From the city gate, which was shut and barred a few feet to their right, Robert and Matt looked down on the road which ran west across the coastal plain and towards the plantations. The road was covered with black bodies, thrown about in the grotesque ballet of death, as was the field beyond, and stretching around the curving wall into other fields. And already the great crows were circling high above the city, as there was a gigantic buzz of insects from all around. And the battle had been going on, time and again, for some days. The stench was enough to make a man retch.
But the dead were dead. Matt gazed across the plain, at the dense masses which waited in the rain perhaps a mile from the gates, where the cleared area ended and the first of the trees began. At this distance it was impossible to make out anything except that they were black, and that they were there. After several unsuccessful assaults and a considerable number of casualties, they were still there, slaves, men and women of many countries, Yorubas, and Ibos, Mandingoes and Negroes, united for the first time in their histories in their common hatred for the race which had enslaved them.
For a moment he felt almost afraid of them, of himself, of every white West Indian, for unleashing this force in their search for profit and more profit.
'You wish to speak with me, messieurs?' Colonel Morhan was not a tall man, but was extremely broad, with equally wide moustaches. His white vest and breeches were stained with powder, and his blue coat was torn. He looked tired.
'We are Hiltons, monsieur,' Robert said. 'My sister is Madame Corbeau.'
'Madame Corbeau,' the colonel said. 'Ah.' He held out his hand, palm uppermost. 'The rain has stopped.'
'We wish news of Rio Blanco, monsieur,' Matt said. 'We wish to know if it is possible to get out there.'
Morhan looked at him, and then turned away. 'Indeed it is, monsieur. You have but to walk through those people. Bugler. Sound the alarm.'
Matt ran back to the embrasure, and watched the black mass beginning yet another move forward. And now he could distinguish the swords and the muskets.
'They come like the waves on the sea,' Morhan said. 'There is no cessation. I, monsieur, I fought in America. And there were courageous men, those farmers and traders, who seized their weapons and opposed the redcoats. But not so courageous as these. Why, sir, we kill a hundred of them in every charge, and still they come.'
'And how many of you do they kill, on every charge?' Robert asked.
'Too many, monsieur. Too many. The odds are in their favour. If we could but bring that fellow down.' He pointed and Matt and Robert looked in the direction of his finger. In front of the black army there marched a huge man, sword held at the end of his extended arm, pointing forward.
'They say he is called Boukman,' Morhan said. 'And he is a priest of the voodoo. He walks like that before every assault, and we shoot at him, and he still walks. And where he walks, they will follow. Prepare your pieces,' he bawled, and there was a rattle and a click along the battlements as the soldiers and the volunteers primed their muskets, and waited.
'Behind the priest,' Matt said. 'What is that?'
Morhan stated in turn. 'Ah, that is the priestess who accompanies him. A mulatto, would you believe it? She too marches to battle, and away again. But she is no more than his woman. If we could bring that fellow down ... prepare to fire,' he bawled, and his lieutenants passed the word along. For the mob in front of them was increasing in speed, beginning to trot forward, and now muskets were exploding in dots of red, and swords were clashing.
'By God,' Robert said. 'We can handle muskets, monsieur.'
Morhan glanced at him. 'Then take two, Mr. Hilton. There are sufficient.'
Matt ran down the steps to where the wounded and the dead lay, seized two muskets and two cartouches, hurried back up the battlements. These were already shrouded in noise and smoke as the defenders fired.
'Load,' shouted Colonel Morhan, running up and down. 'Load, you devils. Get in there, monsieur, and fire.' He seized an astonished Robert by the shoulder and hurled him at an embrasure where a soldier was slowly sinking to the ground, blood pouring from his head. Robert levelled the musket and squeezed the trigger. Matt took the next embrasure, aimed into the dense mass, now right under the walls, fired again, and found himself staring at the red-gowned figure of the mamaloi, unarmed, but pointing at the walls. It was too far away to distinguish any of her features, but her whole body was a consumed surge of hate and anger.
'Load,' shrieked Colonel Morhan. 'Fire. Load. Fire.'
Something struck the stone beside Matt's head and he ducked, and waited for the shock of pain. But there was none, and he was again aiming his musket, squeezing the trigger, not knowing where his bullet had gone, confident that it must strike home in the dense mass beneath him, then turning away to crouch as he rammed the bullet home and bit the end from his cartridge, gazing the while at Robert's feet as his cousin in turn fired and then turned back to load.
And as he straightened, listening to an immense moan which seemed to shroud the entire day. He pushed his head through the embrasure, gazed at the Negroes, falling back from the wall, and at Boukman, on his knees, the uplifted sword at last drooping to the ground.
'A sortie,' Morhan shouted. 'Follow me. We must have that fellow.'
Matt watched in fascinated horror, as the red-robed mamaloi attempted to run forward to kneel beside her priest, and was in turn restrained by another huge black man, wearing a cocked hat and carrying a cavalry sabre. The priestess turned and struck at her captor, but he evaded her blow and pinioned her arms, and shouted orders at his people, as they scattered towards the forest, some unashamedly throwing away their weapons and running for shelter, while the garrison continued to fire after them and bring them to the ground.
