The War of Knives

by Broos Campbell

  “Where are you going?” said Franklin. “I shall come with you.”

  “No you won’t, mate,” I said. “You still got time to find Connor and go with him to the citadel, which I expect is where you need to be. Me, I got a ship to catch.”

  Nine

  As I dodged along the crowded road that would take me around to the left flank, where I’d seen the Stars and Stripes flying, I met Juge riding his handsome roan and leading Joséphine. The late afternoon sunlight sparkled on the silver lace of his flash uniform. “Bonjour, mon ami!” said I, looking warily at Joséphine. I misliked the way her lips quivered when she stepped toward me. “I need a horse. I went to the stables to get one, but they said I could have only her. Then they said she was gone and they wouldn’t tell me where. I thought surely they had thrown her into the soup pot.”

  “Bon sang! You are not too late,” he said, grinning. “I have been looking for you. I thought you would miss the battle I promised you! Have you ever been in one?”

  “Of course I have,” I said. “Have you forgotten the troublesome hamlet? But I must ride immediately to Cap Maréchaux. I have seen a ship at sea.”

  “Indeed, the sea is an excellent place to find a ship,” said Juge. “It is where I have always seen them myself. But I do not mean a little skirmish of no consequence. Have you ever fought in a grand assault, with the chosen men leading the way?”

  “Well, not a grand assault.” Nor did I care to see one, not that night, whether I disappointed Juge or no. “Listen, mon ami, I go to Cap Maréchaux. On the way, I must speak with the American contingent. They’re over on the left. I must find out if they are in communication with the sea.”

  “So soon said, so soon done,” said Juge. He indicated Joséphine. “See how she pines for you. I have been feeding her with bits of carrot and whatever else I could find. But she always gives me the sad eyes: ‘Oh, where is my dear little friend Mr. Graves,’ she says.”

  She was nuzzling at me instead of biting me. Truth be told, I’d visited her a few times in the stables and spread shillings with an open hand among the grooms. I still didn’t guess she was edible, but you never know what a Frenchman will put in his mouth.

  While I strapped on the spurs that Juge handed me, a bugle sounded in the camp, and then another and another. The horses raised their heads.

  “This Joséphine, she is a soldier,” said Juge. “See how she strains her ears at the sound of the trumpet—she is ready to charge any bastion!”

  “Last time I tried that on her, she threw me over her head. Anyway, I go to the left flank.” I draped my saddlebag over Joséphine’s shoulders and settled myself in the saddle. It was a cavalry model worn smooth with long use, with a long sword hanging from one side and a carbine in a scabbard hanging on the other. At Juge’s insistence I shrugged the sword belt over my shoulder, saying, “Yes, yes” when he said that my small-sword was fine for sticking rude gentlemen in the street, but a cavalry saber, long, straight and heavy, was what I wanted for whacking off heads in a real set-to. I unbuckled my own sword and tucked it among the rigging that held Joséphine’s gear in place. She quivered at the rising sounds of drum and trumpet.

  “Come,” said Juge, his eyes bright. “Let us go where the generals are!”

  “No, I tell you! I go to the left flank, and then to Cap Maréchaux.” I nudged Joséphine in the ribs and we trotted down the track.

  “Oh, very well,” Juge grumbled, following me. “But Connor, he is going to be very angry.”

  I spared him a glance. “What makes you say that?”

  “Bon sang! Was he not annoyed to find you gone when he snapped his fingers?”

  “Snapped his fingers?”

  “Yes, like that.” He demonstrated. “Called you his boy. ‘Where’s my boy?’ he said. ‘I need him, the stupid fellow,’ just like that.”

  “How do you know? You speak no English.”

  “’Ow you know I don’?” he said, recognizably if indistinctly in English. He switched back to French. “I am the great linguist. But insolence knows no language, and it is clear what sort of man this Connor is. I am surprised you can restrain your hand, sometimes, so ill bred is he.”

  “He has a higher opinion of himself than the evidence might warrant, and he is short-tempered at times, but never insolent.”

