“Who told you? Who was it said Arnold’s no fit man to be an American officer? Who’s going to send word to Congress about him? Who said he’s going to be arrested? Who said he stole a sable coat and a solid gold sword or whatever it was? They say he stole? Who says it?”

“Why, everybody!”

“Tell me one!”

“I don’t remember any particular one, but everybody says it.”

“Don’t say that, Nathaniel! Anybody remembers who makes charges of that sort. This is a serious business! Arnold’s the one good fighting general there is in our whole Northern Army! Do you know where we’d be, right this minute, except for Arnold? We’d be locked up in Montreal, all of us, with British regulars to give us a smell of their bayonets every time we showed our noses at a window! God knows it’s not much of an army right now, thanks to Wooster and Sullivan and Congress and the smallpox; but bad as it is, it’s still an army. If it wasn’t for Arnold, it wouldn’t exist at all! There wouldn’t be any Northern Army! I want to know who it is that accuses Arnold of being a thief!”

Nathaniel was furious; but thanks to his shipboard training he gave me a fair answer. “If you don’t mind, Peter, I’d rather not name any names.”

“Listen to me!” I said. “What you’re saying is a lie! Understand? It’s a lie! I’ve been two days on a bateau with Arnold, and he’s no robber. He took no sable coats and no diamond shoe buckles, or whatever it was you said. He’s the only man in sight I’d trust to lead me! The only man! I know a leader when I see one; and that’s what Arnold is! Now for God’s sake be careful! Don’t spread these lies about Arnold, or they will reach Congress. Then, the first thing you know, we’ll be under the command of one of those pig-nut generals that Cap Huff talks about—maybe one of the foreigners that Congress loves so much, like De Woedtke, or the Frenchman we came to America with! He’ll get us into a corner we’ll never get out of—another corner like Isle aux Noix, where we’ll be rolled into dead pits by the thousands; and there’ll be nobody on God’s green earth to know what becomes of us. We’ll be gone like the flame of a blown-out candle—and with as little to show for our lives!”

Nathaniel sullenly studied his shoes. Ellen’s glance was calm and level. I was swept by the feeling of hopelessness that burdens every man who speaks of war to those who have insufficient knowledge of what war is.

XXIV