He gave Houston a little shove. “Best you get about the general’s orders then, eh? I have a feeling the day will come—and soon—when my life and those of my men will depend on how quickly you can get across the river.”
Houston stared at him. “You won’t break, I know. But will your men?”
“They’ll stand until you arrive,” Driscol rasped. “They won’t dare do otherwise.”
Even in daylight, the plush corridor was a rather gloomy place, despite all the fancy decorations. With such lighting and with that expression on his face, Driscol looked more like a troll than ever.
“A ray of sunshine,” Sam muttered.
“The world has enough sunshine. I provide it with the needed thunderclouds.
“Go, lad.” Again, Driscol gave Sam a shove, not so little this time. “I’ll stand. You get there in a hurry. ’Tis really no more complicated than that.”
CHAPTER 41
JANUARY 4, 1815
Robert Ross’s fever broke two days after he was moved into the Trémoulet House. By the next day, although he was still somewhat feeble, he felt better than he had in many weeks.
Disease was a peculiar thing. He’d thought he was far more likely to be dead by now. In truth, the main reason Ross had insisted on being handed over to the Americans was because he knew he’d simply have been a burden to the British forces if he’d remained behind, either in the camp or on the ships.
Ross had always been blessed with a rugged constitution. But—perhaps it was mere fancy—he preferred to ascribe his astonishing recovery to the salutary effects upon a man of having such a beautiful young woman attending to him.
Very stately young woman, too, for all that her apparel was often a bit bizarre. It wasn’t that Cherokee costume was significantly less modest than that worn by white women. Indeed, it was considerably less risqué than the clothing he’d seen on some Creole women in the street below, on the two occasions Tiana had allowed him to walk about the room a bit.
But if she generally wore Cherokee costume, it was never a complete ensemble. This or that would clearly be of American design and make. Just the day before, for whatever reason, Tiana had chosen to wear an entirely American costume. No simple settler woman’s garment, either, but a rather fancy dress he was certain she’d purchased very recently, right here in New Orleans.
She wore it easily and splendidly, to boot.
Then there was her father. The sire was like a mirror image of the daughter, with the proportions reversed. Captain John Rogers normally wore American clothing, but never without Cherokee accoutrements here and there. He was just as likely to wear a turban as a hat, for instance, and Ross was almost certain that the man wound it about his head himself, requiring no one’s assistance.
Ross hadn’t seen enough of the two sons to get more than a vague sense of their preferences in costuming and dress. James and John Rogers seemed to be largely inseparable from Major Driscol, and Driscol was almost never around. Ross had seen him only twice since he’d been brought into New Orleans, and on only one of those occasions had Driscol taken the time to speak to him, albeit briefly.
That wasn’t rudeness, of course. Patrick Driscol was an officer in an army fighting off a siege, and had plenty to keep him busy.
Hybrids, then. Ross wondered what would come of it all, in the end.
Though not a gardener himself, he’d grown up in gardening country. Hybrids were unpredictable. On the one hand, always dangerous. A hybrid could ruin a line, or an entire garden, or simply prove too feeble to survive. On the other hand, always an opportunity. More than one hybrid had grown into a flourishing new line, which brought strengths to the world hitherto unknown.
Everywhere he looked, Ross could see those hybrid shoots growing in the United States. Here in its southern regions more than in the northern ones, he thought. That was because of slavery, banned in the North but flourishing in the South. There was a grotesque irony there. To a considerable degree, it was their common trafficking in black people that gave white and Indian people a ground on which to intermingle. Tiana and her brothers had been sent by their family—which was itself half white and half Cherokee—to study in American schools. But they’d been able to pay for it, in large part, only because of the money generated by their slaves.
Patrick Driscol entered the room.
“Good afternoon, General. Miss Rogers tells me you’re doing much better. I’m very glad to hear it.”
Ross rolled his head on the pillow to examine the American major. Out of Ulster, by way of France and the emperor’s armies. Another hybrid, this one made by grafting old stock onto new.
