“He’s been up with the St. Francis Indians, keeping them neutral. He and Natanis. They’ll get through somehow.”

“General,” Cap said defiantly, “I’d like to wait right here till Stevie comes.”

Arnold nodded, and there was a gleam in his eye that told me he took pleasure in Cap’s blundering ways. “I’ve got no objection. You can stay here till I go. That’ll not be till Sullivan’s troops have come in and passed south. But I’ll tell you this: don’t stay after I’ve gone unless you want a free trip to England in chains.”

“General,” Cap said, gesturing in our direction, “these boys are handy with oars, all of ’em. What you say we pick you out a good boat and row you to Eel Ox Nox when you’re ready?”

That was how Cap called Isle aux Noix, then and forever after; and because of the society he later formed—the Eel Ox Nox Club—the rest of us always referred to it in the same way.

Arnold nodded again. “Good! Good idea! Get a boat and keep it here. Stay here yourselves, all of you, so I’ll know where to find you when I need you.” He swung his lather-streaked black horse and went clattering along the river road toward the brick barracks before which his men were already dumping their supplies and arms.

… The next two days were hideous. The sun beat down on us as if it had come close to enjoy our troubles. There was no breeze to dispel the hot steam in which we moved; but toward sundown a bank of clouds rolled down from Lake Champlain and into the valley of the Richelieu. Then, through the night, the lightning stabbed and crackled around us, the rain beat through tents, roofs and windows until we were parboiled, and the violence of the thunder was like some hell-minded giant trying to smash the world to pieces.

Throughout those two days the retreat still stewed about us. Sullivan’s troops came hobbling in, ready to drop in their tracks and sleep wherever they halted, whether in broiling sun or drenching cloudburst.

Somehow Cap Huff contrived to keep a fire burning perpetually in a lower corner of the shipyard; and by its changeable light in the rain, we could see, all night long, if we were wakeful, those half-clad, groping, draggled skeletons lurching past in twos and threes, a dismal and pitiful thing to watch.

When the thunder was still for a while, and we woke, we could hear the mutter of their voices, the clink of their camp kettles as they stumbled, the shrill squealing of the Canadian carts that helped to carry baggage and supplies, the clack of oars in bateaux, the thudding of the cannon wheels.