Master of the Crossroads - Madison Smartt Bell [55]
“Some say it’s the uniform makes the man,” Maillart replied, and watched to see if O’Farrel would flush in his red coat. But the other returned his gaze, his pale eyes level, and unreadable. At Le Cap they had once come near to quarreling, over a woman, but one or the other or both of them had found enough forbearance that they had not come to blows. The memory of that woman softened Maillart now, and O’Farrel relaxed and smiled and invited him in.
The major’s apartment was a good one—in general the officer’s quarters at Le Môle were good. However, to Maillart’s surprise, it was not O’Farrel who commanded the post.
“But I thought—” the captain said. “I had heard it was you who surrendered Le Môle to the British, at the head of the Dillon regiment.”
“As to that you have been misinformed,” O’Farrel told him. “The capitulation was arranged by Colonel Deneux, your own superior, might I say?” Again the smile seemed supercilious; Maillart steeled himself not to take offense.
“The ranking British officer here is Major Grant,” O’Farrel said. “And for the moment I am serving mostly as his aide-de-camp, for the Dillon regiment is effectively no more.”
“Excuse me?”
“Ah.” O’Farrel glanced out the window to the yard, where a British sergeant had faced off with a balky mule. “I regret to say that some seventy of my men deserted, once the British flag was raised here. The remnant has just lately been sent down to Saint Marc . . .”
“Deserted—where?”
O’Farrel scratched the back of his head. “Presumably to the Jacobins, you know.”
“But I have just come from General Laveaux at Port-de-Paix,” the captain said. “There was no one of the Dillon regiment there—not the hair of a single Irishman.”
O’Farrel failed to smile at this quip. His eyes narrowed. “From Laveaux, you say?”
“I’ll tell the tale, if you’ve time for it.” Maillart composed himself as the major tilted back his chair against the wall. “When news came that the King was guillotined in France, I left Le Cap. To put it plainly, I deserted—well, I had been greatly disillusioned—”
O’Farrel nodded. “Of course. Go on.”
“I offered my sword to the Spanish crown and was accepted by the Spanish army at Santo Domingo—I am hardly the sole French officer in such a case, you understand. But in this way I came under the command of General Toussaint Louverture.”
“I’ve heard that name, or something like it,” O’Farrel said. “Tusan? Wasn’t it he who spoiled the capitulation to the British at Gonaives? One of those jumped-up niggers in Spanish uniform . . .”
Maillart looked at the ceiling briefly. “Toussaint commands not only at Gonaives but all the way back along the Cordon de l’Ouest through the mountains as far as the Spanish frontier. Perhaps farther. He has four thousand men at his command and he seems to have the intention of putting them all at the disposal of Governor-General Laveaux.”
“You mean . . .”
“I mean to tell you that the wind blows in that quarter now. General Laveaux has accepted my return to the fold. It’s not improbable that he might do the same for—”
O’Farrel’s front chair legs clacked down on the floor. He stiffened and raised a rigid palm. “Please, no more. There is no question. You understand, even if I wished it—I am not in command here, nor in particularly good odor, regarding the desertion of so many of my troops . . . wherever they may have got to. Major Grant would certainly hear nothing of it—I tell you, you only endanger yourself by speaking so. And Colonel Deneux is a royalist, convinced to the core—”
Maillart looked out the window. In the yard, the sergeant was still shouting at the mule, which squatted on its hindquarters. The sergeant began beating it about the muzzle with a short, slim cane of green bamboo.
“No,” said O’Farrel, more reflectively, “I’ll leave my lot where I’ve cast it. No nigger general however talented can stand against British troops in the field—or French troops either, I speak without prejudice! But you surprise me, Maillart—by your own