Island Beneath the Sea (28 page)

"Because I sympathize with the government of the republicains," was Zacharie's simple answer.

"How did you obtain this information? Do you have proof?"

"The information comes directly from General Galbaud. You will have the proof in less than an hour, when you hear the first shots."

Sonthonax wet his handkerchief in the water jug and wiped his face and neck. His stomach hurt, the same persistent pain, a claw in his guts, that tormented him when he was under pressure, that is, from the time he first stepped onto the soil of Saint-Domingue.

"Come back to see me if you learn anything more. I will take the necessary measures," he said, indicating the end of the interview.

"If you need me, you already know I am in the Intendance, Commissaire," and Zacharie took his leave.

Sonthonax immediately summoned Etienne Relais and received him in the same room, because the rest of the building was filled with civil officials and military men. Relais, the highest ranking officer he could count on to confront Galbaud, had always acted with impeccable loyalty to whatever French government was in charge.

"Have any of your white soldiers deserted, Major?" he asked.

"I have just learned that they all deserted this morning at dawn, Commissaire. I can count only on the mulatto troops."

Sonthonax repeated what Zacharie had just told him.

"That is, we will have to combat whites of all types, civil, military, in addition to Galbaud's sailors, a number that adds up to three thousand," he concluded.

"We are at a great disadvantage, Commissaire. We will need reinforcements."

"We do not have them. You remain in charge of the defense, Major. After the victory I shall make certain you are advanced in rank," Sonthonax promised.

Relais accepted the task with his usual serenity, after negotiating with the Commissaire to be granted permission to retire rather than advance in rank. He had spent many years in the service, and frankly, he was exhausted. His wife and his son were waiting for him in Cuba, and he was eager to rejoin them, he said. Sonthonax assured him that would be done, without the least intention of doing so. It was no time to worry about anyone's personal problems.

In the meantime, the port was aswarm with boats filled with armed sailors, who fell upon Le Cap like a horde of pirates. They formed a strange lot of various nationalities, lawless men who had been months at sea and were eagerly awaiting a few days of drinking and wantonness. They did not fight out of conviction, since they were not even sure of the colors of their flag, but from the pleasure of stepping on dry land and abandoning themselves to destruction and sacking. They had not been paid in a long time, and that rich city offered everything from women and rum to gold, if they could find it. Galbaud was counting on his military experience to organize the attack, backed by the regular troops of whites, who immediately joined his band, fed up with the humiliations they had suffered under soldiers of color. The
grands blancs
kept themselves invisible, while the
petits blancs
and the sailors ran through the streets, coming upon bands of slaves who like them had taken advantage of the bedlam to come out and sack. The Negroes had declared themselves loyal to Sonthonax to annoy their masters and enjoy a few hours of reveling, though it was the same to them who won that battle in which they were not included. Both factions of improvised ruffians assaulted the warehouses of the port, where barrels of rum were stored for export, and soon alcohol was flowing down the cobbled streets. Among the drunks ran disoriented rats and dogs staggering around after licking up the liquor. The families of the
affranchis
barricaded themselves in their houses to defend themselves as they could.

Toulouse Valmorain sent his slaves off; they were going to escape anyway, as most others had done. He preferred not to have an enemy inside the gate, as he told Tete. They weren't his, only hired, and the problem of recovering them would belong to their owners. "They will come dragging back when order is restored. There will be busy times in the prison," he commented. In the city, masters preferred not to dirty their hands but sent guilty slaves to prison, where for a modest price state executioners took charge of inflicting punishment. The cook did not want to go, and hid in the patio woodpile. No threat could get him out of the hole he was hiding in; he could not be counted on to prepare soup, and Tete, who since none of her multiple labors had to do with cooking barely knew how to light a fire, gave the children bread, fruit, and cheese. She put them to bed early, pretending to be calm so she wouldn't frighten them, though she was shivering herself. In the following hours, Valmorain taught her to load firearms, a complicated task that a soldier performed in a few seconds and she in several minutes. Valmorain had shared some of his weapons among other Patriots, but he held on to a dozen, preparing his defense. In his heart he was sure he would not need to use them; it was not his role to fight, that was what the soldiers and Galbaud's sailors were for.

