Officers went to Sullivan, where he stood on the earthworks, peering like a basilisk into the north. St. Clair, worried-looking and grayish, talked with him, and Wayne, a tall, chesty officer with a bold, jeering look. They waved their arms and pointed; and we knew they were urging Sullivan to retreat while there was yet time. But Sullivan just went back to his tent, his lips tight and perspiration dripping from him, and wouldn’t stir. He would not stir.

Early in the afternoon sentries on the earthworks shouted and pointed across the pale blue waters of the lake. The distant haze had lifted—cooled, perhaps, by a fresher breeze—and beyond the sandy islands that crowd the upper end of Lake St. Peter there rose the white sails of such a fleet as I had never seen.

The whole horizon was solid with topgallantsails and royals, score upon score of them. There were more than fifty vessels in the fleet. Their sails were big and square: not the sails of small merchant vessels, but of ships—war vessels: frigates, beyond question, and sloops-of-war. This vast spread of canvas hung there, shining in the scorching afternoon sun, like the silvery rim of a thundercloud: a great armada.

The breeze was light but steady. In three hours, if it held, every last one of those tall vessels would have passed between the islands and would be close enough to open on us with big guns. I wondered whether Sullivan had gone mad with the heat. In no other way, it seemed to me, could his unwillingness to move be explained.

He climbed the parapet again, surrounded by officers who gesticulated furiously and argued hotly with Sullivan and each other; but Sullivan stood immovable among them, his gaze fixed on the countless sails in the north.

I felt half suffocated by this Gehenna in which Sullivan’s stupidity had embroiled me, and feveredly wondered what the British would do to us when they captured us: where they would take us.

I wondered about Nathaniel: whether he had seen Ellen Phipps yet: whether he would escape the British, or whether they would capture him too. I wondered about Ellen—whether she would get away to Albany: whether I would ever see her again.

Within me I cursed this lynx-faced general, who was putting all of us in a corner like a lot of helpless rats—putting us where we could neither fight nor run—and doing it in spite of Arnold’s warning: in spite, now that the odds against us were actually in sight, of the warnings of all his officers.

The group around Sullivan burst apart, almost as though a bomb had scattered them. Some of the officers shouted. A drummer ran toward them: then stopped, hitched his drum into position and beat a rattling, rasping roll that seemed the embodiment of irritation. It told everyone within hearing that Sullivan had yielded at last and ordered a retreat.