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By Root 956 0

Nicolas, and he hadn’t been completely certain that the sphere of French influence still extended this far. Meanwhile, the wind was lifting coils of dust from the ground and the air grew more heavy and damp at every moment. Charlot parlayed with the two men as they detached the flag from the lanyards and began respectfully folding it. The captain, half stunned from the day’s ride, paid small attention to their conversation, though he noticed that Charlot’s gestures became broader and more expressive when the rain began in earnest. Maillart was caked with sweat and salt and dust from the road and was almost grateful to be bathed in rain, though he knew a drenching was dangerous, in his state, and could very well lead to fever. But before he was quite soaked to the skin, Charlot concluded an arrangement and one of the flag bearers quickly led them to a warehouse on the edge of town where they might shelter.

The warehouse was a sizable barnlike structure, at the border of the town proper with the land of Habitation Foache. In former times it had been used to store the indigo for which the region of Jean Rabel was noted, but now there was nothing here but a few dozen baskets of coffee beans, still in their red hulls. The men and horses came in together; there was plenty of room for both. Rain swept over the thatched roof with a regular hissing, sizzling sound. In one corner the thatch had rotted through, admitting a silver stream of rainwater and a shaft of rain-streaked daylight. After a moment of hesitation, Maillart stripped off his wet shirt and went over and washed his face and torso under the waterfall, then cupped his hands to take a drink. The black men laughed quietly among themselves, then followed his example.

Maillart tethered his horse to a hook in the wall, unsaddled the animal and dried the leather with a blanket he kept in his saddlebag. He wrapped himself in the blanket and lay down, resting his head on the saddle, half dozing as he listened to the rain and the drone of Creole conversation among the other men. Without knowing it, he must have gone to sleep entirely, for suddenly he woke, shivering a little, aware that the rain had stopped and night had fallen.

The warehouse was empty now except for the horses, but he heard the voices of the men beyond the door, and there was also a cooking smell. Maillart hung up his civilian clothes on the square nails and hooks that studded the walls, to dry as best they might. He put on his French uniform and stepped outside.

His party had grouped around an open fire, covered by an iron stewpot which an old black woman was stirring with a wooden spoon two feet long. They had been joined by a black man who wore the ragged tunic of a French lieutenant, a bandolier but no trousers—apparently a true sans-culotte. At the sight of Maillart, he drew himself up and saluted.

This was the officer who commanded on behalf of the French Republicans in the region of Jean Rabel. In the course of the conversation, Captain Maillart was able to learn that this tattered lieutenant had at his theoretical disposal as many as two hundred men, but that the great majority of these were lately liberated slaves of the region who came and went very much as they pleased, who had no regular military training and whose performance (and attendance) at battles was far from reliable. Meanwhile the English were very well established at Môle Saint Nicolas. The lieutenant had word that they had lately been reinforced from the sea, and that they had mounted an expedition whose result he did not know against Bombarde, another small French post on the south side of the peninsula. Were the English to march on Jean Rabel, the lieutenant could not predict an outcome; he had no more than forty well-trained and reliable men to count on, although, if God so willed, he might compose a force of two hundred fighters of some description.

The captain mused silently on this situation: the French position in the northwest was still more precarious than he’d known for certain . . . and perhaps collapsing, if Bombarde