LII

AT DAWN on July 2nd we drove our freshly pitched Caughnawaga canoe down the narrow La Colle and out onto the brown Richelieu. Our faces were newly painted, and for the most part we were in high spirits—Sponge-belly because, by a stratagem, he had cut in ahead of Langlade; Lewis Vincent and John Phillips because of being with Verrieul and hoping to join the American army, which they had secretly let Verrieul know they proposed to do.

Doc, Verrieul, Joseph Phipps and I weren’t so high-spirited, because we knew that in order to reach our own people once more, we must pass through the entire British army.

As the sun mounted higher, the wind blew hot from the north, so we took two setting poles from the bottom of the canoe, rigged blankets to them and skimmed out into the open lake, overhauling gundelos, bateaux and canoes—British couriers; Canadians directed by Britishers in scarlet and white: provision-boat crews in tow-cloth overalls: sutlers, commissary workers, and even women now and then. They eyed our painted faces with a sort of fascination, and cheered us on our way with friendly shouts.

Their gaiety, I knew, came from confidence. It was the gaiety of conquerors: of an advancing, victorious army.

All through the morning we passed supply-boats, couriers, canoes, bateaux, moving up and down the lake—a sight that filled me with reluctant admiration for the English, who were able to come three thousand miles and do more, even, than our army had been able to do.

Our rapid passage over the lake seemed more than ever like a wheel, turning familiar scenes into my brain—Isle La Motte, where I had camped with Nason and Cap Huff: the high landmark of Cumberland Head, by which I had steered: the long wall of the Adirondacks beyond the western shore: the jagged tumbled masses of the Green Mountains, not green at all, nor yet white as we had last seen them, but a pearly blue: the high mass of Valcour Island, behind which we had fought—behind which, now, Zelph’s white bones must lie scattered on the bottom of the channel; Grand Isle, on which I had had my last glimpse of Ellen, and where the gently smiling Lanau-diere had, as he no doubt imagined, disposed of us forever.

Mid-afternoon, thanks to the hot north wind, found us abreast of Bouquet River: the narrow cleft of Split Rock was just ahead: yet the British army was nowhere to be seen. I wondered whether it had somehow found a way to circle around Ticonderoga and march on toward Albany.

Beyond Split Rock loomed the bays and headlands for which Arnold had steered the shattered Congress galley, her decks all bloody, and her tattered flag still flying.