’Twas New-Year’s Day....
The sun, true to habit, rose again, but on an entirely different scene.
In the short interval of three days many things had changed. Now, it
could be seen, the skillfully intrenched British had thirty heavy guns
running parallel to the American front.
But the Americans had not been idle, either, for additional batteries
had been constructed, and Commodore Patterson, with wise forethought,
had gone through the sailors’ boarding-houses in New Orleans with a
fine-toothed comb, impressing every nautical-looking man on whom he could
lay his hands to serve the guns, regardless of nationality, creed, color,
or excuse.
Behind the British breastworks were sheltered their storming columns,
awaiting the moment when the inevitable breach would be made in the
American lines, while their batteries opened the artillery duel with a
crash that shook the skies.
The Baratarians, on whom fell the brunt of the defense, trained their
guns as carefully, and served them as coolly, as though they were
fighting from the decks of their own dependable privateers.
At the expiration of exactly an hour and a half the impatient British
columns realized that they had waited in vain, for their batteries were
silenced, their guns dismounted, and their parapets leveled with the
plain.
A band of buccaneers, reinforced by a few score American blue-jackets
and volunteers, had decisively whipped the laureled veterans of Nelson
and Wellington! And the conquerors of Napoleon’s Old Guard had been
conquered, in turn, by a group of French Creoles. Poetic justice, indeed!
On the morning of the 8th of January began the death struggle. By
this time Jackson had received the long-expected reinforcements from
Kentucky—twenty-five hundred strong—who had just arrived in a naked and
half-starving condition, after a forced march of fifteen hundred miles
from the Blue Ridge. These foot-sore, ragged, and hungry mountaineers
were scattered along a three-mile front, one end of which extended so
far into a swamp that the soldiers stood in water waist-deep by day, and
slept on floating logs tied to trees by night.
When the gray mists of early morning lifted, the scarlet columns could
be seen advancing across the fields. The battle was on—and the fate of
America hung in the balance.
General Jackson, lantern-jawed, lean, and excited, reined up his horse
at Dominique You’s battery. On all sides was excitement ... the fever of
the battle was at its height. The man who had fought with Paul Jones, at
sight of the general, made his way to him through the spasmodic clouds of
smoke. His own battery was silent, strangely enough.
“What’s this, Dominique?” demanded Jackson, testily. “Why have you
stopped firing? What the devil do—”
“Because the powder’s good foah not’in’!” snapped back the Baratarian,
saluting. “It might do to shoot blackbirds wit’, bud nod dese dam’
redcoats!”
“Tell the ordnance officer that I will have him shot as a traitor in five
minutes if Dominique complains again of his powder!” ordered Jackson
to an aide-de-camp, and continued his way down the lines; cheering,
directing, exhorting. “Old Hickory” well lived up to his name that day!
Although the battle had lasted but twenty minutes as yet, and was
destined to last but five more, both of the Lafittes were present in the
thick of the fight; indeed, their courage and intrepidity were to become
by-words for years to come. One could not but marvel at their magnificent
contempt of danger, their reckless bravery.
But there was one thing alone that none but themselves knew. No one,
moreover, could be expected to know that these two brothers had resolved
to die in this battle, and were courting death, each in his own way.
Jean, ever since his talk with Pierre Dominique, perhaps a fortnight
before, had lived as if in a daze. But one thought was uppermost in his
mind—haunted him by day and by night—that Pierre loved Virginia—and
that Virginia loved Pierre! Or so he believed. Ordinarily, shrewd and
analytical that he was, he would have dispassionately and deliberately
considered the situation, weighing and testing each of its multiple
phases, but now, blinded and deafened by the emotions of love and
jealousy, he did not for an instant doubt his brother’s veracity. All
during these past two years the thought of Virginia Grymes, alone, had
kept up his courage ... and he had gloried in the hope of some day
seeking her again ... and of coming to an understanding. He had been
sure—fool that he was—that she yet loved him. For rumor itself had never
in all that time linked her name to that of any man’s. And then, that one
divine moment of surrender—those kisses!
Now, once more a respectable citizen of the United States, he was to have
gone to her again—and claimed her. Nothing could induce him to believe
that she had merely flirted with him, as she had told him.
But Pierre’s lie had changed everything. There was nothing more to live
for. For her love for him had been but a pretense ... she _had_ but
flirted with him. And he had not believed. Now he _knew_!
Good Pierre Dominique! Honest Pierre! Life-long comrade, nearest
relative, and dearest of friends! Doubt Pierre? Never! Dear old Pierre!
_He_ loved Virginia ... and Virginia—loved him! Why should he intrude his
misery—his unhappiness, upon their happiness? If it had not been for—for
what _had_ taken place, there would have been no girl on earth whom he
would so sincerely have recommended his brother to wed. Why should he
selfishly feel jealousy? All was for the best. He was not worthy of
the Virginian girl ... undoubtedly not! And Pierre Dominique _was_ ...
without doubt!
Thus reasoning, Jean unselfishly had resolved to seek death.
And Pierre, too, for an altogether different reason, was seeking death.
He, also, had had his fortnight of mental torture ... of jealous
brooding and retrospection. Pierre Dominique, not quite as big-minded,
or unselfish, as was his brother, had no thoughts of giving up his love
to Jean, just to secure _his_ happiness! He knew now that Jean loved
Virginia; but that fact alone did not serve to inspire him with thoughts
of renunciation. The fact that infuriated him was that he was reasonably
certain now that Virginia loved Jean ... and that she was not destined
for himself, whatever the outcome of the battle.
