The Dark Secret of Josephine rb-5

by Dennis Wheatley

  "In the second week troops arrived from the south, the surviving whites formed themselves into armed bands, and with our superior brains and weapons we began to stamp out the revolt. On hearing of the massacres the Governor of Jamaica also sent a contingent of British troops to help us restore order.

  "As France and England were then at peace he did so on humani­tarian grounds and without any ulterior motive; but his generous gesture showed us that whereas our own government in Paris had callously thrown us to the black horde, his government considered it their duty to protect the lives and properties of white colonists. It was this which led that autumn to our repudiating the rule of France and sending delegates to London to offer our country to Britain.

  "Unfortunately, at that time, your Mr. Pitt was maintaining a policy of strict neutrality with regard to matters connected with the Revolution in France; so on those grounds he rejected our offer. In the meantime, fearing to lose France's richest colony, the National Assembly had rescinded its decree of the previous May; but its action came too late to put a stop to the bloody vendetta that the decree had started. Its only effect was to divide the colonists on the question of severing their relations with the mother country or remaining loyal to her.

  "That question was finally decided for them in the spring of '92. By then the extremists in Paris were gaining the upper hand and they forced a new decree through the Assembly. It gave absolute equality of rights with whites to both half-castes and blacks, and Commissioners were sent out with full powers to see the decree en­forced. Our Governor refused to place the white population politically at the mercy of the blacks, so the Commissioners called on the revolted slaves to support them. In addition a high proportion of the French troops had become imbued with revolutionary ideas, so sided with the fire-brands from Paris. Thus a civil war within the civil war began, in which whites, mulattoes and blacks were fighting on both sides.

  "That we survived the desperate year of '93 is nothing short of a miracle, but somehow we managed to keep the republicans and blacks from overwhelming us. At tunes though there were happenings of such horror that they beggar description. At midsummer the negroes succeeded in breaking into the fine city of Cap Francais, slaughtered the entire white population of four thousand, then burnt it to the ground.

  "Repeatedly we had appealed again to Britain to take the colony over, and as by then she had entered on war with France an agreement was reached that she should do so. But she had heavy commitments in other theatres and for many months could not spare forces to send to our assistance. That autumn, in despair, we begged further aid of the Governor of Jamaica and he nobly answered our appeal. In September the British reinforced our great stronghold at Mole St. Nicholas and they have since sent large numbers of troops who are now acting as garrisons in our principal towns. But the war continues and, alas, I see no end to it.

  Having concluded his account de Boucicault fell silent, and after a moment Roger said: "As it is now over a year since British forces landed here in some strength it surprises me that they have been able to do no more than protect a few ports. After all, in Jamaica they have a base that is no more than two days' sail distant; so they should have no difficulty in securing ample arms and stores for the waging of an offensive, whereas the negroes must be ill-armed and their supplies from revolutionary France have long since been cut off. If well directed, a few battalions of our troops ought to have made mincemeat of such a rabble."

  The big Frenchman shook his blond head. "My friend, if you think that, you are sadly ignorant of conditions here. It is true that we have been greatly disappointed in the lack of initiative shown by your countrymen, but they are by no means altogether to blame for that. Yellow fever has killed ten British soldiers for every one that has fallen a victim to the blacks. Hundreds of them have died of it, and when I was last at Mole St. Nicholas, a fortnight ago, I learned that the garrison had been reduced to a mere three hundred and seventy-eight, of whom one hundred and sixty-six were sick.

  "Again you are quite wrong in your assumption that the negroes are lacking in a source of supplies with which to continue the war. Although Spain is the ally of Britain in her war against France, here she is secretly stabbing your country in the back. As you must know, this whole island was for the first two hundred years after its discovery a Spanish possession. The western, and by far the most valuable, third of it was ceded to France only under the Treaty of Ryswick in 1697, and then became known as Saint-Domingue to distinguish it from the part retained by Spain known as Santo Domingo. The Spaniards have never given up hope of regaining the lost third with its richer plantations, and in this terrible civil war of ours they see their opportunity.

  "One of the boldest, and by far the most intelligent, of the negro generals is a man named Toussaint l'Ouverture; and he has had the good sense to make a pact with the Spaniards. They treat their slaves comparatively well, but all the same a great part of them would revolt if urged to it. He has promised to refrain from stirring up trouble among them provided their masters furnish him with the necessities of war. That suits the Spaniards, and each time the negroes suffer a defeat they retire across the frontier where our men dare not follow them; for to do so would mean having to fight Spanish troops as well as the negroes. Then when Toussaint has rested and re-equipped his forces he suddenly appears again, overruns a great area of the country and launches an attack on one of our towns.

  Roger nodded. "It is a grim picture that you paint, Monsieur; and I am truly sorry for you and the other loyalists here who have suffered so grievously. Pray tell me now, what is the present situation?"

