“Good idea. Let’s find some and pass them out to our men, along with the word to stay alert. But don’t let anyone know about our pistols and shotguns.”
I surveyed the ground around me, seeing off in the dark a good five-foot-long branch. It was straight and would serve our purpose well. While bending to get it, I caught sight of a radiance, indistinct and barely discernible, in the woods perhaps forty feet away. I thought it maybe a village, the light deflected by a trick of jungle shadows, where we might find some government authority. The Haitians were having an animated discussion among themselves, so I beckoned Rork and we walked toward the curious glow.
Halfway there, we saw that it came out of a fissure in the ground, a crack perhaps four feet wide and twenty long. We exchanged glances. I looked back at our Haitian escort—they were still engrossed in conversation. “Let’s see what this is,” I murmured to Rork.
We cautiously trod to the very edge of the fissure, where a bamboo ladder led down ten feet into a cavern eroded into the rock. It was a large space, the volume of a ship’s launch. The light came from candles like those we’d see in the mambo’s cave, but that is where the similarities ended, for her abode was positively benign compared to this place.
The candles shared space on a crude table with bottles and animal parts and feminine personal belongings, but the most bizarre item was centered in the middle of the cavern. It was the decaying body of a black woman in a white dress, the grinning face of whom was a frightening vision of decomposition. Her hands, folded across her chest, held something, though I could not tell what without descending to get closer, something I felt no urge to do. In fact, I had to fight the urge to flee in panic.
“Oh, Saint Michael an’ Saint Patrick, don’t fail me now! Me’s ne’er seen the likes o’ this,” Rork said breathlessly, mesmerized by the gruesome sight below us. “Ah, sir . . . methinks ’tis time to return to our shipmates, straightaway.”
“My thoughts exactly, Rork. Now I know why the natives had us stay on the path to rest.”
We headed back but were too late.
“Rete! Pa bouje!”
The furious shout came from Adolfus. He stood arms akimbo on the pathway, glowering at me. I dropped the stick. Four of his men ran over and seized Rork and me by the wrists, dragging us back to the path and into the torchlight. They then backed away, leaving us standing there alone, as if afraid to be associated with the transgressors.
His eyes fierce, Adolfus indicated where I’d been and growled, “Chanm mouri nan! Blanc ensolan! ”
Corny quickly stood, held up his hands in submission, and blurted out, “Non! Sivouplè, Mesye Adolfus—adon! Padon. Nou regrèt . . .”
Adolfus was so angry he was shaking. He flung his arm forward and marched down the path, his men pulling the whites up off the ground and pushing us along behind him.
“What the hell was all that about, Corny?”
“I’m no expert on this language, Peter, but it’s a version of French. I think what he said was that you and Rork saw something outsiders shouldn’t: Chanm mouri nan —the Chamber of the Dead. He also called you insolent. From what I remember of my studies long ago, the voudou people have a place their deceased go before burial, where prayers and offerings are made to ensure a peaceful afterlife. You violated that place, though unintentionally.”
“What did you say back to him? You spoke the lingo pretty good.”
“Based on my French, I’ve picked up some basic Creole words tonight, so I begged his pardon, saying that we were sorry.”
A truer statement was never made.
***
We arrived an hour later. Fort Picolet was a four-tiered stone and brick fortress perched on the cliff at the very end of its namesake point. As we entered on the second tier, by the light of our torchbearers, I saw a row of century-old French 32-pounder cannons mounted along the parapet. Around us, the interior buildings—barracks, officers’ quarters, cookhouse, guardhouse, et cetera—were in a dilapidated condition, none of them having so much as a roof. The entry port was guarded by an impossibly young Haitian in a quasi-French uniform from the previous century. His musket was a contemporary of the cannon. He gave the impression of a theatrical chorus member, rather than a military man.
