The War of Knives

by Broos Campbell

  A musket ball whined past my head. It wasn’t near enough to have actually been aimed at me, but the next one might be. The sergeant handed a smoking musket to the soldier, who handed him a fresh one.

  I scooted down the roof to the hole, scampered down the pile of rubble, and continued along the corridor on the seaward side. I reckoned I should be grateful to the sergeant, for the brief excitement had cheered me considerable, enough anyway that I noticed that the air and light let in by the broken wall made the cells there almost pleasant. I poked my head into the unlocked ones and peeped through the Judas windows into the locked ones. There was nobody in any of the cells I looked into, just some gooey paint pots and scraps of old furniture and such. Since the mulattoes seemed to be in the habit of doing in most of their guests, I figured they used that floor for storage. I looked for a rope, but found nothing sturdier than some bits of spunyarn and other small stuff.

  I came to the last cell before the stairwell and glanced through the Judas window. I glanced in only because it was the last cell, and my seaman’s sense of tidiness demanded that I look in every one of them. But a remarkable sight met my eyes: A four-poster bed had been set up in there. Through the mosquito netting that draped it I saw a white man reclining on a pile of pillows, his face hidden behind a writing desk propped on his knees. He was dressed only in his shirt with his legs spread wide, giving Charlie and the boys some air.

  Across a chair beside the bed lay a black suit of clothes, and on the wall above it hung a black cloak, a broad-brimmed black hat, and a gentleman’s small-sword with a steel hilt.

  The Parson, I thought, pulling my face away from the window in alarm. But then I drew close again and peeked in from another angle to get a better look at something I’d seen out of the corner of my eye.

  At a basin beneath the window stood Franklin, washing out a pair of socks.

  They’d done for Juge better than they had for me. His head looked like a rotten pumpkin. He grinned when I knelt beside him. It was a fearsome grin, with raw gaps where some of his teeth had been yanked out, but he laughed at the look on my face. “Bon sang!” he spat. “Someday I will feed that bastard his balls! You will see.”

  “We must get out of here, mon ami. They will kill you.”

  “Oh no, I think not. They will let me rest a few days, then again with the beating and the tooth-pulling. I have many teeth. They will not let me spoil the fun by dying.”

  “I go tonight.”

  The smile faded. “How?”

  “The cannonade has left a large hole in the wall upstairs. No guards will be able to see me over there after dark, and there is no one on the seaward side. I will find a way down. When I have found it, I will come back and show you the way.”

  He shook his head. The movement tore a groan out of him that I felt in my bones. “No, I cannot move. I have really stepped in the shit this time.” He giggled. “And so should you, to share my misery! You should climb down the latrine instead of the wall.”

  “I think the footing will be better outdoors. I shall make like the fly, crawling on a wall.”

  He put his hand on mine. His grip was weak, and the skin was dry and cold. “Take care you do not fall, Matty. The noise will attract the guards.”

  “Bon sang!” I laughed, wondering who we were trying to cheer up, him or me. “What do I care if I make a noise? The fall will probably kill me.”

  “What do I care if you fall?” He took his hand away. “I only worry that the guards will be angry with me and the sergeant.”

  After washing his face as best I could, I bandaged his head with his shirt and went down the corridor to kick on the gate.

  “Stop that!” called Négraud. “It is the heat of the day. We try to sleep down here.”

  “We need Dr. Pepin right away!”

  “This is too bad!” He said something to one of the turnkeys, and then they both laughed. “Today he has a more pressing engagement!”

  “He will be very angry with you, Lieutenant Négraud!”

  “No, not he. He’s gone to wait upon the adjutant. Do you think you’re more important than the adjutant?”

  “When will he be back?”

  “Oh, he’ll be around. And around and around, sometimes up, sometimes down.”

  Again he laughed. I guessed if Pepin had business with Colonel Cravache, the joke probably wasn’t very funny.

  “Will you tell him when you see him?”

  “Yes, yes.”

  “You promise this?”

  “Yes, I promise. Now, Monsieur Graves, will you shut up like the good fellow?”