  "Toussaint is on this side of the border, somewhere to the east of us, and it is thought that he contemplates an assault against the port of St. Louis du Nord, but no one can say for certain. The mountains and the forests provide him with excellent cover for his troops, no whites dare any longer to live in the interior, and no blacks would betray his movements; so one of his columns might appear with only the briefest warning almost anywhere. That is why I am anxious to get the ladies away to Mole St. Nicholas as soon as they are fit to travel."

  "But what of yourself? If you fear that one of Toussaint's columns might suddenly appear in this neighbourhood, it surprises me that you should remain here risking death or capture."

  "It is a risk I have long run; and as the blacks have very few mounted men, even were the house surrounded, the odds are that by taking to horse I should manage to break through and escape."

  Roger made a half rueful, half comic, grimace. "Until my wound is fully healed I fear that I should be in no case to do likewise."

  "I trust, Monsieur le Gouverneur does not suggest that I would leave him to be murdered by these wretches," retorted de Boucicault with a sudden stiffening of his manner.

  "I was but joking," Roger hastened to assure him. "It was a stupid remark, as I have no doubt whatever that you would do your utmost to save me."

  "And I have little doubt that I should succeed. But to undertake the getting away of four helpless females at the same time might well prove beyond my capabilities. It was for that very reason that long ago I sent my own wife and daughters away to live at Mole St. Nicholas."

  "It must be very lonely for you living here without them. As you are in no situation to protect your property I wonder that you continue to do so."

  "Ah, but I can protect my property! To some extent at least. And as it constitutes almost my entire fortune, the inducement to stay on in the hope of better times far outweighs the attractions of safety with my family at the price of permanent beggary."

  "The estate would remain yours."

  "That is true; but the slaves who worked it have gradually drifted away, and ever since the Boukman revolt my plantations have become more and more derelict. In the tropics it needs only a few years of neglect for fields of coffee, cotton, cacao and sugar-cane to be swallowed up by the jungle. Mine would now be of little value. But I still have the house, with its stables and a great range of
outbuildings equipped for handling the produce of the estate. They are the nucleus of the property and my sole hope of preserving them lies in staying on here."

  "Since your house servants appear to have remained loyal to you, could you not have left them in charge. In the event of a determined ~ attack, whoever was occupying the place would be compelled to abandon, it anyhow, and they would run far less risk of being mal­treated by other negroes than would you."

  De Boucicault shook his head. "If you are to govern the island of Martinique successfully, my friend, you will do well to learn some­thing, about the negro mentality; for there, too, their status has now become a problem, and will require skilful handling. In spite of what I have told you of the excesses they have committed here you must not suppose that they are all evil and sadistic by nature. It is simply that their minds are much more childlike than ours. Few of them have as. yet developed any reasoning powers, so they react swiftly to every primitive impulse of the moment, and are easily led by stronger personalities, for either good or ill. Normally, they respond to kindness as readily as those, of us who have been blessed with white skins; and during the terrible week of the initial revolt I and my family owed our lives to the fact that we had always treated our slaves as human beings. They protected us and refused to allow the revolted slaves from neighbouring plantations to set fire to the house.

  "Yet the crux of the matter is that they took that stand only because we were present, and could exert a stronger influence on them than could comparative strangers whom they had no reason to regard as in any way superior to themselves. Had we been absent they would almost certainly have joined the insurgents and gleefully participated in the atrocities committed by others of their race.

  "'Tis, of course, because I was little more than a cipher to the majority of my estate slaves that most of them were suborned by tales of easy plunder and ran away believing that the country was about to become a black man's paradise. The house slaves, on the other hand, considered themselves to be well off where they were, and I was in a position to counter any idea that by becoming outlaws they would enter into a Utopia. Nevertheless, did I depart, their minds would become fluid and subject to the first plausible rogue who sought to induce them to abandon their trust.

  "Probably they would at first refrain from plundering my belong­ings; but were they confident that I did not intend to return until the disturbances were over they would not prevent their relatives from doing so, and soon they would persuade themselves that they were behaving stupidly in letting others get away with all the loot. Within a few weeks the house would be as bare as if it were a mule's carcass that had been picked clean by vultures, yet would be crammed to capacity with negroes of both sexes and all ages.

  "That is what has happened to all the big houses in the interior. They have been stripped even to the door-knobs, and become reeking tenements which are best described by the term human ant-heaps. Banisters, cupboards and everything burnable in them is used to light fires because the inmates are too lazy to go out and collect more wood than they have to in the forests. The roofs may leak, the plaster crack, the paint peel from the walls and the floors become charred from the several cooking fires that are lit by different families daily in every room. It is no one's responsibility to maintain or repair the structures, and if their owners ever regain these places they will find that the gracious homes they left have become smoke-begrimed barren shells. That is what would happen here if I went to live in Mole St. Nicholas."

  "I see your point." Roger smiled. "All the same I marvel that during all these years of strife you have not been driven out."

  "I should have been on several occasions had I not taken precautions against being caught off my guard."

  "Such as?" prompted Roger.

