“So there you are: no food, no blankets, no shoes, no tents, no medicines, no surgical instruments, no nails, no powder, no bullets, no pay, no credit, no reputation; and above all, no discipline. That was Wooster’s fault! He let ’em get out of control before Quebec—no more fitted to command men than a dressmaker!”

He muttered under his breath, and I caught the word “midwife.” He shrugged his shoulders and snapped his fingers, as if to snap Wooster out of his life. “After Wooster came the panic, and then the Commissioners. And now the bulk of the army’s at Sorel—tattered, hungry, frightened, sick, helpless, headless!

“General Thomas came to replace Wooster, but he no sooner started to take hold at Sorel than he came down with smallpox. The Commissioners brought along one of their damned foreign generals—Baron, he calls himself: Baron De Woedtke; but he’s too busy tippling to bother with such a small matter as discipline!

“Men whose time has expired are going home. They won’t stay to help us. They’ve had a bellyful of war and sickness, hunger and disappointments. They wouldn’t stay if you told them the British might destroy us next week!

“As for the Canadians, the weaker we get, the more insolent they grow. Two months ago they were our dear friends. Today they’d cut our throats if they could! And on top of everything, you tell us the British have sent thousands of their own troops against us, and other thousands of Hessians as well: as fine an army as ever left England! It may not be true, but probably it is! Thousands of the best-trained, best-armed soldiers in the world, and we with nothing to oppose ’em but a starved and naked rabble! That’s how badly off we are! Can you men stay here and keep up your courage? Can you do as you’re told under such circumstances?”

Cap Huff cleared his throat with a sound of ripping canvas. “In case anybody thinks he can’t,” Cap said, “Doc Means’s got a sure cure for fear: pepper and gunpowder, mixed with molasses and maybe some rum.”

“You got to have a touch of Digby’s Sympathetic Powder in it,” Doc Means reminded him in a low voice.

Arnold nodded. “There’s another side to the picture. General Sullivan’s coming up from Albany with four regiments—good regiments: none better, General Schuyler writes me. Properly handled, four healthy regiments can hold the St. Lawrence against all the ministerial troops that England can send against us. It’s got to be done! We’ve got to block communication between the English and the Indians to the west.