“You don’t mean to say they’ve built a frigate in a month! A frigate! Why, a frigate could knock all of us to pieces in half an hour!”

“There you go,” Arnold said, “getting things hindside foremost! What do we care about a frigate, even if they have got one, or a dozen frigates, for that matter! What we care about is delay. Delay! Why, look here! Today’s the sixth of October! There’s snow on the Green Mountains! It’s cold! It’s nearly winter; and the British aren’t started yet! Before you know it, there’ll be snow on the New York shore, and then it will be winter! They can’t carry on a winter campaign! They’d be beaten by snow and cold, and they know it! A little more delay and we’ve got ’em! They can’t get through! We’re safe for nearly a year! Delay! Delay! That’s all we want. Every day we delay ’em now is worth a month’s delay earlier in the season!”

He jumped up and banged his fists on the table. “What’s more, there’s no price too high to pay for it! No price!”

Tom Bickford’s hands were clenched. Cap Huff hitched at his belt, then rubbed his red face with huge hands. Nason, his lips compressed, stared into space. Arnold, I saw, could have whatever help they could give him in purchasing delay.

Arnold saw it, too. He patted Cap’s shoulder and smiled at the rest of us. “I’ve got to row around the fleet. Keep after ’em: that’s the only way! Keep after things! Maybe you noticed: there’s only one thing wrong with this anchorage.”

“It looks all right to me,” I said.

“Trees!” Arnold complained. “Those trees behind us! When the trouble comes, those trees might put us in a box! If you climb one of ’em, as I did, you’ll find you can look right down on the deck of this vessel. That won’t do! We can’t have that! Carleton might take it into his head to land a few scouts on Valcour; and before we knew it, they’d be up the trees picking us off! You’ve seen the evergreen decorations of the others; do likewise. Cut young spruces and fasten ’em, butts up, around your ship, outside the bulwarks, so they make a six-foot palisade. They’ll give you shelter from musket fire, and they’ll be discouraging to anybody who tries to board you!”

He gave us a confident nod; and before we could do him the courtesy of rising, he had run up the companion ladder, as spry as a cat. He stopped at the top and looked back at us, his dark face framed in the hatchway.

“Waste no time! Get yourself ready! All they’re waiting for now is a north wind! That may start to blow tonight.”