Authors: Nick Lake
Flash
.
A gun went off next to me, and suddenly time started again. I saw Marguerite duck as someone – some fucker – shot at her. There was a smell of cordite in the air, the gulls were wheeling in the sky above me again, and I could hear screaming.
Marguerite looked up as I dived against the wall of the truck for shelter. For a moment I thought, she’ll come here, she’ll run toward me. But then a guy in a balaclava – he was clutching his arm and there was blood coming from it – grabbed her and pushed her, made her run, stumbling, beside him. I snapped out of it, and saw that the truck guard, who was still alive, was coming round to where we were.
We’ve won, I realized. There were several bodies lying on the ground below the truck, most of them wearing balaclavas. But there were a couple of citizens, too. I thought, those Boston motherfuckers. We were just giving out food and they came and shot us up.
But that wasn’t all I was thinking. I was also thinking about Marguerite.
She’s alive.
She’s with Boston.
She’s everything – she’s hope, she’s life, she’s the future – not this gangster bullshit of the cars and the cribs and the hos.
Together, we’re Marassa. We have power. We can heal. We can see the future – we can change it, even. I didn’t believe this before, but then I thought, what if it’s true? Marassa can make broken things whole, make people walk whose legs are wasted. What if Marassa can heal the Site, too? What if Marassa can mend these streets, put Route 9 and Boston back together? We got nothing but love for our crew; we got nothing but steel for the haters. But what if we had love for everybody? With Marguerite, I could do anything. We think together. We are two halves of one person. We could use our power. Fix things.
But alone I am nothing. I have to have her with me if we’re going to be able to do anything to heal this Site in which we live, to change its future.
I have to rescue her.
Toussaint l’Ouverture gazed at the town of Guildive on its little hill by the sparkling sea. Once again, he was lying on his front, breathing in the earthy smell of his country.
This was it. This was hope, this was the future, this was the freedom of the Haitian republic.
This was everything.
For months, he had ridden tirelessly. It was said of Toussaint that he and his horse were one compound being, for he was only ever seen riding on it. He had maintained control of his stronghold at Dondon, he had held Marmalade, he had held la Grande Rivière, expulsing all the French soldiers who had dared to land on Haiti. All of these places he had held by his tenacity, and his omnipresence. Early on, he had understood that to inspire the troops he must be everywhere. So he went everywhere, on his horse and sometimes on other horses, because a horse did not possess the same energy he did, the same drive. He slept three hours every night, and the rest of the time he rode.
If there were battles, he fought at the front of them. If there were wounded men, he was at their side. If there were crops to be planted, he was at the head of the row, singing the old songs, dictating the rhythm of the working.
The French had been defeated. The Republic of France had declared the slaves free, and this was no mere martial trick; this was a solemn declaration of the French government. Right now, though, he had one final problem to deal with, and then Haiti would be truly free.
Guildive.
The English had landed at several port towns, and had been repulsed from all of them eventually. But still they clung onto Guildive, which they had fortified with cannons taken from their ships. Haiti was a rich prize, one well worth the expenditure of the lives of English sailors. Toussaint had learned the value of the nation’s slaves alone from Brandicourt, who had inspected the country’s balance sheets himself, and swore it was the larger part of one billion francs.
Toussaint had been surprised to learn that Haiti’s slaves were worth more than its exports, and Brandicourt had explained that an export is a fixed quantity, whereas a slave can keep on growing food or rearing animals or building all his life, and that their tenure can be lengthy if the master is not too cruel.
Slaves: nine hundred million francs.
Exports: two hundred million francs.
No wonder the whites had been so desperate to keep Haiti enslaved.
Now the English wanted that money for themselves, and it fell to Toussaint to stop them. He put away his spyglass and crawled back through the undergrowth to Jean-Christophe.
— I see new fortifications, he said. Ditches, and the like. But there are soldiers milling around outside the walls. They don’t know we’re here.
— Are you sure?
Toussaint smiled.
— I’m never sure. But it’s worth the risk.
The two men walked back to a carriage that had been halted under the trees whilst they examined the fortifications at Guildive. Six of Toussaint’s picked men stood around it. Toussaint approached the door and swung it open. Peering in, he saw a terrified woman, in the autumn of her life, her jowly cheeks wobbling. Beside her sat a rigid gentleman in a cravat, with gray whiskers.
— Please, sir, the man said, revealing himself to be French. You can take everything. Everything. Just, please, leave us our lives.
Toussaint tried not to be too offended by the man’s assumption that he was a bandit.
— Where are you going? he asked.
— To Guildive, said the man.
— Why? Tell the truth, or my men will kill you.
The man seemed about to lie, then thought better of it.
— What’s the point of staying? he said. We have no country here. I thought . . . I thought if the English won, we would be on the right side. And if they didn’t, well, perhaps I could pay our passage on one of their ships.
— What do you mean, you have no country?
The man quailed.
— You . . . I mean, the blacks . . . they took our land.
Toussaint sighed.
— We took no such thing. We are not thieves, sir. We took our freedom. We require some measure of the land, of course. We must needs eat. But it has always been my intention to restore much of the land to the plantation owners.
— Really?
— Yes, but it doesn’t matter now. Since you have declared for the enemy, the English, now you are prisoners of war.
— Oh no! Please don’t kill us, cried the woman.
Toussaint smiled.
— I don’t intend to. I merely intend to take your carriage and your riches.
He peered further into the carriage, seeing the rolled-up carpets, the chandeliers, the candlesticks, and the silver cutlery.
