COTONOU

COTONOU
4 MARCH 1890

The Dahomean army moved south beneath the cover of darkness.
Male regiments filled the roads from Abomey. Agojie marched in ordered companies among them, accompanied by ammunition carriers, porters and artillery crews struggling with cannon over roads softened by recent rain. Scouts moved ahead and along both flanks, disappearing into the jungle and returning with whispered reports.
The army was too large to move silently.
Feet struck the clay in an unbroken rhythm. Muskets knocked against water gourds and ammunition pouches. Wheels groaned through ruts, and commanders hissed threats at porters whenever a cannon threatened to become trapped.
No songs were permitted.
The only voices came from officers passing orders along the column and the occasional cry of a night creature disturbed by thousands of people moving through its territory.
Sika marched between Kemi and Afi.
The air was cool beneath the trees, although the humidity made her uniform cling to her back. She carried a musket, ammunition, water, food and a short blade. Each item had seemed light when issued separately. Together they pulled upon her shoulders and struck against her hips with every step.
At Sika’s side, Afi marched with unusual energy. During the final preparations at Abomey, she had sharpened her blade twice, cleaned her musket three times and asked so many questions that Dòkpè had threatened to assign her to the porter column.
Sika wanted only to survive.
She had seen what a single musket could do inside a warehouse. She had watched the life escape from a man she could almost have reached with her hand. At Cotonou there would be hundreds of rifles, cannon and soldiers waiting behind walls.
Whenever she allowed herself to imagine the battle, she saw the figures of the soldiers surrounded by fire.
She forced the images away and watched the woman marching in front of her.
The army halted several hours before dawn.
Orders travelled quietly along the column. The Agojie moved off the road and gathered beneath the trees while the male regiments continued towards their assigned positions.
Nawi waited in a small clearing with Dòkpè and the other group leaders. A shielded lamp stood upon the ground between them, its glow revealing a plan drawn in the earth.
The three young women remained with their group until Dòkpè summoned them.
“You will fight as Gulohento—as musketeers,” she told them.
Sika saw some of the tightness leave Kemi’s face.
As musketeers, they would not form part of the first charge. They would advance through cover, fire upon the French positions and move before the enemy could answer. They would not be required to hold one place while the French rifles found their range.
Fire, move and fire again.
It was dangerous, but it allowed them to think, to reload while under cover, to remain hidden while bringing destruction upon the enemy.
Afi’s expression hardened.
“We are staying behind?”
“You are supporting the attack,” Dòkpè said.
“I can carry a blade.”
“So can every woman here.”
“I fought at the warehouse.”
“You killed one frightened man at close range.”
“He had a weapon.”
“And now you believe that makes you ready to charge cannon?”
Afi’s jaw tightened.
Dòkpè stepped closer.
“The women leading the assault have trained together for years. They know how the others move, when to close their lines and how to continue when the woman beside them falls. You do not.”
“I can follow them.”
“You will follow my orders.”
Afi stared beyond her towards the groups assembling in the darkness. The assault companies carried blades and muskets, but many had stripped away packs and anything else that might slow them. Their faces and arms were darkened with charcoal.
They would be the first to reach the French defences.
Sika saw the longing in Afi’s face. There was no glory in lying behind a fallen tree and firing at shapes in the smoke. No one composed songs about a woman who loaded carefully and withdrew when ordered.
Kemi also watched the assault companies, but Sika saw none of Afi’s longing in her face. If songs were written about the coming battle, Sika suspected Kemi would prefer not to appear in one.
Dòkpè turned to Sika.
“You understand?”
“Yes.”
“What is your task?”
“Fire upon the defenders and move before they return fire.”
“And if you become separated?”
“Return to the jungle and find the rallying point.”
“If Kemi is killed?”
Sika glanced at her.
“Continue under the next senior woman.”
“If Afi is killed?”
Afi looked offended by the possibility.
“The same.”
Dòkpè nodded.
Afi folded her arms.
“You did not ask what happens if Sika is killed.”
Dòkpè looked at her.
“Perhaps I believe Sika will follow her orders.”
Before Afi could answer, Nawi called the group leaders forward.
The plan was simple.
The Dahomean army would attack before sunrise. Male regiments would strike the French perimeter from the inland approaches while the Agojie assaulted along the road and through the remaining cover. Musketeers would support the advancing formations, suppressing the defenders while the assault groups crossed the cleared ground.
