Master of the Crossroads - Madison Smartt Bell [304]
“Oh,” said Agathe, a hand pressed at her fluttering throat. “If Toussaint’s soldiers look like savages, their discipline is very strong—supposing today a fair example.”
“For those men,” Maillart assured her, “today is no different from any other.”
O’Farrel smoothed his sandy mustache against his lip. “If that is so,” he said, “it is Toussaint’s greatest triumph, to have made such soldiers of those men.”
After supper they went into the garden, where Monot explained his irrigation system to the doctor, the thin channels of water glittering under the moonlight. O’Farrel drew Maillart a little aside.
“You may know,” he said, “that of the eight thousand men collected here, only two thousand are British by origin, and the rest colonial troops, from the south and the west. They are seasoned men, but Rigaud would not have them.”
“Shot through with royalists, no doubt,” Maillart said. “And proscribed French colons.”
O’Farrel squinted at him in the uneven light. “How long since you were a royalist yourself?” he said. “And in my estimation, you are still a Frenchman.”
“Pardon,” said Maillart, “I was considering the attitudes of Agent Hédouville more than my own.”
“Those six thousand would come over to Toussaint,” O’Farrel said. “They see no future with the British.”
“Oh indeed? And yourself?”
“The same,” O’Farrel told him. “If I would be accepted?”
“By Toussaint? Absolutely.” Maillart reached to clasp his hand. “Well, I have not the authority to say so, but I think I can encourage you to put your mind at rest.”
The events of the day had swept the doctor’s personal troubles from him, but once he lay down on his bed, they all came flooding back. He could not sleep. Also there were mosquitoes. He’d left the door to the balcony ajar, in hope of a breath of sea air. Some noise roused him from his insomniac daze; was it Maillart at the balcony door? It seemed to be his voice, muttering in confusion. But whoever it was passed on and must have found a different reception at another door, for the doctor heard a female titter, a gasp, then panting breaths which gradually sawed into moans of joy.
“Do you not abuse the kindness of our host?” he muttered to the captain over their next morning’s coffee.
“I shall only leave the old man’s housekeeper better content than I found her,” Maillart grinned, and, at the doctor’s sour expression, “Oh come, Antoine, one is only human, and I’ve lived like a monk these last six months. Besides it’s just a bit of unfinished business from my last visit to Le Môle.”
The doctor’s own privation had lasted a good deal longer. He did not desire Agathe himself, exactly, but he still begrudged the captain his conquest. When he identified this feeling, his own perversity displeased him, and he elected to go with O’Farrel and the six thousand colonial troops who would now in all likelihood join Toussaint’s force outside the town.
A few days later, when the British embarcation was complete, General Maitland appeared as if from nowhere, outside Toussaint’s tent at Pointe Bourgeoise, escorted by Maillart and Riau and the merest handful of junior British officers. All the rest of the British troops had boarded their vessels, though the ships were still in the harbor. At Maitland’s arrival the doctor felt a flutter of real uncertainty. If the British general had been expected, he had known nothing of it. What he did know was that Toussaint had just received a letter from Commissioner Roume, who was still residing in Spanish Santo Domingo, urging him to arrest General Maitland at any opportunity presented. Toussaint had rolled this very letter into his hand as he went out to greet his visitor.
“You do me honor, General,” he said. “And here is something which may interest you.”
Maitland leaned toward the paper which Toussaint had unfurled in his direction. “Treachery,” hissed a British subaltern who was peering over his shoulder, but Maitland silenced him with a brush of his hand, then looked up at Toussaint with an expression just short of dismay.
“What should interest you still more is my reply.