The War of Knives

by Broos Campbell

  “Nay.” He reached out for the Navigator and then tossed it onto the foot of his cot. “I’m a lieutenant! It’s still all nuts and oranges to me. But say, you ain’t dead! Now I can write that letter to Arabella I’ve been putting off.”

  Arabella was Dick’s younger sister, blond like Dick but a sight prettier—which is saying something, as Dick was about as fair as they come. Arabella always turned my knees to jelly and tied my tongue in knots when I saw her, and she knew it, too. And truth be told I was sweet on Dick’s young stepmother as well, but that was a truth I dasn’t tell to anybody.

  “Sure,” I said. “I’ll write her myself. I ain’t wrote her in, lessee now . . .”

  “You haven’t written her once this entire cruise.” He pointed at a stack of letters on his desk. “As she reminds me at least once a week. That’s no way to court a girl, you know. They’re funny that way.”

  “So are fathers,” I said glumly. “I ain’t wrote him since he stopped my allowance.”

  He lay back on an elbow. “Stopped your allowance? Why ever for? You’re still four years away from your majority.”

  “He thinks an acting-lieutenant draws a lieutenant’s salary. But there’s something else I need to ask him, and I’m dogged if I know how to go about it.” I took a deep breath—and let it out again without speaking. Dick’s father owned half a hundred slaves to winnow his wheat and run his hogs and dredge his oysters and hew his timber at the family’s White Oak Plantation on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. And here was Jubal, Dick’s personal slave, to serve us cider and cakes. The glasses looked like thimbles in his fists. But he set them out delicate as kittens next to the cakes, and said, “They be anything else, Mars Dickie?”

  “No, go away. Oh, wait—my boots’ve been griping. See if you can limber them up.”

  “Yes, suh, I get on it directly. Good to see you again, Mars Matty.” He bowed his shiny head on his bull-neck and went away with the boots.

  I was glad to see him go, too. He’d be tucking Mars Dickie into bed in about a minute, just about. I didn’t guess either one of them meant anything by it, it being natural to them, but Jubal’s meekness and Dick’s expectation of it like to made me puke. Dick was the last person I could talk with about my mother. Not if I was perhaps one day to marry into his family. He looked at me around his cake, and I had to say something.

  “Listen, Dick, I was just wondering. How does a man tell his children are his own?”

  He handed me a glass of cider. “Well, you know what the philosopher said: Women love their children more than their husbands do, because women are more certain they’re their own. Why, have you got a wench someplace saying you got a brat on her?”

  “No, I—”

  “Because if you do, just slap her on the rump and buy her a bauble. And if she’s a colored girl, just slap her on the rump and let her count herself lucky, I say. Drink up, now.”

  I dropped the cider down my throat and decided I’d better not have any more. I wanted it too much.

  “And speaking of girls,” said Dick, “I’ll tell you this. If you don’t write Arabella pretty soon, she’s going to go off with one of them beaux of hers. They buzz around her like bees on a honey pot.”

  “Now, that’s something I don’t care to think about, thank you very much.”

  “Then that’s a pretty good sign maybe you ought to start,” he said, and I was thinking about it, too, till he whomped my head with his pillow. “Ha ha! You should’ve seen the look on your face. Listen, I don’t know what you’re on about, but I know a thing or two about women. Like for instance the more you go on moping about her like a moony calf, the faster she’s going to find someone to compare you with. Not in her eyes, but your own. A woman always holds trumps, but it don’t do to tip your hand.”

  “Dang if you ain’t right as always, Dick. Well, listen.” He was my best friend. I’d thought I missed him, and here I couldn’t get away fast enough to suit me. “I better get back before Peter Wickett gets his color up.”

  “Tell Captain Block I had my book open.”

  “I’ll tell him your were up to your eyeballs in it, mate. And thanks, Dick. You’ve taken a load off my mind.”

  That was a lie. I felt worse.

  General Jean-Jacques Dessalines himself presided over our little game of tell-me-true, with a colonel and four majors in reserve. Despite not caring for my story at all he made me repeat it over and over while two secretaries, one white and one black, wrote it out anew each time, translating Dessalines’ questions from Creole to French, and my responses back again. I’d decided it would be best for now to keep mum about my growing command of Creole.

