The sick went past in boatloads that moved dimly on the black water; and no lost souls, rowed by Charon on a darker river, could have complained more dolefully.

Last of all to come were what was left of Wayne’s men. Tom Bickford, standing beside me to watch for Steven Nason while Cap Huff snatched an hour’s sleep, hissed when he saw the rags of blue and white that once had been their uniforms. Indeed, it was beyond belief, what had happened to those men since we had first seen them; and even now, in the coldest nights of winter, I sometimes lie and sweat with rage at the thought of how they were thrown away by Sullivan, a brave man, no doubt, but a blunderer whose sum of military knowledge was less than that contained in the smallest joint of Arnold’s smallest finger.

Where the British were, no man seemed sure, though there was not one of us but knew they were close. The cannon had come down from the barracks again and been placed in the road, just beyond us, behind a barrier of baskets filled with sand. They were four-pounders, those guns, nice for leaning against a door to hold it open, but not the best means for stopping a British army.

The river front had turned into a veritable hugger-mugger of aimlessness and turbulence. Bateaux came downstream constantly, back from Isle aux Noix; and loaded bateaux pushed out from the bank, colliding with everything in sight in their eagerness to be off.

It seemed to me, at times, that men had lost the power of speaking any word except “Get in!” though they were always able to bellow mere sounds. Majors, lieutenants, common soldiers, sergeants, captains, in inextricable confusion, ran here and there: getting into bateaux and getting out again to shout, “Get in!” at someone, or to push at someone else: picking up boxes and barrels and ammunition, only to drop them and pick up others; and through it all shouting at each other, “Get in! Get in! Get started! Get in! Never mind that, get in! Why the hell don’t you get in! Get in yourself! Go ahead: get in!”

Night and day the boats pushed out, filled with men that shouted: men that groaned and babbled in delirium: men that laughed and cursed. By day the sun scorched us: by night the rain nearly drowned us. Gradually the milling crowds on the river bank grew smaller: the mass of bateaux dwindled: the piles of baggage and stores dropped away to nothing.