All around me, as I rode through the wretched shelters under which this pauper army lived, were the Pennsylvania troops I had seen entering St. John’s two weeks before. Already the uniforms that had shone so brightly against the brown Richelieu were faded and tattered, and the men themselves had the look of being tattered in spirit.

There were sentries at the door of headquarters; and when one of them bawled that here was a despatch-bearer come from General Arnold, I was taken at once before General Sullivan. There was little amiability to be seen in his broad lynx-like face as he glanced from the superscription on the letter to my rough clothes, and even less when he had opened the letter and run his eye over it.

To me he said: “It was you, wasn’t it, Captain, who was taking the vessel to pieces because Arnold thought it might be needful in a retreat?”

I said “Yes,” whereupon he remarked grimly that there seemed to be a conspiracy on somebody’s part to persuade him to retreat without firing a gun. With that he sighed and spoke to me kindly enough. “I suppose it’s your duty to return to Arnold with an answer to his message. Well, I can’t let you have it now: you’ll have to wait. Meanwhile, find yourself quarters with Wayne’s officers. I’ll have use for every healthy man obtainable, and soon, too!”

It seemed plain to me that what Sullivan meant was that he intended, in spite of Arnold’s warning, to fight the British. If he had any other intentions, I was sure he would have moved at once.

But in spite of Arnold’s warning, Sullivan would not stir. There in that steaming, sticky fry-pan of a camp he waited, silent and lynx-like, studying the pallid surface of Lake St. Peter. He seemed to be set upon waiting, with his inactive army, perforce, waiting with him.

… On the day after I brought him Arnold’s message the whole army seemed to stare breathlessly into the heat haze that smudged the northern sky, and wilt as it stared. A sun of molten brass glared down on torrid marshes that spewed mosquitoes into the quivering air; and on every side there was muttering and grumbling; for word had spread as to the numbers of the British and the size of the guns they were bringing against us—guns big enough to let them lie well out of range of our little pea-shooters and batter us to a jelly.

At mid-morning we heard that a column of British had been sighted on the far shore of the St. Lawrence; a long column, attended by supply carts and artillery, marching up the river. If this was true, it meant the British were moving on a long curve that would bring them in our rear. It meant we would be cut off.