Roaming Through the West Indies

by Harry Alverson Franck

At the same time he had as many real worries as the good citizens, though of a different nature. The first was a threat by the nearest marine commander to wipe out that camp at Fort Capois if the strangely laggard gendarme officer did not do so. It would have been fatal to Hanneken’s plans to take the marines into his confidence; the merest whisper of a rumor travels with lightning speed in Haiti. Besides Conzé and his friend the gendarme “deserter,” the only persons whom he had let into the secret were his department commander and the chief of the gendarmerie in Port au Prince. Even his own subordinate officers were kept wholly ignorant of the real state of affairs. In spite of this extreme care, he was annoyed by persistent rumors that the whole thing was a “frame-up.” Conzé, ran the market-place gossip, was really a zandolite, a “caterpiller” in the pay of the Government and the Americans. General Charlemagne, stationed far off in the district of Mirebalais, had been warned to look out for him, a more or less unnecessary “tip,” since it is natural to Haitian chiefs to be suspicious of their fellows. In vain Conzé sent letters written by his secretary, the “deserted” gendarme, in proper caco style—most of them dictated by Hanneken—to the big chief, offering the assistance of his growing band. For a month he received no reply whatever. Then Charlemagne wrote back in very courteous terms, lauding Conzé’s conversion to the cause of Haitian liberty, but constantly putting him off on one polite pretext or another. These letters, always sent by women of caco sympathies, were a week or more old before the replies came back through devious bandit channels, and the situation often changed materially within that length of time, upsetting Hanneken’s plans. Meanwhile Conzé cleared the region about him, built houses for his soldiers, and made Fort Capois the talk of all the cacos. Each new recruit was given a draft of rum and what seemed to him a generous cash bounty, and better food was served than most of them had tasted in their lives. Still Charlemagne would have nothing to do with him beyond the exchange of polite, non-committal notes.

At length the caco-in-chief sent one of his trusted subordinates to report on the situation at Fort Capois. General ’Tijacques marched into Conzé’s camp one evening at the head of seventy-five well-armed followers, every man with a shell in his chamber. His air was more than suspicious, and he ended by openly accusing Conzé of being a zandolite.

“If I am, go ahead and shoot me!” cried the latter, laying aside his weapons and ordering his men to withdraw. ’Tijacques declined the invitation, but all night long he and his men sat about the fire, their weapons in their hands, while Conzé slept with the apparent innocence of a babe. When morning broke without an attack upon him, ’Tijacques was convinced. He kissed Conzé on both cheeks, complimented him on joining the “army of liberation,” and welcomed him as a brother in arms. When Conzé presented him with a badly needed suit of clothes, a still more desired bottle of rum, and money enough to pay his troops a week’s salary of ten cents each, he left avowing eternal friendship.

A day or two later Charlemagne sent another of his generals, Papillon, on a secret mission to arrest Conzé and bring him to his own camp. It was merely a lucky coincidence that Hanneken had decided on that very night to “attack” Fort Capois, as he had already done several times before. Conzé, who made three nightly journeys a week to Grande Rivière on the pretext of getting more money from the inhabitants friendly to his cause, and entered Hanneken’s house through the back garden, was instructed how to conduct himself in the affair to avoid personal injury. For all that, the American had hard work to keep his gendarmes from wiping out the camp entirely. In the midst of the fighting he slipped aside in the bushes and, smearing his left arm with red ink, wrapped it up in a bandage generously covered with the same liquid. Then he sounded the retreat, and the gendarmes fell back pell-mell on Grande Rivière. The next morning the market-place was agog with the astonishing news. The cacos of Fort Capois had repulsed the gendarmes! Moreover, the great Conzé himself had wounded the redoubtable American captain! It would not be long before the bandits descended on Grande Rivière itself! Some of the frightened inhabitants seized their valuables and fled to Cap Haïtien.

For days Captain Hanneken wandered disconsolately about the town with his arm in a sling. When his own officers or friends joggled against it by accident, he cried out with pain. His greatest difficulty was to keep himself from being invalided to the rear, or to keep the solicitous marine doctor from dressing his wounds. News of the great battle quickly reached Charlemagne. Meanwhile the agent he had sent to arrest Conzé met ’Tijacques on the trail.

“You’re crazy!” cried the latter when Papillon whispered his orders. “Conzé is as sincere a caco as you or I. I will myself return to Charlemagne and tell him so.”

The report of ’Tijacques, added to the news that Conzé had wounded the accursed American commander, as well as repulsing his force, won the confidence of Charlemagne—with reservations, of course; he never put full confidence in any one, being too well versed in Haitian history. He invited Conzé to visit him at his headquarters. There he commissioned him “General Jean,” thanked him in the name of Haitian liberty, and promised to coöperate with him. Incidentally, he relieved him of the pearl-handled revolver that had once belonged to their common enemy, Hanneken. It was too fine a weapon to be carried by any one but the commander-in-chief, he explained. Before they parted, he promised the new general to join him some day in Fort Capois.

Meanwhile the “deserted” gendarme had joined Charlemagne’s forces and had so completely won his confidence that he was made his private secretary. He found means of reporting conditions and plans now and then to Hanneken. Conzé and Charlemagne entered into correspondence in planning a general attack on Grande Rivière. Here Hanneken well knew that he was playing with fire. If anything went wrong and Grande Rivière was taken, nothing could keep the cacos out of Cap Haïtien, the second city of Haiti and the key to all the northern half of the country. Besides, how could he be sure that his agents were not “double-crossing” him instead of Charlemagne?

Negotiations continued all through the month of October. Toward the end of that month Charlemagne, his brother St. Remy Péralte, several other generals, and many chiefs arrived at Fort Capois, bringing with them twelve hundred bandits. In company with “General Jean” they planned a concerted attack on Grande Rivière. At the same time the programs of two other assaults, on the towns of Bahon and Le Trou, were set for the same date. The chief value of the latter was that they would keep the marines busy and leave the larger town to the protection of the gendarmes.

Charlemagne’s forces were to approach Grande Rivière from the Fort Capois side and to charge across the river when they received the signal agreed upon. Conzé’s men were to descend upon the city from the opposite direction, and “General Jean” was to give the signal himself by firing three shots from an old ruined fortress above the town. As it was well known that Charlemagne never attacked personally with his troops, but hung back safely in the rear, it had been arranged through Conzé that he await events at a place called Mazaire and enter the city in triumph after the news of its capture had been brought to him.