Shortly after sunset three young conspirators whom Tete had often seen in the political meetings came to the house, bringing notice that Galbaud had taken the arsenal and freed the prisoners Sonthonax had in the ships to be deported, and naturally all of them had put themselves under the general's orders. They decided to use the house as a barracks because of its privileged location and clear view of the port, where a hundred ships and numerous boats transporting men could be seen. After a light snack they left to take part in the fight, but their enthusiasm lasted only a short time, and within an hour they were back to share bottles of wine and take turns sleeping.

From the windows they watched the horde of attackers passing by, but only once were they forced to use the weapons to protect themselves, and that was not against bands of slaves or against Sonthonax's soldiers but against their own allies: some drunken sailors intending to sack the house. They frightened them by shooting into the air, and Valmorain calmed them by offering them
taffia.
One of the Patriots had to go outside, rolling a barrel of liquor, while the rest kept aim on the band from the windows. The sailors opened the cask right there, and after the first swallows several dropped to the ground in the last stages of intoxication; they'd been drinking since that morning. Finally they went away, shouting that the supposed battle had been a fiasco, they'd had no one to mix it up with. It was true. The greater part of Sonthonax's troops had given up the streets without showing their faces and taken positions on the outskirts of the city.

At mid-morning the following day, Etienne Relais, wounded by a ball in his shoulder but firm in his bloodstained uniform, explained once more to Sonthonax, who'd taken refuge with his staff on a nearby plantation, that without aid of some kind they could not defeat the enemy. The assault no longer had the carnival air of the first day; Galbaud had succeeded in organizing his men and was about to take over the city. The irascible Commissaire had refused to listen to reason the previous day when the overwhelming superiority of the enemy force was already evident, but this time he listened to the end. Zacharie's information was proved to be absolutely accurate.

"We will have to negotiate an honorable way out, Commissaire, because I see no way to acquire reinforcements," Relais concluded, pale and hollow-eyed, his arm bound to his chest in an improvised sling, the sleeve of his jacket hanging empty.

"I do, Major Relais. I have thought about it carefully. There are more than fifteen thousand rebels camped outside Le Cap. They will be the reinforcements we need," Sonthonax replied.

"The Negroes? I do not believe they want to get involved in this," said Relais.

"They will in exchange for emancipation. Freedom for them and their families."

It was not his idea, it had occurred to Zacharie, who had found a way to meet with him a second time. By then Sonthonax knew that Zacharie was a slave and realized that he was betting everything on one play, because if Galbaud was victorious, as seemed inevitable, and if he learned of Zacharie's role as informant, he would be broken on the wheel in the public
place
. As Zacharie had explained to him, the only help Sonthonax could summon were the rebellious blacks. All he had to do was give them sufficient incentive.

"And in addition they will have the right to pillage the city. What do you think, Major?" Sonthonax announced to Relais with an air of triumph.

"Risky."

"There are hundreds of thousand of rebel blacks scattered around the island, and I have a way to get them to join with us."

"Most of them are on the side of the Spaniards," Relais reminded him.

"In exchange for freedom they will put themselves under the French banner, I assure you. I know that Toussaint, among others, wants to return to the bosom of France. Choose a small detachment of black soldiers and come with me to speak with the rebels. They are at an hour's march from here. And look after that arm,
mon ami
, don't let it get infected."

Etienne Relais, who had no faith in the plan, was surprised to see how quickly the rebels accepted the offer. They had been betrayed again and again by whites, but they clung to that frail promise of emancipation. The pillaging was a hook almost as powerful as freedom, because they had been inactive for weeks, and boredom was beginning to sap their spirits.

Blood and Ashes

F
rom the window of his balcony Toulouse Valmorain was the first to see the dark mass advancing from the hill toward the city. It was difficult for him to realize what it was because his sight was not as good as it had been, and there was a light fog; the air vibrated with heat and humidity.

"Tete! Come here and tell me what that is!" he ordered.

"Negroes, monsieur. Thousands of Negroes," she replied, unable to avoid a shudder, a mixture of terror before what was coming toward them and hope that Gambo was among them.

