Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [193]
“We have arrived,” Placide said, and when the doctor looked at him inquiringly, “The Governor-General has ordered that you prepare for the wounded here.”
The doctor scanned the area and concluded the place was well chosen for the purpose. He began to unload the donkeys onto a humped sand-bank above the rushing stream, an area partly sheltered by the overhang of the southern cliff and by the trunks of several huge palms that were still standing. He set Paul and Caco to digging a fire pit. There was a kettle in one of the packs; Paulette drew water from the stream and set it on the fire. Someone came back from the trench to complain about the light, but the doctor and Placide both argued that since the battle was already joined, the need for concealment was past.
Fontelle crumbled disinfectant herbs into the kettle, while the doctor laid out the tools of his trade: knives, pincers, the short-bladed surgical saw. Placide rode forward to the upper trench, then back again to their position. On Morne Barade, the deeper throats of cannon had joined their voices to the chorus of gunfire. The doctor walked to the lip of the second entrenchment and peered up—at just the right angle he could see around the curve to the bloom of muzzle flashes on the dark curve of the hill. Paul, who’d followed, stood at his side, trembling like a terrier. Mute, the doctor put an arm over his shoulder and led him back to the others.
By the time the water had come to a boil, the wounded had begun to dribble in. Soon they were pouring. The area of the makeshift hospital was throbbing with the sound of half-swallowed screams, as the doctor rooted balls out of torn flesh, or in the worse case sawed off a shattered limb. He used Fontelle and Paulette to hold down his patients whenever such help was necessary. As often as he might he sent Paul and Caco away, to scavenge more firewood—the fighting had not come any nearer, and Placide came back from time to time to tell them that Toussaint’s line was holding, perhaps even advancing on the French position at the height of the hill.
What! You would abandon your general? Guiaou knew the voice that raised that cry—an officer of grenadiers named Labarre. Red flashes of anger pulsed behind his eyes. Magny was shouting orders from some other point, and Toussaint also was nearby, spanking men’s legs with his sword’s flat to urge them forward into the line. Guiaou felt his horse beginning to crab. He loosened the reins and stilled the animal with a soothing hand. Always, whenever firing began, Guiaou allowed himself a moment of stillness, for his head to sink backward, compress into a tight ball at the stem of his neck, just where the red cloth he’d put on for the fight was so tightly knotted. Then the noise of guns settled into a rhythm like drums, and behind his head Guiaou could feel the nearness of the spirit Agwé rolling him into battle like a wave. The words that tumbled from his mouth belonged to a song he’d heard in the south, sung by soldiers of Dessalines.
A l’assò, grenadyé!
Sa ki mouri, sé pa zafè ou
Nanpwen maman
Nanpwen papa
Sa ki mouri, sé pa zafè ou!
Guiaou looked to his right, found Guerrier sitting his own horse. He wished that Couachy were alive and with them. But Guerrier was a good companion. Tonight they would have the chance to kill some blancs, certainly, and so Couachy’s spirit might be nourished. The platoon of grenadiers Labarre marched past them had now taken up the song.
Grenadiers, to the assault!
Those who die are none of your business
We have no mother
We have no father
Those who die are none of your business!
It was Labarre leading the song now. Guiaou looked where he was leading his men. His action flowered in his head. He motioned to Guerrier, then urged his horse out through the screen of trees, onto the open brow of the hill, where at forty yards’ distance a massed square of French infantry bristled with bayonets like