“I never thought about it much until I came here,” Ross said abruptly, “but I’ve had plenty of time since, recuperating from my wounds. I’ve come to the conclusion that I disapprove of the institution of slavery. Wilberforce and his people are right. I’m not sure about Buxton and his outright abolitionists.”
Driscol’s blocky face was creased, for a moment, by a smile. That was always a bit peculiar to see, on that visage, as if a stone head suddenly moved.
“I detest slavery. Wilberforce and his followers are craven weaklings. Buxton . . . A good enough fellow, I think. Better than the rest of that puling lot in the Anti-Slavery League, certainly.”
Ross rolled his head back, staring at the ceiling. “The day after the night battle—I was told about this, I didn’t see it myself—a black slave came into our lines. He’d run away from his master and was seeking refuge among us. He had a sort of horrid torture device clamped about his neck. We removed it, of course. Ghastly thing. It was shown to me afterward.”
Driscol nodded, and moved to the window. There, with a finger, he shifted the curtains aside and gazed down at the city. “Yes, I know. I’ve seen them myself. The plantation owners around here are partial to the things. A collar lined with spikes, facing inward, which barely prick the skin. So long as the man stands and works, the pain is minimal. But if he lays down his head, it becomes agonizing—it could even kill him. They’ll leave it on the slave for days, until by sheer exhaustion he no longer cares if he lives or dies.”
Ross studied the back of the major’s head. “And yet you—a United Irishmen, no less—choose to serve such people.”
Driscol shrugged. “And who else would I serve? The British?” He swiveled his head, giving Ross a view of his profile. From the side, Driscol’s face looked even more like a stone crag than ever.
“Don’t play the innocent, General Ross. Your British army has been distributing handbills all over this area since you arrived. Assuring the slave masters that their property will be respected by England, in the event of victory. Good of you, of course, to remove that collar from the man. But I wonder how much he’ll thank you when you hand him back to his master and he gets another—along with a savage whipping for running away. It would hardly be the first time Britain has betrayed the Negroes, when you found it convenient.”
Ross couldn’t help but wince. He’d seen the handbills himself, and . . .
Being honest, had approved of them. Undermining political support for Jackson was simply a logical move in a war.
Driscol turned away from the window.
“There are precious few innocents here, General, just as there are precious few anywhere in the world. But the one thing that is different here—to a degree, at least—is that this nation is undermining the distinctions of class. Often, without even realizing it. And that’s the key.”
In a now-familiar gesture, Driscol lowered his head a bit. The way a bull will, considering a charge. “Class, General Ross. That’s always the key ingredient when it comes to injustice. Two breeds of men may dislike each other as much as they wish. They may well spill blood and commit outrages because of it. But it’s only when one of those breeds become a class, elevated over the other, that injustice and brutality become locked into place. As they have been in Ireland for centuries now. Even though, you know as well as I do, the real differences betw
een breeds of Irishmen—or Irishmen and Englishmen, for that matter—are tiny compared to the differences among breeds of men here in America.”
Ross thought about it. Driscol’s words were certainly true, insofar as they bore on Ireland. What differences really existed, between the boy Robert Ross had been and many of his playmates? Nothing, in terms of blood—or precious little. Centuries after the English conquest of Ireland, any man who claimed he knew how much Anglo-Saxon blood ran in his veins, instead of Celtic, was either a fool or a posturing ass. Usually both.
Ross chuckled. “You’ve such a cold way of looking at the world, Patrick. But I’ll grant you there’s a great deal of truth in it. Put a Calvinist and Catholic and a proper Church of England man in the same pasture and they’ll quarrel, right enough. But it’s only when the Anglican becomes the owner of the land that the Calvinist and the Catholic will make regular visits to the gaol or the whipping post. Mind you, the same would happen if you made the Calvinist—or the Catholic—the landlord and master.”
