"What's the matter now?" I asked in surprise.
"What's the matter, lad? Can't you see that only part of the fleet is goin' up stream? If the other ships counted on leavin' anchorage they'd been in the wake of the frigates. We're shut in here between two ends of the British force, an' likely to stay quite a spell."
There could be no question but that he was right, and I sat staring at him like a stupid, the dreams in which I had been indulging disappearing like mist before the morning sun. Of a verity mother and the children were further from me than when we had crouched in the smoke-house at Washington with General Ross' army close at hand.
"What can we do?" I asked at length.
"That's a question easier asked than answered," the old man replied as if he had come to an end of his ideas. "While your father is wounded beyond the power of walkin', we're anchored to the pungy, so to speak."
"What would you do if he was in good shape?"
"It couldn't be such a terrible tough voyage to strike across the country from here to Benedict, leavin' the pungy in the creek till the Britishers get tired of foolin' around in the Potomac; but it's no use to spend breath on what can't be done. Our crew will hang together, whatever comes. Let's go an' report; it won't do us any good to stay here."
We paddled slowly back to our comrades, and when we had told them the situation of affairs they were in as much of a muddle as had been Darius and I.
"There's no tellin' how long the frigates will stay 'round Washington," Captain Hanaford said, and then, as a sudden thought came to him, he added, "I'm gettin' the best of this scrape, I reckon. If the pungy was where you lads found her, she'd fare badly when the bloomin' Englishmen get where they can make mischief."
"I'll stay here and keep ship, while the rest of you walk across lots to Benedict," my father suggested; but Darius refused to hear any such proposition, declaring as he had when we were in the canoe, that our party should hang together to the last.