Therefore, he, too, was seeking the death that ever eluded him. But both
brothers were now discovering that death invariably side-steps from the
path of men who eagerly seek to meet it.
And now the battle was drawing to a close, and both Lafittes were yet
alive ... and death still was—but was it?
The ebb-tide of the battle had begun.
Slowly but surely the shattered British regiments, demoralized by the
sudden fall of their commander, Sir Edward Pakenham—who was even now
dying behind their lines—and their own proud ranks fearfully depleted by
the American fire, were losing ground, their morale gone.
Sir Edward, on his deathbed, gave his last order.
“Sound the charge!” he murmured. “We must take them by storm ... or all
is lost! The honor of England is at stake.... Shall a handful of yokels
take it from our keeping?”
Close on the silvery message of the bugles ran the shouts of the
officers. Encouragement—profanity—exhortation—curses—pleading. And cowed
and discouraged as they were, the remainder of the crimson host, still
far outnumbering their untrained opponents and still smarting with their
injuries, listened to their officers and took courage once more—the
courage of desperation. Individually infected with the enthusiasm of
the mass, their fury self-whipped by thoughts of their humiliation,
they responded with a deadly vim. The troops of England the invincible,
England the all-conquering, were being defeated by a comparative “handful
of yokels.” The veterans of Trafalgar, Waterloo, and the Nile, their
divisions shattered, were in danger of ignominious extinction.
With a universal shout of mingled hate and triumph the living red mass,
still awe-inspiring in their numbers, charged at a run and swept across
the field toward the American trenches, hell-bent into the very jaws of
death.
Although hundreds were momentarily falling before the Baratarians’ cannon
fire, the majority rushed onward up the slope, in a desperate last-hope
attempt to scale the intrenchment, and overpower the Americans in a
hand-to-hand encounter, by sheer weight of numbers.
As it happened, Jean Lafitte, commanding the Baratarians, was stationed
in almost the exact center of the American lines, upon which was
naturally directed the brunt of the British attack.
Through the smoke he saw the British columns charging, ever onward, in
spite of their continuous loss—driven through the rain of death by the
magnificent courage of their indomitable officers. And he knew that
in another moment the red line would reach his breastworks and, if
unchecked, might sweep over by its sheer weight and perhaps yet turn the
tide of battle.
They must be checked, and at once. Everything was at stake!—everything!
With Lafitte to think was to act, and in this case it seemed that the
thought and action were simultaneous. By a freak of fate, at just this
instant there was the briefest lull in the cannon fire, as sweating
gunners feverishly reloaded ... and the enemy was halfway up the slope,
their ranks torn and ragged—but still advancing!
With a hoarse shout Jean sprang upon the crest of the earthworks,
brandishing his sword with an unintentionally heroic gesture.... In the
comparative stillness his full voice, ever powerful, rang out and swept
up and down the lines with the clearness of a trumpet!
“Baratarians, charge!”
With a great shout that rose even above the crackle of musketry and
the intermittent roar of the guns, the pirate-patriots surged over the
earthworks, their muskets spitting death, and followed their beloved
leader in a wild, glorious charge down the bloody slope.
“_Vive_ Lafitte!”
The battle cry rose simultaneously, spreading down the lines, as rank
after rank of the Americans poured over and down, their guns now silent,
but their bayonets flashing murderously as they charged.
Amid a shower of balls, Jean, a few yards in advance of his men, ran
on, his blood singing in his veins with the lust of battle, recklessly
braving death in his determination to die. Not far behind him came his
friends—de Moulin, Grymes, Dominique You ... Pierre. And close on their
heels came his red-shirted followers, a scarlet mist in their eyes. How
glorious it was to die!
With a terrific, air-shaking shock, the two charging hosts met, and the
next moment seemingly assimilated ... a crimson caldron ... hand-to-hand,
blade-to-blade; shots, yells, groans, curses.... Wrestling bodies,
falling bodies, writhing bodies.... Inferno.
As he fought, Jean felt a joyous lust sweep his soul, and plunged into
the thick of the fight again and again. Seconds were eternities. Of a
sudden, before him, he saw Pierre Dominique engaged with two Britishers.
Even as he watched he saw one bayonet his brother, as his fellow swung
his musket stock to crush the Frenchman’s head like an egg shell.
Even as the musket descended Jean fired the last shot in his pistol, and
the redcoat toppled forward. The next moment he saw De Moulin appear from
the red mist and fall on the first Britisher with the fury of an avenging
angel.
A moment later Jean was kneeling at the side of his brother, heedless of
the flying bullets, his face ashen.
And then it was that the remainder of the British columns that had
charged up the slope broke and ran.
It was now eight o’clock, and the American bugles shrilled their call!
“Cease firing—”
All along the lines the rows of weary, powder-grimed and blood-stained
Americans were cheering ... with their caps madly swinging on the
ends of their long, hot rifles ... and cheered even more tumultuously
as Jackson—whom this victory was to make President of the United
States—followed by his staff, rode slowly down the lines, his passing the
signal for the regimental fifes and drums to burst into “Hail, Columbia.”
All was joy—mad, mad joy. The impossible had happened ... the Americans
had won the day!
But there was no joy in the heart of him who was largely responsible for
this victory ... the pirate-patriot.
For Lafitte, with a file of silently sympathetic Baratarians, was
hurrying his brother to the city—to the hospital ... racing with death.
But death, glutted already with British blood, grinned hideously.
And Jean Lafitte shuddered at the sight.