Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [92]
During those same two days, Captains Cyprien and Daspir found themselves billeted to the general staff aboard L’Océan—which meant, as it turned out, dancing attendance on Madame Pauline Leclerc, to stoop or run to recover her dropped kerchiefs and windblown scarves, and be rewarded with glimpses of her famous alabaster skin. There’d been worse duty in the world, as Cyprien remarked. Their position also put them in the way of news more reliable than the common run of rumor.
Possessed of all the patience of a butterfly, Pauline soon grew petulant at their delay in landing in the town. “But what is this impertinence—to burn the place and fight us on the ashes?” she exclaimed. “The General my husband has only to act swiftly to prevent such a disaster. I do not understand why he is dilatory. After so many weeks penned up on this chip of a boat, I am sure we should all be glad of a chance to stretch our legs on shore.” So saying, she extended her own slender leg, which the attending officers could admire through its gossamer skirting as they murmured their assent to her opinion. As for Leclerc himself, Captain Daspir noticed with some interest, he seemed to steer clear of Pauline’s daylong levées on deck. Indeed, he gave her a wide berth altogether, except of course at night when the couple retired together into the elaborate boudoir fitted out for them below. Not the most spartan exercise of martial virtue, Cyprien quipped, to which Daspir replied that a good general was duty-bound to do his best to prevail and conquer in whatever field he might find laid before him . . . But the sounds that filtered past the bulkheads suggested bickering more often than bliss.
For roughly thirty-six hours Leclerc, no matter Pauline’s impatience, seemed willing to temporize with Christophe and await developments, but by February 4 he was persuaded that Christophe meant only to delay, to make time for the resistance to be organized on shore—and organized, perhaps, by his superior in command, for the envoy Lebrun had been sensitive to the half-open door of the inner sanctum, during his interview with Christophe at Government House. Once Leclerc had been so persuaded, he was quick enough to order action. Leaving L’Océan with his bride at its mooring, he transferred his command to another vessel, which would sail round the point for a landing at the Baie d’Acul. That area had been reconnoitered early, and was well out of view of the guns of Picolet.
Now Daspir was reassigned to the staff of General Hardy, embarked in the same squadron as Leclerc. “Hard luck,” he called to Cyprien, though his stomach fluttered as he climbed down into the boat.
“What do you mean?” Cyprien’s face hung moon-like over the rail above.
“Why,” said Daspir, “you stand to miss this action.”
“There may be action enough here as well.” Cyprien smirked. “And I will keep our lady safe, till we are reunited.”
“See that you do,” Daspir shouted, as the oarsmen pulled his boat away. “And don’t forget our wager—we’ll bring the raghead in.” But Cyprien did not reply to this; perhaps the wind had blown his words away.
It was no great distance that their squadron had to sail, but contrary winds delayed them. Slowly the ships tacked out past the end of the promontory that stretched into the Atlantic beyond Fort Picolet. Curled like a beckoning finger, that last spit of land sheltered an inviting strip of sandy beach inside its curve.
The wind blew full in Daspir’s face from the open ocean, and the gulls whirled above them, crying. He stared at the densely jungled shoreline and thought of Pauline’s careless words. He was eager