Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [315]
Toussaint removed his hands from his face. He adjusted the knot of his blood-red headcloth, replaced his hat, and stared beyond the circle of light, eyes unmoving and unblinking, for what felt like a very long time. Placide stole a glance at Guiaou. Both Guiaou and Guerrier were waiting as easily as the big white horse—so easily one could not say they were waiting at all. Placide found himself a little encouraged by that. He tightened his headcloth at the base of his skull, and laid a hand on Bel Argent’s warm, breathing flank. His mind came to a steadier balance.
Then Toussaint snapped onto his feet, lithe and limber as a cat.
“Find General Gabart and rally the men.”
“All of them?” Placide blurted.
“Yes! Yes, all.” And Toussaint whipped away into the surrounding dark as Placide hurried to execute the order.
By daybreak the men were all assembled, and Toussaint addressed them in triumphant tones.
“The French army has been destroyed at La Crête à Pierrot!” he declaimed. “We’ll have no more trouble from them here. They are finished, and the blancs and their soldiers in the north have no one to defend them now. Go north!—my brothers, my friends, my children—go north to drive the last of the blancs out of our country. Drive them into the sea they came from. Wipe them out of creation!”
At that the men all roared and clashed their knife blades in the air; some fired off their muskets (though the officers tried to prevent that) while others blew shrill blasts on conch shells. By sunrise the mass of armed field hands was hurrying north toward the passes of Ennery and Marmelade, with a few squads of cavalry and a handful of regular troops to guide them. But Toussaint, with Placide and his senior officers, with his honor guard and most of the regular troops that remained to him, headed instead into the Cahos mountains by the route Lamartinière was supposed to have taken.
At daybreak the doctor gave a water ration to the surviving wounded. Three men had died in the course of the night. Among the rest, about a dozen would surely die no matter what this day brought—they were too far gone to come back now. The others, just under thirty of them, had lighter wounds and might recover, given medicine and proper nourishment and rest. That thought inspired the doctor to a twinge of hope.
Gaston helped him carry water to the wounded. The doctor was a little surprised at that. Till now, all the musicians had given the hospital area a very wide berth.
The three dead men he dragged a little apart from the living. He straightened their limbs, folded their hands across their chests, and finally weighted down their eyelids with scraps of iron scattered from the shelling. He had no strength to do more for them, and Gaston offered no aid in this endeavor.
When the gray dawn light began to yellow with the sun, they heard a harsh voice ordering a charge outside the fort, and then the pounding boots across the empty ditches. In a few seconds, a pair of French grenadiers had rolled over the ramparts and were opening the gates to admit their fellows. The doctor wondered why it had not occurred to him or the musicians to throw the gates open earlier. Maybe they were simply too dulled by the habits of siege.
The company that came hurrying in, muskets at the ready and aimed in all directions, was led by a peculiarly dead-eyed young captain, who wore his left arm in a sling. The four musicians struck up a rusty version of “La Marseillaise” to welcome them. The captain did not seem much gratified. He drew his pistol and fired a shot over their heads. The music came to a sudden stop.
“So it’s you who taunted us with that tune,” the captain said.
“Come now, we are loyal Frenchmen like yourselves,” Gaston protested. “We have been prisoners here all this time—we only played what they forced us to play.”
The captain didn’t look to be impressed by this argument;