaccustomed to this (most of the time, no one listens to me at all) that I was rather excited. There’s definitely a thrill in being warlord.
So we waited until the dusk before the battle, then set off.
Even with sunset my squad was soon panting and sweating. We each had a thirty-pound black powder keg strapped to our backs (another reason not to risk firearms, lest one set off a barrel of gunpowder and turn us into a chain of eruptions) and when game trails turned the wrong direction, we had to hack at foliage to get through the jungle.
For refreshment we had calabash gourds carrying water cut with mobby, that bitter brew fermented from sweet potatoes. The drink eventually made some of the men want to hum, and Jubal had to hush them, since it’s a danger to be too jolly when sneaking about. I’d also brought a flask of rum, a swallow of which I shared with each man to keep up morale.
Jubal was our guide once we reached the mountains. He knew the trails like a puma, leading us up a twisting ravine where a tropical creek cut through the ferns with a steady murmur that masked our footfalls. It was so dark under the trees that I could barely make out my guide’s broad back, so I stopped us, had a volunteer tear his ragged white shirt to shreds, and tied one on each gunpowder barrel so we’d keep the man ahead in sight. Jubal retained the lead, Antoine the rear, and I marched in the middle.
We slipped, scrambled, and stumbled. Admirably, any curses in English, French, Creole, and African were kept under our breaths.
Higher and higher we went. The trees dripped and steamed from earlier showers, and I could hear wild pigs grunting and moving out of our way. I thought again of lurking devils, but the superstition seemed silly when I was sober of voodoo drugs and banded with a group of soldiers. We stopped periodically to listen for French patrols or to spy the light of a sentry’s pipe, but we seemed to have this world to ourselves.
None of my men was allowed to light a cob, lest we blow ourselves up or give ourselves away. So I just watched the whites of their eyes as they tilted their heads back to enjoy their mobby, while they said I glowed like a ghost.
The hike seemed to be taking forever. “I want to climb above the French lines, not crest the Alps,” I complained to Jubal, wiping at my sweat.
“Mountains are steep in Haiti, yes?”
“And muddy. Infested with vermin, feral livestock, and sharp thorns.”
“We’ll crest a ridge soon and come down where we need to be. Don’t worry, Monsieur Ethan, Jubal knows the mountains. Dessalines preaches that a drop of sweat can save a drop of blood.”
“I’m sure that’s true. But we’re doing the sweating, and saving him the blood.”
My companion laughed. “I’d rather have our sweat than his worries.”
Finally our route leveled at a crest, and a welcome breeze blew off the Caribbean. We were above the French stronghold, the dark sea beyond. As I’d planned, there was no moon, and only a few lights shone in distant Cap- Francois. I could also see the low campfires of the French line to its east. If my calculations were correct, we were above the dell where I’d climbed with Colonel Aucoin to see his redoubts and water supply.
Now I was going to use this geography to help end the war.
