Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [194]
Guiaou leaned toward Guerrier and grinned. “Their bullets are dust. N’alé!”
He drew his coutelas as they charged the square. A whistling of bullets screamed by his ears, the path of each ball bending to avoid him. The horse’s mane streamed back in his face. Guerrier was sitting bolt upright with his musket couched like a tilting lance. The muzzle flared, then the bayonet picked a Frenchman out of the square and flung him backward, gutted like a fish. Guiaou’s coutelas was splitting heads—one, two—they wheeled their horses away. Labarre was behind them now, leading his men toward the outcropping Guiaou had noticed a moment earlier, above where the French had made their square, but he had not yet reached it. The grenadiers had stopped the song to put all their effort into this dash.
“N’alé!” Guiaou howled again. Let’s go! He and Guerrier drove their horses again into the French. Guiaou’s eyes fixed on the blade of his coutelas. All sound stopped. The blade flashed in the moonlight, lowered, rose blood-darkened, dull. This time when they wheeled away, Labarre’s platoon had reached the ledge and were pouring fire down on the French square. Guiaou and Guerrier rode into shelter of the trees and turned their horses, breathless. Guiaou’s thought surfaced long enough to wonder where Toussaint was now and if he had seen their action. Then it sank back. In the well behind his head the shadow of Couachy was smiling. And now, Magny was sending more men at a charge up the grade on the French square, which shuddered now under Labarre’s constant fire.
A l’assò, grenadyé!
Sa ki mouri, sé pa zafè ou
Nanpwen maman
Nanpwen papa
Sa ki mouri, sé pa zafè ou!
A volley from the charging men was quickly returned by the French. Then the two lines crunched together, struggling hand to hand. Guiaou dismounted, just for a moment, to wipe his coutelas on the grass.
Blood-soaked nearly to his shoulders, Doctor Hébert paused in his surgery and climbed over the sand bank to rinse his hands in the cold flow of the stream. Fontelle and Paulette were just above him, laying down a man who’d had his arm sawed off below the elbow. To the doctor’s left were arrayed the bodies of four men who’d not survived their operations, their faces covered with scraps of cloth. He looked the other way, toward the fire pit where Paul huddled, firelight flashing on his still face. Caco sat by him, leaning into his shoulder. The doctor thought he saw in Paul’s regard the same numb vacancy the boy had shown when they’d recovered him from the streets of Le Cap, where he’d been altogether lost for a stretch of months, till Paulette recognized him by chance and Fontelle took him in. That must be why he’d yielded to Paul’s foolish pleading to come along with him this morning—he’d wanted to keep the boy near him, not risk losing him again. Perhaps Nanon had understood as much, before the doctor knew his motive. At any rate she’d bowed her head before his choice, as was usually her way.
But was this worse? Wringing water from his hands, the doctor walked down to where his mule was tethered. A good thing at least that Caco was here too—the doctor felt that the two boys lent each other strength. In one of the mule’s saddlebags he found a stoppered gourd mostly full of rum. The rest of his supply was being used for anesthetic, but this much he’d conserved for his own encouragement. He drank, partly concealed by the mule’s shoulder, and savored the flush in his chest. There was some commotion below, at the third entrenchment. Then, to the doctor’s astonishment, Xavier Tocquet came striding up toward him, with Gros-Jean behind, leading both their horses.
“Salut, Antoine!” Tocquet said, sweeping off his hat. “I have been a long time coming to you.”
“But how could you know where to come?”
“I found Elise at Habitation Cocherelle, where she took refuge with Madame Louverture. Nanon is with them, and the others—all safe. That smells like rum you have there.”
The doctor relinquished the gourd. Tocquet tipped it high, lowered it, and passed it to Gros-Jean.
“And where