Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [195]
“I left him with the women,” Tocquet said. “It seemed better. Morisset is there, with most of a squadron of cavalry, but I wanted one of ours as well. They may all have to move quickly—I don’t like the odds of this battle.”
“How have you calculated?”
For a moment both men tilted their heads to the noise of musketry up the ravine. Now and then a human cry forced up above the shooting.
“What strength has Toussaint here?” Tocquet asked. “Two battalions and his cavalry?”
“He left a battalion with Vernet for the defense of Gonaives,” the doctor said. “Half the cavalry also.”
Tocquet let go a whistling breath. “Then he must be outnumbered five to one, or worse.”
“But there are a lot of field hands here, with their muskets they’ve brought out of hiding. There are many, too many to count. You must have passed through them on as you came up. And in the last hour, more and more of them have been going forward.”
“Is it so?” Tocquet looked up toward the second entrenchment. “But still, they are untrained men for the most part. How long can they hold against crack French troops of the line?”
“What choice have they?”
Tocquet laughed drily. “Death or slavery.” He passed back the gourd and the doctor drank.
“Do you believe that?”
“I believe I’d sooner Toussaint than Rochambeau,” Tocquet said. “Rochambeau’s approach is . . . a little brusque. If he’d held his fire at Fort Liberté, all we see now might have been avoided. But—no matter. Our families have already left Cocherelle, in fact—I hadn’t thought this position would hold so long.”
“It has been very well prepared, as you see.”
“And with good reason.” Tocquet pointed at a stone doorway set in the opposite bank; the outlines of the masonry plain enough in the moonlight.
“I wondered about that,” the doctor said. “What is it?”
“A magazine,” said Toussaint. “There’s a cave behind—Toussaint has been caching powder there these last two years. That’s where Rochambeau is going—he’s got a spy who told him where it is.”
“I see,” said the doctor. “I suppose that means this spot will be extremely well defended.”
“For as long as may be,” Tocquet said. “But where is Toussaint?”
The doctor gestured wordlessly up the ravine in the direction of the firing, then spotted a horseman riding their way. “But there is Placide,” he said. “No doubt he can take you to him.”
Placide had spent the first hours of the battle shuttling between the hospital and Toussaint’s post behind the front line, chafing at first to be held out of the action, then relaxing as he began to realize that what he was doing was of real use. On each trip down the ravine he guided the wounded to the doctor, and with each return he brought a fresh gang of field hands to be hurled into the charges. The waves of Magny’s charges did not stop. Just once, they’d barely gained the summit of Morne Barade, but the French had re-formed and finally thrown them back.
Placide led the wounded men down the ravine. At moments his mind returned to the image of his gun muzzle blazing into the chest of the French soldier. That fine chased pistol the First Consul had given him. How many paces that dead soldier had dashed on before he fell.
Another hundred field workers followed Placide as he led Tocquet and Gros-Jean up, their muskets rocking in their hands as they trotted along. Magny took them in hand when they came to the old almond tree where Toussaint was posted. As the men went forward, lifting their muskets to their shoulders now, they all took up the chant that rang down from above.
A l’assò, grenadyé
Sa ki mouri, sé pa zafè ou . . .
Toussaint was hunkered on his heels by the bole of the almond tree. He squinted up suspiciously when Tocquet greeted him.
“Good evening, General,” Tocquet said, and glanced at the lowering moon. “Perhaps I ought to say good morning. Or maybe it isn’t good at all. I bring you news of your enemy’s strength.”
“Di mwen,” Toussaint said. Tell me.
“I met Rochambeau some days ago at Saint Michel,” Tocquet said. “I conversed