  “Yes, of course, Lieutenant Négraud. A thousand thanks.”

  I went back to the cell and climbed up the stack of crates to look out the window. The Rattle-Snake had come up into the wind and backed her fore-topsail. “Juge,” I said, “Dr. Pepin is busy with that cunt Cravache right now, but he will be along later. Négraud has promised this.”

  “It is of no matter,” said he, but so quietly that it scared me.

  I jumped down from the crates and found his coat, folding it up and slipping it under his head for a pillow. “Is it better so?”

  He muttered something I couldn’t catch, and reached for my hand. “I die, or I live,” he said. “This is up to God, not to you or me. I am content.”

  I folded his hands across his breast and climbed up onto the crates again, scrubbing my face with my filthy coat sleeve. Juge would laugh if he knew I would weep for him, and dog me if I’d let Treadwell see me with slobber on my face.

  The Croatoan and the Rattle-Snake were hove-to. I recognized Peter Wickett—no other officer in the squadron was that tall and skinny— in the stern sheets of Rattle-Snake’s gig, going over to have a confab aboard the frigate and probably stay for dinner.

  I stepped down again and knelt beside my friend. He had fallen asleep, but at least he wasn’t dead. I checked.

  “Don’t go anywhere, now,” I said to Treadwell, just to see if I could hurt his feelings. “Sergeant Cahoon, come with me.”

  We returned with our arms laden with the paint pots I’d seen upstairs, along with some string, a few sticks, and a paintbrush that with a little work I figured could be brought into service.

  “Fetch over one of them sheets we wrapped you in,” I told the sergeant. “Fold her in half and we’ll lash one of these here sticks athwart each end.”

  “What now?” said Treadwell.

  “I calculate on letting someone know we’re here, Lieutenant.”

  “Toussaint knows we’re here. Fat lot he cares.”

  “I ain’t talking about Toussaint. He’s got his own troubles.”

  Despite himself, the Englishman raised up on an elbow to watch as I smeared paint on our improvised banner. “And what’s that supposed to be?”

  I’d painted a large outline of an S with a small Y at one end and a series of decreasing circles at the other. I began filling in the S with little X’s. “A rattler, Mr. Treadwell. What’s it look like?”

  “Looks exactly like shit, is what it looks like.”

  Well, I had asked him what he thought, hadn’t I? But I didn’t give a damn what he thought, and I answered mild: “It’s the right color, sure enough. And them bits around the edges, that really is shit. Now: Sergeant, I ain’t tall enough to reach out the window from the crates. You must hoist me up while I lash this to the bars.”

  “I say, might let it dry first. You’ll smear it.”

  “No time, Treadwell. Somebody might come afore then.”

  Despite having been a near goner the day before, Cahoon was as steady as an oak stump when I knelt on his shoulders. He straightened up as easy as if I was a kid on his back.

  I lashed a double strand of line around one end of the top stick, ran the line through the bars and lashed it to the other end of the stick.

  “It’ll flap around in the breeze and get all mussed,” said Treadwell. “Then where’s your pretty painting, eh?”

  “Dog me if it
ain’t so, Treadwell—you’re right. Gimme your shoes.”

  His smirk faded. “My shoes?”

  “You heard me. Give me your shoes, unless you got a better idea.”

  “I shan’t give ’em to you.”

  I jumped down from Cahoon’s shoulders. “Sergeant, take his shoes.”

  “Aye aye, sir. You heard himself, Mr. Treadwell. I’m after havin’ them brogans, and no arguin’ if ya please.”

  “But—but Mr. Graves, they’re my shoes!”

  “You won’t be needing ’em,” I said brutally. “Thank you, Sergeant. Lash ’em on good and tight.”

  “’Tis the great pity, sir, as I’m no sailor that can tie the pretty knots.”

  I did it myself and got back on his shoulders, paying the banner shoes-first out the window, handsomely so as not to smear the paint. When I was sure it would lie straight and not flap around, I got down again and wiped my hands on my front.

  “Very good, Sergeant. Drop the paint and the leftover stuff down the head and no one’s the wiser.”

