Page 44
I t took two days for Duardo and Stubb to locate General Jackson, another full day to gain an audience.
During that same time word was carried on the wind that the British fleet had arrived in Pensacola where Major General Sir Edward Pakenham had assumed command of the infantry.
Part of the fleet was promptly sent to Lake Borgne, one of three potential points to launch the invasion of Louisiana.
They found access to the lake was blocked by the same gunboats that had so recently and successfully destroyed Barataria Bay.
This time, however, the Americans were soundly defeated by the superior firepower of the British frigates.
Hearing of the loss of ships along with their captured crews—manpower he could scarcely afford to lose— Jackson grudgingly agreed to the proposed parlay with Jean Lafitte.
The clammy air was thick with fog. The crescent moon was somewhere above the canopy of cypress trees, all but invisible, and below it, the swamp was alive with the sound of frogs, the hissing of insects, the occasional splash of unseen creatures.
Perpetually damp earth was covered in a tangle of waterlogged roots and rotted vegetation that tainted the air with a pungent, sour smell.
A clearing in the bayou midway between New Orleans and Barataria had been chosen as the meeting place.
Lafitte’s men arrived first and set up a broad semi-circle of muted lanterns.
The fog reduced the light to a brownish-yellow glow that barely served to break the menacing darkness that surrounded the small clearing.
It was as eerie as a nightmare and, having lost all sense of direction in the bayou, Rose imagined Lafitte and his men could douse the lanterns and disappear into the fog, leaving her to wander forever in the swamps.
To that end, she was thankful for Fonteyne’s presence, hoping he, at least, might know the way back to the beach.
Jean Lafitte stood at the edge of a murky bank, his breath forming clouds in the chilly air. After straightening his waistcoat and adjusting the collar of his coat for the tenth time, he shook his head and scowled. “He is not coming. I knew this was a mistake. He is not coming.”
“We only just arrived ourselves,” Fonteyne said. “Give the man a chance. He’s probably never ventured into the bayou before.”
“I know how he feels,” Rose muttered, slapping at a mosquito. “Each one of my boots has an extra ten pounds of mud and slime clinging to them.”
“Someone is coming,” Billy whispered. She melted back into the gloom, a pistol in each hand. At a nod from Lafitte, three of his men went with her, leaving four of Fonteyne’s men standing in the ring of lanterns.
In a moment, Stubb’s distinguishable voice could be heard through the mist cursing at the incessant clouds of insects.
Moments later he appeared wearing enough wrappings of rags and clothing it would have acted as a barricade to bullets, let alone insects.
Striding out behind him was Duardo, bare-chested but for his leather cross-belts, and two of Lafitte’s guides.
“Ee’s not human,” Stubb protested, tossing a thumb over his shoulder at his nemesis. “Nary a single bite, nary a single sting, whereas I be itchin’ worse than if’n a thousand fleas were nestin’ in my crotch hairs!”
Any answer that might have been forthcoming was belayed as General Andrew Jackson emerged from the darkness behind them. He was a tall man, rake-thin, with a bush of graying hair over a face that was hard and uncompromising.
As he stepped into the circle of light, he gave his boots a final stamp to dislodge the mud.
He wore a long black cloak with caped shoulders and a plain peaked bicorn hat.
Other than a single row of brass buttons glinting from beneath the cloak, there was no gold braid or identifying insignia showing.
Piercing blue eyes scanned the small gathering of men to touch briefly on Rose before returning to the figure on the embankment and settling there.
“Jean Lafitte, the pirate king of Barataria, I presume?”
“I have been called worse.”
Jackson nodded and scanned the foggy clearing again. “Quite the meeting place, you chose. I haven’t been this cold or wet since Valley Forge.”
“Unfortunately, I am not welcome in New Orleans, thanks to your ally, Governor Claiborne.”
Jackson snorted a puff of mist into the air. “Claiborne has tucked tail and run north. As have most of his brave town council.”
“My spies tell me you have already suffered your first defeat at Lake Borgne,” Lafitte said.
“We could compare defeats, if you like,” Jackson countered. “But I have not come out here to exchange pleasantries with a pirate.”
