A Rendezvous in Haiti Read Online Free

the length of a football field, and there was room between them for the clattering Ford truck that brought meat and produce from the town; the truck stood sagging now, steaming and hissing, and in its shade a swarm of children squabbled. The Marines were domestic this morning, policing the camp and sewing buttons on shirts, and sorting laundry for the Haitian men who would call for it and deliver it.
    Mules came too, and scabbed local horses, and Haitian vendors offering vegetables, which were refused (“You know what they use for manure”), chickens, which were sometimes purchased, and eggs, which were deemed safe if uncracked and cost one gourde for half a dozen. That was less than a penny each, and eggs were fresh, and beat beans. The cooks kept one of those half dozen as a fee for frying up the other five.
    McAllister had discovered an extreme partiality to banana fritters with lime juice, and with Captain Healy was now destroying some three dozen of these. They were served by Lafayette the yard-boy. Lafayette was not his real name. His real name was Emilien-zézé or some such. “This war will never end,” said Healy. The captain’s hair started about where his ears finished, and his little blue eyes were usually merry above his potato nose, and most of the day he chewed on Havana cigars that he had free from the U.S.-administered customs. He was wearing britches and a sleeveless white undershirt. He was talkative, and liked to say that a few dozen of him were in charge of finance, customs and police for a country of two million people most of whom were Roman Catholics and also believed that God was a snake. “You young fellows. War doesn’t blunt your appetite. Or maybe it is young love. The colonel’s daughter draws nigh.” Healy had not been lucky enough to serve in France, and it was understood that he could therefore take a spoofing tone with McAllister.
    â€œFritters,” McAllister apologized. “They are so damn good.”
    â€œIt is the French influence. You find a Haitian who knows how to cook, and he’s a real chef. The food has improved considerably since the Spanish-American War.” Healy had served in that one; he was restoring the balance.
    â€œCan’t imagine what sort of hound’s mess you ate back then,” McAllister said. “I heard we lost more to food poisoning than we did to the Spanish.”
    Healy squinted into the past. “Human meat,” he said lugubriously. “Sick cows. Decayed hogs. Those Chicago packers made millions. They put the stuff in cans and it was like a hothouse. Every disease known to man and I believe a few that have not yet been classified. We only lost about six boys in combat in that whole war, and they were all Texans and thought we were at war with Mexico. The rest died of overeating, by which I mean eating that garbage at all. I lived on local beans and eggs and yams, and sucked cane for dessert. I was a corporal then and smart.”
    â€œAnd I was about eight years old,” McAllister drawled. “Didn’t even know I was white.”
    â€œI hope you know it now.”
    â€œYou talk as if Virginia wasn’t the South.”
    â€œIt ain’t,” Healy said. “And anything within fifty miles of Washington ain’t even Virginia. You know they sent mostly southern boys down here because we know how to handle these people. Good Marines got to hate niggers, Jews and all foreigners.”
    â€œI don’t hate anyone,” McAllister said.
    â€œOh Christ, one of those.”
    â€œA matter of family style,” McAllister said. “The decaying gentry cling to good manners.”
    â€œJust don’t be too polite with these Cacos. Kindly bear in mind that they have mutilated dead Marines.”
    â€œI bear that in mind every time I lead a platoon. I also recall Captain Vogel.”
    Healy was not pleased. Captain Vogel, serving across the border in San