  “When you are there to hear him, yes, but you do not hear what he says when you are away, no?”

  “What does he say when I am not around?”

  “Too much, just as I have. Franklin, now,” he said, “there is a curious fellow.”

  “Not Franklin.”

  “But yes!”

  “But no!”

  “But yes! Have you ever talked to him? So knowledgeable! So intelligent! So cultured and witty! We have the amusing conversations.”

  “I can imagine,” I said. “Between your horrible English and his nonexistent French, you must be quite a pair.”

  “Ah, but no, my friend! He speaks the most elegant French, almost as well as I speak the English. You might be surprised.”

  “I am surprised.” I gave Juge a close look, but he seemed his usual honest self. “He has told me several times that he has no French at all.”

  “No French?”

  “He admits to being able to say, ‘I am an American,’ but that’s all.”

  “A very curious fellow,” said Juge, reining up. “So like a hummingbird. Sticks his nose into everything.”

  “I bet he does.” Joséphine took advantage of the halt to snatch a mouthful of brush. A troop of hussars clattered past us on the road, scattering the columns of infantrymen. “He told me Connor has some wild plan to transport the rebellion to our southern states.”

  “This is the pure fabrication,” said Juge. He urged his horse forward; Joséphine followed, with bits of grass hanging from her lip. “We are true Frenchmen and not in rebellion. Besides, Father Toussaint has all he can manage here.”

  “No, not with Toussaint’s help. With Rigaud’s.”

  “Ah yes? No wonder Connor was in such a hurry to get an escort to the citadel. Bon sang, did you not hear the drums and bugles? He wanted to be very sure they knew he was coming, so there would be no shooting by mistake. Never have I seen a man wave a white flag with such energy.”

  “Was Franklin with him?”

  “But of course. He with his little writing desk, following along behind Connor and the ghost.”

  “The ghost?”

  “Yes. That white man we saw at the ravine where we ambushed the chasseurs. He surprised me, that one. I thought someone would have shot him by now.”

  I looked at the soldiers slogging along the road. They none of them spared me so much as a glance. I felt kind of like a ghost myself. “How does he come and go, then?”

  “He must have a passport. Am I a sentry, that I would know this?”

  My head thudded in time with the horses’ hooves as we cantered along. This part of the line was closest to the mulatto defenses, and was drawing fire from the blockhouse that stood across the road from Fort Beliotte. A grenadier toppled over as we rode past, and a sergeant bawled at the men to close the gap.

  “Juge,” I said, “was Connor dressed all in black?”

  “He wore a black cape, yes. He and the ghost look most unnatural together, as if the devil and his brother are loose in the land.”

  I thought of Connor’s last words to me before he’d sent me off to find Franklin—at a place where he knew Franklin wasn’t. “Tell me, Juge, has the poet Villon ever been translated into English?”

  He shrugged, which is a pretty good trick when you’re booming along on horseback. “Villon is barely translated into French, I think. He wrote a long time ago, and the language has changed. But all know his famous line: ‘Mais ou sont les neiges d’antan?’”

  “Connor knows it too. Only he said it in English: ‘But where are the snows of yesteryear?’ I think he speaks French as well as I do. And I think he has copies of every note and letter
that went through your headquarters these past few weeks.”

  It was the first time I’d ever seen Juge look worried about anything. He reigned up so sharply that his horse sidestepped and tried to throw him. I near about fell off, myself.

  “Ho! Doucement—ho!” he said, easing up on the reins and patting the roan’s neck until the animal grew calm. “But is he a spy? C’est une véritable catastrophe!”

  “If it’s true, certainly.”

  “I should tell my superiors,” he said, but he had an unhappy look on his face when he said it.

  “It’ll mean his neck. I only have Franklin’s say-so on this.”

  He looked puzzled. “Franklin’s word? What does Franklin have to do with this?”

  “I don’t know, entirely.” Although I didn’t fully trust Franklin, I didn’t want to get him shot. “But he’s the one who told me these things about Connor.”

