“Major,” I said, “I did the navigating on the Congress galley, as you well know. What you heard about General Arnold leaving his wounded to be burned to death is as untrue as that Burgoyne wouldn’t attack Ticonderoga. It’s a reflection on me and on every man who fought aboard that vessel. Whoever sent that word to Congress is an enemy to you and me and the American people. You’ll deny it, won’t you, whenever you have the opportunity?”

“Oh, certainly, Captain,” he said instantly. “Certainly! Certainly, certainly, certainly!”

I saw I carried no weight whatever with him; he’d repeat the story about Arnold the next time he had a chance. The vainer a man is, the tighter he clings to preconceived first notions; he’s afraid of someone accusing him of changing his mind, which would show he hadn’t been the all-wise possessor of all knowledge from the moment of his birth.

“Major,” I persisted, “I’d be truly obliged to you if you’d try to get me a command on one of those galleys, where my knowledge would be of some value. The British have a fleet, and a strong one. I think I could make myself useful against ’em. I’ve done a good deal of navigating, Major.”

“I’ll bring it to the general’s attention,” Wilkinson said. “Those ships, you understand, have officers aboard. You’re asking to have one of them displaced just to make room for you.”

I tried not to show how much I’d enjoy knocking his ears off. “Our side needs all the men it can get, don’t you think so, Major?” I asked. “I’m a man, Major, and I’d like to be made use of.”

Wilkinson’s eyes described a slow circle of the room, and came to rest on me with a sort of mulish stubbornness. “I understand your point of view, Captain. We’re leaving nothing undone—nothing. Ah—I’ll speak to the general; but you have no idea of the mass of detail he’s obliged to attend to.”

A sentry popped his head in at the door. “There’s smoke on top of Sugar Loaf!”

Wilkinson got slowly to his feet, surprised and incredulous. “Sugar Loaf? Do you mean Mount Defiance?”

“Same thing, ain’t it?” He was not what I would have called a well-disciplined sentry.

“You can’t mean Mount Defiance,” Wilkinson said. He went to the door. “You can’t mean Mount Defiance! There’s no way of getting up Mount Defiance. Our maps mark it inaccessible.”

“They’s somebody got up it now!” the sentry said. “They’s a hell of a big fire on top of it, no matter what the map says.”

Wilkinson pushed past the sentry and went out to the parade-ground of the fort.

He returned at once, his customary calmness gone, his eyes round and staring.

“Wha’d I tell you!” the sentry exclaimed.