“We had to wait for God to get the sun high enough to light our tinder. He took his own sweet time, I’m afraid.”
“We almost had no sun at all.”
“Providence gave us just enough.” I decided to omit my lack of more reliable ignition methods, but he guessed my character anyway.
“You gamble, monsieur.”
“I improvise. It’s a fault I’m working on.”
“Well, victory is ours. British ships are offshore. Rochambeau is as trapped as Cornwallis was at Yorktown. My new nation will be born much as yours was. We’ll pay back the French. They have centuries of crime to answer for.”
I’d expected this response. The problem with being mean, as the French overseers had been, is that sooner or later your victims learn that same meanness and give turnabout. What terrified the French was that they were about to experience all the tortures they’d invented first. Our Savior hoped forgiveness would prove contagious, but so far I’ve seen little sign of it. People return the worst, not the best, and the habit makes me gloomy. The likelihood that I’d helped enable a massacre didn’t appeal to me, either.
“Maybe you can let bygones be bygones,” I tried.
The general looked scornful. “When did they ever offer that to us?”
“Yellow fever has taken all the collar out of them, you know that. It’s not like the French army hasn’t suffered. Cornwallis was allowed to surrender with honor.”
“If all white men are as meek as you, it’s no wonder they are losing. Perhaps I will not stop with Haiti. Maybe I’ll take my army and conquer the world.”
“You wouldn’t like most of it. Europe is cold and drafty. America, too. L’Ouverture could tell you, if he was still around.”
He scowled, and I decided the sooner I left Haiti, the better, given the color of my skin. “If those are British ships, let the English do your work for you,” I argued. “You can no doubt take Cap-François, but if thousands of whites are faced with extinction, they’ll fight to the death and take many of your soldiers with them. If they’re allowed to flee to English ships, you’ve won your cause without more bloodshed. Saint-Domingue becomes free without stain on its honor. Foreign nations will recognize your nation more quickly.”
He considered. Vengeance is so tempting.
“You become not just a liberator, but merciful,” I continued. “A hero in the salons of Paris, an example to the English Parliament, a partner to the United States. Dessalines the Just! Men will salute you. Women admire you.”
“I suppose temperance is the mark of great men.” He said it with considerable doubt.
“Benjamin Franklin thought so. He was my mentor, you know. Something of a nag, but sharp as a razor.”
“But this negotiation must be my idea, not yours.”
“Of course.”
“It must resound to me, not you.”
“I am utterly obscure.”
“It must be negotiated by someone the whites would trust and yet is entirely expendable, since I don’t trust Rochambeau not to seize any messenger and disembowel him in full view of my army. He is rash, venomous, and wicked.”
Villains recognize each other the way dogs do a scent. “I don’t care for the fellow, either.”
“Yes.” He’d come to a decision. “The man to negotiate the French evacuation, Monsieur Gage, is you.”
The trouble with offering advice is that there’s a danger people will actually accept it. So I found myself in the broiling noontime sun, planter’s hat off, marching with white flag between two embittered armies. I estimated that at least ten thousand muskets were aimed in my direction from all points of the compass. I thought the disemboweling idea was a real possibility, since the last time I’d seen General Rochambeau I’d interrupted him in midcoitus, throwing a meat cleaver at his head while he fired a ball at me. Best to keep to myself that the diversionary flood was my idea. And that I’d been tangled up in voodoo, Haitian goddesses, and the severing of French heads for display on a makeshift dam. Diplomacy, like romance, is simpler when the other side doesn’t know everything that is going on.
I hoped that the last few days of excitement might have caused the French general even to forget who I was, but he recognized me with that baleful expression typically reserved for tax collectors, naval press gangs, or mothers-in-law. I gave back as good as I got, still smarting from being a potential cuckold even if Rochambeau hadn’t, apparently, actually lain with my wife. He’d certainly wanted to, and had misplaced her in the process.
We met at the base of his last redoubts. Our conversation was blunt.
“The traitor and assassin Ethan Gage dares return?” he began.
