The War of Knives

by Broos Campbell

  Franklin absented himself from the office one glorious day. The cannons had ceased their tarnal roaring, the birds sang innocently among the splintered stumps of the trees, and Dessalines and his crew were off hatching plans for a major assault that evening. I wasn’t privy to their plans, nor cared to be. I spent a pleasant morning putting the finishing touches on a watercolor that was prime if I squinted at it right. Just as I had begun to wonder if I would be lucky enough to get dinner that day, Connor stood himself in the doorway and blocked my light.

  “Mr. Graves,” says he, “the time has come to go see Pétion. We may be gone several days.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” I said. “I can use the time to finish my maps.”

  “You mistake me, sir. Between your translations and Franklin’s notes, I intend to bring back a report to his Excellency the president that will make my name. I shall give you a mention, of course, but until my work is done I shall need you at my side.”

  I looked at my watch. “But it’s near two o’clock already. Pétion will have seen the men massing in the trenches. I don’t guess he’ll find it too convenient to open the gates for anybody right about now.”

  “We have hours yet.”

  “I promised Juge I’d ride with him.”

  He slapped himself on the forehead and then pointed out the door. “Go. Pack your bags and meet me back here at headquarters, if you please. I have arrangements to make.”

  “Very well.” I shrugged. I’d picked up the gesture from Juge, and I found it to be useful for when I needed to say something, but not what was on my mind. “I got a letter to deliver there, anyway.”

  “Oh? Whom do you know in Jacmel?”

  “No one.” I blotted my watercolor and rolled it up. “It’s from a dead man.”

  “A dead man?” he called as I tromped across the porch.

  “Fellow name of Villon,” I said over my shoulder.

  “Wait, wait,” he called. He followed me as far as the porch and leaned over the rail. “Villon, like the poet?”

  I stepped off the road to let a battery of horse artillery go by. The horses were wild-eyed and lathered, and the gunners hung for their lives onto the caissons as they jounced down the road. I shaded my eyes and squinted up at him. “That’s right. Why, have you read him?”

  “Of course: ‘Where are the snows of yesteryear?’ as the famous line asks.” He laughed self-consciously, the way a man does when tossing out quotations from books he maybe hasn’t read. “Have you opened the letter?”

  “Of course not. It’s to his wife.”

  “Have you the letter on you?”

  “No,” I lied. I had no idea what he wanted with the letter, but something in his eye made me think I should keep a close watch on it.

  “I see,” said Connor. “Ah well, it don’t signify, I’m sure.” He snapped his fingers. “Oh, I just thought of something—I haven’t seen that rascal Franklin since noon.”

  “So?”

  “So before you pack, go find him, please. He likes to watch the action down by the river, at the hamlet they have so much trouble with. Go, go quickly!”

  Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen Franklin for a while, neither. I broke into a trot.

  “A black American gentleman?” said Major Matou. “This is something

  I would like to see. I didn’t know there were any.”

  “I was told he spends his time down here.”

  “You were told falsely. I have never seen this man. But tell me, do you plan to join us for the assault this evening? I make it my business to take this annoying village once and for all.”

  Sweet jumping Jehoshaphat, not that again. “I am engaged to ride with Juge tonight, Major. How it distresses me to think I shall not be with you and your brave fellows this evening.” I gave him my best disappointed look. “However, I may not even be able to ride with Juge if I do not find this Franklin first.”

  “Don’t be so downcast, my American friend,” he said, patting my shoulder. “I shall miss you, but I’m sure you will find your own share of glory this evening. Bonne chance, mon ami!”

  “Good luck to you too, sir. Oh,” I said as I turned to leave, “by the way, have you seen any American or British units?”

  “Not for several days, no. You wish to show Juge how your compatriots fight, hein? This is fitting and seemly.” He gave me a smart salute, kissed me on both cheeks, and bid me adieu.

  I let myself be carried along by the columns moving on the road behind the trenches till I came onto a ridge overlooking the River of Orange Trees. There I found a breeze to blow the dust away, and I climbed up onto a large boulder where I could take advantage of the air and not be stepped on for a while. Nearby a couple of batteries of artillerymen stacked round shot and cartridges in preparation for the evening’s labors. I don’t mind work, usually, when someone else is doing it, but at that moment the sight oppressed me, and I cast a despairing eye out to sea.