— You said you weren’t thieves, said the man.
Toussaint was almost impressed. A moment ago the Frenchman had seemed entirely without backbone; now he was showing some spirit.
— We’re not. In fact, we’re going to give your goods away. The money, too.
The man frowned and seemed about to say something, but Toussaint was bored of the conversation. He waved to one of his lieutenants.
— Take these fine people and remove them to Dondon, he said. This man wishes for land. Give him a plot on one of the south-facing hills, a good one – use your discretion. Our men will help him to build a house if he agrees to share the bounty of his land when others are hungry.
— Oh, dieu soit loué, said the white man.
Praise be to God.
Toussaint gave the man the benefit of his gap-toothed smile.
— Vous pouvez m’appeler simplement l’Ouverture, he said.
You may simply call me l’Ouverture.
Jean-Christophe burst out laughing.
Toussaint allowed himself a laugh, too. He wasn’t aware that he had ever made a joke before, but he was in a good humor. If all went well, soon the entire country would belong to her people.
When the man and his wife had been escorted away, Toussaint turned to Jean-Christophe.
— You don’t have to do this, he said.
— Of course I do, said Jean-Christophe. I’m the mulat. They wouldn’t believe it if a black came looking for shelter in Guildive.
Toussaint stepped forward and embraced the man. He was surprisingly wiry for one whose actions had so influenced the course of the war. Toussaint felt emotion brimming within him. Jean-Christophe was young enough to be his son, and he knew he would be proud if his son grew up to be half so brave.
— They’ll call out your name all over the land, he said. They’ll make up songs about you.
— They already do, said Jean-Christophe. The women, anyway.
He kissed Toussaint on the cheek as Toussaint rolled his eyes, then stepped up into the carriage.
The next morning, Toussaint led his army to the base of the hill of Guildive – not within firing distance, but close enough that the English could see him there, arrayed in all his force. Jean-François rode beside him. After the death of Biassou, the man had been more than happy to defer to Toussaint as overall commander.
It was Toussaint’s habit in war to attempt some kind of parley, ever since he had forced the French to surrender in that valley. He preferred to avoid fighting, if at all possible. But there were always exceptions. The English had never had any claim to this land; they were merely opportunists who had landed here in the hope of securing nearly one billion francs’ worth of slaves. They were not like the French, who genuinely believed they had some right to the territory, who defended it from what they saw as the depredations of the blacks. These English had no business being here, and Toussaint did not intend for any of them to remain to foment rebellion and undermine his government once he had control of the country.
He intended that they should depart the isle or die.
Still, there were such things as appearances, even if some attached too much importance to them. He rode close to the town walls, a white flag fluttering above his horse.
An Englishman with a shock of white hair leaned out over the wooden parapet.
— Surely you can’t hope to take us by force, he said in heavily accented French. We have cannon, muskets, and enough shot to last two months.
I’m counting on it
, thought Toussaint.
He had prevented the English from landing at a dozen points, so the town of Guildive was crammed with soldiers and equally crammed with guns and gunpowder. Seven Royal Navy galleys lay at anchor just beyond the reach of Toussaint’s guns.
One of the things that had surprised Toussaint, along with his sudden and miraculous ability to read, was the fact that his French had improved enormously. He had spoken French before, with his master, but not often, and he was more comfortable in the Creole of the slaves. When he spoke French he had always felt as if he were wearing one of the restrictive suits the whites wore, with those neckties that choked the throat. Now, though, with whatever spirit that had possessed him at Bois Caiman inside him, he wore French as if it were something he had always owned.
— I don’t hope anything, he said. I know.
— Pardon? said the man on the parapet.
— You will lose this battle, Toussaint said. Better to go to your ships now and leave this country.
The man laughed.
— We’re the British Navy, he said. You’re untrained negroes. If you insist on fighting, you’ll be crushed.
Toussaint shrugged.
— Have it your way, he said.
He turned and rode back to his troops. It didn’t matter what he said; it didn’t matter what the English said. They thought themselves incapable of losing, much less of losing to a black rabble – that was the only thing that mattered.
He lifted his hand and gave the signal for attack. A sorry, bedraggled row of soldiers staggered forward under the blazing sun. It was nearly midday, a terrible time to fight a battle. That was precisely why Toussaint had chosen it.
Jeers and catcalls went up from the English soldiers on the parapet as the pathetic troops advanced, unsteady on their feet, their weapons barely raised.
They think we’re an army of péquenots
, he thought.
Untrained peasants. And that’s all to the good.
He was surprised that the English had not yet noticed that to all appearances his army was not black.
But then, just as he began to despair of their intelligence, a cry of alarum went up from one of the town’s defenders.
At almost the same time, the men in the front ranks of his army began to clamor, the fear of the guns bristling on the parapet outweighing the fear of the bayonets and machetes and guns behind them, which had been forcing them forward.
It doesn’t matter
, thought Toussaint.
The more chaos the better.
— We’re English! the ragged front line shouted.
— Don’t fire!
— Don’t shoot – we’re English!
The English prisoners, captured by Toussaint’s men at other port towns and reserved expressly for this purpose, began to wail, and their line broke. An over-exuberant black, one of Toussaint’s army who was herding the English prisoners forward, stabbed one of them in the back and he went down. Then there was confusion and a mêlée. There were black soldiers in amongst the English captives, too – Toussaint had made sure of that – and whilst the men in the town would not fire for fear of killing their compatriots, these black soldiers, hidden within the mass of captives, were shooting upward. Toussaint saw a body fall from the ramparts, two, three . . .