“To save your lecherous hide.”
“How could you desert to the blacks and participate in their butchery?”
“How could you stalk my wife and pack her off to a ship with your pimp Leon Martel?” I gave back. “Having failed to rape her, are you prostituting her instead?”
“How dare you insult my honor, monsieur!”
“And how dare you, General.” I realized this kind of acrimony could go on for some time, so I tried to move things along. “It’s plain enough to all your soldiers how God has rewarded your crimes. And if you don’t listen to me, they, as well as you, will pay horrifyingly.”
A cluster of colonels drew nearer at these words.
Rochambeau looked volcanic, but he was also trapped and knew it. If Ethan Gage was his only chance of escape, it wouldn’t do to spit me on his sword. He swallowed rage with difficulty and stood taller. “Is Dessalines asking for terms?”
“His guns command the city. His troops are poised to initiate a massacre, not only against your men but against the city’s women and children, with all the cruelties you’ve taught him. Black Africa is at the gates, General, waiting to take revenge.” I let this work a moment on his officers’ imaginations.
“Why are you here then?” Rochambeau asked grudgingly.
“To prevent further bloodshed, Dessalines is offering you the opportunity to evacuate by British ship if you promise that France will leave Saint-Domingue forever.”
“We are at war with Britain as well!”
“But I am not. As an American, I’m the only negotiator fit to shuttle between the three sides. You may despise me as much as I despise you, but if you confirm the location of my wife and son, I’ll talk the British into taking you all off and saving your miserable life. Better captivity with the English than revenge from Dessalines, am I not correct?”
There was an audible rustle and sigh from the officers around us. They heard reprieve and looked at their general with expectation.
Rochambeau squinted at the sea. If he acquiesced to sailing with the British, he’d almost certainly become a prisoner of war. But he could save ten thousand lives by doing so, the first decent thing he’d done in some time. He still hesitated, as if weighing which was the better path to honor.
Finally he scowled. “Very well.”
“Very well what? Where are Astiza and Horus, a tiny child that your monster of a criminal has kidnapped?”
Now there were some gasps from the assembled officers, who knew nothing of this. Rochambeau’s face darkened with fresh embarrassment, but he also decided to try to turn it to advantage.
“Fort-de-France in Martinique,” he said shortly, an admission that he did know about my wife’s abduction. “Sent there for their own safety, you imbecile. To protect your wife from her sorry excuse of a husband.” He turned to his men. “This idiot wanted to drag her into the jungle with the blacks, and we all know what the result would have been. I, however, saw she wore a medal of trust from Bonaparte and was determined to save her. French chivalry protected her from American recklessness.”
Now they all looked with rebuke at me. The truth was, I had rather fumbled the governing of my family. I decided we’d both said enough and returned a contemptuous silence, which was enough to make the assembly wonder which version of events was correct.
When I didn’t reply, Rochambeau plunged on. “Yes, you can thank me for safeguarding your family. Meanwhile, we’ll row you out to the British to end this bloodshed. Bonaparte will hear of your treacheries, and I will go down in history as the savior of the good people of Cap-François.” He turned to his officers. “I will be recorded as a hero, you’ll see.”
I nodded. “Agreed. And I want a letter of introduction to the governor of Martinique.”
Chapter 32
I’ll admit that once I was a few yards offshore I had an overwhelming desire to cut and run, finding passage to Martinique with the British and leaving Dessalines and Rochambeau to their own devices. I desperately missed Astiza and Harry. Saint-Domingue would have a troubled future after the apocalyptic war, and I knew the final evacuation would be chaotic and heartbreaking. The French Creoles who’d been born on the island and invested their lives in Saint-Domingue would finally have to give up on what would become Haiti, exiles from all they’d known. I’d be delayed waiting for the surrender and transition to play out.
But I also knew that as a go-between I might save a few lives. Besides, if I earned Dessalines’s satisfaction (I don’t think I could ever count on his approval or friendship; he hated my race too much), I’d have the help of Jubal and his men in fetching my family, and give a little payback to Martel. So I boarded the British flagship and informed its commander that without firing a shot, he could offer refugees the transit that would finally rob France of what had once been its richest colony.
