Arnold limped and slipped from end to end of the quarterdeck, coughing, whispering to himself, watching the sails, watching the rowers, peering behind him and peering ahead; taking the tiller from me and giving it back; sniffing the wind; making sounds of exasperation in his throat, or of amusement, or of expostulation, as if prying into every nook and corner of his brain with indefatigable persistence, hunting for a way to bring us out of the hole we were in.

We didn’t know it then; but on what we were doing, with the help of Arnold’s grim determination, depended the life of the Revolution, and the very existence of what we know as freedom. If Arnold had failed us, or if we had failed him, I think that no American who reads these lines would be in the position of life in which he finds himself today.

… With the coming of the dim dawn of Sunday, the 13th of October, the wind went down; and as it died in fitful, lessening gusts, hope rose in all of us—even in the dullest landsman who tugged at the oars; for even he knew that if the wind would turn into the north, we might yet be safe.

We moved alone in the fog, so far as we could tell; but the men took heart, laughing the silly laughter of fatigue, cursing the British and their fleet, as if contemptuous of such trifles. I knew how they felt: they had come through a battle that could have been no worse: nothing had hurt them, and so they couldn’t be hurt. That, I am now willing to admit, is how I myself felt when the wind died down; but I felt different when it came up again.

All these Champlain fogs vanish as soon as the early morning chill is gone; and as this one lifted, we strained our eyes and twisted our heads like owls. We found the battered Washington, half a mile behind; and what was worse, ahead of us we saw four gundelos, four tattered hulks, fallen back from Wigglesworth’s squadron. Unable, with their flat bottoms, to keep up with Wigglesworth’s more seaworthy vessels, they had slipped so far behind that they were now our charges. For one ungenerous moment they seemed to me like poor relations who appear at the most inopportune of moments, confidently demanding support, and determined to let themselves be saved, no matter what the cost to someone else.

The thinning fog revealed the western shore, bleak and gray. The leaves were stripped from the birches and the maples: the mountains beyond were somber with pines that broke the whiteness of the snow. Arnold uttered a grunting laugh when he saw it, and my heart was as heavy as my stomach, already leaden from hunger.

We were abreast of Willsborough. In sixteen hours of rowing we had come six miles and were still twenty-eight miles from Crown Point.

XL