The Black Ring

by William Westbrook

  The French sailors threw down their cutlasses, pistols, and muskets and backed against the railing as Aja and the prize crew took charge.

  “Here there,” ordered Fallon to the French crew. “Run those guns back inboard!” No sooner had the last of the 6-pounders been pulled inboard than Rascal got underway and began tacking over to the sloop. Fallon ordered the French junior officers and crew to lie down on deck, guarded by Aja and the gig’s crew. The capitaine was ordered to stand off to the side, for Fallon did not want him near his own cabin.

  With Beauty alongside at last, the prisoners could be transferred to Rascal to be locked below decks. Now Fallon was free to search the capitaine’s tiny cabin, where he found the last meal sitting half-eaten on the table with a glass of wine nearby. Fallon quickly turned his attention to the writing desk, which was locked. Looking around, he found the capitaine’s dirk, a beautiful and bejeweled dagger, and forced the lock. Inside the desk he found the log book and a weighted packet wrapped in a waxy canvas sheath bearing the official seal of the French Revolutionary Government. It was addressed to Marqués de Someruelos, Salvador de Muro y Salazar, Governor of Cuba, and it was marked: Confidentiel.

  Quickly, Fallon gathered up what he’d found and went on deck where the last of the prisoners were being securely locked in Rascal’s hold.

  The first order of business was to select a prize crew for the sloop, for Fallon intended to send her to Bermuda and the prize agent there. He had what he needed from the ship, and he wondered what message fate had delivered into his hands.

  NINETEEN

  THE SLOOP—Petite Bouton, or Little Button—had enough food and water aboard to sail to Bermuda, and Fallon planned to sail Rascal to Port-au-Prince and land the prisoners there as he had promised. What was it Beauty had said about Davies’ plan for Luna’s prisoners? Make them Louverture’s damned problem.

  Fallon had not opened the confidential dispatch he’d found aboard Petite Bouton, thinking to get it into Davies’ hands for a more informed assessment of its importance. But now he was reconsidering his decision. A French message to the Governor of Cuba was certainly intriguing, and he was consumed with curiosity about what it could be.

  It was past dusk when Rascal and Petite Bouton parted ways, the French sloop carrying Fallon’s letters to Elinore as well as a quick note to his father. Fallon was necessarily vague about his activities since leaving Bermuda, fearing to give too much away should Petite Bouton fall into enemy hands on her journey north.

  Rascal hove-to off the Gulf of Gonâve for the night; it made no sense to enter the bay not knowing what ship might be anchored there. The schooner was quiet as Fallon asked Beauty to his cabin and, by the light of candles reflecting off their wine glasses, he opened the secret packet.

  Inside was a letter from the French government to Cuba’s governor. “Good God!” he exclaimed when he was finished reading it.

  “The French government is asking the Marqués to use Santiago de Cuba as a staging area should France need to attack Saint-Domingue! It would be a massive invasion if France needed another country to stage it!”

  “Jesus, Nico! Anything else in the letter?” asked Beauty, for she was as stunned as he.

  “Only what isn’t said.”

  “What’s that?” asked Beauty.

  “Louverture’s days are numbered.”

  AT DAWN the lookout reported that the gulf was clear of ships, and Rascal weighed to begin the slow creep toward Port-au-Prince. In her hold were thirty French prisoners whom Fallon hoped to land ashore. He was still wondering how that would be received several hours later when Rascal dropped anchor in eight fathoms of water.

  The prisoners were bustled into the boats, and Fallon and twenty Rascals led the party to shore under a white flag. Once there, they were met by a large black man in a uniform who identified himself as Louis Lacroix, head of militia for Port-au-Prince. Lacroix was not confrontational in his manner, although he fronted thirty militiamen with muskets. Fallon spoke French to him easily and offered him thirty prime French seamen as volunteers for his force. Lacroix accepted gleefully, as most of the soldiers on the island were fighting to the south with Louverture and his own unit was undermanned.

  “Who is the general fighting?” asked Fallon casually.