“The French have lost to the slaves?” He seemed dumbfounded.
“Not just lost, but are in peril of their lives.”
Accordingly, a combination of British warships and French merchantmen closed with the harbor to take on the defeated. The evacuation began in good order, demonstrating only the absurdity of what people try to save. They came to the quay lugging oil portraits of ugly ancestors, tarnished tureens, a pet goat, a trunk of theatrical costumes, cases of spirits, antique dueling pistols, hat boxes, silverware, fresh-baked loaves more than two feet long, voodoo carvings, silver crucifixes, and an ornamental saddle. Little ones clutched dolls and toy soldiers. Mothers peered into their own cleavage to double-check the safety of jewelry temporarily deposited there, and men patted jackets to confirm the presence of coin or currency. Rochambeau’s officers and English ensigns organized them into lines, weeding out the most ridiculous heirlooms (one family trundled a harpsichord down to water’s edge) and for a while the mood was of shared hardship and goodwill.
But as dusk fell and wine cellars were liberated, both French troops and civilians got drunk, and looting began in abandoned corners of the city. As the waiting rebel army saw disorder, black soldiers began filtering into Cap-François to join the pillage. Fires started and ignited panic. A queue quickly became a mob, some longboats swamped and had to be righted, and the last crammed French ship set sail so anxiously that it hit a reef and began to sink. Its occupants had to be offloaded to another English vessel.
I was amazed there was not more rape and murder, given the conflict’s history. At my advice, Dessalines kept a stern rein on his men to avoid a retaliatory bombardment from European ships. On board the vessels was chaos, as an escaping throng squeezed between guns, pushed into sail lockers, and tucked under longboats. Even madmen were evacuated from the city’s asylum and chained to a gunwale, raving in the confusion. Mothers sobbed, children wailed, dogs barked, and army officers climbed aboard with pet monkeys, macaws, and parrots. The vessels were so jammed that some of the baggage was heaved overboard by impatient sailors.
A few blacks fled as well as whites, some servants refusing to abandon their masters. And some whites and mulattos chose the risk of staying ashore. But the overwhelming effect of the surrender was a final division of the races. The ships, their decks crammed with pale faces, visibly settled in the water. Some quarterdecks were so crowded that the helmsman could scarcely turn the wheel. The vessels did not so much sail as lumber out of the crowded harbor.
On shore, the Paris of the Antilles, newly renamed Cap-Haïtien, smoldered.
As night fell, the victors rejoiced and danced in the streets with that rhythmic energy I’d seen in the jungle. Burning homes threw lurid light on the celebration. There was a pungent smell of smoke, gunpowder from shots fired aloft in victory, rot from broken larders, and roast pig, goat, and chicken cooked in street bonfires. I saw a few white and mulatto faces, but they were rare and subdued, watching the slave army from the shadows with apprehension.
Impatient as I was, I knew better than to approach Dessalines at the height of his triumph; he was preoccupied with organizing a nation. I applied for an appointment at his convenience and remained at my inn, since there was no one left to collect rent. The general didn’t even enter the conquered city until November 30, 1803. I finally got to see him the following afternoon, where he reigned in the ballroom of Rochambeau’s Government House, looking weary but grimly powerful, the western half of Hispaniola finally his. He had a steady stream of visitors seeking promotion, trade, or redress of grievances. On a long table to one side of his desk, aides kept tally of what had been captured and lost. Officers bustled in and out on assignments to put Cap-François in order again, and newly appointed ministers began forming a permanent government. I realized I was witnessing something akin to the start of my own nation thirty years before. I should have taken notes, had I pen and paper. But no, I was impatient to find my family, not play historian.
“I congratulate the new Spartacus,” I greeted, after waiting more than an hour past my appointed time.
“I have exceeded L’Ouverture and shall crown myself emperor,” the general pronounced. “Napoleon himself could not stand before me.”
