“It’s a ruse,” St. Clair said. “It’s a ruse! They’ll never get guns up there! Never! How in God’s name could they ever get guns up there? Wilkinson, there’s no way of getting guns up there, is there?”

Wilkinson made no reply, only continued to peer at Mount Defiance.

St. Clair stared about him, baffled and helpless. His eye fell on me. “Here!” he said testily. “What are you doing here! I don’t want you following us around!”

“Sir,” I said, “I’m waiting for Major Wilkinson to tell me what to do. I’m a scout captain, sir, and I haven’t a command. He said he’d ask you to put me in command of one of the row-galleys.”

St. Clair looked puzzled. “Row-galleys? What do you want to command a row-galley for?”

“Because that’s my trade. I’m a sea captain. If you have to retreat, you’ll find a sea captain might come in pretty handy on one of those vessels, small as they are.”

“Retreat!” St. Clair shouted. Then he lowered his voice. “Retreat? Why should we retreat? Rather than give up these works, every man of us’ll die in them!”

Wilkinson returned the telescope to St. Clair and at the same time murmured something to him.

“Of course!” St. Clair exclaimed, as though relieved of a troublesome decision. To me he explained, “You’ll have to see General Roche-Fermoy. The vessels are at Mount Independence, and that’s his bailiwick. See him, my dear Captain! See him and tell him what you want.”

As I hurried down the hill toward the bridge of boats, my thoughts were sour ones. More than ever I understood what Arnold must have felt when he found himself subject to the orders of St. Clair and others of similar caliber.

… The welcome I received from General Roche-Fermoy was delightful. When I recalled myself to him, he shook me by the hand as if we had been the greatest of friends during our crossing on the Beau Soleil from France—as if, even, I had been clad in a splendid uniform of blue and buff, as was he, instead of wearing a nondescript coat with my buckskin leggins, and having a blue handkerchief bound around my head to keep its nakedness from being a public spectacle.

I think Fermoy’s greatest trouble was that he was hospitable: he felt obliged to drink a glass of wine with anyone who entered his quarters—felt obliged to prove how charming and democratic a French soldier could be. Such hospitality, at times, has an unfortunate effect on the host.