Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [192]
With that, Placide’s pistol was in his hand, an astonishingly heavy weight. He did not at all recall drawing it. Since there was no target, he did not fire; also his father was invisible in the shadows, lost to the moonlight, somewhere just ahead of him. The first musket volley had already gone off, and return fire seemed to come from three hundred degrees of the compass. The word envelop appeared in Placide’s mind. He had learned the term in tactical studies at the Collège de la Marche. Had they been enveloped by French infantry? Musket balls were most certainly crisscrossing in the darkness all around him, as Magny’s grenadiers fixed their bayonets and strode by.
Placide balanced the weight of his pistol toward the darkness ahead. Toussaint had reappeared in a pool of moonlight, dismounted and holding his horse off the trail with his left hand. The tip of his cane gave each grenadier a quick, encouraging flick on the shoulder as he marched by. Somewhere forward was a brutal sound of shock, then groaning—then several grenadiers came flying back. Half a dozen French infantrymen charged after them. Placide picked one of them, pulled the trigger. The dead man carried on several paces past him before he fell, inert in his downhill momentum. Placide reholstered the pistol, drew the other. But no, he ought to recharge the first pistol now, while there was time. In this flash of confusion was a glimmer of fear.
“What!” a voice shouted from below. “You would abandon your general?” Another swarm of musket balls tore through the trees. Placide looked wildly from side to side. Toussaint had disappeared during the French breakthrough. But now, below, the men were rallying, and again the grenadiers came marching forward. Toussaint, still on foot, appeared by the right shoulder of Placide’s horse. The cane he’d held in his right hand was now replaced by his sword.
“Go back and find Doctor Hébert,” he hissed. “Take him behind the second entrenchment.”
“I won’t abandon you!” Placide said hotly, as if in answer to the rallying cry that had risen from farther down the ravine. Toussaint smacked him sharply on the thigh with the flat of his sword.
“Do not think to disobey!” he snapped. “Find the blanc doctor and keep him safe, and keep him working on our wounded—already they begin to fall. That doctor will be worth more lives than any one man fighting here.”
“Oui, mon général,” Placide choked. Toussaint, inexplicably, grinned up at him, then gave the horse a sword whack across the buttocks as Placide wheeled away.
Paul, who had been dozing on his donkey-load of bandages, came alert the instant the first shots sounded on the hill a hundred yards above. In seconds the deep quiet of the moonlit night was exploded into shouts and gunfire. What! You would abandon your general? Fontelle and Paulette wrapped their arms around each other, and Caco pressed into the flank of Paul’s donkey, his big eyes bright. Just ahead of them, the column of grenadiers seemed to buckle, collapse on itself. What a fool he had been to bring Paul here, the doctor thought. They would be overrun by the French within minutes. But the column soon stiffened, then lashed forward again.
Placide broke out of the brush and rode toward them. “Come,” he said shortly and beckoned as he passed, scarcely slowing his horse at all. The doctor, willing enough, swung aboard his mule and waited for the others to climb on their donkeys. He followed them and Placide, bringing up the rear. Placide led them to the bottom of the gorge, then to the first entrenchment, where after a moment of muttering some logs were dragged clear for them to pass. The field hands manning this position reached up to brush Placide’s boots and trouser legs as he rode through, their smiles shining in the moonlight—it must feel like great good luck to these people to touch a son of Toussaint Louverture.
Around a tight turn