Napoleon was five thousand miles away, and Rochambeau had been no Caesar, but I knew better than to amend this self-assessment. I changed the subject. “I did what you asked to help win our victory, and now I can do even more for Haiti,” I said. “All governments need gold. Maybe I can find some.”
“Those legends you spoke of.”
“Lend me Jubal, Antoine, and a few companions, and I’ll search for the treasure of Montezuma. I’ll split with your regime and finally retire from public life.”
“You want my help to search for your wife and son.”
“Of course.”
“Then Haiti has given you sense, perhaps. Family is worth more than baubles.” This was a pronouncement, spoken loudly enough so that all in the hall could hear it. “Loyalty worth more than fear.”
I understood the need to express such sentiment. He was a new Moses for a new kind of country, but a bloody-handed Moses with a dozen years worth of enemies waiting for him to fall. Somehow he had to establish an ethic, and I didn’t envy his power or his responsibility. “Then I can have your men to go look for my loved ones and the relics that Maroons are rumored to have hidden away?”
“If my men will come back. You’ll look where?”
“Martinique, the loa told me. My enemy Leon Martel has gone there.”
“Perhaps we blacks will rise in Martinique next.”
“Let me have a look around first.”
He waved me away, our interview over. “You should be sailing already. Next!”
Part III
Chapter 33
The ruler of France and his wife both came from island colonies. Bonaparte is Corsican, the real spelling of his name Italian, and his heritage is of Roman generals and Renaissance plotters. Martinique, the island of Joséphine’s birth, childhood, and the place where I hoped to bargain for my wife and son, is languid paradise under the slow match of a volcano.
The island rears out of the Caribbean like an emerald dream, its northern half summiting in smoking Pelee. The isle is more dramatic upon approach than Antigua, Atlantic breakers crashing on its eastern coast and turquoise Caribbean shallows lapping its western beaches. Plantation homes climb lush slopes to make a checkerboard of white and green, and French ships hudd
le for protection from the British under the guns of lava-stoned Fort-de-France, on the island’s principle bay. After the horror of Haiti the island looked entirely serene from the sea, but I knew my little company of Negro warriors couldn’t simply spring ashore and ask for the address of Leon Martel. They’d freed themselves, and thus were the worst nightmare of the ruling whites on this island.
My black platoon included the cheerfully practical Jubal, the logical Antoine, and six other Negroes hungry for more adventure and a glimpse of Aztec gold. Excitement is addictive. We sailed from Cap-François with a Dutch trader looking for a hire that would keep him a safe distance from British forces assaulting his own nation’s islands. The Caribbean sugar isles changed flags as frequently as a courtesan changes clothes as rival fleets swept in and out on the trades, guns thundering and marines sweeping ashore.
Our vessel was the coastal lugger Nijmegen, with two masts, a small cabin that the captain, mate, and I slept in as segregated whites, and an open deck where Jubal’s comrades—once they got over seasickness—made a comfortable home under an awning rigged from a damaged sail. Captain Hans Van Luven was dubious about having a Negro cargo not in chains, but he soon discovered that my adventurers, who paid in advance with Dessalines’s captured coins, were better company than cranky Europeans. They were also willing to help tack, reef, and anchor.
“It’s as if they’re as human as the rest of us,” he marveled.
We were two weeks scudding down the Leeward Islands to Martinique at the northern end of the Windwards, anchoring each night in a different bay on a different island and avoiding any sail we spotted.
Now we were at an isle where French power was still intact.
Our plan was to round Cap Salomon south of Fort-de-France Bay and put ashore at one of the coves on Martinique’s southern coast. On the charts, a valley led from the village of Trois Rivières north toward the main settlements, and I could skulk along this for more information before presenting myself to Governor Michel Lambeau with Rochambeau’s papers. Finding my wife shouldn’t be impossible. Astiza is the kind of woman who’s noticed, and unless she’d been entirely hidden away, gossip of her would filter into all corners of the island.
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