Master of the Crossroads - Madison Smartt Bell [364]
“The First Consul’s lady takes a particular interest in your sons,” Vincent said, in a more moderate tone. “As does the First Consul himself, of course.”
“Yes,” said Toussaint. “I know.”
“And General, you have only to observe . . .” Vincent leaned across the desk to indicate another passage in the document. Toussaint raised the sheet toward his nose and read.
The following words: «Brave blacks, remember that only the French people recognize your liberty and the equality of your rights» shall be written in letters of gold on all the batallion flags of the national guard of the colony of Saint Domingue.’ ”
Toussaint laid the papers aside, face down. “Such an impressive sentiment,” he said, and waited. “I wonder, if the First Consul considers me his equal, why does he not write directly to me.”
Vincent colored slightly. “He sends me to assure you of the strength of his regard.”
Toussaint studied him through lidded eyes. “Of course,” he said finally, hand sweeping across the vestigial smile. “When such assurance comes from you, Colonel Vincent, I accept it, with all confidence.”
Vincent smiled, with the hint of a bow. Toussaint picked up the papers and passed them to the doctor, his thumb anchoring the page from which he’d last read. “And your opinion?”
“An impressive sentiment,” the doctor echoed. “Perhaps a little lengthy to be sewn upon a flag.”
“You are correct,” Toussaint said. “It will take some time to do so.”
When the others had been dismissed, the doctor lingered, hovering at the side of the desk, trying to gauge if Toussaint’s humor was auspicious for his request. But surely, on balance, Vincent’s news had been good. And there might not be a better moment any time soon.
“General,” he said. “If it is possible, I should very much like—
“—to go to Vallière.” Toussaint looked up sharply. “It is not possible. All is well at Vallière, but you must return to the south, no later than tomorrow. There will be more wounds for you to bind.” He reached up for the doctor’s right hand and held it without pressure, looking up into his eyes. “You are needed there,” he said, “and no one knows it better than yourself.”
By the time the doctor rejoined the army in the south, Dessalines had occupied the ashes of Grand Goâve, at the cost of six hundred of his own men dead and another four hundred wounded and waiting for care. As neither Guiaou nor Riau had been slain or hurt, the doctor engineered their reassignment from the battle lines to the medical service. With the number of injured so great and conditions so crowded, they lost nearly half of them to infection, dysentery and incidental fevers.
Despite the loss of his forward positions, and especially Jacmel, so crucial to defending the entry to the whole southern peninsula, Rigaud was not disposed to concede defeat. Whatever news he might have had of Vincent’s mission had not swayed him toward submission to Toussaint. It was rumored he had sent his own agents to France and continued to hope for a better report from them.
Dessalines, meanwhile, pressed his advantage, via his usual tactic of moving his men at horrible speeds over terrain believed by the enemy to be impassable. Soon he had occupied the heights surrounding Petit Goâve, where the Rigaudins had retreated. They might also have been annihilated there, except that their commander sent two of his men to an outpost in the guise of messengers from Toussaint—Dessalines was to wait for reinforcement before he advanced. The ruse produced enough hesitation for the Rigaudins to slip out of the trap and regroup at the bridge of Miragoâne.
That was a strong position, especially after Pétion had cut the bridge and dug entrenchments on the bank he defended. The most suicidal determination of Dessalines’s men could not carry them across the ford, under the constant barrage of grapeshot which refilled the hospitals every day and transformed the surrounding swamps into a cesspool of blood and putrefying corpses. A thousand men were lost in a single day.
While continuing this frontal assault, Dessalines sent a part of his