I reminded him of our previous arrival in canoes, and showed him the order Arnold had given me. After reading it, he stared at me curiously. “Ain’t you the man that owned to having some hard money?”

When I said I was, he took me by the elbow and moved me away from the soldiers who were dumping the provisions ashore. “What you need,” he said confidentially, “is a pail of beer and a slab of ham, pan-broiled about ten minutes.”

I was lost to know what he was driving at, but since it was an inexpensive way to obtain his good will, the four of us went around to the back door of a disheveled tavern with boards nailed across its windows. In the far bowels of the tavern, when we entered, we heard a strange rumbling, punctuated with noisy hiccups, almost like distant war-whoops. The lieutenant, whose name was Hersom, made signs at an angry-looking Frenchwoman; and she, having accepted four shillings from me, bit each one suspiciously; then drew four pails of beer, and threw four slices of ham in a skillet—slices about the thickness of a hatch-cover, and about as juicy.

The rumbling came clearer to our ears, and proved to be a voice speaking partly in English and partly in German, and never ceasing, apparently, except when its owner paused to drink or to hiccup.

“That’s De Woedtke,” Hersom said. “Somebody in Sorel sent him down here yesterday, with an aide-de-camp, so to have everything ready for Sullivan.” He raised an eyebrow at me. “Heard about that? Sullivan’s coming tomorrow. He’ll be at Isle La Motte tonight. Here tomorrow. Four regiments!”

De Woedtke’s voice rumbled on and on, exploding now and again into a racking hiccup.

“Yes, that’s him,” Hersom said, “telling his aide-de-camp how Frederick the Great used to do it. Got kicked out of Frederick the Great’s army, he did, on account of telling Fred about the death of a pet nephew. He’s in command of us. Trained under Frederick the Great, he says he was. I don’t know anything about this Frederick the Great; but if De Woedtke’s a sample of those he trained, he never trained nobody to do nothing but talk and drink! Anyway, De Woedtke’s a general. Congress made him a general. Prob’ly he began to tell Congress about himself, and they made him a general to shut him up. If you want to do things right, you’d better report to him and tell him you’re planning to take the vessel to pieces.”

“Suppose,” I said, “he told me not to do it?”

“Then you couldn’t,” Hersom said. “And you needn’t worry about his not wanting you to. Our generals are all the same! Not a damned one of ’em wants anybody to do one damned thing any other general wants!”