In the center were the long, slanting lateen yards of the Gates galley and the Trumbull galley. The sight of them moved me; for they were in no respect different from the vessel on which we had fought so hard; on which Zelph had died, and Nathaniel and Steven Nason had come so near to death. On either side were the Revenge schooner, the Enterprise sloop and the Liberty schooner, saved to the Colonies because of the rear-guard action we had fought on that far-off 13th of October.

Dim whale-oil lights hung, screened, on the vessels’ masts, as well as in the lee of their bulwarks, so that the crews could contrive to stow the burdens that were being lowered through the hatches. By the gleam of a lantern I saw, perched on a hogshead on the dock, a portly officer in a good uniform. The lantern was held by a small man—an Irishman, I judged—with carroty tufts of hair in front of each ear. With his free hand he clutched the officer’s knee to steady him on his hogshead. As we came up, a group of gangling, coatless soldiers dropped their burdens on the dock and moved off.

“Here, here!” the portly officer said in suppressed tones. “Pick up those things and put ’em aboard!”

“Go to hell,” one of the disappearing soldiers said from the gloom.

The officer groaned. “Speak to ’em, Mullen!”

The red-whiskered man moved his lantern convulsively and dropped his hold on the officer’s knee to shake his fist at the darkness. “Damn you, you scuff-bellied, pick-winded swill noses! Come back here! What’s your regiment, you toad-heels!” He cursed horribly.

One of the vanished soldiers shouted, in a high, mincing voice, “Listen to our bull beller!” Another contemptuously expelled air between compressed lips.

“I believe those fellers come from Boston,” Doc said mildly.

The officer turned to peer at us. “What’s the reason you haven’t got loads?” he asked sharply. “Every man that crossed that bridge was supposed to carry his share.”

“We come from this side,” I said. “I was told to get orders from General Roche-Fermoy, so to get aboard one of these vessels.”

“We’re too crowded,” the officer said. “General Roche-Fermoy shouldn’t have sent me anyone else, not without consulting me. Where’s your orders?”

“Sir,” I said, “he didn’t give us any. He couldn’t be reached, and when we found it out, it was too late to cross over to the other side to see General St. Clair.”

“I don’t understand it,” the officer said. “Who told you to report to me? Who told you to report to Colonel Long of the First New Hampshire?”

I knew, then, who the officer was. He was Pierse Long, a shipping merchant from Portsmouth. Every sea captain along the Maine coast knew of Pierse Long as a man of unblemished Christian character.