Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [191]
“Then you may redeem your error. Go there.” Rochambeau turned to point down the slope. “Take three men of your choosing and establish a forward post.”
Guizot saluted, and Rochambeau turned to his other officers to tell them where they were meant to go.
As Rochambeau allowed no cook fires that night, Sergeant Aloyse was obliged to surrender the hen he’d requisitioned to a friend in another company. He bade the fowl a tender farewell, stroking its speckled feathers where it nestled in the crook of his arm, giving its rubbery comb a last touch of his finger after he’d handed it over to the other man. The hen ducked its head at the contact, and blinked back at him.
The idea of roast chicken lingered with Guizot as he and the sergeant and two grenadiers went skating down the western hillside, into the darkness deepening under the trees. They stopped under cover of the brush, a dozen yards from the cliffs that walled the gorge, hidden in shadows around the edge of a teardrop-shaped clearing, which presently revealed the light of the rising moon.
The night grew chill. Guizot’s sodden uniform congealed to his cold flesh. He swallowed mucus, suppressing the impulse to cough. Time dragged along. Always he could hear the water trickling at the bottom of the ravine. Sometimes there were other sounds more difficult to interpret. Now and again came a whistling so melodious Guizot was sure it must be human, though Sergeant Aloyse declared it to be the song of some night bird.
Then he saw the sergeant move into the moonlight of the clearing. No voice: only pant and scuffle. It looked like Aloyse was struggling with a shadow—as if his own shadow were fighting to depart from him. Aloyse crouched at the shadow’s head while its bare heels drummed on the dirt. Then he sat back, his face striped in the moonlight filtered through the branches. His hands and the knife they held were blackened with wet blood. Guizot and the soldiers pressed in to look. In the center of their circle lay a black man in the rags of a colonial uniform. The trousers had been reduced to shorts and the shirt was pinned together with thorns. Above the collar, the gash in his throat gaped at the moon.
“Go to the general,” Guizot hissed at the soldier to his left. His wounded arm felt numb and cold; he hitched it up a little in the sling. “Tell him we have killed an enemy scout.”
The grenadier slipped into the bush. Sergeant Aloyse dragged the corpse by its heels into the shadows. Its arms still twitched in spasms of reflexive movement. Guizot was relieved to have it out of sight. No one spoke further. They resumed the places where they’d been before. With his good hand, Guizot fondled the flint of his pistol. He was aware of the bright odor of the blood spilled on the ground. His ears strained fervently toward nothing, only the ripple of the stream. Then his messenger returned, and behind him came the rustle of moving troops. Rochambeau was deploying a line down the hill.
Strangely, the shuffling of the French soldiers seemed to echo back from the ravine. Guizot sent back a request for them to halt. But from below, the sound of marching men continued. Guizot shot a glance at Sergeant Aloyse.
“Qui vive!” the sergeant bellowed, his voice deafening after such long silence. “Who goes?”
No sound, only damp expectation from the darkness beyond the leaves. Then the reply rang back at them—it seemed no more than a yard away.
“We are the Governor’s honor guard!” Then, almost without a pause, “Move forward! Fire!”
20
Moonglow shimmered on the leaves as Magny marshaled his grenadiers up the trail that Placide, Toussaint, and the two other men had scouted half an hour before. This time they made less attempt at stealth, though orders were passed down in a muted tone and no one struck a light. The men, who were mostly barefoot, made little noise as they advanced, but otherwise it seemed as though Toussaint expected or even desired to be discovered.
It was Toussaint himself who replied to the first challenge. Placide, who rode a horse length behind his