Lafitte stiffened when he saw the fog swirl aside to allow half a dozen armed militiamen to enter the ring of light and form up behind Jackson.
Rose quickly crossed in front of him and approached Jackson with her hands held out in greeting.
Smiling, he grasped them and raised one to press against his lips.
“Little Rosamund. I suppose it should not surprise me that you manage to find yourself in the thick of things. I could scarcely believe my eyes when I saw Duardo and the dwarf.”
Stubb made an unintelligible squawking sound through the layers of a scarf covering his mouth, but he was ignored.
“They tell me you were the one who arranged this somewhat unorthodox meeting.”
She shook her head. “I merely offered whatever small influence I might have to bring two stubborn heads together in order that they might help each other.”
“What makes you think I need the help of a smuggler and his band of cutthroat pirates?”
“Because there are fifteen thousand soldiers fresh off the battlefields of France planning how to attack and capture New Orleans. And because Lafitte and his smugglers know the swamps and back channels in and out of the city better than anyone.”
Jackson kept hold of Rose’s hands as he looked past her shoulder at Lafitte. “I understand the British made you a handsome offer in gold. How do I know you will not sell us out or, like Claiborne, run if the tide looks to turn against us?”
Lafitte’s mouth twitched. “I have enough gold, General. What I do not have, and what my men do not have is a country that does not threatens us with a hangman’s noose at every turn.
As it happens, the British offered me a pardon as well, an offer I trusted as long as it would take a flame to burn the paper it was written on.
” He took a step forward, his breath supplementing the fog that swirled between the two men.
“I make no claim to be a patriot, General. Nor do my men. They will not fight for flags or politics, but they will fight for what is theirs and New Orleans belongs to them as much as it belongs to you. We do indeed know these swamps and bayous. We know the strengths and we know the weaknesses. The British will march right through your lines unless you know how and where to stop them.”
“And you do?”
“Smuggling has its merits, General, but it is only part of the game. Ambush, misdirection … that is how you win when you are badly outnumbered. That and not doing the enemy any favors by wearing bright red tunics and marching in straight lines across an open field with drums and bagpipes screeching your intentions.”
“My Kentucky woodsmen are quite adept at ambushes, Lafitte.”
“Look around you, General. Do you see thick, dry forests of oaks and evergreens? Here you must know how to take advantage of the swamps and inhospitable approaches to the city. For instance, I’m sure you are aware that mouth of the Mississippi cannot take ships with more than an eight-foot draught, and the narrow switchbacks and rapids in the river rule out most vessels apart from flat bottomed barques.
The British have perhaps five or six of these, hardly enough to pose a threat that a hundred men placed along the riverbank could not destroy.
Another possible avenue of attack is a direct march up the canal road, but there too, they would encounter resistance at Fort St. Philip.
The only other option is to approach New Orleans overland from the south.
The problem there lies in the fact they have to cross a lake that is thirty miles wide, then traverse two large bayous before they find enough solid ground to support their cannon …
assuming they can ferry cannon across the lake and push them through knee-deep mud.
“Further to this third option, my spies tell me the British general has already begun commandeering longboats and flat-bottomed barges.”
Jackson’s face was as unreadable as stone while he listened to Lafitte.
After a full minute of not moving so much as a muscle, his gaze shifted to Rose, and then to Fonteyne, where it remained as if he was seeing the tall, black-clad privateer for the first time.
“You concur with this remarkable assessment?”
“I do,” said Fonteyne. “Moreover, his spies could probably tell you exactly how many men you have in your camp, the extent of your armory, and what you ate for dinner tonight.”
Jackson absorbed this, then drew a slow deep breath before looking at Lafitte again. “You say you do not want gold, but in return for joining forces with us, what do you want?”
Lafitte, despite being a head shorter than the general, imagined himself an equal at that moment and drew himself up to his full height.
“Full pardons for myself and my men. After it is done and we have won, we walk away free men, free to live where we choose without threat of persecution or arrest.”
The two men stared at one another in silence, each gauging the other as to whether that rarest of all commodities … trust … was present.
Jackson put voice to his main concern. “Surely you must harbor some resentment after what the American gunboats did to your encampment?”
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44 (Reading here)
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62