Arnold kept on shouting, “Get in here! Get in here! It’s ours!”

A dozen running Germans turned, faced us and raised their muskets. I heard Nason shout, “Load with buck-shot!” We shot at the Germans. Four sprawled to the ground. The others fired and ran.

Behind me there was a breathless scrambling and commotion, a rattling thumping. I looked around. Arnold’s mare was on her back on the ground, her legs waving. Arnold was caught under her. I ran to him. It seemed, almost, that everyone did the same. His free leg, still across the belly of the fallen horse, was bent at a queer angle. Soaking through the white buckskin of his breeches was a splotch of blood the size of my head.

Cap Huff struck the straining mare a terrible blow behind the ear and threw his whole weight across her neck. She lay still. A score of hands caught at her legs; at her bridle. Voices spoke hurriedly, as if half stifled. “Here! Here! Get him up! Look out for her legs! What’s the matter with him! Where’s he hit?”

“Pull her off, God damn it!” Cap shouted. “She’s dead!”

Nason seized the mare by a front leg and swung her clear of her fallen rider.

Arnold lay there, staring down at the widening stain on his breeches.

Dearborn had him by the shoulders, holding his head from the ground. “Where’d it hit you?” Dearborn asked.

“Same leg,” Arnold said. “Same leg.” He made a little straining noise. “I wish it had been my heart.”

He looked up at us suddenly. “Don’t stand here, boys! Go to work! It’s almost dark!”

I heard Morgan’s booming voice. “They’re gone! Breymann’s killed. Some surrendered, and the rest ran. It’s all over!”

“Then we’ve turned their flank!” Arnold cried. He made that straining sound again. “We’ve turned Burgoyne’s flank! We’ve got him! Send for reinforcements! This place has got to be held! Don’t let him get it back!” He groaned and twisted in Dearborn’s arms. “I could take his whole damned army tomorrow, if it wasn’t for this leg!”

What he said, I know now, was the truth; and even at that time I knew that although without Arnold we might have held back Burgoyne on that 7th of October, we never in God’s world, without him, would have driven the Hessians from their great redoubt, turned Burgoyne’s right flank and obtained the advantage that brought about the ruin of the British.

Arnold closed his eyes. His face was drenched with perspiration.

We heard a horse clattering up the hill. The Virginians picked up their rifles. When the horse came in at the sally-port, we saw the rider was Major Armstrong, one of Gates’s aides.