  Dessalines looked at me like I was something he’d just found under his boot. “Are you certain you understood what the doctor said?”

  “Oui, monsieur le général.”

  He held up Pepin’s hieroglyphic note. “Explain.”

  I didn’t guess there was any point in repeating Pepin’s assessment that even the unlettered could grasp the note’s meaning. “Oui, monsieur le général,” I said again. “This circle with the numeral eleven in it indicates that Pétion is to attempt a breakout on the evening of the eleventh of this month—”

  He held up a massive hand. “Stop there. Why the eleventh?”

  “Because, General, that’s the evening of the full moon.”

  “No, no,” said the colonel. He was a tall and handsome man, but he had a look in his eye like he might come unhinged someday. “The general means to say, why did Pepin not use the revolutionary calendar? The eleventh of March is the twentieth of Ventose. Why did he use the old method?”

  “I can’t say, Colonel, because I don’t know. All I know is that he wrote it.”

  “Assuming our servant Pepin wrote it. And assuming he didn’t mean the eleventh of Ventose, which would be . . .”

  “March second,” said Dessalines. “Which is already past. Colonel, did Pétion break out on the second?”

  “He did not, General Dessalines.”

  “There, you see? Oh, it’s refreshing to see a white man admit he knows nothing. I’m enjoying this. Continue.”

  They were a pack of lunatics, I thought, but it’s best to play along when the lunatics have taken over the asylum. “The plan is for Pétion to attempt to break out on the eleventh, sir, when the moon is full.” I pointed at the note. “The circle that’s crossed out, the one with the numeral twelve in it, means he wants us to think that he will wait until the twelfth, but he will not. The drawing of the bayonet with the hand blocking it indicates that he will commence the breakout with a feint along the Baynet Road. However, where the real breakout will be attempted I don’t know.”

  “Très bien.” Dessalines bared his fangs in a massive yawn, all yellow ivory and blood-red throat, and handed Pepin’s note to the black secretary. I wondered if anyone would ever see it again.

  My jumping into the sewer, however, was of great interest to the panel. Some of the majors doubted that such a thing as a sewer existed, until one who had visited Roman ruins in France assured them that it was so, though he hadn’t heard of such a system at Jacmel. At any rate the thought of Juge persuading a grand blanc to jump into ten thousand gallons of shit struck them silly.

  “You bear no evidence of this on your person,” said Dessalines. “Why is your uniform clean?”

  “I bathed when I went aboard the Rattle-Snake, sir. And my old clothes are probably floating around in the bay somewhere.”

  “You dared to return to your ship before delivering this news?” He frowned. He was a great one for frowning—he did it with his whole body. You could see the frown rising from his thighs to his shoulders to the huge muscles of his neck, gathering fury as it went, and then twisting in his face like a badger in a bear trap. “This information is of much more importance than your personal comfort. Father Toussaint will not be pleased.”

  “I’m grateful to hear the news I bring is important, sir,” I said, giving him a bow. “And I a
m distressed to think I have evoked Father Toussaint’s displeasure. But I did not presume to present myself while covered in shit.”

  “And yet, gentlemen,” put in the colonel, “a white man will always have a certain offensive air about him, n’est-ce pas?”

  The panel dissolved into laughter—but Dessalines did not. He pulled out a pistol and banged on the table with it. We all shut up. He roared, “How did the American lieutenant of vessels say Pétion’s defenses are laid out? Liar! How many men would he say remain to Pétion? Four thousand? Liar! What food have they? Lucky to get rats? Eating grass like the cow? Liar! How is morale? Liar! Why didn’t they keep him in irons? Liar!” He pointed his pistol at me, and I waited in dread to see if he would cock it. “Until Father Toussaint has had time to review the minutes of this hearing, the lieutenant is not to leave camp without my express permission.” He reversed the pistol in his hand and tapped it like a gavel on the table. He did it so dainty that I almost laughed. “I release you into the custody of your compatriot Monsieur Connor. You will find him in the anteroom. Don’t shame yourself by keeping your betters waiting. And have another bath!” he shot at me as I bowed and scraped my way to the door. “You still stink! Now then, what is next on the agenda, citizens? Well, I can tell you with just one glance at this document that we could save twice as much powder if we dispose of prisoners in ways other than by shooting them . . .”