  And there I saw a frigate rounding Cape Jacmel from the west, near bows-on to me and close-hauled on the starboard tack. I had no doubt she was a Frenchman that had slipped out of Brest to reinforce Pétion; certainly she would fetch the anchorage if she kept on her present course. But no! She flew her jib sheets, and I snapped my glass to my eye. She surged prettily about—for a Johnny Crappo, anyway—and as she turned toward the open sea I counted her ports and estimated her length. She was a thirty-two-gun frigate of maybe a hundred and forty feet from stem to stern and perhaps thirty-five feet on the beam. Then as she brought the wind onto her larboard beam I saw the Stars and Stripes streaming from her ensign staff, and I took her in all at once. I knew her—I knew her!

  I jumped to my feet and whooped. “That’s the Croatoan, boys!” The battery commander looked up at me, and I hollered, “C’est une frégate américaine!” He gave me a wave, but he was too busy to look where I was pointing. “Then tend to your work and be damned,” says I, “for I won’t be here to see it, ha ha!”

  An officer of one of the passing brigades, his trouser legs rolled midway up his ankles and his shoes and stockings white with dust, stepped away from his company and strolled toward me. At least I guessed he was an officer—I took in the red-and-yellow striped kerchief knotted under his narrow-brimmed round hat, the long red-lined tails of his blue surtout, the gold earrings bright against his black skin, the heavy-bladed hanger swaying against his knee, the gilded epaulets and, most of all, the hands clasped behind the back and the remote indifference.

  Definitely an officer. I touched my hat, and he returned the compliment. “Pardon, citoyen,” I said. “I’m an American sea officer on detached duty. I am told there is an American unit near here, perhaps some sailors and Marines. Can you tell me where they are?” I wasn’t sure how to say “marines,” but soldats marin seemed close enough.

  “If you’ve lost your unit, you must be very detached indeed,” he laughed. He identified himself with the surprising name of Forcené, and said, placing subtle emphasis on the correct term, “The fusiliers marin and the seamen have gone down to join the assault. They are with the British light company. Là.” He pointed to the plain below.

  Far off on the army’s left flank, over by the ruined fort that the hussars had chased me away from, fluttered a yellow banner emblazoned with a cross of Saint George. A look through my glass showed me it had a Union Jack in the canton. Around it I could make out some black men in scarlet coats that glowed in the heat haze. Near them was a small group of white men in blue uniforms trimmed with red. They were U.S. Marines, without a doubt, and with them were a few sailors in checked shirts and tarpaulin hats.

  “Merci beaucoup, citoyen Forcené.” The former slaves of Saint-Dómingue had a facility for choosing noms de guerre, I thought, as I hopped down off my boulder. Matou meant Tomcat, and Forcené meant Madman.

  I ran double-quick toward the farmhouse where Franklin and I were billeted, aiming to gather up my papers and hook on out of there.

  A pair of black-cape
d horsemen trotted along the road, heading away from the farmhouse and perhaps a hundred yards beyond it. The one in the lead glanced over his shoulder. He turned away again as soon as he saw me, and I didn’t recognize him, but either he was wearing a mask or he was the darkest Negro I ever saw. His face was like a black void in the shadow of his hat. The other one glanced over his shoulder and then reined up. It was the Parson. I swallowed sickly as he drew a pistol from his saddle holster and trotted toward me. I was all set to make a dash for the house when his companion gave out a sharp whistle. The Parson turned like a sullen dog called to heel, and the two of them sped away.

  The door of the house stood open. The sentries were gone. I drew my sword and crept in, feeling naked without my pistols. All was still inside. I poked my head into both of the rooms downstairs. All quiet there. I looked into the little lean-to in the back where Bertrand did the cooking and the washing and mending. The crockery stood neatly on the cupboard, and his blankets were folded shipshape on his cot, and the sun shone through the open back door, but the little man was gone. I ran upstairs, expecting to find Franklin with his throat slit or his brains blown out.