“Oh, aye.” Driscol shrugged. “A man doesn’t become a superior being simply because he’s exploited or oppressed. Often enough, if he reverses the situation, he’ll do the same himself. Or worse. It’ll only end when a nation arises that can finally abandon the barbaric business of class rule altogether. Not by becoming angels—no chance of that, in this world—but simply because they agree to change the rules.”
Ross looked out the window. It was a gray and cloudy day, as was common for this time of year in New Orleans. “Do you really think your Americans can manage that?”
“Not easily, no. Certainly not quickly—and there’s no chance at all it’ll happen without bloody conflict. There will be at least one civil war waged on this continent before it’s done. Of that much I’m certain. And I suppose, in a way, it’ll never be entirely done. I suspect class arises naturally, like weeds in a field. The key is to develop a society that knows how to pull up weeds before they take over the garden. That’s what Thomas Jefferson meant, I think, when he once said that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.”
Ross chuckled again. “So you see yourself here as a knight leveling his lance against the inequities of class, do you? Forgive me, Patrick, but I’m afraid that reminds me more than anything else of Cervantes’s man from La Mancha. He was the Spanish knight who tilted at windmills, if you’ve never read Don Quixote.”
“Please!” Driscol snorted. “I’m no knight of any sort. Certainly not a snooty Spaniard one. I’m a sergeant, General. So I’ll go about it the way a proper sergeant would.”
Ross examined him for a moment. “You’ve come up with a campaign plan, then?”
“I wouldn’t dignify it with the name of ‘campaign plan.’ Generals design those fancy things, and—I told you—I’m a sergeant.”
Driscol was still standing next to the window. He turned and gazed through it, out over the city.
“I’ll build a redoubt, here in New Orleans. A fortress of sorts, you might call it, although it won’t exactly be a military one. I don’t have the wherewithal to plan and lead a campaign. Someone else will have to do that. Maybe Sam Houston, as he ages and matures. He’s got the mind and the will and the heart for it, if he chooses to. Or someone else. But whoever it is, Patrick Driscol will see to it that his general has a bastion upon which he can anchor his forces. If I can manage that, before I die, I reckon I’ll have lived a good enough life to be allowed into whatever paradise God has set aside for sergeants.”
Ross laughed. “Lord in heaven, Patrick! What I’d have given to have had you as my master sergeant, in any force I’ve ever led!”
Still looking out the window, Driscol smiled. It was an unusually gentle smile, on such a face.
“Well, I’m afraid that’s not likely to happen. But when the war is over, in the years ahead . . . If you’ve the time and the inclination, Robert, do come visit me, would you?
It was the first time Driscol had ever addressed the British general by his given name. Perhaps the oddest thing of all that had happened to Robert Ross since he came to the New World was the sudden, deep warmth that gave him.
“You tried to kill me!” he protested.
“Oh, aye. Did my level best. And I’d do it again, in an instant, if I saw you coming at me with a sword in your hand, leading men in redcoat uniforms. Don’t take it personally, Robert. I’d do the same for any bloody officer coming at me and mine with class in his heart, and damn the color of the uniforms.”
Tiana came into the room, then. “Sergeant Ball is here, Patrick. He says the battalion is ready to—”
She broke off, flashing Ross an apologetic smile. “Go where you’re supposed to go,” she finished.
“Good lass,” Driscol murmured. He lowered his head again, giving Ross a very stern look. “Never impart information in front of a Sassenach officer. Injuries, illness, death’s door—all that be damned. The treacherous fellow is likely to be feigning it. Ready in an instant to leap from his bed, cut whatever throats he must, and race back to his own lines with the news.”
Ross grinned. “Pay no attention to him, Tiana. Just another sullen Irishman. I’m too weak to cut the throat of a mouse, and if I tried to leap out of this bed I’d be lucky to roll off on the floor. Still, I’ll not pry. Not even after the brute is gone.”
Tiana grinned herself.
