Jackson sank gratefully into a deep leather chair and tugged off his muddy boots. When he heard the door open, he said, “I can’t eat a bite right now. Bring me a bowl of rice later. Maybe I can get that down.”
“I’m afraid I can’t offer you rice, General, only men, guns, and ammunition.”
Jackson’s head shot up and he eyed a tall, dark-haired stranger, whose face was set in a scowl. Every nerve in the intruder’s body seemed set with a hair trigger. The man reminded Jackson of nothing so much as a sleek swamp panther he had seen in the Everglades of Florida.
“Who the devil are you?”
“Jean Laffite,” he said with a slight bow. “At your service, General Jackson.”
“Damned if that’s so! I have a say in who I take into my ranks and I’ll be hog-tied and hornswoggled before I enlist a bunch of hellish banditti and have to watch my flanks every minute to make sure I don’t get stabbed in the back! I thought I made myself plain enough to Governor Claiborne.”
“I don’t believe the governor made himself plain to you. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have refused my offer in the first place.”
“Mighty cocksure of yourself, aren’t you?” Jackson stalled, running bony fingers through his disheveled hair.
“As a fighting man should be! The quickest way to be defeated is to let the enemy know that you think you can be beaten. A good bluff serves as well on the battlefield as at the poker table. Is that what you were doing, General, when you spoke to the citizens of New Orleans—bluffing?”
“I don’t follow you.”
“You said we must all rally to save the city. I don’t remember any mention of excluding those whose professions you distrust. “
“Profession? You’re a goddamn pirate, for Christ’s sake!”
Laffite moved so quickly that Jackson couldn’t follow him with his tired eyes. In an instant, Jean had the general in a throttling grip, his eyes wild, his teeth clenched.
“Don’t ever call me that! I am a privateer by profession and a smuggler by necessity. I wish to be a soldier out of patriotism, as do my men!”
Realizing suddenly that he was strangling the general, Laffite backed off. Jackson coughed and rubbed his bruised throat.
“If I agree, what do you want out of this? I can’t pay you thirty thousand like the British offered.”
“I want my men freed from the Cabildo to fight with me and I want full pardons for all after the battles are over.”
Jackson stared hard at Laffite to see if he was serious. He had expected the man to ask for half the territory at the very least.
“Pardons, huh? And, besides a band of brigands in the ranks, what can the army expect from you?”
“All the pistol flints you can use… rifles… cannons… and more damn guts than you’ve ever seen in battle!”
Jackson sat silent and considering for so long that Laffite was sure he was going to refuse again. Instead, he stuck out his large hand and nodded.
“You’ve got yourself a deal, Mr. Laffite! Now, if you don’t mind, I need some shut-eye.”
Nicolette knew from the look of triumph on Jean’s face when he entered the house that his meeting with Jackson had gone well. His eyes fairly danced with green-gold lights and his shoulders were squared with pride.
“Well, my darling,” he said to her, “you are gazing on a respectable man in the making! Dominique and Reyne, along with all the others, will soon be free to join Jackson’s forces. I’ve already sent Raymond and several others into the bayous to round up the rest of my men. They’ll receive full pardons for fighting.”
He hugged her tightly, kissing her face all over.
Fighting. The word echoed in her ears with an ominous ring. This was the first time she had actually thought about Jean going into battle. Up until now all of her concentration had been on his getting to General Jackson and being allowed to join his forces. She hadn’t thought beyond that.
As they lay in each other’s arms that night, hating to give up their intimacy after making love, Nicolette knew she wouldn’t sleep. The rain pounding the roof and rattling the windowpanes made her feel lonely and afraid. What if something happened to Jean Laffite? How could she go on without him?
She crossed her arms over her stomach protectively. It was too early in her pregnancy to feel any movement, but she knew the child was there. She wanted Jean to know, too. But how could she tell him now?
