Heard them? Indeed I had, and from Nathaniel! I nodded, almost afraid to speak.

“It’s a funny thing,” Nason said thoughtfully, “that those stories weren’t told about everyone. You never heard ’em about Gates, any more than you did about Wooster or Wayne or the other officers in charge up here. You only heard ’em about the one officer who could have taken Canada from the English if he’d had a free hand: about the one officer who had the brains and the ability to keep Burgoyne from breaking through last year and putting an end to our rebellion. I’ll say this about those stories, too. They kept Arnold in hot water for over a year, and they’ve put him where the British don’t need to worry about him any more. Yes sir! Those stories reached Congress, and Congress wouldn’t promote him. There’s so many officers ahead of him, now, that he’ll probably never have a chance to plan another campaign against the British!”

Cap Huff slapped his trout and spoke obscenely of Congress.

Nason lowered his voice. “Now listen to this. Arnold’s out of the way, or so the British think. They don’t need to worry about Arnold any more. But they’ve got somebody else to worry about. They’ve got Schuyler to worry about. Yes, and St. Clair.”

“Tit-head!” Cap ejaculated.

“Keep your mouth shut!” Nason said. “Let me hear another word like that out of you and I’ll cram that fish down your gullet, bones and all!”

“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!”