But now the gates were opened, and Colonel Morhan led his men forward. Boukman had slumped on the earth, his arm still extended. Morhan stood over him for a moment, and the cry came up. 'The blacks are rallying. To your posts.'
For indeed the retreating mass had stopped, and some were again advancing, and kneeling to fire their muskets. Morhan looked at them for a moment, then his right arm swung, right over his head, to bite into the earth as it severed the dead man's neck. Morhan stooped again, and then stood erect, his sword arm now thrust into the sky, his blade topped by the bleeding head.
There is your priest,' he shouted. 'There is your hougan.'
A roar of approbation came from the walls, and the colonel turned, and walked back inside, and the gates clanged shut, while from the watching blacks there came another moan of horror and despair, and they resumed their retreat.
Morhan mounted the steps, handed his sword to a lieutenant. 'Hoist that high,' he said. 'Let it rot, above the battlements, where they can look at it. We'll not have one of the priests claiming he is not truly dead.'
Robert seized his arm. 'That was well done, colonel. Now you have won. Now we can get after those people.'
Morhan turned. 'Get after them?' he asked incredulously. 'My God, sir, are you mad? Once we desert these walls for that forest we are done.'
'But the plantations, man,' Matt cried. There may be white people alive.'
'Out there?' Morhan almost smiled. 'You are dreaming, monsieur. These devils do not take captives. Nor do we, of them. There will be nobody alive out there, sir, if his or her skin be white.'
‘Yet must we be sure,' Robert insisted.
Morhan shook his head. 'No, monsieur. My responsibility is to the living, inside Cap Francois. We hold these walls, until I receive sufficient reinforcements to disperse the blacks once and for all. I have sent for them. They will be here within another week.'
'Another week?' Matt shouted.
'That is too long for us, sir,' Robert said. 'We'll go alone, if you'll not assist us.'
'Out there?' Morhan was horrified as he realized the Englishmen were serious. 'You are demented, monsieur. I'll not permit it. No gate will open for you.'
'No gate,' said Henri Ledon. 'But there is the oce
an.'
'Ledon,' Matt shouted. 'What do you here?'
'Why, Mr. Hilton, I fight, as do you.'
'And Rio Blanco?'
'I have no idea, sir. I was away when this business started, and since my return my crew will not leave the safety of Cap Francois. But if you would wish it, sir, I can show you where to anchor and how to get ashore.'
'But I forbid it,' Morhan protested.
"You command the land, sir,' Robert declared. 'But you have no command over the waves. I'll take my sloop.' He limped for the steps.
'Mad,' Morhan groaned. 'Mad. Restrain him, monsieur, I beg of you.'
Matt looked up at the bleeding head of Boukman, being slowly hoisted on the flagpole which surmounted the battlements. 'Not mad,' he said. 'Desperate, monsieur. Be sure that were there any white captives when this day dawned, they will hardly now survive the night.'
'There, sir, there,' Ledon said. 'You may even see the chateau through the trees, if it still stands.'
The sloop hardly did more than drift before the light breeze. It was again early morning, and although there were heavy clouds over the mountains, these had not yet descended towards the shore. It was indeed a heavenly day, with the sun just gaining in heat, the sky and the sea a matching blue and a matching calm. Gone were the stenches and the shrieks of the previous day, the ever-present suggestion of horror. And yet, Matt realized as he levelled his telescope, horror was their business this day. Horror was what they anticipated, what they knew they must expect.
'I can see the chateau' he said. Through the trees, the sun glinted on white.
Robert was inspecting the beach. 'And no niggers.'
'Yet they are there, sir,' Caiman objected. 'We know they are there.'
'What do you think, Ledon?'
The Frenchman hesitated, chewing his lip. 'It is hard to say, monsieur. Perhaps they still wait, in the trees beyond Cap Francois. Perhaps the death of their general has destroyed them, and they flee for the mountains.'
'Bah,' Robert said. 'That fellow was no general. And we do no work by arguing here. Hand sail, Caiman, and prepare a boat. And your cannon.'
Caiman looked down at the single piece the sloop mounted amidships. Then he shrugged, and gave the necessary orders.
'You'll come with us, Ledon,' Robert declared. 'But we'd best not take any of the crew. And we'll be as careful as we can. You understand.'
Matt nodded. This day he wore a sword, and there was a pistol at his belt. He had become, after all, a soldier, to war upon the very people to whom he had devoted his life. But then, they had elected to war on him, first, in the person of Sue. And his children. Oh, Christ, Sue, and the children. For more than a week now he had dared not think of them, dared not suppose what might have happened to them, what might still be happening to them. But now he would know.
And what then, he wondered?
The boat approached the beach, perhaps a hundred yards from where the pale-watered river debouched into the sand, forming a miniature estuary of drying banks and flooded waterways, before rushing against the gentle surf. And the water remained clear, and almost white.
