Cap rose to his feet. His naked torso was smeared with blood. He rubbed the red stains fumblingly, examined his crimsoned fingers in blank amazement, and stumbled off toward the ridge above the beach. Along its top lay his squad of scarecrow marines. They were as business-like, waiting there to protect us against British landing parties, as though they wore clean uniforms instead of lousy rags.

Doc watched him go; then shook his head and spoke to me. “Take your brother over the ridge behind the headland. Pick a spot where we won’t be interfered with. We’ll be out of range of the guns there. After I’ve done what I can for Nason, I’ll follow you.”

As Verrieul and I carried Nathaniel over the ridge, I turned to see where the British were. The Inflexible was coming into the wind, preparatory to tacking, far out beyond the headland. She fell off slowly on the other tack, working her guns with grim persistence. The shot splashed astern of the beached vessels. All of them were burning, the smoke and flames rolling and crackling from cabins and hatches. At their mast-heads flew our red and white flags, each with its rattlesnake and the words “Don’t Tread On Me.”

There was satisfaction in the knowledge that in three days of fighting, the British hadn’t been able to make us haul them down. And there was something in the sight of them that seemed to half strangle me. I think the scores who lay behind such shelters as the beach afforded, waiting for the fire to take those flags, must have felt as I did; for when Arnold, standing alone in the bow of the Congress to watch the progress of the flames, turned and stepped up on the bulwarks, the men burst into a shrill and quavering cheer that sounded as choked as my own throat felt.

On the far side of the ridge, there was nothing to remind us of the battle save the slow and distant thudding of the British guns, firing uselessly at our burning ships. Verrieul motioned with his head toward a stand of young pines, sprouting from a fallen tree. It offered a shelter from the wind; so we took Nathaniel to its lee and lowered him to a patch of pine needles. He was limp and heavy; but his hands were warm, and a slow pulse beat in his wrists.

It seemed an hour before Doc Means came lurching to us. Without a word he stooped and pawed at my brother’s chest, neck and shoulders.

Nathaniel’s face was the dull silver color of a fish on the beach. Doc worked away at the base of his skull for a time, but it did no good.

“We got to get him breathing,” Doc said. His tone frightened me.