Adolfus, whose attitude had reversed completely from attentive to hostile disregard, motioned contemptuously for us to wait within a bricked ruin, uncovered like the others. He and his men then disappeared, leaving us one sputtering torch to see by. There we assembled—the living, the wounded, and the dead, from Delilah’s wreck.
It appeared that, like many small countries, the Haitian army did not garrison the fort, for that would take a thousand men. Instead, a small lookout detail was posted there. The boy soldier had two older comrades stationed on the uppermost tier of the fortress, overlooking our place of rest. They spent what was left of the night sitting on a parapet above us, discussing the bedraggled visitors. Most of their attention was directed at me and Rork. Word, it would seem, had already circulated about our transgression.
True to his nature, Rork at once began building a pile of small rocks, for use as missiles in defending our miniature stronghold, should the situation deteriorate. Dan and Absalom assisted. Even Corny, the previously ever-optimistic member of the crew, joined in. Meanwhile, our seabags were once again in our possession, and as the others were piling their stones, I checked the readiness of our weaponry inside. Cynda, still on the litter, lay there staring at the torch, her only sound a forlorn moaning.
I am sure that at this point the reader can well imagine the thoughts occupying each of our minds right then, so I will forgo that most depressing description and forge ahead to the next phase of our odyssey.
Now that our immediate defense was secure, my primary task was to find shelter, food, clothing, and medical care. After that, we would push on to find Luke. In order to accomplish any of that, I would need to meet, and get the support of, some Haitian in a senior official position.
Instead, I met a man who was to prove far more valuable than all the senior officials in Haiti, combined. His unique name and background were a great amazement to us, but those characteristics formed only a small part of an exceptional individual.
As the reader will soon understand, Sergent-Chef Vladimir Noel Yablonowski was a soldier who knew how to get things done. No small feat in a place like Haiti.
25
Sólda Rouge
Cap Haitien
Northern Haiti
Tuesday, 21 August 1888
The sun peered over the fort’s entryway when Rork roused me from a cramped slumber. Rising from the pile of stone ammunition, the solar rays seared my eyes, stunning me into temporary confusion as to my exact locale. I looked around, remembered regretfully where we were and proceeded to stretch my body. A searing throb in my back reminded me of the previous night’s wreck. That damned leg also protested when I attempted to stand, making me stumble onto Cynda, who lay next to me. She let out a cry of pain and swore a most unladylike oath.
Dan stood next to Rork, scowling at a figure approaching at the head of a line of men in uniform.
“Company’s comin’ an’ methinks it’s official,” Rork advised me.
“All right, get everybody up.”
Dan went around and woke the rest of our number, so that by the time the man and his detail of soldiers arrived at the doorway to our decaying quarters, he faced an expectant group of six white faces and one black. Unlike the other Haitians we’d encountered, this one didn’t seem fazed by our appearance in his country.
He was attired in a uniform that showed its French antecedents by the red trousers and blue cutaway coat with brass trim, topped by a black shako with red plume. His sleeve had the three thick chevrons of a senior sergeant. The other soldiers were coatless and wore simple faded fatigue uniforms that probably were once dark blue. Two of them had rifles—o
ld Springfields from our Civil War twenty-five years earlier. Modern for Haiti.
“I understand that you are Americans, so I will speak in English. I am Sergeant-in-Chief Vladimir Noel Yablonowski, second assistant to the aide-de-camp to General Florvil Hyppolite, commander-in-chief of the Department of the North. I want you to know that you are safe and under the personal protection of the general, who sincerely laments your tragedy.”
To say I was shocked is beyond an understatement. Not only did Yablonowski have a decidedly un-Haitian name, but he was speaking in fluent American-accented English. His face was in shadow at first, then he turned toward the east and I could fully study it, which only added to my surprise. The sergeant’s skin was not the dark-black of Africa, but coffee-colored, and unlike everyone we’d encountered so far, he had deep blue irises set in oval eyes, along with the high cheekbones of his Slavic ancestry. Under his kepi was not the black nap of a Negro, but curly brown hair.
