“I’d better tell you now, while I remember it,” I said. “St. Clair and Wilkinson hate Arnold like poison. Wilkinson tried to tell me Arnold abandoned his wounded on the Congress galley: let ’em burn to death! If that’s what he’s saying, St. Clair’s saying it too. When Wilkinson said it to me, I denied it; and if you want to know what I think, I think I was kept from a command on the vessels during the retreat from Ticonderoga on that account—kept from a command because I wouldn’t hear Arnold lied about.”

“Now wait a minute!” Nason said. “What they think about Arnold makes no difference to me.”

“It does to me,” I said. “Take Wilkinson: if you don’t know who his friends are, you can’t steer clear of ’em.”

“Let me tell you this,” Nason said. “St. Clair didn’t have enough men to make a fight at Ticonderoga. He’d known it for weeks. If he’d stayed there and tried to fight, he’d have lost his entire army. The only reason we’ve got a decent force here at Fort Edward today is because St. Clair retreated instead of trying to fight.”

“He’d known it for weeks, had he?”

“Yes, for weeks!”

“In that case, why didn’t he retreat three days earlier, and save his guns and ammunition and supplies, instead of leaving ’em at Ticonderoga and letting the British get ’em? Why did he wait until the last second, so the British were within an inch of wiping us out?”

“Within an inch!” Cap bawled. “My good God! They wasn’t more than a sixteenth of an inch from me at Hubbardton! There was one of them fellers in a red coat that had his bayonet so close to my breeches that it kept pulling out the threads!” He drew from his pocket a silver watch somewhat like a summer squash in size and shape. He held it to his ear and shook it. It gave out a rattling sound. He showed it to me. “That was his. He kind of fell on it, and I guess maybe he broke something in it.”

“Look here,” Nason protested, “this is no time for arguments. St. Clair brought us here safely—–”

“He brought some of us here safely,” Cap growled. “He didn’t bring Colonel Francis here safely. He’s dead, and his regiment’s wiped out, on account of that poss-pitted General Poor not being willing to go to his support. He didn’t bring the Second New Hampshire here safely. Colonel Hale surrendered the whole damned regiment to a couple of Englishmen that had lost their way and was thinking of heading for Boston so to find out where they were. And how about those Massachusetts militia regiments? The way they was running when I last see ’em, they’re all dead of heartburn by now.”

“We’re here and we’re safe,” Nason insisted, “and St. Clair got us here. This army, from present indications, will be commanded by Schuyler and St. Clair when it fights; and in spite of what you say about St. Clair, he’s an able general. As for Schuyler—–”