Roaming Through the West Indies

by Harry Alverson Franck

On the night set, the last one of October, Captain Hanneken ordered ten picked gendarmes to report at his residence. With them was his subordinate, Lieutenant William R. Button, who had just been let into the secret. The doors guarded against intrusion, Hanneken told the gendarmes to lay aside their uniforms and put on caco-like rags that had been gathered for the occasion. The two Americans dressed themselves in similar garments and rubbed their faces, hands, and such portions of their bodies as showed through the tatters, with cold cream and lamp-black. Then the detail sallied forth one by one, to meet at a place designated, where rifles that had been secretly conveyed there were issued to them.

The pretended cacos took up their post at Mazaire behind a bushy hedge along which Charlemagne must pass if he kept his rendezvous. While they lay there, Conzé and his following of real cacos, some seven hundred in number, passed close by them on their way to attack Grande Rivière. This had been reinforced with a large number of gendarmes and a machine-gun manned by Americans under the personal command of the Department Commander of the North, all barricaded in the market-place facing the river. Conzé gave the preconcerted signal, and Charlemagne’s army dashed out of the foothills toward the stream. It was only the over-eagerness of the barricaded force, which failed to hold its fire long enough, that made the caco casualties number merely by the dozen rather than by the hundred.

At the height of the battle Charlemagne’s private secretary, the “deserted” gendarme, crawled up to Hanneken and informed him that the caco-in-chief had changed his mind. With his extraordinary gift of suspicion, he had smelled a rat. He would not come down to Mazaire until the actual winner of the battle came to him to announce the capture of Grande Rivière.

To say that Captain Hanneken received the news quietly is merely another way of stating that he is not a profane man. Here he had planned and toiled for four months to do away with the arch caco and break the back of the rebellion that was holding up the advancement of Haiti, only to have all his plans fail through the over-suspicion of the outlaw politician. He had run the risk of having the headquarters of his district captured, with dire, far-reaching results that no one realized better than himself. He had played the part of a dime-novel hero, descended to the rôle of an actor, which his forceful, straight-forward nature detested, only to be left the laughing-stock of his fellow-officers of the gendarmerie, to say nothing of the “kidding” Marine Corps, in which he was still a sergeant. Incidentally, he had staked the plan to the extent of eight hundred dollars of his own money, which there was no hope of recovering through the devious channels of official reimbursement if that plan failed, though as a matter of fact this latter detail was the least of his worries. It was not a question of a few paltry dollars, but of success.

If all these thoughts passed through his head as he lay concealed in the bushes with his dozen fake cacos, they passed quickly, for his next command came almost instantly. It was by no means the first time in this hide-and-seek game with Charlemagne that he had been forced to change his plans completely on the spur of the moment.

“Button,” he whispered, “we will be the successful caco detachment that brings the news of the capture of Grande Rivière to Charlemagne.”

Led by Jean Edmond François, the “deserted” gendarme and private secretary of the caco-in-chief, the little group set out into the mountains. Charlemagne, said the secretary, had come a part of the way down from Fort Capois, but had camped for the night less than half-way to the town. It was nearing midnight. Heavy clouds hung low in the sky, but the stars shone here and there through them. For three hours the detail stumbled upward along a difficult mountain trail. Neither of the Americans knew how soon the gendarmes would lose their nerve and slip off into the night, frightened out of all discipline by the dreaded name of Charlemagne. There was no positive proof that they were not themselves being led into an ambuscade, and they knew only too well the horrible end that would befall two lone Americans captured by the bandits. To make matters worse, Button was suffering from an acute attack of his old malaria, though he was too much a marine and a gendarme officer to let that retard his steps.

The detachment was halted at last by a caco sentry, who demanded the countersign. It happened that night to be “General Jean,” in honor of Charlemagne’s trusted—with reservations—ally, Conzé. François, the “deserted” gendarme, gave it. The sentry recognized him also as the private secretary of the great chief. He advanced him, but declined to let the detail with him pass without specific orders from Charlemagne. The secretary left his companions behind and hurried on.

The disguised gendarmes mingled with the caco outpost and announced the capture of Grande Rivière, adding that the population was eagerly waiting to receive the great Charlemagne and his doughty warriors. Shouts of triumph rose and spread away into the night. In all the years of American occupation no town of anything like the size of Grande Rivière had ever been taken by the cacos. It was the death-knell of the cursed whites, who would soon be driven from the great Republic of Haiti, as they had been many years before.

Nearly an hour after his departure the secretary returned, to report that Charlemagne had ordered the detachment to come to him immediately with the joyful news.