  “Yes,” drawled Treadwell, “surely no one will notice the paint all over your weskit.”

  I looked down at my vest. “Well, I am pretty splattered up,” I said, “but it blends right in with the dried blood.”

  “And what now?”

  “And what now, Lieutenant, is when my shipmates in the Rattle-Snake see that banner, they’ll know I’m here.”

  “Is it your ship is out there, sir?” said Cahoon.

  “Hell yes, and so’s yours. Don’t you ever look out the scuttle?”

  “The old Croatoan, sir?” He ran to the window and hoisted himself up. “Oh aye, so it is herself, sir! Did you never see such a fine sight?”

  “Right, then,” said Treadwell. “Someone might see your banner, and he might mention it to some officer, who might deign to look at it, and then what? ‘Well, bugger me with a corncob iffen it ain’t ol’ Mr. Graves up there!’ How the bloody hell will they know it’s you?”

  “How they’ll know it’s me, Mr. Treadwell, is before I left the Rattle-Snake the captain said if I was ever in trouble I was to signal him somehow. I guess he’ll know it’s me the minute he sees it.”

  “Then what? Will they fetch a boat? Do think, Mr. Graves? Eh?”

  “What the fuck’s gotten into you?”

  He threw his sheet aside and sat up, but that’s as far as he got. He clutched his leg and panted. “You’re getting ready to pull out and leave me here. I was abandoned once before, you know. Don’t think I don’t know the signs. Two years it took me to get this far.” He thrust a pair of fingers at me. “Two years! All for nothing! Nothing but to die in a rotten jail.”

  I looked at Cahoon, who pretended he didn’t see me looking at him. I looked at Treadwell’s leg. “What am I supposed to do? I can’t carry you.”

  “The sergeant can.”

  “No, he can’t. And he can’t come with me, neither. He’s woozy yet. He’ll fall.”

  “God!” Tears welled in his eyes. “Just give me a fortnight. Ten days, even. My leg will be better by then, I swear it.”

  I didn’t know which I hated more, his tears or my terror. “We ain’t got ten days.”

  “A few days, then.”

  “I’ll think on it.”

  The sound of marching boots came down the corridor.

  “Oh, for God’s sake, shut up,” said Treadwell. “Just . . . Please, just shut up.” He drew the sheet over his face and blew his nose on it.

  Négraud thrust open the door. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the pair of grenadiers behind him and said, “My little friend the American, these fellows have come for you. Be a good fellow and hop along, hein?”

  Thirteen

  Ugly and Uglier weren’t the same lads who’d taken me to see Colonel Cravache, but they could’ve been their twins. They took me around Fort Beliotte to a side entrance, rather than through the courtyard under Pétion’s window. I was glad to go the long way around, for beyond the courtyard wall I could hear unearthly howls and roars of laughter. We strode smartly up the broad stairs and into Pétion’s office. One of the grenadiers slapped my hat off my head, and we came to attention.

  “You men are dismissed,” said Pétion, looking up from the mass of papers on his desk. He took the cigar out of his mouth. “Stand easy, Mr. Graves. I trust I find you well.”

  “Just a broken nose and some bruises, sir.”

  “Good.” He indicated that I should sit in the same hard wooden chair as before.

  “I’ll mend soon enough, sir, but it isn’t me I’m worried about. My friends need Dr. Pepin right away. I implore you. One has a broken head, and the other’s leg does poorly. You may remember he was stabbed with a bayonet.”

  He tut-tutted—not too convincingly, I thought. “I am afraid the doctor is unavailable,” he said. “Perhaps one of his assistants can help you later. Now, as to the matter at hand: The presence of you and your friends, as you call them, is most inconvenient and embarrassing. Will you have a cigarro?” He snapped open the lid of his cedar box.

  “Yes, a thousand thanks.” I selected one of the larger, but not the largest, of the half-smoked stubs and lit it at the lamp.

  “Most inconvenient and embarrassing, you and this Englishman.”

