On the side of the British line closest to Valcour, one of the British gunboats was in trouble. The men aboard her were scurrying like tortured ants. A puff of smoke rose from her stern, and two men fell overboard.

She surged slowly and distressingly. A dark mass of smoke rose up from her, and riding on the smoke was a powder chest. The smoke glowed and burned at the base, and spread enormously, as if pressed flat by the chest on its crest. It enveloped the boat. The chest popped sideways into the air, turned end over end, and fell into the lake. With the crash of the explosion came a tumult of shouting from our own and the British boats.

The smoke rolled away from the gunboat, and we saw that not only had her magazine exploded, but she was ablaze in her amidship section. The other British boats moved toward her, and she toward them. One of her men, in the water, made clutching motions with his hands and vanished.

When I turned my eye shoreward for a moment, to watch for Indians, I saw that Hawley stood alone, feeling his neck and staring up at the sky, as if the cannon that pounded on all sides of us were to be found somewhere in the heavens. I went to him, suspecting that he was, in a way, in greater distress than the British gunboat.

At the touch of my hand on his arm he drew away, walked past me and spoke to Nathaniel. “I got to take back the Royal Savage,” he said flatly. “If I can get the men, I’ll take her! Will you go to take her?”

Nathaniel looked from Hawley to me. “You’d better go,” I told him. “You’ll be safer in a small boat than you’d be right here.”

Hawley went to Arnold, who had his head through the hemlock screen on our taffrail, counting the shot-holes in our hull. When he pulled his head back, he seemed to have forgotten he had ever spoken sharply to Hawley. “Mark the holes,” he said, tapping Hawley on the chest. “Get ’em marked right away, and in an hour you can take your men over the side and put on some patches.”

“Sir,” Hawley said, “lend me three bateaux and I’ll take the Savage. I’ll get my men off the other vessels and take her back.”