She looked at his face—so calm and peaceful in sleep. “No, my darling,” she whispered, touching him with her fingertips. “After the battle is over… when all we have to look forward to is happiness… that’s when I’ll give you the news.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Two weeks later, on December 15, panic broke out in New Orleans. Word arrived that the British were at the very back door to the city. In a three-hour battle on Lake Borgne, the Royal Navy captured the same American gunboats that had destroyed Grande Terre. Ten Americans were killed and thirty-five wounded.
People ran about the flooded streets of the city screaming, praying, trying to find guns—sure that the invaders would have the town by the throat and the women by the petticoats before nightfall.
One survivor of the battle made his way back to New Orleans with the most extraordinary tales about the “bloody Britons.”
“They brought their women with them! They got a whole boatload of wives just sitting out there off Isle-aux-Pois waiting for their husbands to take New Orleans so they can move right into our homes! They’re that damn sure of themselves. And fighting with them, you never saw the like! A bunch of murdering heathens—Choctaws—decked out in red coats, cocked hats, boots, and loincloths. And it’ll make your skin crawl to see the scalping knives sticking out of their belts, and them waving tomahawks in the air and yelping like the very savages they are!”
Nicolette overhead all of this as the veteran of the Lake Borgne conflict expounded to a group of horrified citizens outside the Bourbon Street house. She was in the process of moving back to her parents’ home until the British threat was past.
As she made her way toward Toulouse Street, she couldn’t help but ponder that the Indian soldiers could hardly look any stranger than Jackson’s tatterdemalion army, made up of Creoles, free men of color, wild-eyed riflemen from upriver, and Laffite’s own Baratarians.
She thought about Jean Laffite constantly now. He had left nearly a week before, unable to tell her where he was going or when he might return.
“Only Sir Edward Michael Pakenham, the British Commander, can tell you when I’ll be home, darling. The minute he surrenders unconditionally, I’ll come rushing back to you!”
Nicolette sighed wearily as she opened the gate to the courtyard at the corner of Toulouse and Royal. Here I am, she thought, almost three years after I left home for the first time, coming back to sleep alone in my childhood bed. Nothing changes!
But many things changed in the next few days. The weather grew worse—cold, wet, icy—a misery for the New Orleanians, who normally enjoyed mild winters. New alarm ensued with news that the British were closing on New Orleans. The women busied themselves setting up hospitals, anticipating the great battle to come.
The mood of the city grew as somber as the gray skies. The soldiers had left the city, working at a feverish pace downriver, blocking canals and bayous by felling trees. In timberless areas, bedframes were begged from the citizens to be sunk, obstructing waterways.
On the afternoon of December 23, Nicolette saw two riders coming down the street at breakneck speed. She recognized them—Colonel Denis de Laronde and Gabriel Villeré, who owned adjoining plantations just below the city. They never slowed, turning into Royal Street. Nicolette ran out to see where they were headed and followed a crowd converging on Jackson’s headquarters.
“The British!” she heard Villeré shout to Jackson, who had come out on his gallery. “They’ve made camp on my plantation! They plan to attack in the morning, General!”
“How many?” Jackson gro
wled.
“At least two thousand and more arriving all the time, sir!”
“By the Eternal!” Old Hickory roared. “They shall not rest on our soil!”
That night, through the wet darkness, a red glow tinted the sky below New Orleans. The British soldiers, drenched and freezing, wishing they were home for Christmas, indulged their misery with great bonfires. To the people of New Orleans, these mammoth blazes seemed to indicate the brazenness of their enemy and a threat as well—that New Orleans would soon be consumed by flames.
By nine o’clock that night, the battle lines were drawn: Jackson and his two thousand with their backs toward New Orleans along the boundary line of the de Laronde plantation, and twice as many redcoats facing that line. Only the Lacoste plantation separated the two armies.
On Jackson’s right lay the Mississippi and on his left, a cypress swamp filled with snakes and alligators. A dark shape cruised the river, but the British paid no attention. They took Commodore Patterson’s Carolina for ordinary river traffic and went about cooking their soggy suppers and trying to dry themselves before the fires.