The orders made the king’s intention clear: surprise and the last of the darkness would reduce the advantage of the French rifles.
Nawi did not promise that either would be enough.
“The French have built their walls because they are afraid to meet us beyond them,” she told the assembled commanders. “Do not mistake fear for weakness. They have rifles which load faster than our muskets. They have cannon ashore and ships beyond the coast.”
She pointed towards the lines marked in the soil.
“Do not crowd the approaches. Do not fire through our advancing regiments. Once our women enter the French position, you will shift your fire towards the flanks.”
Her scar tightened as she looked from one group leader to another.
“You will maintain control of your women. Courage without discipline will kill more Agojie than French bullets.”
Dòkpè glanced towards Afi.
Afi looked away.
The groups began moving towards their positions.
Long before they saw Cotonou, Sika smelled the smoke from French fires and thick French cigarettes.
The jungle thinned gradually until the darkness ahead seemed broader than the sky above it.
They reached the last belt of vegetation and stopped.
Beyond it lay the ground the French had cleared.
Tree stumps rose from blackened earth. Felled trunks, cut branches and demolished huts had been dragged away or burned. The open space extended towards a ditch, an earthen bank and a barrier of stakes. Lamps glowed behind the defences, but their light revealed little of the soldiers sheltering there.
Farther beyond, the sea was invisible in the darkness.
The ships were not.
Lights marked their positions offshore.
Kemi lay behind a fallen trunk and rested her musket across it. Afi took position on her left and Sika on her right. Other musketeers spread along the edge of the jungle, each woman leaving enough space that a single cannon shot would not strike several of them.
They waited as the night began to thin. A faint grey light appeared beyond the coast, not yet sunrise but enough to separate the earthworks from the sky.
Mosquitoes settled upon Sika’s hands. She felt each bite but did not move. Sweat collected beneath her fingers and made the musket stock slippery.
Somewhere beyond the earthworks, a man coughed.
A French sentry called a question.
No answer came.
Then the Dahomean drums began.
Their first beat came from the western side of Cotonou.
A second answered from the north, then another from farther east. The sound rolled along the edge of the jungle, multiplied and returned from the French buildings.
The assault cries followed before the sentry could call again.
Thousands of Dahomean warriors rose from the darkness and surged towards the fortified position.
The French lamps vanished. Confused shouts broke out behind the earthworks, followed by scattered rifle shots fired too quickly and without order.
The French had been caught unprepared.
Dahomean warriors crossed the open ground before the defenders could form a steady line. The first men reached the ditch, and Agojie were already tearing at the outer stakes when shouted French commands finally cut through the drums.
Then the French fired together.
The first organised volley tore through the advancing warriors. Men fell across the cleared ground, but the regiments behind them continued forwards. Dahomean muskets answered through the grey dawn, producing uneven flashes and thick white smoke.
“Find your targets!” Dòkpè shouted. “Do not fire into our warriors!”
Sika saw Kemi track the shape of a French soldier rising behind the barricade.
She aimed at the movement and fired.
The musket slammed against her shoulder. Smoke blinded her. She lowered herself behind the trunk and began reloading.
Powder. Ball. Ram.
Her hands moved through the practised sequence despite the fear tightening her chest.
Beside her, Afi fired and immediately began to rise.
Kemi caught the back of her wrapper.
“Move first.”
“I saw him.”
“He saw you.”
A rifle ball struck the trunk where Afi’s head had been.
Wood splintered across them.
Afi dropped.
Kemi dragged her several paces to the right before either woman reloaded.
Sika crawled after them.
The French cannon fired.
The blast came from the defences, followed almost immediately by the shriek of grapeshot crossing the open ground. The charge disintegrated in front of it. Men and women fell together, some killed before they reached the earth, others crying out beneath the feet of those still advancing.
Sika stared.
“Load!” Kemi shouted.
Sika looked down at the loaded musket in her hands.
She raised it, found the flash of a French rifle and pulled the trigger.
The powder ignited.
This time she moved without being told.
The battle spread around them.
Male warriors reached the ditch and threw themselves into it. Those behind climbed over them, using the bodies of the dead and wounded as steps. Agojie drove sharpened stakes aside and hacked at the barrier. The ditch, earthwork and stakes compressed the attack into a narrow belt beneath the French rifles.
The French line did not break.
Tirailleurs fired from behind the earthworks while marines reinforced threatened sections. Officers blew whistles and shouted above the noise, directing men towards gaps in the perimeter.
Then the ships opened fire.