Beyond was a fringe of trees, empty and silent. And then sound. They looked at each other, unsure. Perhaps it was the tumbling water. Except that it seemed to come from everywhere before them, a gigantic hum, rippling across the morning.
Ledon frowned. 'They are working the factory' he said half to himself.
'They? The blacks you mean?' Robert demanded.
Ledon shrugged. 'And yet... it sounds muted.'
'Let's get ashore,' Matt said. For he suddenly remembered that he had heard such a sound before, and only yesterday. Fie pointed above the trees, where the crows circled, lazily, and every so often dipped lower to vanish beyond the branches. 'There are no living people here.'
The boat grounded, the three white men climbed over the bow and stamped on the sand. 'You'll keep your place off shore,' Robert commanded the Negro coxswain. 'We may return in haste.'
'Oh, yes, Mr. Hilton, sir,' the slave agreed. 'We won't let any ignorant black fellow get you, sir.'
'Aye,' Robert said. "You'd best see to it.' He drew his sword and stumped up the sand, tricorne tilted back on his head, left hand resting on the butt of his pistol. Ledon and Matt walked behind. And what did the seaman think, Matt wondered? Because he must have had more friends on this plantation than anyone. Yet his face was impassive, if grim. No doubt he had also by now recognized the hum.
Ledon led the way, through the trees, to emerge on to the lawn. But there was no grass to be seen, only trampled mud. And the first bodies, a cluster of three black men. And a crow, pecking at the eyes, casting a disgusted look at the living men who approached him, and then flapping his wings as he rose from the ground. With him rose the flies and the bees, the flying ants and the beetles. The hum became louder.
And the stench settled around them like a miasma. This massacre was a fortnight old, and yet the smell, of death, of fear, of overstrained emotion, lingered. What must it have smelt like, a fortnight ago, Matt wondered?
They hurried, now. There was no reason to linger. They passed more black men, and women, lying dead and distorted on the marble drives and the marble staircases leading to the patios. But these were merely dead, and in some cases even peaceful, save for the bullet wounds. On the patios they paused, to retch, and cover their faces with their kerchiefs. Here the main work of execution had been conducted. Here there were white men, and women. And children. Here the faces were themselves distorted, as they had died, screaming with pain and screaming for mercy. Here the word mutilation became meaningless. Here was a butcher's shop, in which arms and legs and breasts and heads could not be reasonably connected, in which strands of golden hair formed patterns in the rusty blood, and the insects had to be swept aside with waves of the arms.
These were not men,' Ledon cried. These were beasts.'
Robert said nothing. He picked his way through the corpses, past the shattered doors, stood in the great hall, surveyed the bodies lying here and on the great staircase, the huge paintings, dragged from their hooks and smashed, the pink and white upholstery, scoured and scratched and torn. And the plump white woman, naked, suspended from the landing by her pale brown hair, still swinging gently in the draught which whispered through the house, the agony on her face, the gaping wounds in her chest and belly, the fire blackened mess which had been her feet, testifying to everything she had suffered before death, to the eternity death must have been in coming.
'You'd set these people free,' Robert said. It was not a question.
Matt ran, up the stairs, paused on the landing, leaned over, and with a single sweep of his sword sliced through Georgiana's hair. She fell to the floor of the hall with a dull sound, landed at Robert's feet. But Matt was on his way again, ranging along the corridors, hurling open doors to gaze at the shattered bloody interiors, pausing in horror as his nostrils were freshly afflicted by the tang of smouldering wood. But the fire had consumed only a small part of the back of the house. The rest was dead.
In time, he never knew how much time, he found the room he sought, the room he could recognize from the few tattered garments which lay scattered over the floor. But the room was empty.
After another eternity he found another room he sought, and here discovered the trampled remains of an elderly white woman, and what must have been two children. The sight brought his heart and his stomach welling to his throat. But these were not his. Of that he was sure.
He found himself once again on the main staircase, his stomach rolling, his mind whirling. Where Robert still stood, and stared.
'You'd free these things,' he said.
Matt looked at his cousin, and at Georgiana. 'Why have you not buried her?'
'Buried her? That would be blasphemy, where I cannot bury them all.' At last he raised his head. 'Sue?'
'Not there. Neither are Tony or Richard, I'm sure.'
'By God,' Robert said. 'By God.'
For i
f death had been so terrible, in the hands of rebels who had so much and so long to avenge, it was impossible to consider life.
'Neither is Monsieur Corbeau.' Ledon stood in the doorway. 'They would have wished him to die even more slowly than madame. He should be here.'
Robert turned and went outside. Here, the air which their lungs had all but rejected an hour ago was now sweet and clean, by comparison. And as it was approaching noon, the clouds were sweeping lower, occasionally obliterating the sun, bringing a suggestion of damp.
They went down the drive, and through the great iron gates. Here the air was clean, and they could even bear to look at each other. Beyond the trees, the overseers' village had been burned to the ground. But the slave village was unharmed, and so, amazingly, was the factory. And above the factory there circled other crows.
HF - 03 - Mistress of Darkness Page 55