Shortly after seven the next morning, a splendid red, white, and blue rocket flashed its fiery tail across the sky. A roar came from the ship riding the river: “Now, damn their eyes, give it to ’em!”
The Carolina lobbed seven rounds of 6-pound shot and grape into the confused British lines. The king’s army, “caught with their pants down,” as one jovial Kentuckian remarked, fell head over heels into panic. Bugles sounded and officers ran in circles, trying to give orders, which were ignored or never heard.
The battle raged all day, the advantage shifting back and forth. Near dark, when fog as thick as cotton came rolling in off the river, Jackson yelled to his men, “Save your guns, boys!”
Both armies fell back to regroup. British reinforcements were still coming in the back way.
Nicolette had hurried to the Ursuline Convent as soon as she saw the rocket light the sky. All through the shattering blasts of the Carolina’s cannonade, she had knelt with the gray sisters, as the Ursuline nuns were called. Only a short time later, the first of the wounded began arriving.
Marie Louise, with baby Jean sleeping safely in a laundry basket nearby, took her place at Nicolette’s side.
“Where could Jean be?” Nicolette said as much to herself as to the other woman as they worked together over a boy from Tennessee whose leg looked like a piece of split timber.
“Your Jean will be with my Pierre, amie. And, God willing, they will both be safe.”
“But what if…?”
“Silence! One does not think of what if during a battle, Nicolette.”
Soon the convent hospital was so crowded with wounded from both sides that Nicolette had little time to think about anything but her work.
When one of her childhood friends came in on a stretcher, badly wounded, Nicolette rushed to his side. She bathed the mud and blood from his face and saw immediately the look of death in his eyes.
“Narcisse,” she whispered, holding his icy fingers in hers, “can you hear me? It’s Nicolette… from dancing class.”
The young man murmured her name. His eyes focused for a moment before his slight smile turned to a grimace. He tightened his grip on Nicolette’s fingers, crying out, “God, it hurts so bad!”
“You’re going to be all right, Narcisse. I’ll take care of you.” She worked over the gaping wound in his chest, frantic to save him. He would be all right! She would not let him die!
She felt a hand grip her shoulder and looked up into Dr. de Beauchamps’ strained face. “Let him go, Nicolette. There are so many others you can help. This lad’s gone.”
“No! He’s not gone!” she cried, clutching Narcisse to her. “He can’t be!” But even as she said the words, she felt his cold still flesh against hers.
When she began sobbing uncontrollably, the doctor led her away from the scene of chaos and death to a back room and gave her a small glass of brandy.
“Drink this. Then I want you to lie down on the cot and rest for a while. You won’t be any good to anyone if you exhaust yourself, Nicolette.”
“But, Doctor, there are so many… so much to do!”
He managed a smile for her. “But, Nicolette, you can’t do it all yourself. Now, I have some news for you. A message just arrived from the front. Monsieur Laffite is safe. He had been across the river, guarding the bayou passages from the south. But now, it seems, the word has reached him that the British reinforcements are coming from another quadrant. He will return to join General Jackson.”
“He’ll be coming to the city?” Nicolette asked hopefully.
“That I don’t know, my dear. You rest now,” he said as he left.
Nicolette’s release from anxiety brought by the news that Jean was alive allowed her the first sleep she had had in two days.
The next morning dawned in ominous quiet. It seemed that the whole world sat perched on the edge of a giant precipice, waiting to fall in. The citizens of New Orleans gathered in the cathedral and the chapel at the convent to pray, or assembled in quiet groups behind shuttered parlor windows.
The British spent the day licking their wounds and bringing up more reinforcements. Jackson’s Americans worked on a big ditch, which would give them protection from the British fire when it came—as it was certain to, eventually.
Laffite joined Jackson behind the lines for a conference. “You look like death warmed over,” Laffite greeted the general.
