Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [213]
Then they were making a headlong retreat, thrown back against the main force marching up behind them. “What is the meaning of this disorder?” Leclerc was screaming, and Daspir stammered, “Mon général, their resistance is surprisingly stout,” but Leclerc was not paying any attention to him, had moved on to bellow at somebody else. Daspir took off his hat and looked at it and stuck his little finger into the bullet hole— the old one from their landing at the Baie d’Acul. Today no projectile had come so near to him—so far. He felt his confidence begin to return.
Cyprien shouted something indistinct to him, an order passed down from General Hardy. The survivors of the advance guard were re-forming, bolstered by troops from Desplanques’s brigade, and the drums were beating the charge. Daspir resumed his place in the van. Ahead, the men moved out at a smart trot, not wavering as they rounded the bend to confront the log barricade. With an effort, Daspir held himself straight in the saddle. The advance carried him against the logs, where he lashed with his sword against a black in tattered colonial uniform who was hacking toward his right leg with a cane knife. Infantrymen were climbing the logs. Daspir saw one fall backward, flung off as lightly as a forkful of straw by a bayonet thrust from an enormous black. But the French charge did not slacken; the men behind kept clambering over the bodies of those who’d fallen before them.
The mêlée had become general atop the barricade when Daspir felt the wind riffle his hair forward and realized he had lost his hat. The hat with its fortunate bullet hole—his talisman. He looked about wildly and saw it rolling on its edge toward the river. He was on the ground before he knew he’d dismounted, chasing the hat. A black sprang up before him, and Daspir unconsciously knocked him out of the way with his shoulder. The hat caught on a stick at the water’s edge, and Daspir swooped down and recovered it. Cyprien swirled past, shouting some admonition. Daspir caught his horse’s trailing reins and hauled himself back up into the saddle.
Mounted, he could see that the French charge had broken through the barricade and was pressing the retreating blacks south down the road, though not very hotly. A fair number of infantrymen had paused to drag the logs of the barricade clear of the roadway, rolling the timbers into the stream, which was now choked with bodies, both black and white. Daspir averted his eyes from that. But still he felt exhilarated when he overtook Cyprien.
“Nothing can hold back our French grenadiers,” he sang out gaily.
“No . . .” Cyprien looked a little pale. “But that was a wicked ambush—they reckon that we have lost three hundred men.”
After that Daspir found it harder to ignore the bodies strewn along the roadside. But soon enough they had marched past them all. The road straightened, emerging from the mountains into the dry open plain below. The enemy was a cloud of white dust half a mile ahead of them. The French army held a steady pace, but did not close the distance. Daspir checked that his hat was secure to his head and tipped his head back to look up at the vacant, cloudless blue of the sky. Then he fixed his eyes forward once again. He was hot now, from his exertion and the increase of the sun, and his throat was dry. There was no water in his reach, and the road had turned away from the river. The