Queen of Swords
Page 74

“I did,” he said. “I sat and drank with Dominique You more than once, and with Lafitte and his brother. I’ve watched them argue among themselves, and I’ve been nearby when worse has happened. They aren’t men to cross. No doubt it was one of them who fired on the field hospital from the Carolina. The naval commander is a competent man, and wouldn’t have ordered such a thing.”
“It’s our bad fortune that they threw in their lot with Jackson,” said one of the older soldiers. “If anybody can keep us out of the city and drive us back to the sea, it will be the fookin’ Baratarians.”
There was a morose silence as the fire spat and flared. The men needed a victory, but the best Kit could offer them was diversion.
He said, “There’s a story about one of them—”
All eyes turned to him as if he were offering heavenly salvation and a pint of ale for the journey.
“A renegade even by their standards. You understand that the Baratarians have their own rules, and Lafitte is the commanding officer. He tells them what ships they can attack and board, what prizes they may take and which they should leave in peace. But there’s a captain of a morphidite schooner called the Puma—I’ve never seen her, but I’ve heard tell that under sail she’s all wings and no feet.”
“And her captain?”
“He’s called Ten-Pint. I don’t know his real name, but he’s a Frenchman like most of Lafitte’s men.”
“Fond of the drink, is he?” A soldier with a nose as round and red as a strawberry asked this question, out of what was clearly fellow feeling.
Kit cleared his throat. “I’m sure he is, but that’s not where his name comes from.
“The stories about him are legion. He goes his own way and does as he pleases, damn Lafitte. Once he threw a cabin boy overboard with a flick of his wrists for nothing worse than spilling a bucket of water. And that’s the very least. A man who steals from him may get away, but sooner or later, Ten-Pint will take his revenge. And when he finds his prey he always says the same thing: ‘I’ve no interest in a pound of your reeking flesh, but I’ll take ten pints of your blood.’ ”
“And he’s over there, with the rest of the Baratarians?” asked the younger man, glancing to the north.
“I assume so,” said Kit Wyndham. “I hope never to find out directly.”
“Aye, weel,” said the deep voice from a soldier sitting in the shadows. “If Pakenham don’t get the guns we need, you may yet shake Ten-Pint’s hand.”
The mood shifted immediately.
“It’s not Pakenham’s fault,” said the older soldier. “It’s Keane, who set us here in the muck in the first place, sixty miles from provisions.”
“Colonel Rennie is worth three of Keane,” said one soldier. “That was clear enough today.”
“And Thornton,” offered another man. “Ten times Keane’s worth.”
“Rennie might have saved the column, if not for Keane yanking at him, like a dog on a chain.”
“More than a hundred dead this day. And not one step have we took over that damn Rodriquez Canal.”
There was a grim silence from the circle of men, undercut only by occasional screams. Raw opium wouldn’t be enough to dull the pain of losing a leg to a surgeon’s saw.
An ensign was moving down the field, calling out a name. Before he was in hailing distance, Kit knew the boy was looking for him. He was tempted to walk away and sleep in a hay barn where he couldn’t be found, but years of training weren’t so easily discarded. Kit stood and identified himself.
“Who sent for me?”
“The general, sir.” The boy’s arm was in a sling and he limped. Kit wondered in passing how many men were whole and uninjured.
Junior officers were milling about on the veranda, talking in low voices. As Kit climbed the stairs, a single shell came whistling over the trees and exploded in what had once been a garden. One of the men on the porch fell to his knees belching blood, and another dragged him away.
“This way, sir,” said the ensign. His eyes were glazed, and his tone unremarkable.
Pakenham was pacing the main room, his chin lowered to his chest and his hands clasped at the small of his back. His color was bad; deep lines had dug themselves into his cheeks and along his mouth.
Keane sat on the other side of the room, his whole body turned away, a man who desperately wanted to be alone but could not leave. The rest of the staff moved about restlessly.
Pakenham stopped and turned on his heel to Kit. His mood was black with self-recrimination, which Kit found somehow comforting. He was an honorable man, an excellent officer, and his hands were tied by fate and the decisions made before he arrived.
“Gunpowder,” said Pakenham.
“Sir?”
“Lafitte’s secret store of gunpowder. You know where it is. Show me.” He jerked his head toward the map spread out on the table.
After a moment’s study, Kit’s finger traced the curve of the river. It was a very good map, but not a perfect one.
“Here,” he said, putting his finger on a spot in the ciprière south of the city, on the opposite side of the river.
“You are familiar with the lay of the land?”
Kit agreed that he was.
“Good,” said Pakenham. “Take what men you need, and go seize it.”
Kit hesitated for only a second, but Keane took the opportunity. “He’s afraid of being taken prisoner. Of being shot as a spy.”