Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [298]
As for Guizot, he felt much the same. Who might command the fort he faced no longer interested him. The slight, small figure of Toussaint Louverture had become abstract, the cloth that bound his murderous head shrunken smaller than a red pinpoint, deep in Guizot’s mind. Before him was only the enemy and the only thing to do was kill. As the cannon bellowed all around him and the gunners shouted encouragement to one another, he held his eyes fixed on Rochambeau’s black shako. Then at last the barrage ceased; the guns of the redoubt had stopped returning fire. Rochambeau swept his gloved hand forward, and Guizot nudged Aloyse as he lunged to his feet and into the open.
He charged at the head of his grenadiers, stumbling over stubs of recently cut brush. Thirty yards away, the redoubt did not look impressive: an earthwork hastily shoveled up and studded with crudely pointed logs bristling outward. An outer ring of loosely molded dirt was scarcely knee high, and the whole thing looked practically undefended. Guizot’s excitement rose; from a distance he heard his own voice howling. Then, when they’d closed half the distance, the ground sprouted rows of musketeers like dragon’s teeth. Completely covered by the trench, their barrels braced on that insignificant ring of dirt, they fired with a fine precision.
The first shock passed over Guizot like a wave, washing him in a nausea like that of his first days at sea. Yards short of the trench, the charge had broken and he himself seemed the only man still upright in what had become a field of bleeding casualties. Except Aloyse, who clawed at him, eyes ringed with white, shouting hoarsely, “Turn back, turn back!” Guizot’s ears were ringing; bullets were still whistling by. The men behind the higher earthwork had loosed a volley while those in the trench reloaded. Guizot turned and scrambled after the sergeant’s bouncing pigtail. He was stumbling over corpses now, and it seemed to take him years to reach the trees.
Ten paces into the cover he encountered Rochambeau, stamping his high boots and spitting with rage. “Captain, what do you mean by this dishonorable flight? Return your men to the assault!”
Guizot, numb and breathless, had no thought but to obey. He turned in a half-circle, drawing wind to call an order, but before a word could leave his lips he saw he had no men to rally. Except for himself and Sergeant Aloyse, every last soldier of his command lay dead or crippled on the field.
Rochambeau was arguing now with a cavalry major who’d just ridden up: a tall, raw-boned fellow with a graying mustache, his face and hands weatherbeaten to the color of old brick. Behind this man was Captain Daspir, right arm in a sling, who on sight of Guizot slipped down from his horse and came to him.
The notorious Rochambeau cut no impressive figure in Maillart’s eyes. He was so short that his shako and boots seemed to account for a quarter of his height. His uniform fit sloppily on a pudgy body and the same doughiness was in his face, which wore the expression of a petulant child. At first, he did not want to hear the order Maillart brought, arguing that Pamphile de Lacroix was not his superior, while Maillart did his best to explain with due deference that for the moment Lacroix spoke for Captain-General Leclerc—and that in any case the folly of charging the entrenched redoubt was now more than evident on the field before them. But now General Lacroix had arrived himself. A short distance behind him came Pétion’s artillerymen, sweating and grunting as they hauled their guns and carriages up the hill—a maneuver which Rochambeau’s attack had finally made possible.
“General, General,” Lacroix was saying. “What is this impetuosity? Did you not receive my order?”
“What would you?” Rochambeau jerked his gloved hand toward the redoubt. “How many niggers can there be in that ant hill? A hundred? Two hundred? Would you imagine they could hold against my grenadiers?”
Pamphile de Lacroix pressed his fingertips