Flame appeared offshore.
A moment later, a shell passed over the French position and exploded near the jungle. The blast struck Sika like a blow against the chest. Leaves, soil and fragments of timber rained down upon them.
More guns fired from the sea.
Their shells exploded behind the Dahomean attack, cutting off routes of reinforcement and tearing through groups waiting beneath the trees. The smell of salt disappeared beneath powder smoke, burning vegetation and opened earth.
Afi wiped soil from her face.
“This is better.”
Kemi stared at her.
“Better than what?”
“Waiting.”
Dòkpè ordered them forward.
They moved from the tree line into the cleared ground, using stumps, bodies and depressions for cover. Each movement brought them closer to the French defences and deeper into the smoke.
A wounded warrior lay beside a shattered stump, struggling to pull himself forward with one arm. Blood spread beneath his body.
Afi changed direction.
“Afi!” Kemi shouted.
Afi reached the man as another French volley crossed the clearing. She lowered her musket, seized him beneath the shoulders and dragged him behind the stump.
Bullets struck the ground around them.
Kemi and Sika fired towards the French wall.
Afi pulled the warrior out of the direct line of fire and shouted for porters to take him. Then she ran back to the others, grinning as though she had defeated the French position alone.
“You could have been killed,” Kemi said.
“Yes but I was not.”
“That does not make it sensible.”
“He would have died.”
“And now all four of us might.”
Afi looked towards the barrier.
“Then shoot better.”
Before Kemi could answer, the Agojie assault reached the French line.
Women poured into the ditch, climbed over the earthworks and fought among the barriers. Blades struck rifle stocks. Muskets were fired at distances too short to miss. Tirailleurs gave ground in one section before marines rushed forward to close the breach.
Nawi ordered more women into the gap.
Dòkpè led them.
Sika saw Afi watch her go.
“No,” Kemi said.
“I did not say anything.”
“You were about to.”
“They need us.”
“They need us to fire.”
Afi raised her musket and shot a tirailleur standing above the ditch.
Then she ran.
Kemi swore and followed.
Sika wanted to remain behind the stump. Every part of her body demanded that she press herself against the earth and become too small for the French to see.
Instead, she ran after them.
They crossed the ditch where bodies had almost filled it. Sika stepped upon something soft and refused to look down. Smoke wrapped itself around the barrier, concealing the defenders until they appeared only a few strides away.
Afi struck first.
Her musket was empty, so she used it as a club. The stock caught a tirailleur beneath the chin and drove him backwards. She drew her blade before he struck the ground.
Kemi fired past her at another soldier and dragged Afi behind the earthwork.
“Stay down.”
“We are inside.”
“And they are still shooting.”
French marines appeared through the smoke.
The three young women fired, withdrew and loaded behind a pile of ammunition boxes. Agojie and male warriors fought around them. The French position had been penetrated, but not broken. Everywhere Dahomeans entered, the defenders formed another line and forced them back with rifle fire.
A cannon crew turned a gun towards the breach.
Kemi pointed towards the cannon crew.
“Back!”
Afi remained on one knee, trying to reload.
Kemi struck the musket from her hands and pulled her towards the ditch.
The cannon fired.
Grapeshot ripped through the space they had occupied.
An Agojie behind them disappeared into the smoke. Something warm struck Sika’s face. She wiped it away and saw blood upon her fingers, although she could find no wound upon herself.
Dòkpè sounded the withdrawal.
At first, no one obeyed.
The warriors nearest the French line continued fighting as though another charge might finally break it. Officers shouted the order again. Drums and horns took up the retreat signal, their rhythm struggling beneath cannon and rifle fire.
Kemi seized Afi by the arm.
“We are leaving.”
“We reached them.”
“And we are leaving.”
“We can still—”
“They are bringing another cannon.”
Afi looked through the smoke and, for once, did not argue.
They crossed the ditch and ran towards the jungle.
The French fired into the retreating army. Warriors fell across the same ground they had crossed in darkness. Agojie stopped to lift wounded companions and were struck beside them. Porters abandoned captured equipment to carry the injured.
The ship guns continued firing until the Dahomeans reached the shelter of the trees.
Even there, shells pursued them.
A blast threw Sika onto her stomach. Her musket flew from her hands. She heard nothing except a high, unbroken ringing.
Kemi pulled her upright.
“Are you hurt?”
Sika moved her arms and legs.
“I do not know.”
“Can you walk?”
“Yes.”