  Connor led me outside. All concern and jolly good cheer, he was, and complimented me on my escape.

  “I don’t guess I had a choice,” I said. “Just like my being here now. If Dessalines don’t like it, why not just send me away instead of threatening me? And what’s he mean, I’m released into your custody? I’m an officer engaged in the lawful business of the United States.”

  Connor had gotten himself a black suit. He looked both rich and severe in it, like a parson who fleeces his flock and then charges them for a shave. “If one is to travel in the higher strata, Mr. Graves, one must learn to cultivate friends. One does that by making oneself appear to be what one is wanted to be. And in such a place as this, I find, friends are by far the most valuable of commodities.” He slipped his arm through mine and steered me along the road. “Speaking of friends, did you see my secretary at all?”

  “That ornery Negro with the gold specs? I been wondering where he got off to.” I misliked his touch, but couldn’t remove my arm without insult. “Didn’t he go to see Pétion with you?”

  He looked at me sideways. “He disappeared about the same time you did. I had it from reliable sources that he meant to do you a mischief, and I am relieved he was thwarted in his purpose.”

  Franklin, hurt me? That was an odd notion. I’d thought his chief danger to me was that he might provoke me into murdering him. “I never made any bones about disliking the man, Mr. Connor, but why should he want to do me harm?”

  “Why does any of us harm his fellow man? Through a misguided sense of rightness, I suppose. God, king or country, it’s all the same. Ah, here we are,” he said as we arrived at a group of tents. “I heard the general give you an order as you left.”

  “You astonish me. I said before I ain’t under his authority.” The only order I remembered was the one forbidding me to leave camp.

  “I, however, hear and obey. Besides, I daresay you’ll enjoy this.” He steered me under a huge canvas awning stretched across a network of poles and ropes. In its shade a platoon of washerwomen engaged their particular enemy, soiled clothing, over an array of wooden tubs.

  “My dears,” Connor announced in his rich fruity voice, “my young friend is in dire need of your services. He is here at the direct order of General Dessalines. Although he is clean in word and deed, I fear he has an absolutely filthy mind—can you translate that, Mr. Graves?”

  Now this was something like! Every one of the washerwomen was young and pretty. “J’ai grand besoin d’un bain,” I said as some of them smiled and some of them giggled. “Does anyone speak French? I am in great need of a bath, please, and my uniform needs a brushing. I fear then that I shall have to run around naked . . .” The smiles and giggles changed to merry laughter. Apparently some of them did indeed speak more than Creole.

  “I’m rambling, Mr. Connor,” I said in English. “But apparently I’ve made an inroad. How much does one pay?”

  “It depends on what one wants. But no fear, she will tell you if you do not give her enough. I will collect you when you have finished. There is a soiree this evening, and you must be decked out proper. Till then,” he said, and left.

  “Dezabiye-w, tanpri,” said a chocolaty girl in a crimson Madras turban. “Take off your clothes, please.” I reached for my buttons, but before I half knew what they were about, she and another likely wench had stripped me stark staring naked—except for my leather pocket of coins, which I shook cheerfully. The girl in the red turban shushed my mild protests with fingers to my lips while the other held up my linen on the end of a stick. They both shrieked. “I surrender, ladies,” says I.

  “Leave him to me,” said the girl in the red turban. “He has nice legs.”

  An older woman of maybe twenty poked them with her laundry pole: “Get to work, you gabbling hens!”

  The girl in the red turban grasped me above the elbow and marched me over to a canvas partition. On the other side of it were more tubs, filled not with clothes but with men. Most of them were black, but there were a few whites and gens de couleur among them. Some of them were smoking cigars or pipes, some had bottles and glasses next to their tubs, and none paid any but the most casual attention as the girl propelled me toward another screened-off area.