  “There is too much we don’t know.” He shook his head. “But surely we must do something. What do you intend?”

  “I intend to go aboard that frigate in the bay and speak with her captain.”

  “But this is passing along the responsibility!”

  “Isn’t that what you were about to do?”

  He laughed, a bright and cheery sound in that miserable landscape. “This is so, my friend.”

  “Naturally the captain will require more evidence,” I said. “And I doubt he’ll want to risk his own officers when he can just as easily send me. So maybe I’ll return, hein?” I held out my hand. “Au revoir, mon ami. It has been a pleasure to know you.”

  “Adieu.” He took my hand and held it before looking unhappily toward the center of the line, where a gathering of banners showed that Dessalines and his staff had arrived on the field. I could see the general amid his staff, stripped to the waist like a prehistoric warlord. Grandfather Chatterbox rode beside him on Bel-Argent. The soldiers near them waved their hats and cheered, and the cheering spread in a great deep-throated roar along the line.

  “But no,” said Juge, and the old mischievous look came back. “I do not leave my friend until we arrive at the end of the line. There is time yet. This intelligence that Connor has gathered—it makes no difference to the assault. Come, let us ride!”

  With cannon balls shuddering overhead, we splashed across a filthy stream and rode behind rank after rank of colonial troops. There were regulars in smart uniforms nationale, straw-hatted and unshod militia in blue and white stripes, and who-knew-what units in grimy homespun. I saw men of all shades of black and brown, and once a whole regiment of white men, many of them yellow with fever. All were drawn together under the Tricolor. Some stared anxiously toward the forts, others affected unconcern, and still others stood cow-eyed and indifferent. Some troops were drawn up in rigidly straight lines, three or four men deep, depending on the type of regiment. Others sat around, smoking, talking or just staring into themselves. I had heard that soldiers threw their cards and dice away before going into battle, lest they die with instruments of Satan in their possession, but here and there I saw clusters of soldiers gathered around a tree stump or a blanket, gaming away as if it were a long Saturday night and no Sabbath in the morning.

  A gully running down from our left forced us out onto the open ground in front of the line. At the bottom of the gully lay the Baynet Road, a smooth white streak leading eastward from Pétion’s front gate, through the black army’s lines, and off into the hills above the katye jeneral. Beyond the gully we found a battery of mortars at work. The fuses traced bright arcs against the rapidly darkening sky as the shells rose impossibly high and then fell with a flash and a distant roar among the forts.

  Between the mortars and the wing of hussars that screened the end of the line, I saw the yellow banner with the Union Jack in the canton. A company of redcoated black soldiers stood around it. But oh, glorious day, beyond them waved a lone Stars and Stripes, the sweetest of ensigns.

  I pointed it out. “There,” I said. “The Americans!”

  “Come on!” said Juge.

  We touched our spurs to our mounts, galloped along like generals past the lobsters, and reined up before a group of Marines and sailors. Their banner was a small flag with a competent but homemade look to it, as if a sailmaker’s mate had stitched it together as a favor for the Marines who carried it. Strictly irregular, that—only ships were authorized to carry the national colors into action—but my heart leaped as it snapped in the breeze.

  The sailors were all enlisted men, without even a petty officer in sight. I spotted a Marine sergeant, but I ignored him. A sea officer would be in charge of the detail. The nearest sailor removed his hat to me, and I said, “Where’s your officer?”

  “Got none, sir, ’ceptin’ the Mick, there.” He pointed his thumb over his shoulder at the sergeant. “You readin’ y’self in, sir? Takin’ over, like?”

  “No.” It was none of his business, but a hint of a sneer crossed his face when I said it. “Are you from the Croatoan?”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “I need to get aboard of her. Is there a boat?”

  His face settled into a look of studied indifference. “Dunno, sir.”

  The sergeant stepped toward us. He was a compact man like most ship’s soldiers, of little more than the minimum five and a half feet tall, and sported a robust set of ginger side-whiskers. His red vest and blue uniform were dusty but not what you’d call dirty; he himself was clean, shaved and apparently sober; and he had a pleasant cheerfulness in his blue eyes.

