He gnawed his thumb, his eyes focussed on something miles away. “These charges sound like the ravings of an idiot: they’re so preposterous I can’t dignify them by taking public notice of them, any more than Gates or Schuyler can; and the hell of it is, they’re dangerous! There’s always somebody to believe anything about a man—anything! If these reports ever reach Congress, there’ll be plenty to believe ’em! Plenty! And God knows what they’d do! They might put that old gray mare Wynkoop back in command of this fleet. They might let a Frenchman have it—a Frenchman who wouldn’t have time to fight because of having to tell everybody what a fighter he was!”

“They’d never do that!” I protested.

He looked at me pityingly. “Congress wouldn’t? Why wouldn’t they? Look at what they have done! Haven’t they just made St. Clair a general, for God’s sake? And for what? For what? Damned if I know, unless it was because he voted to abandon Crown Point, or because his name sounded French to ’em! The way to get quick promotion in this army is to go to France and take a French name; then Congress would make you a major general.”

I laughed, thinking of the Chevalier Mathieu Alexis Roche-Fermoy, who considered himself superior to General Washington.

“It’s no laughing matter,” Arnold said. “They don’t care who they promote, so long as he’s no damned good!”

I told him I was laughing because of Dr. Price’s book, which contended that people who have a parliament that subjects itself to any kind of foreign influence aren’t free at all.

“Price on Civil Liberty?” Arnold asked eagerly. “Have you got that book? I’ve heard of it, and I’d like to look at it. That’s the book supposed to be responsible for the signing of the Declaration of Independence!”

When I produced my copy, he read a few words: then clapped it shut. “Of course! Of course! He’s absolutely right! This government of ours isn’t a government at all!”

He tucked it in his sash and got to his feet to study the sky. “South!” he exclaimed. “No British with a south wind! We’ll exercise the galleys—once around the island! The prize’ll be a keg of rum! I’ll pay for it out of my own pocket! We’ll show Waterbury a thing or two!” He rubbed his hands together, balanced on his toes as if bursting with energy. “I’ll sail this hooker, and we’ll drink the rum ourselves!”

… The next day was the 8th, and the wind was in the south again; and there it stayed on the 9th and the 10th—a gusty, moist wind out of a heavy sky, moaning ominously in our top-hamper and sighing mournfully in our spruce-decked bulwarks.