  "In half a dozen places along a semi-circle, from coast to coast, running roughly five miles distant, I have negroes living who would give me warning of the approach of any hostile body. In this case it is no question of counting on their loyalty but on their greed. I pay each of them a monthly wage for doing nothing, which of course would cease if I were driven out, and any of them who brings me a timely warning knows that he will receive enough money to keep him in idleness for five years."

  "That sounds an excellent system, but no warning could prevent an ill-intentioned rabble advancing on the house."

  "On receiving one I let loose the dogs."

  Roger raised his eyebrows. "Your three dogs might drive off a few unarmed men, as was the case with Doctor Fergusson and my man Dan Izzard two nights ago, but they could do little against a mob bent on plunder."

  With a hearty laugh de Boucicault replied: "You are right in that, but I was referring to my pack. It consists of well over a hundred wild dogs: fierce mastiffs each capable of savaging a man to death. Many of the revolted slaves have shown great courage in battle, but experience has proved that these bands of marauders have no stomach for a conflict with my four-legged troops."

  "If they are wild I should have thought they would have bolted when released, instead of remaining to attack your enemies."

  "They are wild by breed but tamed to the extent that I have trained them for their work. I keep them in a big courtyard beyond the stables and no one other than myself ever enters it. As you no doubt know, the negro has a distinctive smell quite unlike that of a white man. I keep the dogs somewhat underfed and from time to time I wrap a chunk of the pig meat on which I feed them in an old garment that a negro has saturated with his sweat. In that way they have come to associate food with the negro smell. One of my slaves once ignored my order and entered the yard behind me. Before I could lift a hand to help him the poor devil was torn to pieces."

  "You have certainly evolved a most ingenious means of defence," Roger commented. "But how did you manage to collect so many wild dogs in the firstplace?"

  "That was not difficult. The forests of the island are infested with them. During the first century after its discovery the Spaniards en­deavoured to force the Indians they found here into slavery, but they proved a difficult people. Neither good treatment nor the infliction of the most cruel punishments would induce those they captured to work; while those who continued free waged a bitter unrelenting war against the white settlers.

  "Tis said that when Columbus first arrived here there were at the very least a million of them; but even after they had been defeated many times in battle and countless thousands of them slain they would not give in. From forest lairs and caves in the mountains they sallied forth to harass the invaders, neither giving nor expecting quarter. In consequence the Spaniards decided to import negroes to do their menial tasks and totally exterminate the aborigines. "To assist in doing so they sent to Spain for large numbers of hunting dogs, and with them systematically searched the forests, putting every Indian the dogs routed out—man, woman or child— to the sword.

  "When this terrible business was over they found that they had many more dogs than they could conveniently feed, so they drove the majority of them away from their settlements. Left to fend for them­selves the dogs soon became wild, and so fierce that even a small pack of them will not hesitate to attack a wild boar. Later many attempts were made to put them down, but they breed with great rapidity so there are still very large numbers of them. The actual securing of them was a somewhat dangerous business, but by digging pits in their runs it was easy for me to trap as many as I required."

  "It was certainly an excellent idea," said Roger with a smile. "I only hope that you will have no cause to let them loose while I and my friends are here—or for that matter ever again before order- is restored and you can drive them back to the forest. About the departure of the ladies, though—I doubt if Lady St. Ermins will be fit to leave her bed much before myself; her maid is far too devoted to her to leave without her, and I think we should find great difficulty in per­suading my wife to leave without me. Moreover, I am much opposed to giving them cause for alarm unless you consider the danger really pressing."

/>   De Boucicault hesitated for a moment. "I would not say that. Toussaint's army being reported as at no great distance along the coast is the only thing that causes me some uneasiness. I am confident that my dogs would drive off any band of casual marauders, but should this house chance to lie in the path of Toussaint's advance, we could not possibly put up any serious resistance. Tis that I fear, although admittedly without any special grounds for doing so. How­ever, from what you tell me there seems small hope of getting the ladies away until you are at least sufficiently recovered to stand a thirty-mile journey over rough roads in my coach; so there is little point in our discussing the matter further for the moment."

  During the week that followed the sadly battered party gradually recovered from the worst effects of its ordeals. Having once turned the corner Georgina made excellent progress. Amanda was still subject to a shooting pain inside her whenever she coughed, but Fergusson was now satisfied that it would wear off, and that she had not sustained any serious injury. The wounds of both Kilick and Roger were healing well, while of the burns, stings, and blisters that had afflicted the others, few traces remained.

  Tom alone continued to give them anxiety. He had weathered the crisis but it had left him so weak that Fergusson feared that he might yet be carried off by a relapse^ and declared that in any case it would be out of the question to move him for another week at the very least. Owing to Georgina's already having become convalescent and Roger's good prospects of soon being able to get about again, de Boucicault reopened with him the question of their leaving, suggest­ing that with the exception of Tom, whom he undertook to have well cared for, they should all set out for Mole St. Nicholas in a few days' time. Roger put the matter to Amanda, who in turn spoke to Georgina, but she would not consider even temporarily abandoning her servant until he was definitely pronounced out of danger; so there the matter rested.