“General Arnold said I was to see you,” I began; but Wilkinson frowned, pointing toward the warped boards beside his head. His lips formed the words “Council of War!”; so I held my tongue and listened.

I recognized the querulous voice of General Sullivan. He was pleading almost petulantly, as a child pleads with its mother to be allowed to eat something forbidden.

“There’s nobody,” he complained, “who doesn’t want us to hold the country. Why look here, gentlemen! What’s to become of the poor Canadians who’ve helped us—who’ve fed us and carted our belongings and loaned money to us, in the hopes we’d take the country from the English? What’s to become of them? If we desert them, the British’ll hang ’em! My God, gentlemen; you can’t hold Canada unless you hold some part of it, and this island’s the last bit we can keep a grip on. Congress wants it held! General Washington wants it held! The American people want it held! What’s to happen if we let go?”

Arnold’s voice followed closely on Sullivan’s. There was a hoarseness to it that made my heart thump faster.

“With all due respect, General,” Arnold said, “you’re looking at it wrong end to. We’ve got eight thousand men on this island; and if there ever was an army that size with as many enemies to fight as we’ve got, I never heard of it! We can lose every man in half a dozen different ways; and as I see it, our first duty is to save ’em if possible.”

There was a growl of assent, but Arnold’s voice drowned it. “It’s not what Congress wants, or what they’ll think if we don’t do exactly what they want. What they want doesn’t matter! They want one thing today, and another thing tomorrow. They don’t know what’s going on up here. Most of ’em wouldn’t know if they were here, looking at it. They haven’t got the sort of brains that lets ’em see what they’re looking at. We’re the ones that know; and what we know is this: in two weeks, if you try to hold this island, there won’t be enough well men to row your sick! The place is full of dead already, and God only knows what sort of plague you’ll get from ’em if you add to ’em for another two weeks. All your men, sick and well, are eating rotten food and drinking rotten water; and in my opinion they’ll all rot if you keep ’em here!”

The rumble of agreement grew louder.