St. Clair’s trouble, as I saw it, was one that afflicts many white men: he had never learned to interpret what lay before him. If he read, in a book, a passage of a little subtlety, he was almost sure to misread it: if called on to judge the movements of an enemy, he was apt to judge wrongly: if need be, he could even persuade himself that the likeliest place for the education of a small son was a dangerous post in the wilderness, where all his time and all his thoughts should be spent on defending that post.

He heard what we had to say without comment. He chewed his lip and pondered. I suspected he was feeling sorry for himself: not racking his brains as to how the British might best be confounded; and I thought sadly of the difference between this man and Arnold.

He spoke cheerfully to Whitcomb. “This corroborates what we learned this afternoon, eh? We’ll have to let it be known that Abercrombie couldn’t carry these defenses against the French, not even with ten thousand men.”

I hoped he had benefited by the blunders of Abercrombie, who had been responsible for the death of two thousand men on the very ground where Doc, Joseph Phipps and I had lain when Verrieul was dying.

Still, St. Clair was a kindly gentleman, and he was respectful to Congress, so that he doubtless deserved all the honors he received, though I thank God I never had to fight in any battle he directed. He showed his kindness now.

“Major Whitcomb,” he said, “there’s things to be talked over, so I’ll request the pleasure of your company for a time.” To us he said, “Get yourselves clean of that paint and those clothes, before one of our militiamen puts a load of buck-shot through you. Report to Major Whitcomb at noon tomorrow. Somebody’ll have shirts and breeches for you. Until then your time’s your own—unless the British ignore all the rules of warfare and attack with a superior force tonight.”

LV

WHEN we left St. Clair, Cap borrowed a lantern and led us down to the shore. On the way he gave each of us a square of soap—the first soap we had seen since we used up the pieces we had taken with us from Arundel more than a year before.

Doc Means sniffed at it. “Hoy! It’s scented! Three cakes of scented soap! Ain’t this something new for you to have that much soap?”

“Who, me?” Cap growled. “I don’t never use it. It roughs my skin. That what you’ve got, that’s Wilkinson’s. It was in his room, and I figured you wouldn’t have any, so I picked it up. Three whole pieces of scented soap, that sissy had!”