Lorenzo and the Turncoat (14 page)

Gálvez rubbed his hands together. “Very well, Lorenzo! Let's get you into a Spanish uniform.”

His face reflected Lorenzo's excitement. In an odd sort of way, it felt good to be back in action.

The sun edged toward the west, casting afternoon shadows over New Orleans.

Charles played jacks with a brown-eyed girl on the church steps while her mother fed her little sister a gruel supplied by the parish priest. Charles's playmate did not speak a word of English, but they communicated nonetheless through gestures and hand signals. Little by little, he was learning Spanish.

He spotted a soldier nailing a broadside to the side of a building.

People clustered about it. The poster generated a lot of excitement and discussion.

Intrigued, Charles decided to see what was afoot. He signaled to the little girl that he would be back and strolled over to the sign. It was written in Spanish and he could only make out a word here and there.
Soldados
were clearly soldiers.
Artillería
looked like artillery. While puzzling it out, a hand touched his shoulder. He pivoted.

“Hello, Charles.” Lorenzo grinned down at him from atop a big black horse.

Charles's jaw dropped.

Overnight, Lorenzo had gone from a doctor in a traditional black suit to a soldier in uniform. He looked splendid in a white coat with blue collar and cuffs, blue breeches, white shirt, white stock, and blue waistcoat. Perched on his head was a black tricorne with a red cockade.

“Good Lord! What happened to you?”

“I became a staff officer for Colonel Gálvez.” Lorenzo nodded toward the broadside. “Thinking about joining the army? Colonel Gálvez is looking for soldiers.”

“Is that what the sign says?”

“Yes. It's good, solid employment.”

“There's a problem. I don't speak Spanish.”

“How hard can it be to learn ‘load, aim, fire'? Besides, it specifically asks for artillerymen, something you're trained to do.”

Charles stared at him in surprise. “How do you know that?”

Lorenzo glanced around to see who was within earshot. He leaned low over his horse's neck. “You didn't react when I dropped something in my office the other day. When you told me you were in the army, I put two and two together. It's common knowledge that most artillerymen are deaf as posts.”

That was true enough. Having cannons boom in your ears eventually destroyed your sense of hearing.

“You should join, Charles.”

He considered that. Lots of people were out of work because of the hurricane, himself included. Mr. Pollock let him go because merchandise in the warehouse was ruined and there was nothing for him to do. Charles lost everything when the boardinghouse collapsed. He had no money, no food, no job.

Lorenzo offered him a cockeyed grin. “You would be doing the colonel a big favor by enlisting. He needs you. He only has thirteen artillerymen and we both know that's a very unlucky number.”

Charles squinted at him. “Are you making fun of me?”

“No, I'm simply using every argument I can to convince you.”

Charles knew he could not live on the parish priest's charity forever. Lorenzo hadn't steered him wrong yet. “I hate it when you're right. Where do I sign up?”

Lorenzo pointed to a gray stone building facing the Plaza de Armas. “Ask for Captain Calderón. Tell him Lorenzo sent you. He speaks a little English and can get you squared away.”

Thomas rode toward them on a white Arabian and led a loaded pack mule by the reins. He wore civilian clothes that looked one size too big. Charles knew that Colonel Gálvez had taken the boy in after the hurricane. His brown knee britches, cream-colored shirt, and matching embroidered waistcoat probably belonged to the colonel.

Thomas drew rein beside Lorenzo. “Hello, Charles! ‘Tis nice to see thee again.”

“Hello, Thomas.”

“Are you ready,
hermanito
?” Lorenzo asked Thomas.

“Aye.”

Lorenzo stretched his hand down to Charles who gave it a firm shake.

“God be with thee,” Thomas said to Charles.

“And with you too. Godspeed.”

They rode away.

On his way across the Plaza de Armas, Charles had second thoughts about joining the army. Before, he had only been a deserter. Enlisting in a foreign army made him a turncoat. The British punished deserters severely. He had once seen a man flogged until his skin was cut to ribbons. The British executed traitors.

“There, there,” Hawthorne said as he bathed Madame's forehead in lukewarm water. The last rays of light filtered through chinks in the cabin wall. He welcomed the cool evening breezes wafting from the Mississippi.

Davy Morgan, their kindhearted guard, realized they were sweltering in the cabin and allowed Hawthorne to open the window.

Hawthorne applied a large blistering patch to Madame's neck, per the doctor's orders, and measured a dose of poppy syrup into a tablespoon. He lifted her head. “Open wide.”

She turned away.

“Come, my dear. Cooperate. It's for your own good.”

“No, Lorenzo.”

He wondered who Lorenzo was. Hawthorne placed the spoon to her lips. “Lorenzo said for you to drink this.”

She swallowed the medicine and fell asleep.

Lieutenant Colonel Dickson, commander of Fort New Richmond, sat at his supper table and petted the terrier resting in his lap. “Beg!” he ordered.

The yellowish-brown dog lifted her front paws.

“Good girl!” He fed her a morsel of chicken, white meat of course. “What a capital dog Lucy is! Don't you
agree, Jubilee? So intelligent. So extraordinary. A dog's dog.”

The slave clearing the table nodded. “Yes, sir. I suppose she's a mighty fine critter for a dog her size.”

Her size! What did he know about purebred dogs? Dickson should have sold Jubilee down the river a long time ago. All too often, he bordered on impudence.

