“The matter with it?” Cap asked. “Why, look at it! How would they get out of that corner, if they had to get out in a hurry? Considering the sailors they’ve got aboard, they’d be too busy bumping into each other and running ashore to do anything else. Do you think they could ever run out and chase the British?” He laughed hoarsely.

“I wouldn’t be at all surprised,” I said. “Those vessels have been cruising for a month. It doesn’t take long to make a sailor, not if you’ve got seamen in charge. A man soon learns the ropes, when he knows he’s going to get a rap with a belaying pin if he doesn’t. If that’s your only objection to the anchorage, stop worrying about it.”

“That anchorage ain’t worth a hoot!” Cap said coldly. “Can’t I see what it is? Once you’re in there, you wouldn’t know what was happening anywhere! You might as well be up on the Chaudière as behind that island!”

“Not quite,” I said. “Not quite. I hate to mention this in your hearing, but it takes a seaman to understand ships, just as it takes a tailor to make a coat. You pay eight hundred dollars for a keg of rum because Congress printed money without knowing anything about money. They printed it the way they’d print newspapers, and that’s why it’s worth no more than newspapers.”

Cap breathed heavily. “Newspapers! Money! Eight hundred dollars! What’s that got to do with this anchorage?”

“It’s got this to do with it. That anchorage was selected by a seaman. Look at it carefully. A squadron coming down from the north can’t even see this fleet, not unless a scout boat should be sent right down the channel and into the jaws of the crescent.”

“Ain’t that just what I say?” Cap demanded.

“Wait. You don’t understand. The British won’t move against us unless they have a favorable wind—a wind from the north. Once they’ve got it, they’ll keep all their vessels together, probably, and expect to find us lying out in the open somewhere. They’d never think of looking in here for us, because from the north this channel looks like nothing at all.”

Cap was exasperated. “That’s what it looks like, and that’s what it is! Don’t you think I can see?”

“All right,” I told him. “If you can see so much, you can see what’s going to happen when the British ships go past the island.”

Cap’s eyes wavered. “When they go past! Once they’re past, they’re past, and they do as they damned please, don’t they?”