“What you think of him, hey? He’s one of them Hessians you’ve heard about. Name of Konrad! We ain’t making no effort to memorize his last name—not till he learns some English so’s we can speak his name in a translated form.”

“Where’d you get him?”

“Got him in the battle,” Cap said. “I thought I captured him, but he claims he deserted to us on account of liking my looks. He says he’s going to be an American from now on, just like me, and I guess we ain’t going to be able to do nothing to stop him!”

He muttered something about Konrad being more of a responsibility than a sick hound.

“What was the battle like?”

“About the same as all of ’em,” Cap said indifferently. “Of course, fighting in the woods don’t present the opportunities that city fighting does, but I picked up this Konrad, and four Hessian canteens full of English rum, and a gold gorget. I might ’a’ done worse. The truth is, I took this Konrad to carry those canteens. That’s what he’s doing now: digging up one of the canteens. He tends to our needs, when we got any. He’d be kind of funny if he wasn’t such a nuisance to talk to. You have to holler at him so loud it gives you a headache.”

Cap might have been a boy with a new puppy, so wrapped up was he in Konrad. “Think up something for him to do,” he urged. “He’s the helpfullest thing ever you see! Cooks, sews, sings hymns, mends stockings, knits, cleans muskets, makes shoes and waits on table. I dunno what they want to put fellers like that in an army for! You can get soldiers anywhere, but it’s a terrible hard thing to get a waiter that won’t spill pork drippings down your neck and bring you hoss-meat when you order beef. Now you take those thirty-five hundred Hessians with Burgoyne—there’s thirty-five hundred waiters just ruined for no reason at all.”

“Where’s Nason?” I asked.

“Out with Arnold,” Cap said. “Him and Arnold, they go out together all the time, just keeping their ears to the ground. That Arnold, he knows what the English figure on doing before they do themselves. He keeps his ear so close to the ground a mole could lick it.”

Konrad brought us a huge wooden canteen and a drinking cup made from a gourd. He gave Cap the cup; filled it with eager care: then stood beaming upon him with idolatrous admiration. Cap drank, exhaled gustily and, with a gracious gesture, indicated to Konrad that he should serve all of us.