  Instead, I found the son of a bitch standing in our room, holding my saddlebag upside down and shaking it. My clothes and papers were scattered across the floor, the bedstead had been upended, and the mattress had been torn apart. Wads of straw lay thick around his ankles. He nodded at me.

  “Hey now,” says I. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Looking for what that man missed,” he said.

  “What man?”

  “The man in the black cape and mask. He has just now left. Surely you saw him.”

  “I saw two men. One of them was the Parson.” I put my sword away and looked at the mess he’d made.

  “The Parson?” said Franklin. “If you mean that man we saw in the woods the other day—”

  “Stow it. The man that came in here—just what is it you think he missed?”

  “I have yet to discover that.”

  “Then what makes you think he was looking for something?”

  “It is self-evident.” He spread his hands to indicate the mess.

  “You know what I think happened here? I think maybe you’re in cahoots. Maybe you tore everything up yourself. Maybe you stole something you knew where it was, and want it to look like it was stole by someone who had to ransack the place to find it.”

  He gave me one of his rare smiles. “That’s so farfetched as to be plausible. But here is the way of it.” He tossed my saddlebag onto the ruined mattress. “I was on the back porch drinking coffee when the door banged open and someone charged upstairs. Whoever it was made noise enough to be you, but I have never known you to be in a hurry. So I came upstairs to see what was the matter. From the landing I saw a man in here, throwing things about and muttering.”

  “Who was he?”

  “He wore a mask. A black kerchief.” He made a V of his first two fingers and pointed at his eyes. “With holes cut in it to see through.”

  “That sounds like one of . . .”

  “One of what?”

  “Like that chap that almost ran your writing case through in Port Républicain.” I didn’t guess Franklin needed to know about the Knights of the White Hand till I knew where he stood. “What was he looking for?”

  “That’s what I want to know, which is why I was picking through your belongings just now.” If he was embarrassed to be caught at it, he didn’t show it. “So, will you tell me what it was?”

  “Why should I? Assuming I even know.” It was that damn letter, is what it was.

  “I am an agent in the employ of the War Department.”

  “Agent! His secretary, you mean. You ain’t nothing but a clerk.”

  “My guise as an humble amanuensis enables me to perform my mission, which is to keep an eye on Connor.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say.”

  “Let’s see your credentials.” I held out my hand.

  He laughed. “You expect me to carry proof that I’m a spy?”

  “Well, do you have anything that says who you are?”

  “Certainly.” He reached into his pocket and extracted a slim leather wallet. “I have here a certificate identifying me as George Franklin, twenty-six years of age, and a freeborn black man of the city of Philadelphia.” He handed me a letter. “It describes me very well, I dare say, right down to the annoyingly superior attitude.”

  It was headed Philadelphia, War Office, 20. Jan’y. 1800, and signed yr &c Jas. McHenry. I had nothing to compare it to, but I figured if it weren’t James McHenry’s honest-to-God signature, Franklin was foxy enough to make sure it was a passable likeness. I glanced through the short paragraph. “Says here you’re haughty and saucy, Franklin. That’s pretty good.”

  “Thank you. I wrote it myself.”

  “You wrote it yourself?”

  “No, but I might have. Don’t trust papers. They are easily fabricated. Trust your eyes and your brain.” He took the paper back and put it away. “Now. So. The question is twofold: What was our man looking for, and did he find it?”

  “I was talking to Connor just a little while ago,” I said reluctantly. “I told him I had a letter to deliver to Jacmel. He perked his ears up like a dog at dinnertime when I said it was from a man name of Villon.”

  “Villon, like the medieval poet?”

  “Have you read him?”

  “I was not aware he’d been translated into English. Have you read the letter?”

  “That’s just what Connor said. And the answer is no, I didn’t read the letter. It ain’t addressed to me.”

  “You speak of it in the present tense. You still have it, then?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Then perhaps you can let me have just a peep.”

  “I bet it’s in French.”

  “And of course I don’t speak French.” He bowed slightly, as if I’d scored a point of some kind. “Now listen very carefully,” he said. “I warned you about Connor, did I not?”

  “Yes, but I weren’t listening.”

