As I clung to the bows, waiting for Doc to clamber down, I saw Arnold and his seamen, standing by the cabin, peering within. They started back, and a puff of smoke surged upward from the cabin. I let go and dropped into two feet of water.

The beach swarmed with men, all black and tattered. Of the eighty who had been aboard the Congress at the beginning of the fight at Valcour, there were less than fifty now. The other crews had suffered less than ours, but not much less. More than half our ragged crew had been killed or wounded, and it seemed incredible to me that any of us were still alive.

Nason lay white-faced on the beach, a draggled wreck, one arm grotesquely bent. Tom Bickford, almost as pale, knelt above him. Cap Huff blundered out from the milling figures on the upper beach, clutching a strip of canvas to his breast. It hung between his legs, so that he constantly tripped and stumbled on it.

He dropped to his knees beside Nason. “Put him on this,” he told Tom thickly. “We’ll hang it on a pole, like a hammock, and lug him.”

Doc Means went quickly to Cap. “What’s the matter with you?”

Cap stared up at him. “Stevie got hurt. He got hurt bad.” He hiccupped and added wildly: “They killed him! They killed Stevie!”

Doc slapped Cap’s cheek—a stinging slap. “Pay attention to me! Nason ain’t dead—not yet he ain’t! What happened to you?”

“Nothing! There ain’t nothing happened to me! Why don’t you fix up Stevie?”

Doc slapped him again. “Stop your hollering! Take off that coat!”

Cap fumbled at his ragged jacket, groaning as he dragged it from his naked shoulders. Beneath his arm was a purple welt that oozed dark blood.

“Look at that!” Doc said. “You’re pretty near as bad off as Nason! You got a grape shot in you.”

“I ain’t had any grape,” Cap said dully. “I could use some.”

Doc peered nearsightedly at Cap’s ribs, whipped out a knife and flicked the point against the thick muscles beneath the shoulder. From Cap’s lips came an anguished grunt.

Doc held out his hand. In its palm lay a flattened leaden ball. “There it is! Now mind what I tell you! Don’t try to carry nobody! Tend to your own affairs and keep away from Nason. Understand? If you try to carry him, you’ll bust yourself open!”

“Why don’t you tend to him?” Cap bawled with sudden surprising fierceness.

“I’ll tend to him when you get away from here, and not before!”