  “You, sergeant,” I said, “who’s in charge here?”

  He stamped his feet and thrust the butt of his spontoon into the ground. “It’s Sergeant Michael Cahoon I am, sir, United States Marine Corps, sir, off the Croatoan frigate.”

  “But where’s your officer, Sergeant?”

  “An it’s an officer yar wantin’, ’tis himself over there, sir.”

  Though he still stood at attention, he managed with a twitch of his shoulder to indicate a young Royal officer of the line, who slouched in the saddle as he walked his horse toward us.

  “No, man. I mean your ship’s officer. Where is he?”

  “Himself copped it in the shenanigans yesterd’y, sir, an’ was took back aboard the frigate. No, I tell a lie—’twas the day before. Mr. Dentz it was as got his yesterd’y, he being one o’ the young gentleman and not what you’d say in command, and t’ree o’ the boys as well. So with only meself left in charge o’ the detail, and no more reason than that to miss out on a grand cavort, yon English kiddie took us under his wing, after a manner o’ speakin’.” He tilted his head toward the advancing Englishman. “He’s a good lad, sir, only don’t tell him I said it, if it please yer honor.”

  “Sergeant Cahoon, I need to report at once to Captain Block. Where’s your rendezvous?”

  Before Cahoon could answer, the Englishman rode up out of the dusk and touched his hat with a languid glove. “Leftenant Treadwell,” he said, “commanding a thoroughly detached company of the Seventh West India.”

  I returned his salute and looked him over. I guessed he was no more than a few years older than me, but he had an old man’s weariness about him. His coat was threadbare and patched, and had faded to pink in the tropical sun. There were remnants of silver lace on it, and its facings had once perhaps been yellow. He must’ve had money once, to buy a commission.

  “I’m Lieutenant Graves, sir, of the U.S. Navy, and this here’s Mr. Juge.” It occurred to me that I had no idea what rank Juge held; I had no idea how much he could understand, either, but I had no patience for translating right then. “How’d you come to be detached, Mr. Treadwell?”

  “Didn’t come to be detached, sir—came to reinforce Môle Saint-Nicholas. Had to take the place after the French pulled out, y’know. Too good a base for controlling the Windward Passage. But Toussaint showed us the door in ’ninety-eight, and whilst we were coverin’ the army’s rear, the general covered his arse and buggered off, aw haw haw.” He didn�
�t smile when he laughed.

  “Sweet jumping Jupiter,” I said. “You’ve been here two years?”

  “A year and nine months, anyway.”

  “But what are you doing here, Mr. Treadwell?”

  “When one is given the choice of bein’ flayed alive or joinin’ up with Toussaint, sir, one jolly well joins up with Toussaint.”

  “But sure you could’ve been picked up by now.”

  He looked over at his company. They were all black men, even the sergeants, and were keeping an eye on us. “Couldn’t leave the lads behind,” he said. “Wouldn’t look right. Dare say they wouldn’t let me, regardless. Only way out of here for me is to take French leave.”

  “French leave?”

  “You know—toodlin’ off from a to-do without kissin’ milady’s hand and thanks for a lovely party.” He looked over at the forts and then flashed me a grisly half-smile. “Just struck me as amusin’: Your name is Graves, and that’s where we’re headin’, aw haw haw. I say—glad you’re here to take charge of these Marines of yours. Damned rotten influence. Got drunk as lords on purloined rum last night. Got me an’ m’ fellows soused, too.”

  “But I’m not—” I stopped myself before I could blurt out that I wasn’t intending to attack any damn fort. Instead I said, “Is this true, Sergeant Cahoon?”

  “Oh, God aye, sir.”

  I looked away to keep from grinning back at him. “Mr. Treadwell,” I said, glancing around at the ground they faced. Night had fallen while we talked, and firelight glowed behind the walls. “Ain’t there supposed to be parallels and approaches and breaching batteries and things? Sure you ain’t fixin’ to charge across this open ground.”