Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [264]
So Toussaint took Marmelade without much fighting, and made his headquarters there as he had been used to do for a long time. That night to Marmelade there came a letter from Dessalines that told how he had fought a battle with Rochambeau in the mountains of Grand Cahos and that there was a lot of fighting around the fort of La Crête à Pierrot. So maybe the French blanc soldiers had all gone south, or most of them. But that same night we learned that there were more blanc soldiers at Plaisance and that probably we would have a fight with them next day.
Before the sun came up next morning, Toussaint sent men out to take the next fort on the road to Plaisance, which stood on a hill of Habitation Bidourete. There were two companies under Gabart and another two under Lafontaine, and I, Riau, went with them, though most of the guard stayed back, under command of Pourcely, because Toussaint wanted to keep them fresh for fighting later in the day. There were not many blanc soldiers in that fort, though they were stubborn, and by sunrise we had killed many and driven off the rest. More soldiers came to try to help them, but still there were not too many, and we killed some and drove away the others. But by the time Toussaint had come up with Pourcely and the rest of our men, news had come that the blanc general Desfourneaux was on his way from Plaisance, leading fifteen hundred men.
Then Toussaint divided the men he had in two. Half went with Toussaint and Gabart in a column to the right, from Habitation Bidourete toward Habitation Laforestie. These were all men of the Fourth that they led. The others, the men of the honor guard, were sent to the left, led by Pourcely. But Toussaint sent Riau ahead of them all, up onto the mountain above Plaisance, to look for Sylla, who was supposed to be fighting the blancs somewhere in those hills, and try to bring his men to our battle.
I got Toussaint’s leave to take Jean-Pic with me, and we rode very fast together across the fields of Habitation Bidourete and Habitation Laforestie, cutting through gaps in the hedges or jumping the hedges when there were no gaps. Toussaint had sent Pourcely by the back roads to come upon Desfourneaux from behind. But Jean-Pic and Riau were coming in front of the French blanc soldiers. When we crossed Habitation Laforestie, we began to hear their drums as they came on, though they were not yet in sight of us.
So we came safely as far as the path that climbed the eastern wall of the mountain. It was steep, and we needed to let our horses go slowly at first, because they were already hot from the gallop across the fields. If we stopped we could look down and see the blanc soldiers moving quickly across the low ground to the rattling of their drums. Beyond them was the Plaisance river valley like a wide deep bowl, with the green of trees and blue of the mountain mist wrapped around each other like veins in stone. Some of those blanc soldiers saw us too. There were puffs of musket smoke from their column, and a moment later the sound of their shots. But we were too high on the mountain for their muskets to reach us.
Soon we met watchmen of Sylla on the mountain, and they were in a big hurry to get us off the trail. More blancs were coming that way, they said, though we could not yet see them. Our horses did not want to leave the trail, and Jean-Pic had to get down and drag his along by the reins, with one of Sylla’s men following and pushing it from behind. But I stayed mounted, leaning forward, my weight all the way forward and low and my face pushed tight into the horse’s mane. I had learned this way of riding from Toussaint, and though my horse’s hooves slipped in the shale, the horse kept climbing, till finally we came into a flatter