It was a good thing he prepared food worthy of the gods on Olympus. Dickson had tasted all kinds of new dishes from Jubilee's kitchen—gumbo, grillades, étouffée. Tonight, his culinary skills shone—red beans and rice, shrimp bisque, and fried oysters.

“Lucy is ready for her bath,” Dickson said. “Take her.”

Jubilee did as ordered.

Dickson put on his hat and checked it in a mirror. He plucked a piece of lint from his jacket, readjusted his hat, smoothed his moustache, and set out for his nightly constitutional. He stopped at the south wall and peered down at men busily digging a moat around the fort. In the distance, others cut down trees to finish the palisade around the fort's walls. Work was going well, very well indeed. Three acres of sharp pointed cypress stakes would soon surround the fort. That should deter attacks.

Dickson thought about the letter he had just received from superiors in East Florida, advising him to be on high alert. Dickson snorted. The British army was the best in the world. The Spanish wouldn't dare attack.

Davy Morgan had delivered a message from Mr. Hawthorne, the unfortunate fellow whose wife had come down with scarlet fever. Dickson admired the man's devotion to his civic duty, but put little stock in the warning that Gálvez was posed to attack. The hurricane had put the New Orleans dons in their place!

Dickson's superiors planned to knock down the Spanish hornet's nest in New Orleans. He knew what
would happen then. The Spanish would pull out their stingers and attack the closest fort. That would be Fort Bute. It had been badly damaged in the spring floods and was indefensible against cannon. Perhaps the time had come to pull back to Baton Rouge.

Yes, that was what he would do. He would leave a skeleton crew at Fort Bute. Let the Spanish come!

Lorenzo and Thomas spent the night in the Spanish fort opposite Fort Bute and had breakfast with the commander. The day before, they had ridden hard up the river road, changing horses frequently at inns and trading posts. By dusk, they were five leagues from Baton Rouge.

They thanked the commander for his hospitality and swung onto their horses. Thirty minutes later, they began to pass plantations and outbuildings. Baton Rouge, a settlement sitting on a high bluff, soon came into view.

Lorenzo's nerves tightened like a guitar string. Eugenie was last seen here. His eyes swept left and right looking for clues to her whereabouts. It was a foolish hope, but on the way up the river road, he had expected to see some token to indicate that she had passed this way: a scarf tied to a tree branch or a rosary glittering from a bush. From time to time, he stopped and asked people if they had seen a redheaded French woman. No one had.

Lorenzo and Thomas rode past signs hanging from storefronts. They advertised the same services as in New Orleans, except everything was in English. There were doctors, lawyers, merchants, surveyors, tailors, carpenters, masons, tanners, butchers, blacksmiths, bakers, and gunsmiths.

People went about their early morning tasks and showed no reaction to Lorenzo's uniform. This surprised
him and suggested that soldiers from the Spanish fort frequently ventured into Baton Rouge, even though they weren't supposed to.

Lorenzo drew rein and studied Fort New Richmond from a distance.

Colonel Gálvez expected the British to make a stand at Fort Bute as the first line of defense against a Spanish invasion. Now that Lorenzo had seen both forts, he had his doubts.

Thomas stopped beside him. “Dirt walls? Do my eyes deceive me?”

“I'm afraid not.”

“Dirt?” Thomas repeated, clearly confused. “Wouldn't wood be better?”

“I know it doesn't make a lot of sense, but cannonballs splinter wood into toothpicks. Earthen walls are the best defense against artillery. Cannonballs don't damage them. They just bury themselves in the dirt.” Lorenzo watched a crow fly overhead and land inside the fort. From a bird's-eye view, it must look like a six-pointed star. Cannon barrels protruded from every angle. Sharp pointed cypress stakes surrounded the fort. It could hold off the enemy in all directions.

Lorenzo and Thomas slid down from their horses and walked the last fifty yards to two sentries on each side of the drawbridge. One was a Waldecker, a German mercenary sent by his prince to fight for King George III.

The other man wore a British uniform and asked to see their papers.

Lorenzo pulled a pass signed by Colonel Gálvez from an inside jacket pocket. “I am Major Bannister, staff officer for His Excellency, Colonel Gálvez. I have come to deliver a letter to Lieutenant Colonel Dickson.”

The sentry, a private in the 16th Regiment of Foot, inspected the paper. “Private Morgan, sir, at your service. Please come with me.”

Stiff with formality, Lorenzo handed Thomas the reins.

Thomas, playing the role of servant to the hilt, took them and trailed along behind Lorenzo and the private.

Out of the corner of his eye, Lorenzo studied an eighteen-foot-deep trench around the fort. He had read about castles with moats and drawbridges, but had always imagined water around them. This moat was dry. It was a disturbing sight. In his mind's eye, he saw a death trap where men would die if the colonel tried a frontal assault.

A cannon was aimed at the drawbridge. Any soldier trying to storm the front gate would be blasted to bits.

“I trust you had a pleasant trip, sir,” the private said.

“Very pleasant.”

“I plan to go to New Orleans some day. They say it's a nice place to visit.”

“It is. I think you'll like it.”

Lorenzo could only guess the purpose of each hut and cabin they passed. Most forts had a guardhouse, granary, arms magazine, storehouse, and barracks. A well near the parade ground indicated the fort had an ample water supply and could withstand a long siege.

The colonel will not be pleased with my report, Lorenzo thought.

The element of surprise was the only thing in Gálvez's favor. Judging by the friendliness of Private Morgan, the British were unaware that Spain had declared war.