I spoke for the crew. “Sergeant, please accept our heartfelt thanks for the assistance. We are in dire need of decent food, water, clothing, and medical attention.”
“And a bath,” added Cynda.
He smiled. “We will all travel into the city of Cap Haitien now. Regrettably, there is no road from Fort Picolet worthy of the name, so we must go by foot along the coastal path until we get to the road at Fort St. Joseph, where we have wagons waiting. At Cap Haitien, you will be taken to the hotel for rest and food. Clothing will be arranged. A doctor has been notified.”
“So how do you speak English so well?” asked Dan, rather too bluntly.
Yablonowski executed a half left-face, looked at Dan, and said, “Baptist missionary school, years ago, sir. Unlike many, I am a true Christian.”
“Baptist?”
“No, that was just for school. I am a Catholic.”
Roche, sat halfway up on his litter, looked coldly at Yablonowski, and uttered, “Dobrahyee ootro.”
The sergeant’s head swiveled to Roche. “Thank you, sir. Good morning to you, as well. But I am not Russian. I am one of the Polish-Haitians. It is a long story and we do not have the time right now. Come let us get going before the sun gets too strong.”
Roche grunted something and lay back down. Corny shot me a dubious glance. At that point Cynda spoke up softly. “Claire and Henri need to be buried.”
Yablonowski bowed slightly. “Yes, of course. We are very sorry for your loss, madam. I thought you would appreciate a burial in the Christian cemetery in Cap Haitien, rather than a place like here.”
He said the last with contempt, so much so that I inquired, “What exactly is this place, Sergeant?”
“This fort is very old. Adolfus put you in these ruins of the old French commandant’s quarters. His decision to put you here was bad. This spot has been used for the last sixty years as the hounfour of a malfacteur—the voudou place of a practitioner of evil doings. Over there is an altar to Ogoun, the warrior loa.”
He pointed to a small bottle in a debris-filled corner. It was surrounded by short knife blades and pikes. Red patches of clothing were scattered among the blades. Red powder was everywhere. When we’d arrived, I was dog-tired and had missed it in the dark.
“So the man was trying to send us a message?” asked Dan.
Yablonowski frowned.
“No, it was not a message to you—for you as blancs cannot really understand this. Adolfus either had too much to drink last night and did this as a joke to himself and his friends, or he did it as a gesture to the malfacteurs to show them the objects of his anger, which would be you. Ogoun the warrior is associated with the revolutionary war against the French, and sometimes now invoked against all blancs. And up there is the home of L’inglesou, the loa of wild places, who kills anyone who offends him.”
He gestured to the parapet above us, where the two soldiers had been perched, watching us in the night. “It is where the bokors, the sorcerers, conjure their concoctions.”
“What about Kalfu? Is he around here?” asked Corny. “The mambo in the cave by the sea mentioned him last night. She said that Agwè had told Kalfu about us and that he would be watching us.”
Yablonowski slowly let out a breath, looking none too happy with Corny’s remarks. It was obvious that the sergeant had been given personal responsibility for the blancs who suddenly arrived out of nowhere, probably because he spoke English. Now that task had become far more difficult.
“Kalfu is everywhere in Haiti. Everywhere you may go, people will have already heard that Kalfu is watching you.” His tone became more insistent. “You will be fine if you please do what I say and do not stray away from me. We will make arrangements to get you all out of Haiti as soon as possible on the first ship available.”
I judged it best not to tell the sergeant at that moment of our search for a missing fourteen–year-old—or of my infringement of the chamber of the dead the previous night. It appeared that I had inadvertently made quite an enemy in Adolfus. I am a Christian and therefore his pagan notions held no sway over me, but I did wonder if he would elevate his animosity from notions to actions.
Yablonowski, insistent to get under way, began issuing orders to his men, who then gestured to my people to get up and going. The soldiers had canvas army litters, and soon had the wounded and the mobile formed into a line. Ten minutes after the sergeant’s arrival, we walked out of the old fort.
