It was nearly midnight when we drew up to sentry-fires that seemed to float in mid-stream and were told by a sentry that Sullivan had taken the barn near the center of the island for his headquarters. When we moved down abreast of the barn and backed in to let Arnold jump ashore, we were conscious of a strange sound, a sort of complaining noise. It was like the wailing of a westerly gale in the top-hamper of distant ships; but there were no ships in this place, and no wind either.

Arnold tapped me on the shoulder when the boat grounded. “I’ll want you,” he said. “See Wilkinson tomorrow, so I can find you in a hurry when you’re needed.”

We overturned our bateau to make a shelter, and lay with our heads beneath it. The ground was soggy, and soon the nightly thunderstorm arrived to drench us. Yet it was not this that kept us wakeful, but a nightmare quality in the very air: a quality that filled us with a restless apprehension.

The complaining sound we had heard was the moaning and raving of the sick, who seemed to lie everywhere around us. What with that, and the dreadful smell of the place—a blend of every terrible smell I had ever smelled, with several new and awful smells added—and the faint, unending whining of the unseen mosquitoes that covered us, and the sticky, steamy misery in which we lay, I was more than a little sick myself.

As for Cap Huff, he floundered and flopped among us like a great fish out of water, and finally rolled himself over two men to lie next to Doc Means, explaining that he hoped the asafoetida would drown out some of the other smells, and so give him a chance to sleep.

“If it wasn’t for Stevie Nason,” he said, “I wouldn’t stay five minutes with an army that smelt like this! An army ought to have a smell that you could get used to; but this army keeps getting new ones, and the newest one’s always the worst! I can’t get to like it, and I’m about ready to go home. I’d go home right now if Stevie was here. That is, I would if he’d let me. No, by God, I’d go anyway!”

“Where is it you live?” Verrieul asked politely.

“Who, me?” Cap said in a tone of surprise; and, lifting himself on one elbow, he seemed to be fumbling in his garments. We heard the sound of breaking glass, and a prolonged gurgle. Then he handed me a neckless bottle, warning me not to cut my lip. “Pass it around,” he added. “It’s brandy—just the kind of brandy a feller like Wilkinson would have. We got to get rid of it before he comes snooping around in the morning. We’ll all have a drink to Stevie.”