  “Rigaud, I’m afraid,” answered Lacroix with a shrug. “He is a good man, and a free man like Toussaint, but they are rivals. Rigaud will lose, of course, but he is very clever and the war goes on longer than it should. We call it the War of Knives on Saint-Domingue because the people know of Rigaud’s skill with the sword.” Lacroix winced as he said this, feigning the cut of a blade to his throat.

  “Where are they fighting at this moment?” asked Fallon.

  “Jacmel, Captain. On the southern coast,” answered Lacroix. “Rigaud controls the eastern end of the town. Toussaint has the western end, and they are at a temporary truce to help the wounded. A runner has just brought word from there.”

  Fallon bade Lacroix good-bye, and he and his crew boarded the boats and very soon were back aboard Rascal, eager to raise the anchor and be away. It wouldn’t do to be caught by an enemy ship in the gulf. Ideas were moving quickly in Fallon’s mind, and after the boats were aboard and Barclay had set a course to take them out, Fallon asked Beauty to join him in his cabin.

  “I have been wondering what to do about this,” said Fallon as he stood by his desk staring at the letter. “Whether to act on it in some way. Perhaps get it to Louverture.”

  “To accomplish what?” asked Beauty.

  “Perhaps this letter could drive a deeper wedge between the general and the French government. It might push Louverture further toward independence.”

  “Yes, and it might also keep Louverture alive. Which means his rebellion might live a little longer.”

  Fallon nodded, and it was then that Beauty’s eyes lit up with a flicker of understanding.

  “Does getting this letter into Louverture’s hands have anything to do with what you saw in Matanzas? At the plantation?” asked Beauty, cutting to the chase.

  “It has everything to do with that,” said Fallon softly.

  Beauty studied her good friend’s face, sensing somehow that he wanted her agreement to proceed, because going to Jacmel was not part of their mission for Davies. What Fallon had seen on the Serles plantation had changed him and would now change the mission.

  “I’ll have Barclay set a course for Jacmel,” said Beauty. “You better figure out what you’re going to say to Toussaint Louverture—assuming you can find him!”

  TWENTY

  THE FRENCH government had tried to encourage, even force, Jacmel’s farmers to grow sugarcane, but the advice didn’t take. Coffee was in the farmers’ veins, and they knew their soil and climate better than anyone in Paris; as a result, the area had grown to become a coffee-trading center. André Rigaud was making a stand there, facing death or exile to France, and the famous swordsman’s small army was being hacked to pieces.

  Rascal entered Baie de Jacmel on a late afternoon breeze, and Fallon could see smoke rising from fires in the hills beyond the shoreline. A large river flowed into the bay from the north, and the village of Jacmel lay on its right bank.

  Fallon and Aja and a crew of ten seamen rowed to shore in the gig, Fallon with a white flag on a spare oar held up high. They landed the gig near the mouth of the river, slightly west of the village, in hopes the situation was still unchanged and both sides were at a truce. After a half hour walking through shrub and marsh, they found a road of sorts that seemed to meander eastward toward Jacmel. They took it, Fallon and Aja walking in the lead with the flag. Another hour and they were on the outskirts of a village, presumably Jacmel, which was pitch black and ominously quiet. Fallon could see large buildings and smaller shops but no signs of movement. He was not attempting stealth, but rather wanted to make his presence known, and he hoped the white flag of truce would be his protection. If there was trouble, his crew was armed with enough pist
ols and cutlasses for a small war.

  The road ran through the center of town, with a spur off to the left, and Fallon led the crew that way, whistling. Surely, he reasoned, no one would think an enemy planning mischief would so obviously announce themselves. The question was who would discover them first, Louverture or Rigaud?

  They had not gone fifty yards when a forceful voice ordered: “Stop that damned whistling.”

  A short, slight man stepped out of the shadows behind a warehouse that smelled faintly of coffee. Behind him was a detail of many soldiers, perhaps fifty all together, making the prospect of a fight moot. They held mostly machetes, though some had muskets with bayonets. Where they got those Fallon had no idea; perhaps from dead British soldiers.

