• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 2036 0

wanted to act, but in the absence of action he found that he could observe, and with a reasonably clear head. In any case, his own ship was sailing away from this first engagement, following Rochambeau’s vessel into the mouth of the passage, leaving a couple of other ships to continue the bombardment of Fort Labouque. It was not clear to Guizot if the first shot had been fired from the fort or one of the ships of his squadron, but certainly the engagement became general without much in the way of a parley beforehand. He watched the naval gunners, smooth in the rhythm of their work. The artillerymen of the fort did their best to keep up a constant fire, but the mobility of the shipboard guns was too much for them, and within the hour the cannon of the fort had gone silent.

A landing commenced beside the smoking wreckage of the Fort de l’Anse. Guizot, half-deafened by the cannonade, responded to the gestures of Rochambeau’s aide-de-camp, a youth whom he knew to be a son of the Duc de Châtre, though at this moment, in the surge of excitement, he could not recall his name. He was able to marshal his men behind him in sufficiently good order once they were out of the boats. Another platoon was routing the surviving defenders out of the Fort de l’Anse, and lining them up against one of the broken walls. Aba blan! some of the blacks went on shouting. Aba lesklavaj! At thirty yards distance, Captain Guizot looked at them curiously. It was not often he had seen Africans before. Though the walls that covered them had been shattered, these men had never lowered their flag. Down with whites! Down with slavery! Under the leveled muskets, the chant continued.

Through his ringing ears, Guizot heard the order to move out. He about-faced his men as sharply as he might. It appeared that Rochambeau himself would lead this maneuver; a short and rather stubby figure, he wore on the battlefield a tall black shako, with a single plume pinned to the front. Guizot’s men fell into formation with the others as the column began to move eastward around the edge of the harbor. On the other side, the guns of Fort Liberté proper hurled shot that fell harmlessly short in the water.

Aba blan! Aba lesklavaj! Behind the marching troops there sounded a patter of musket fire, and the chanting voices stopped. In the farther distance, Guizot could still hear the barrage around Fort Labouque. But now the ships that had shattered the Fort de l’Anse were bearing down swiftly upon the fort at the bottom of the harbor.

Guizot realized he had been under fire for the last couple of hours, though hardly in any real danger, and now the cannons of the fort were diverted by the rapid attack of the naval squadron. Now Rochambeau’s aide-de-camp grunted an order back down the line, flinging an arm up to gesture across the harbor. Reflexively Guizot turned to repeat the order; the pace of the march went double-quick. Behind the fort, a great black wing of smoke was spreading out above the town.

To reach the fort and the town by land was triple the distance as by water, around the long curve of the wine-decanter bay. The French column snapped along the shoreline at a pace just short of a jog, men stumbling over the rough ground and catching their woolen trouser legs on the low thorny scrub. It was midday and the sun was broiling; never in his whole life had Guizot known such heat. He had neglected to fill a canteen, and his dusty tongue clove to the roof of his mouth as they plunged forward, his sweat-soaked uniform also caking with dust, like the clothes of all the men around him.

Smoke was boiling everywhere as they entered the first streets of the town, and out of the smoke came several shots. Guizot saw Rochambeau’s aide-de-camp take a step backward, dropping his sword and gathering both hands gently over his belly. He swayed, then moved cautiously to the side of the street and sat down on a doorsill. For a moment, Guizot stared, transfixed, at the blood leaking out through his laced fingers. Then he stooped and picked up the sword the other man had let drop and swung