  “Your former foolishness is neither here nor there. But you must listen now: He has aspirations.”

  “Aspirations?”

  “Plans, you naïf. Plans, such as transporting Toussaint’s slave rebellion to the Southern states.”

  “Toussaint won’t go for that. He’s already bit off more’n he can chaw right here.”

  “Oh, give me strength,” he said, glancing up at the ceiling and then seizing my arm in a surprisingly strong grip. “Listen, you pumpkin-headed tatter-ninny. Of course Toussaint won’t ‘go’ for it. What he wants is to make a free black republic here in San Domingo. That will be dangerous enough for him without giving the world an excuse to come down on his head was he to let it spread. No. This is not in his interest, and it would mean Connor’s life was he to propose it to him.”

  “It’ll mean your life if you don’t let go of me.” I brushed imaginary fingermarks off my sleeve while I tried to wrap my head around what he was saying. “Anyway, I don’t catch your meaning.”

  “Are you an imbecile? Connor intends to present his plan to Pétion. He has gathered every bit of information about Dessalines’ army that he can. That information will be invaluable to Pétion when he breaks out of here to join with Rigaud at Petite Goâve.”

  “But Rigaud needs Jacmel to anchor his right flank. He’ll never go for it.”

  “If Pétion stays here he will be destroyed, and there goes the right flank anyway. Rigaud needs Pétion and his army more than he needs Jacmel.”

  “So how does a slave uprising someplace else help Rigaud?”

  “Even a single regiment set loose in, say, South Carolina could force us to withdraw from the Caribbean. Just the threat of it would seriously hamper our efforts here. We would have to break off our blockade until his transports were found.”

  “And if we withdraw from San Domingo, he can be resupplied by
sea.”

  “Now you begin to understand,” he said. “And if the transports do reach our coast—well, our army is scarcely worth the name. Pétion’s veterans would sweep them aside in a few weeks. And he won’t need to take any cities, either. If he controls the plantations, he controls the South. And don’t forget it was the great mobs of freed slaves that tipped the balance here in Toussaint’s favor. Imagine if that happened back home. Imagine the raping, looting and burning from Georgia to Delaware! Is that what you want?”

  “Don’t you want the slaves to be free? And you a black man.” I admit I kind of enjoyed seeing him so agitated. It beat his usual blank stare any day of the week. He looked at me all goggle-eyed, like a squeezed toad. “Listen, it’d never work,” I said. “Once they let the genie out, how’re they going to get it back in the bottle?”

  I had him there—but only for a moment. He tapped his fingers on his cheek, and then said, “They’ll do it the same way they will do it here. They’ll quiet them with promises of land and emancipation—but in the meantime, fellows, there are crops to be picked and goods to be shipped. Food doesn’t grow on trees, you know.”

  “Yes, it does.”

  His back stiffened and his spectacles flashed. “Do I look like an ignorant field nigger to you?” For a second I thought he was going to smack me, but he smoothed his lapels instead and said, “No one’s going to free any slaves, I tell you. Connor intends to run off the planters and replace them with his own men. And when the dust settles, he’ll be sitting on top of an empire.”

  “Franklin, are your papers intact?”

  He gaped, the first time I’d ever seen him taken by surprise, and he dove under the ruined mattress. “Yes!” he said, rooting through his carryall. “They’re all here. But—”

  “But they’re in English and no use to Pétion. Connor has the French originals, I bet.”

  He stood. “No doubt.” He thought a moment and said, “No, there is doubt. Let us say it wouldn’t surprise me.”

  “Looks like your job ain’t done, then.”

  I began packing. Crumpled in the corner I found the clean shirt I had brought in case I needed one, and I found my extra pair of socks hanging from the lamp. My compass and my telescope were already in my pockets, along with the letter, and I was wearing my sword. I found my orders, my passport, and my commission, and slipped them next to the letter in my pocket. I stuffed the shirt and socks and my sketchbook into my saddlebag, and slipped my pistols into my belt. There were plenty of other things that lived in my carryall, but they were too heavy to bother with. I needed to move fast. I walked out the door, throwing my saddlebag over my shoulder.