“Then the Americans landed at Goose Bay. Oh, I forgot to say that not a shot was fired in the attack on the bateaux and the Spitfire.”
“That’s the way to fight,” drawled Ben. “That would suit me exactly. If I could parade and then go out and call names, and then march back in triumph with the haughty foe in chains, I’d like to be a soldier. I wonder why I wasn’t born into this world in my proper age.”
“Of course our troops were highly elated,” resumed Bob, “for the Spitfire was armed with a twelve-pound carronade and fourteen men, and in the bateaux were two hundred and seventy barrels of pork and as many bags of pilot bread.”
“Was that where Ethan got the pork we had for dinner to-day?” inquired Bert, innocently.
Not deigning to reply or to notice the laugh which arose at Bert’s words, Bob resumed. “The Americans sent sixty-nine prisoners across the country to Sackett’s Harbor, and then with the others they waited for the enemy to come.”
“Why did they wait? What did they want them to come for? I should think they’d all have gone ’cross lots to Sackett’s Harbor,” said Jock.
“They wanted to save the gunboat and supplies. The next morning about sunrise the bold and brave foe, to the number of two hundred and fifty, hove in sight. They had four gunboats and two transports and were evidently ready for the fray. Our men had been stationed in detachments along the shore, and soon the action was begun. ‘They fit all day and they fit all night,’ as the poet says, though I don’t know whether that’s history or not; but two of the gunboats had soon been so injured by our fire that they had to stuff the holes the shot made with weeds to keep them from sinking.”
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” groaned Ben, sitting quickly erect, “I have lived long in this weary world of woe, but that’s the worst I ever heard yet. A British gunboat stuffing the holes in its sides with weeds! There’s an insane asylum down at Ogdensburg, and either you or I must go there.”
“It is a pretty big story, but that’s what the book says,” protested Bob.