“Then you are not hurt enough to remain here.”
They found Afi farther inland helping the wounded warrior she had dragged from the battlefield. Blood covered her arms, but none of it was hers.
“You were fortunate,” Kemi told her.
Afi looked back towards the smoke.
“I was brave.”
“No, you were foolish” retorted Kemi. “That is not the same thing.”
The Dahomean army withdrew into the hinterland.
Sika saw no pursuit beyond the cleared ground. The French had held Cotonou, but their soldiers did not follow the Dahomean army into the jungle while powder smoke still concealed the roads.
The extent of the losses became apparent only after sunrise.
The wounded lay beneath trees and beside the roads. Healers moved among them with baskets of cloth, water and medicines, deciding who could be saved and who could only be made comfortable.
Many of the dead remained at Cotonou.
Entire groups had lost women. Male regiments which had marched south in ordered columns now gathered in silence around commanders who could not account for half their warriors.
Nawi moved among the Agojie.
Her face revealed nothing, but she stopped beside every wounded woman who could still speak. She listened to reports from the group leaders and ordered names recorded.
Dòkpè had returned with a cut across her scalp and powder burns along one arm. She refused treatment until every woman in her group had been counted.
Sika, Kemi and Afi stood before her.
“You left your position,” Dòkpè told Afi.
“Yes.”
“You disobeyed Kemi.”
Afi glanced at her.
“Yes. She is not my commander.”
“You entered the French defences without orders.”
Afi waited.
Dòkpè struck her across the mouth.
Afi’s head snapped sideways. Blood appeared on her lip.
She fixed Dòkpè with a hard stare.
Dòkpè stared back, daring her—almost begging her—to retaliate.
Kemi nudged Afi’s arm in warning and Afi backed down slowly still keeping her glared fixed directly into Dòkpè’s face.
Finally, the tension subsided.
“That is the only blood you earned today,” Dòkpè said. “The rest belongs to people whose lives you risked because you could not follow an order.”
Afi touched her mouth.
“I went alone.”
“Kemi and Sika followed you.”
“I did not ask them to.”
“You did not need to. You are bound together. When you behave like a fool, you place all three of you in danger.”
Dòkpè looked at Kemi.
“You knew she would run?”
“Yes.”
“Then next time stop her before she begins.”
“How?”
“That is why leadership is difficult.”
Afi looked almost pleased that Kemi had also been reprimanded.
Dòkpè caught the hint of a smile.
“Do not smile. She is responsible for you because she thinks. You are responsible for giving her so much to think about.”
Messengers carried the first reports to Béhanzin before the army completed its withdrawal. Sika did not know what the king had expected, but the number of dead and wounded silenced everyone around her.
The warning at the warehouse and the storerooms had been effortless. Cotonou had not been. Sika had crossed the cleared ground, the ditch and the earthworks, yet the defenders had simply formed again behind them. Above all of it, guns beyond the shore had reached into places she had believed were safe.
The French had seen how Dahomey fought. Sika had now seen what France could place between itself and defeat.
Orders came from Béhanzin for the surviving regiments to withdraw from the coast into the Dahomean hinterland. The wounded were carried north. The army reorganized beyond the reach of the ships” guns while scouts remained behind to watch the French position.
For several days, the scouts reported that the French did not move beyond Cotonou. They repaired their barriers, buried their dead and collected Dahomean weapons from the battlefield. The jungle remained beyond their walls, watching.
Then reports began arriving from the east.
The French were assembling another force.
Sika heard that King Toffa I of Porto-Novo had allied himself with France against Dahomey. His warriors were gathering along the eastern roads, protecting French interests and guiding patrols through country unfamiliar to the marines and tirailleurs.
According to the scouts, a French column followed behind Toffa’s men.
Tirailleurs and marines marched with rifles ready. Porters carried food, water and ammunition. Three cannons travelled with them, their wheels cutting deep tracks into the softened roads.
They were not marching towards Abomey. They were moving inland to block Béhanzin’s army from Porto-Novo and the French positions surrounding it.
Scouts brought the name of the place where the routes would meet.
Atchoukpa.
Nawi and the commanders of the male regiments were summoned to the king.
When Nawi returned, she gathered the Agojie group leaders. Cotonou had shown them what happened when Dahomey attacked French fortifications supported by ships.
At Atchoukpa, Nawi told them, there would be no ships.
Sika understood what would come next. The king intended to discover whether the French could stand without the power of the warships.