Jackson pushed a bowl of cold rice away from him and said, “I feel like it. Dammit man, how do you live in this climate? I’ll be shivering the rest of my life. This damp Louisiana chill has taken up permanent residence in my bones.”
“A nip of this might help.” Laffite offered him a bottle of whiskey.
“If it doesn’t kill me for sure!”
“I talked to Dominique and my uncle Reyne. They are holding up well… certain of victory.”
“You did me a good turn, Laffite, forcing your band of brigands on me. If I were ordered to storm the gates of hell with Captain Dominique as my lieutenant, I would have no misgivings of the result. I don’t doubt our eventual victory over these British bastards. What’s bothering me is how long before it comes. I want to have done with it once and for all!”
The two armies continued their test of endurance into the New Year. The final contest came at daybreak on January 8, 1815, and lasted only thirty gory minutes. Jackson’s sentries reported to him that the British forces were on the move.
An eerie wailing came out of the cold, gray fog. Jackson and Laffite made their way to the lines and stared out toward the British encampment.
“Godawfulest racket I ever heard,” Jackson remarked. “Sets my teeth on edge!”
“Bagpipes,” answered Laffite. “Their Scots highlanders have joined forces.”
The skirling of pipes grew louder, telling them the opposing army was approaching, but still they could see nothing through the fog.
“Look there!” Laffite cried suddenly. “My God, it’s a line of targets coming straight for us!”
Jackson’s eagle eyes hadn’t missed the phenomenon. Out of the mists, a line of white, X-shaped targets had materialized. The strange apparition seemed to float their way on the drifting fog.
“It’s the British army,” Jackson said in a quiet voice. “The whole stinking lot of them, dressed in their spanking white cartridge belts and shiny red coats like they were going to an audience with the king this morning. Well, I’ll have to thank Lord Pakenham next time I see him. He couldn’t have given us a better advantage in this pea soup off the river. And all of ’em marching in regulation, gentlemenlike formation. Sitting ducks for my mountain boys and their squirrel guns!”
A new sound picked its way through the fog—the growling swoosh of the Congreve rocket, a weapon new and terrifying to the Americans. Jackson heard his men shriek as the red-glaring monsters screamed down on them from the sky. Even after the thing
s hit the ground, they writhed through the underbrush like so marry attacking snakes, smoking and popping until each one exploded in a burst of black fumes with an ear-splitting bang.
“Steady, boys, they won’t hurt you unless the eight-foot shaft catches you on the way down,” Jackson told his men. “Watch for them, but keep half an eye peeled on those white targets. Pick the one you want and, when I give the word, put a ball right in the center.”
All grew quiet. They waited. Only the wail of the bagpipes and the scream of the Congreves broke through the fog. Then…
“Give it to them, boys! Let’s finish this business today!” General Jackson yelled.
The Americans fired into the line of white cartridge belts, which crumpled to the mud, sixty abreast. Then the gunners at the batteries let fly. Cannonballs and grape shot smashed into the redcoated ranks. The whole battlefield erupted in flames and black smoke. The wails and screams of the pipes and rockets were replaced by the cries of dying men.
Dominique Youx, in command of Battery Number Three, called to Reyne Beluche, who was manning Number Four, “Hey, I think I’ll end this war right now!”
“Sure, Dom!” Beluche yelled back. “You just tell them all to pack it in and go home now!”
Dominique’s laughter boomed in the thick air. He had sighted his target: Sir Edward Pakenham on horseback, trying to restore some discipline to his mangled ranks.
“Fire!” Dominique roared, and so did his cannon.
The ball caught Pakenham in the legs and lower body. The British commander was mortally wounded. The Plain of Chalmette had become a bloody bog. Nearly two thousand British soldiers lay dead, including their three commanders. The Americans lost only six.
New Orleans was safe!
After the smoke cleared, the wounded were tended and the dead buried. General Andrew Jackson dictated an account of the battle, praising his men.
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