  The short man appeared to be bowlegged and somewhat oddly put together, yet he walked up to Fallon with an air of confidence such as Fallon had rarely felt himself. He wore a military uniform festooned with many medals, and on his somewhat disproportionately large head he had a French officer’s plumed hat with a gold cockade. His skin was dark, made darker and more mysterious by the night.

  “I am Toussaint Louverture,” he said to Fallon in French leavened with a rich island patois. “Whom do I have the honor of welcoming to Saint-Domingue?”

  “I am Nicholas Fallon, captain of His Majesty’s privateer Rascal, General Louverture,” Fallon responded in French. “I was at Port-au-Prince weeks ago when the British troops were evacuated. But I’ve come back to give you a message.”

  Louverture studied Fallon carefully. “A message from General Maitland or Admiral Davies?” he asked.

  “Neither,” said Fallon. “The message is from the French Revolutionary Government.”

  Louverture took a moment to recover from the shock, no doubt weighing whether Fallon was crazy, for he had been whistling on a dark road in the middle of a war.

  “Come,” he said at last. “Step into this warehouse. Your men can wait outside.”

  Louverture led Fallon and Aja, who snuck behind his captain like his shadow, into a warehouse full of bulging burlap bags and the delicious smell of coffee beans. To the side of the main room was an office of sorts, and it was here that Louverture must have been making his headquarters, for there were lit candles that brightened the windowless room. In the center was a rough table with a map of Saint-Domingue on it.

  The two men sat opposite each other, and Louverture removed his elegant hat and plumage.

  “May I offer you some wine, Captain Fallon?”

  “Thank you, sir. A glass would be welcome,” answered Fallon. Clearly the general travelled in a certain style.

  As Louverture’s aide poured the wine, Fallon studied the general more closely. His skin was less dark by the light, and he had a pronounced separation between his front teeth. Was it a coincidence that the French word for opening was ouverture?

  “Now, Captain Fallon,” the general began, “you have my undivided attention. Clearly, you’ve come some way to deliver a message of some kind and have wandered about in the dark in a strange country—whistling—to do it, so pray let me hear what you have to say.” There was a certain twinkle in his eye as if he expected to at least be amused.

  “Days ago,” said Fallon, “I intercepted and took a French sloop off the Great Bahama Bank, sir. The ship was the Petite Bouton, and her log revealed she was on her way from France to Havana, which is curious in the first instance. But in the capitaine’s desk I found this.” Here Fallon removed the waxed packet from inside his shirt and laid it on the table in front of the general, who whistled through the ouverture in his teeth.

  “And you’ve opened this and presumably read it, I see?” asked Louverture.

  “Yes,” answered Fallon.

  Louverture opened the letter and Fallon watched his eyes fall on the signature at the bottom, then the Marqués’ name at the top, and then he began reading. When he had finished, he read it once more, his face immobile.

  “May I ask why you risked your life to bring me this?” asked Louverture evenly.

  It was the question Beauty had asked him. The answer was simple and yet somehow complicated.

  “Great Britain would like Saint-Domingue to be an independent country, not a French colony,” said Fallon. “I doubt that surprises you. If that is your wish then I have been of service to both you and my country, and I am very happy.”

  “But there is more, I perceive,” said Louverture. “You do not seem like a political agent or provocateur.”

  Fallon studied the rebel general’s face carefully. He was perceptive, and perhaps that was his power. It was a more useful skill in war than was Rigaud’s sword.

  “You are the leader that slaves the world over have been waiting for,” said Fallon earnestly. “You are the only hope for them, sir. If you are lost, France will likely bring back slavery in the colonies soon after. And then hope is lost. What I have done is little enough. What you have done, and what you will do in the future, is history.”

  There was silence in the room. Fallon had done no more than tell the truth. He knew nothing of Louverture’s plans or strategies, of course. But a man facing a massive invasion of his country might do well to make adjustments to his thinking.

  “I must thank you for bringing me this,” said Louverture, tapping the letter with his forefinger. “You give me hope for the British.”

  Fallon smiled, and Louverture reached across the table to shake his hand. “My men will see you safely back to your ship, Captain. I will never forget what you’ve done.”