As we walked east into the rising sun, none of us expressed regret that we were leaving Pointe Picolet, with its malevolent air and bizarre inhabitants.
***
The coast east of Picolet trended around to the south, toward the anchorage at Cap Haitien. The ship channel followed close inshore, where two more forts, obsolete batteries, really, covered the seaward approach to the city. St. Joseph was a small battery of half a dozen old French cannon, not maintained or guarded. We climbed onto three carts there, with a fourth carrying our dead. Passing the third battery, Fort Maydi, composed of equally ancient mortars, we rounded the final point of land and saw Cap Haitien stretched out before us.
It was a tropical sprawl with a touch of Old World elegance. A collection of formerly sophisticated stone and brick buildings, constructed with European architecture, extended along a curving coco-palmed shoreline for a mile. These crumbling structures were predominantly a faded whitewashed gray, appearing like a line of old men bent over by age and infirmity.
As the town’s suburban tentacles crept up a steep green mountainside, it changed from stone buildings to small wooden ones, some painted in the Caribbean’s ubiquitous pink, blue, and green pastels. At the upper edges of the place, physically farthest from the sea and symbolically farthest from the French cultural influence, were hundreds of thatched hovels, blending into the ever-present jungle.
Among the rooftops in the center of town, three church spires pierced the sky. A large blue and red national flag drooped in the airless humid morning from a tall mast in the center of the city, near the tallest spires. It reminded me of a corpse someone forgot to take down after a hanging execution.
The brownish-sand shoreline before us was a gathering point for careened native boats, scattered flotsam, piled cargo, draped fishing nets, rubbish, and lounging people. At the center of Cap Haitian’s waterfront curve stood a length of stone seawall, from which jutted a long planked wharf into the bay. A substantial building stood at its base, with another Haitian flag hoisted high. The only steamer in port was anchored just off the wharf. I couldn’t see it clearly, but spotted a strange apparatus at the stern, where a British red ensign hung.
Yablonowski proudly informed me that I was looking at the customs wharf. The steamer was a cable-laying ship—the company was finishing up the completion of a telegraph line that would connect northern Haiti with the world, another project of President Salomon. The apparatus was a cable drum. The ship lent a certain sense of industry to the otherwise bucolic scen
e.
***
The city’s quaint impression wilted rapidly upon closer familiarization. A strong stench first disabused my notion—a very unquaint combination of sewage in the streets and rotting fish on the beach. But we continued onward to our lodgings, located near the central plaza. When we arrived, Sergeant Yablonowski bowed and flourished his hand as we were helped down from the wagons.
“Welcome to your accommodations while here in Cap Haitien. They are the very best available, and I am certain you will find them to your liking. The account is being taken care of by the general as a gesture of our national goodwill toward the United States.”
Hotel Colon, otherwise known as the Travelers’ Hotel, stood at the corner of two streets. A run-down wood frame affair, it had seen its best days fifty years earlier. After what we’d been through, however, it looked like Eden. It was administered by a man we learned was famous in Haiti, of whom I’d never heard. With wild hair sprouting in confusion from his head, Oswald Durand was a politician and poet when he wasn’t busy being the general manager. Welcoming us graciously at the front door, he and Corny—birds of a feather if ever there were—became instant friends.
Durand, colorfully attired in a blue silk suit with an outlandish white cravat, gushed in cultured French his condolences at our loss, his delight in our survival, and his hope that we would enjoy the hospitality of the city—all in one sentence. Obviously, not everyone in Haiti despised the French and their ways.
Not to be outdone in the oratory department, Corny proclaimed in fluent French our admiration for the culture of Haiti and undying appreciation for Sergeant Yablonowski, General Hyppolite, and Oswald Durand. Too tired to muster up my own French, I just kept my mouth shut. Corny was doing fine without me.
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