  “Yes, sir. He is in a bad way. His leg—”

  “Yes, yes. If I kill you or him, Lieutenant Graves, the other will bear the tale to the world. And if I kill you both, your governments may perhaps ask unanswerable questions, once this unfortunate quasi-war is over. Someone will talk. It is always this way.” He puffed at his cigar. “Lieutenant Treadwell should have been exchanged, but I am told he is too ill to travel.”

  Here was the answer to one problem, at least. “Pretty soon he’ll be too dead to travel, General, because he despairs. Exchanging him would save his life.”

  “Hmm? Yes, I shall look into the matter. But you will let me finish, if you please. You, Mr. Graves, have no business here at all. You should have been sent away long ago, and would have been except Colonel Cravache saw enemies in every doorway. I despised him for it, I admit. And I like you. And one hates a bureaucrat, is it not so? It is entirely natural to harbor such feelings, I think. Come, you must have a glass of Cognac to go with your cigarro.”

  It was good brandy, real French stuff. Down in the courtyard the screams stopped as if they’d been cut off with a knife. The locusts began chirring again in the cracks in the walls, the brandy did its magic, and just like that it was a peaceful afternoon.

  “Your friend Juge,” Pétion continued, “would have been disposed of immediately, except I suspect even yet that he may prove useful. He really ought not to have carved his name on his chest like some wild nigger right out of the African forest. I might not have known him, otherwise.” He leaned back, blowing smoke.

  The brandy and tobacco made me lightheaded, as if I had drifted out of myself.

  “But forgive me,” said Pétion, “you spoke of needing a surgeon. Come, I have a little surprise for you. You will find it elucidating, I think. Elucidation is a good thing, is it not?” He ushered me toward the balcony, catching my arm as I wobbled. “After you my dear sir, I beg.”

  Out on the balcony I swigged down the rest of my brandy, took a nonchalant puff on my cigar, and looked down. I choked on the smoke.

  I was prepared for a pile of naked men pinned together with bayonets. I was prepared for the abattoir that follows a session with the cane knives. But I wasn’t prepared for Pétion’s little surprise.

  “You should not have shown me that letter, Mr. Graves. It left too many questions in my mind. And when a question presents itself to me, I cannot rest until I have answered it. Now look!”

  I peered again at the naked remains of Dr. Pepin. His arms and legs had been broken into lengths convenient for wrapping him around the rim of a wagon wheel. The sun had swollen his tongue and blackened his lips into an obscene leer, and his ruined eyes stared unseeingly into the sky. He had
been flogged first, fore and aft, and a mass of flies crawled over the gory stripes on his body.

  “C’est horrible,” I whispered, ashamed that my first thought was gratitude.

  “Better he than you, hein?” said Pétion, reading my thoughts exactly.

  I braced my shoulders and put a sneer on my face. “Tant pis! Que le diable l’emporte!”

  “Yes, to hell with him,” agreed Pétion. “We caught him trying to pass through our lines.”

  “Perhaps, sir, he was just trying to get some medicine. You know when any two armies face each other for any length of time, there is considerable trade for necessaries.”

  “Alas, no. He merely said he was sick of war and wanted to go home. The unfortunate presence of certain documents sewn into the lining of his coat made this excuse impossible to entertain.” He leaned on the rail, looking down at Pepin. “But so much the better, hein? Now you are free from the worry of when you will be caught. Now you have only to worry about what I shall do with you.”

  “Do with me, sir? What do you mean?”

  “I mean spies are usually hanged, is it not so? The honor of the firing squad is not for them.”

  “I’m no spy, sir. I told you how I came to be here.”

  “Ah, but I have received another story from two men who know you. Their accounts arrived independently, though nearly simultaneously. They corroborate each other. They both tell me your real reason for being here. And with the letter you brought, I can have no doubt that what your friends say is true.”

  “Who are they and what do they say?”

  “Later, perhaps, I will present you with the evidence. I am under no obligation to do so, you understand. Under French law a man is guilty until proven otherwise, and your guilt is proved to my satisfaction. Although, I shall add, it is proved to my sorrow as well.”

  “But—but I have no idea what’s in that letter!”

  “What counts is that you brought it here. But let that not worry you at present. You will live a while longer. Come along, now.”