Doc picked up my shirt and coat and we followed Varick down the bank. At its foot was Schuyler and a knot of officers. On the ground near him sat Arnold, working with pencil and ruler on a piece of cartridge paper. Looking over Arnold’s shoulder was a man in a light blue uniform. He was about Arnold’s height; and, like Arnold, he had a round, swarthy, merry face. I knew him to be Kosciusko, an engineer officer from Poland: a great hand to lay out fortifications and trenches.

When I faced them and saluted, Schuyler seemed annoyed that Doc should still be dabbing at my wound. Arnold opened his mouth at me in a wide and soundless laugh.

“So it was you, was it?” Schuyler asked. “Where did you learn such talk as that?”

“On shipboard, General. If seamen behave the way those militiamen did, it’s a sea captain’s duty to tell ’em a few things, and take a capstan bar to ’em if they don’t like it.” Somewhat weakly I added, “Besides, I wasn’t feeling good this morning on account of my shoulder.”

“Young man,” Schuyler said sternly, “don’t tell me a sea captain’s duty! I was a sea captain when you weren’t knee-high to a duck. What I asked you was where you picked up those sentiments—those sentiments about our exertions equaling our abilities, and all the rest of it.”

“Sir, I didn’t pick ’em up anywhere. I just spoke in anger.”

“In anger, eh? Well, now that your anger’s passed, can you remember what it was you said?”

“I only recall being a little sharp. I don’t recollect the words I used.”

“I do,” Doc Means said. He pressed his wet cloth against my back and held it there. “I recollect every word, General, and if I hadn’t been afraid of inflaming this shoulder of his, I might have told him a few more that wasn’t quite so dignified.”

“See you don’t forget them,” Schuyler said. He moved around behind me. Arnold and Kosciusko joined him.

“He’s got treat vairy prooty,” Kosciusko said. “Thass vairy jonteel: vairy nice wound.”

“That certainly is a handsome hole,” Doc agreed.

“How is he?” Schuyler asked Doc. “Fit to travel?”

“Well,” Doc said, “if he don’t overtax himself, and don’t go near no doctors, and don’t excite himself about militia, he ought to do all right.”

I was irritated by their attitude. They might have been examining a shoat. “There’s nothing the matter with me,” I said. “I can do anything that doesn’t require the use of that arm.”

I heard Arnold’s harsh voice say, “In some cases, General, rest can be more irritating than action, and I believe this is one of ’em.”