The next day they had a big council in the palace war-room. Standing beside the door, awaiting requests for drinks or whatever else the military leaders of the Empire might require, I witnessed the whole thing.
"So," the Emperor said, looking down at the map that covered most of the great conference table, "our guests have arrived, and we must make ready to welcome them. The question is, where?"
"No sign of any landings yet," Colonel Crockett observed. "They're just sort of hanging around offshore. Last message I got from Sam, he said he could just make out their sails, out in Chandeleur Sound."
He scratched absently beneath his fringed buckskin jacket; a gross discourtesy in the royal presence, but the Emperor tolerated much from the eccentric and extremely able chief of scouting operations. Half the alligators in the swamps were in Crockett's pay and the other half his blood relatives-or so it was said.
General Jackson snorted loudly. "By the Eternal, I don't suppose your 'boys' could trouble themselves to give us a more detailed report?" He and Crockett hated each other; it was one of those deadly personal enmities at which the Tennesseeans excel. "At least an estimate of the enemy's numbers?"
"No need," the Emperor said mildly. "We have, after all, a full roster of the enemy's forces, and have had for some time."
This was true. The Emperor's secret agents were everywhere, on both sides of the Atlantic, and very good at their work. If he had wanted to look it up, he could probably have learned the name of the trooper who watered Wellington's horse.
The Emperor was studying the map. "I confess," he said, "I am having trouble envisioning how they plan to do this."
Even with my own utter lack of military knowledge, I could see the problem. New Orleans is an oddly situated port; below the city, the river runs a hundred miles or so before reaching the sea-but it does not flow through solid land, but down the middle of a strange narrow alluvial peninsula that sticks out far into the Gulf, a kind of penis of the continent. The whole shoreline is a perfect mess of lakes, bays, bayous, and cypress swamps, with hardly any firm ground. How the Duke of Wellington proposed to get past all that was more than I could understand.
"Can he come straight up the river, do you think?" the Emperor suggested dubiously.
"It would be difficult." General Latour, the chief of engineers, gestured at the map. "The passage is not an easy one, after all. They would need local pilots-"
"Not impossible to get," Captain Lafitte put in. "Many of the people along the river and the coast are Spanish, and none too loyal to the Empire."
"But they would still have to get past our shore batteries," Latour went on. "Especially here, at Fort St. Philippe."
"Yes." The Emperor nodded. "But how else? Land on the shores of Lake Borgne, or the Ponchartrain?"
Lafitte stepped forward. "Not so simple as that, my Emperor. Lake Borgne is not deep enough for big ships. They could cross it in shallow-draft boats, if they have them, and work their way up the bayous, but it would be a difficult and risky business." He tapped the map with a fingertip. "And the Ponchartrain would be even harder."
He grinned. "Now me, I know half a dozen ways to get at this city through the bayous above Barataria Bay. But Wellington could never do it, not without my people to guide him."
Neatly done, I had to admit; a diplomatic reminder of the service the Barataria pirates had done the Emperor, by refusing British attempts to buy their aid, and later by doing sterling work in keeping track of the movements of Lord Nelson's ships.
Of course it could have been pointed out that Lafitte and his brigands were at least partly to blame for the whole situation, since the officialcasus belli, according to the British, lay in their constant and heavy depredations against British and Spanish shipping-under perfectly legal letters of marque from the government of Republican France-but that would have been specious; the British had long had designs on the Mississippi, control of which would make them once again masters in North America. Lafitte had merely supplied a handy pretext.
"By the great Jehovah!" General Jackson was given to such bombastic oaths; it was one of his many annoying traits. "I still can't believe they plan to attack New Orleans at all. This Wellington must be a fool. He could land at Mobile-a bunch of Creek squaws could overwhelm our defenses there-and march overland, raising the Indian tribes against us. The red devils would be glad enough to join them-"
"They would," Colonel Crockett assented grimly. "Thanks to the treatment they've had from people like you."
The two men exchanged glares. The Emperor said pointedly, "The savages are not our present problem. The Duke of Wellington is. And, General Jackson, I assure you he is no fool."
It was hardly a secret that he detested Jackson as an ill-bred lout-most civilized people did-and distrusted him for his arrogant ambition. But however troublesome and even dangerous Jackson might be, he was the one man who could control the fractious backwoodsmen who populated the interior of the Empire and made up much of its army. The Tennesseeans and Kentuckians and Indianans and the rest had been happy to break away from the United States-the fledgling republic east of the mountains had never meant much to them-and join in the «liberation» of the Spanish province of Louisiana; but their allegiances were personal rather than national, and the Emperor, for all his charm, had never captured their hearts as had Colonel Burr.
Now Burr was gone, and only Jackson still held their childish loyalties. And so the Emperor dared not eliminate him; and so Andrew Jackson, alone among the Emperor's original co-conspirators, remained obnoxiously alive. There was no doubt, though, that he was a competent officer in his way.
Now he gave Crockett a final withering look and turned back to the map. His neck, above the high gold-braided collar of his uniform coat, was even redder than usual. "So what do we do, then?" he asked, as always omitting even the most basic forms of respectful address.
The Emperor rubbed his face with one hand. "There is not a great deal wecan do, until we have a clearer idea of the direction of the attack. We must not spread ourselves thin, trying to cover all the possible approaches. No," he said, "much as it goes against my instincts, for now we wait."
So we waited; everyone waited, while the life of the city underwent dramatic changes. Troops marched through the streets, volunteer units drilled in parks and fields, women made bandages against the anticipated carnage; and the warehouses along the river-front began to fill up with cotton and sugar, there being no way to ship anything out now that the Royal Navy waited at the river's mouth.
Then one of Crockett's men brought word that a force of warships had been seen on the river, working their way upstream. A few days later a message arrived from Fort St. Philippe that the place was under bombardment.
"Well, now we know," the Emperor said. "Wellington and Nelson have chosen the direct approach. I had expected something less obvious."
"Begging the Emperor's pardon," General Latour said, "but do we in fact know?"
"That's right," General Jackson agreed. "Could be a feint."
"Quite true. We will wait a bit longer before fully committing ourselves. However," the Emperor said, "we can make a beginning. Latour, I want the defensive works along the river strengthened-requisition slaves from the plantations hereabouts, you have my authority. Jackson, bring me a report on what artillery we have available. If they are coming up the river, we will need every gun we can lay hands on."