Valmorain waked the Patriots snoring in the drawing room and sent them out to sound the alarm. Soon all the neighbors were inside their houses, bolting doors and windows, while General Galbaud's men crawled out of their drunken state and readied themselves for a battle that was lost before it was begun. They did not know it yet, but there were five blacks for every white soldier, and they came inflamed by the demented courage Ogoun had instilled in them. The first sounds heard from them were a hair-raising saraband of howls and the clear call of war conchs growing louder and louder. The rebels had a far greater number of combatants, and they were much closer than anyone had suspected. They set upon Le Cap in the midst of a deafening tumult, nearly naked, badly armed, without order or plan, ready to demolish everything in sight. They could avenge themselves and destroy at will, with no threat of punishment. In the blink of an eye thousands of torches were lit and the city became one enormous flame, the wood houses catching fire as if from a contagious illness, one street after another, entire quartiers. The heat was unbearable, the sky and the sea were stained with reds and oranges. Through the crackling flames and the crashing of buildings collapsing amid smoke rose the clear sounds of the blacks' cries of triumph and the visceral terror of their victims. The streets filled with bodies trampled by the attackers, by whites running for their lives, and by hundreds of stampeding horses loosed from stables. No one could offer resistance to such an onslaught. Most of the sailors were massacred in the first hours, while Galbaud's regular troops were attempting to save civilian whites. Thousands trying to escape ran toward the port. Some were trying to haul bundles, but after only a few steps they tossed them aside in their haste to escape.

Valmorain was taking in the situation from a window on the second floor. The fire was already very near, a spark would be enough to turn his house into a bonfire. In the side streets he saw bands of sweat-and blood-soaked blacks unhesitatingly moving toward the weapons of the few soldiers left standing. The attackers were falling by the dozens, but others came right behind them, leaping over the piled-up bodies of their brothers. Valmorain saw a group surround a family trying to reach the docks, two women and several children protected by an older man, surely the father, and a pair of boys. The whites, armed with pistols, were each able to get off a point blank shot, only to be immediately surrounded and erased from view. Several Negroes were carrying decapitated heads by the hair; others had broken down the door of a house, its roof already ablaze, and were yelling as they burst through. A woman whose throat had been slit was thrown out a window; furniture and household goods followed, until the flames forced the assailants outside. Minutes later Valmorain heard the first blows against the main door of his own house. The terror that paralyzed him was not unknown; he had suffered the identical fear when he'd escaped from his plantation following Gambo. He did not understand how things could have turned around so radically, and how the uproarious noise of drunk sailors and white soldiers in the streets, which according to Galbaud would last only a few hours and end in a certain victory, had become this nightmare of enraged Negroes. He was holding his pistols in fingers so stiff that he could not have fired them. He broke out in a sour sweat whose stench he could recognize: the odor of the impotence and terror of the slaves Cambray had martyrized. He felt that his fate was sealed and that like the slaves on his plantation, there was no escape. He struggled against nausea and against the untenable temptation to curl up in a corner, paralyzed in abject cowardice. He felt a warm liquid soaking his breeches.

Tete was in the center of the room with the children hidden among her skirts, holding a pistol in both hands, the barrel pointing upward. She had lost hope of finding Gambo; if he was in the city he would never reach her before the mob arrived. She could not defend Maurice and Rosette alone. When she saw Valmorain wetting himself with fright, she realized that the sacrifice of having left Gambo had been useless. The master was incapable of protecting them; it would have been better had she gone off with the rebels and run the risk of taking the children with her. The vision of what was about to happen to her children gave her the blind courage and terrible calm of those knowing they are going to die. The port was only two blocks away, and though the distance seemed insuperable under the circumstances, there was no other hope for safety. "We are going to go out the back, through the door for the domestics," Tete announced with a firm voice. Blows were thudding on the front door, and she could hear glass breaking in the windows on the first floor, but Valmorain believed they were safer inside, that they might somehow hide somewhere. "They are going to burn the house. I am leaving with the children," she replied, turning her back on him. At that instant Maurice thrust his small face, grimy from tears and runny nose, from behind Tete's skirt, and he ran and threw his arms around his father's legs. A current of love for that boy shook Valmorain, and he became aware of his shameful state. He could not have it that if his son miraculously survived he would remember him as a coward. He took a deep breath, trying to conquer the shivering of his body, stuck one pistol into his waistband, cocked the other, took Maurice by the hand, and almost pulled him off his feet following Tete, who with Rosette in her arms was already running down the narrow spiral stairs that joined the second floor with the slaves' quarters in the cellar.