Driscol didn’t, but he gave Ross a friendly nod before he and Tiana left the room.
After they were gone, Ross went back to staring at the ceiling. All traces of good humor faded away quickly, as he pondered the matter.
The battalion is ready to go where it’s supposed to go.
Driscol’s battalion.
And where would that be, I wonder?
Ross had never met any of the men in Driscol’s new battalion, but he’d seen a few of them when they’d accompanied the major on his visits to Tiana. One of them, in particular, had caught the general’s eye. He was a black man, like all the rest except one young white soldier, but seemed to carry himself with an unusual degree of poise.
When he’d inquired, Driscol had told him that was Charles Ball, a veteran from the U.S. Navy. The man who’d been in charge of the American artillery at the Capitol.
A freedmen’s battalion, it was, made up almost entirely of former slaves who were now mostly ironworkers. The lowest stock of all, other than outright slaves, who’d need time and experience to develop the self-confidence that such men would naturally lack from their life’s experience.
Normally, Ross would have dismissed such a formation without a thought. A unit made up of men like that would usually break in an instant, without lengthy training, once the crush of battle fell upon them. But with men like Charles Ball to serve as a crystallizing core for the force . . .
And Patrick Driscol to lead them! Ross had seen him do it, from the receiving end. Driscol could impart confidence to common and uncertain men like no other sergeant in his experience.
Oh, that was another matter altogether. If they fought behind defensive lines, at least, where they wouldn’t need the months of training in the intricate steps and practices needed to maneuver and fight on the open field of battle in a hail of destruction.
Ross closed his eyes.
Where are they going? Where is Jackson placing them?
It was possible, of course, that Jackson simply intended to fit them somewhere into the forces already in position at the Rodriguez Canal.
But Ross didn’t think so. The fieldworks at the canal covered little more than half a mile of front, and by now Jackson had thousands of soldiers available. Not the fifteen thousand Keane had feared, no, but both Ross and Pakenham were sure that Jackson had amassed at least five thousand men on that line—and plenty of artillery with them.
Driscol’s unit would just be an encumbrance there. His men, still poorly trained, were more likely to get in the way of other units than do much good.
So where else?
Fort St. John was a possibilit
y. Quite a good one, actually. If Jackson had the usual American distrust of the capabilities of black men as combatants—unlike the British, who had many black units in uniform—he might very well decide the fort on Lake Pontchartrain was the best place to put them.
Except . . .
With anyone other than Driscol in command, Fort St. John probably was where Jackson would put them. But Driscol was in command. Jackson wouldn’t have had the success he’d had as a general—not leading mostly militia forces, certainly—if he wasn’t a good judge of an officer’s caliber as a combat leader. By now, Ross would give very long odds that Jackson had sized up Driscol and come to the same conclusion that Ross had.
And I’d have put that man in charge of whatever unit might come under the fiercest blows, on any battlefield in my life.
He opened his eyes. The ceiling was a blank, cold, empty bitterness.
Jackson was moving Driscol and his freedmen battalion across the river. With their ordnance. Ross was well-nigh certain of it. Just as he was almost certain that Jackson would have made plans to reinforce them, if necessary. As had happened so many times before, the British had almost caught Jackson napping.
But not quite in time.
Robert Ross sighed. On a battlefield, “almost” was more deadly than grapeshot. Nine battles out of ten were won or lost because something almost happened—but didn’t.
Ross rolled his head slightly so that he could peer out of the window. It faced toward the British army, where Pakenham would even now be crouching like a tiger, ready to pounce. He’d be launching the assault very soon, within a few days.
“Please, Edward,” he whispered. “Oh, dear God. Please.”
He knew exactly what thoughts—emotions, rather—would be filling Pakenham’s breast. The same that would have been filling his own, had Ross still been in command. Doubts, hesitations, fears, second thoughts, quibbles, uncertainties—all those, Pakenham would be burning on the altar this very moment. Purging them from every corner of his soul, steeling himself for what was coming.