  She snatched up a bucket of steaming water that sat waiting and poured it into the tub. “Here we are,” she said in passable French, her smile brilliant with strong white teeth and a tongue as pink as baby roses. “Into the water we go, that’s the good little gentleman. Though there seems to be more grand blanc than petit blanc about you,” she said, eyeing the place in question. “No, no—how can I wash you if you cover yourself that way? Hands on the side of the tub, please, that’s my dear. How you act! You’d think you’ve never been washed by a black woman before, and you a rich American gentleman.”

  “But I never have,” I said. “When I wash, I wash myself. And I’m not rich.”

  “When you wash is right.” She soaped me up. “Never have I seen such a dirty people as you Americans. You’d think bathing was unhealthy, the way you avoid it.”

  “Well, of course bathing’s unhealthy,” I grumbled, “if you do it too often. It removes the essential oils and lets disease in through the pores. Any civilized person knows that.”

  “Civilized people, indeed. Your doctors and the French and English ones too, always stuffing sick people into dirty breathless holes. No wonder you die from fever so much. Anyone would get sick, packed together in their stink like salt cod in a New England schooner.” She shuddered, her breasts quivering most interestingly beneath her checked cotton kerchief. She squeezed her sponge out on my head. “Now, take your hair. Greasy and full of nits!”

  “But I washed and combed it yesterday,” I said.

  “You think you washed and combed it,” she retorted. “You know nothing about washing and combing, obviously. You will see when I am done with you. You will be as pretty as Juge.”

  I blinked at her in surprise, and she said: “Sure I recognize you— you are his friend, and he is my friend, so now we are all friends. So you just stop your squirming. While you soak I’m going to comb out your hair, and you just sit still for it or I’ll get one of those old hags to scrub you down with a hog’s-bristle brush. That won’t be nearly so nice, which this would be if you’d just stop wiggling and let me clean you up.”

  It was nice, which that particularly private part of me manifested on its own accord. It rose proudly up through the now sludgy water to greet her.

  “I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced,” I said.

  She laughed. “Well, I
believe we have been now.” She gave me a stroke that like to curl my toes. “They call me Marie-Celeste.”

  “Matty Graves. I am enchanted.”

  “And enchanting,” she murmured, lifting off her dress and joining me in the tub.

  Sixteen

  Refreshed inside and out from Marie-Celeste’s ministrations, in spotless white vest and breeches and a freshly brushed uniform coat with a black crepe band below the left elbow, for we still had three months of mourning left for General Washington, I sallied forth from the baths feeling quite the lad. While I’d waited for my smallclothes to dry, the barber had shorn my curls and brushed them forward in the new style after squealing with indignant horror at their length. I had cleaned my teeth with the brush kept handy for the bathhouse patrons, and my buttons and buckles shone so bright they might’ve been mistook for gold. All I lacked was an epaulet.

  “Not bad, young fellow,” said Connor, staring at my hair. “But don’t you think perhaps a touch of powder—?”

  “No.” Connor had seen a hairdresser too, obviously, who had powdered his ringlets to a snowy whiteness. “I can’t countenance wearing flour in my hair when the troops are starving.”

  He shrugged. “You are sadly out of uniform, however,” he said. “Perhaps this will help.” He held out an epaulet. It was old and sprung in the wires and with the brass showing through the gilt in places, but it was regulation U.S. Navy.

  “Hold on, this is mine,” I said. “Where’d you get it?”

  “Yours? What an extraordinary coincidence.” He flashed an embarrassed smile that might have been genuine. “There is a trade of curios back and forth between the lines. Naturally I recognized it at once as American. I snapped it up for a trifle, and now I present it to you. Of course I had no idea it was yours.”

  I bet he didn’t, either. It was a slip. “Much obliged, I’m sure,” I said as he pinned it on my shoulder.

  He gave me an appraising look, the way an artist squints at a portrait to see if maybe he’s slapped on too much paint. His eyes traveled up and down and then came to rest on my midsection. “That is an interesting sword you are wearing,” he said.