  Fallon and Aja were led back outside the warehouse to where the crew still stood, and Louverture designated several guards to see them back the way they’d come. Within two hours they were all at the beach and aboard the gig, and when at last they were through the gangway and aboard Rascal, Fallon could relax.

  He found Beauty waiting for him, of course. She would not quit the deck until he was back safely. Once they’d gone below to his cabin, Fallon gave her the full report of his visit to Jacmel, including the gist of his conversation with Louverture and the general’s inscrutable reaction to the letter.

  “I think he wasn’t surprised, Nico,” she said at last. “You can’t go that far out on a limb and not expect someone to try to cut it off. He’s put his thumb in France’s eye, and France doesn’t like it.”

  “I think you’re right,” replied Fallon. “Louverture is nobody’s fool, and he would know France will not suffer a challenge to its power, even in so far away a colony as Saint-Domingue. Time will tell us if Louverture heeds the warning.”

  Suddenly, Fallon was very tired and he longed for the beckoning embrace of his cot. Beauty took notice and left to go on deck for one last turn around the ship to check the watch. They were still anchored in an enemy harbor, after all, and it wouldn’t do to be less than vigilant.

  As Beauty left, Aja slipped into the cabin and asked if he could have a word. And he said it in a way that made the tiredness in Fallon’s mind and body disappear.

  “Certainly. What’s bothering you?” asked Fallon, assuming something was. He expected it to be about the meeting with Louverture.

  “Captain, sir,” began Aja, obviously struggling, “there is something I need to tell you. Something that I did.”

  Fallon was at full attention now; the day’s and night’s events fell away as he looked at the pain on his young friend’s face.

  “I … I helped Young David escape that last night in Matanzas,” Aja blurted out. “I went back to help him.”

  Fallon was astonished. How in God’s name had the boy pulled that off? And why … well, of course he knew why. He looked at the young man standing before him, obviously afraid Fallon would be angry or hurt by his deception.

  “Aja,” Fallon said, gathering his thoughts on the fly. “That was such a dangerous thing to do! And a brave thing to do!”

  And as he thought about it: such the right thing to do.

  Fallon put his hands on Aja’s shoulders and looked at his face
a long moment. He wasn’t angry, of course. Nor was he disappointed in the least that Aja had set Young David free. In fact, his only disappointment was that he hadn’t done it himself.

  TWENTY-ONE

  THE PORT of Santo Domingo was fed by the Rio Ozama, a slow-moving river on Santo Domingo’s southern coast. Its mouth was fairly wide, but still not easily navigable by damaged vessels, their wings clipped, sides shot through, and crews depleted by battle. It was remarkable the sloops made it to the river at all; in fact, the sloop captains considered it a miracle that the Holy One hadn’t simply sailed away and left them helpless after the surprise attack by the British schooner.

  The Holy One had, of course, considered doing just that. Good sense intervened, however, and the problem of replacing the sloops and crews seemed bigger than nursing what he already had to safety and the promise of repair. It had been a slow and dangerous voyage; holding the sloops together had required constant vigilance and threats of death or abandonment or worse. Often, one of the sloops would have to be towed by the brig, which put the Holy One in a foul temper. Well, fouler than usual.

  At last, the three ships sailed through the strait between Porto Rico and Santo Domingo, with the sloops’ crews at the pumps constantly and the jury-rigged spars barely functional. Once through, they sailed around the southeast point of Santo Domingo and downwind into the generous bay into which the Rio Ozama flowed. The Holy One knew the river well and had careened his ships there before for repairs and replenishment at the settlement of Santo Domingo. It was, in fact, his only base, because most of the time his ships were afloat.

  It was frustrating and tedious to careen the sloops, patch the shot holes above and below the waterline, and search the forest for trees that could be fashioned into spars. Green wood wasn’t ideal, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. The Holy One fretted constantly at the loss of time and profits. And of particular concern was the news he’d received from the alcalde of the nearby Spanish settlement that Spain had sent two frigates to protect the trade in slaves to Cuba. One had sailed to the mouth of this very river!