“The responsibility is yours,” he said. “I decline to carry the burdens of my captor. Find me something to eat.”
We trudged along for more than an hour, somewhat gloomy and the pains of hunger increasing. I was about to call a halt, that we might rest and that I might think about our difficulties, when I saw a column of smoke rising above a hill. I called Chudleigh’s attention to it, and he agreed with me that we ought to push on and see what it was.
I was convinced that friends must be at the bottom of that column of smoke. If any British party had come so far north, which in itself was improbable, it could scarce be so careless as to give to the Americans plain warning of its presence.
It was a long walk, but we were cheered by the possibility that our reward would be dinner. Chudleigh seemed to cherish some lingering hope that it was a party of British or Tories who would rescue him, but I told him to save himself such disappointments.
In a short time we came in view of those who had built the fire, and I was delighted to find my surmise that they were Americans was correct.
They numbered some fifty or a hundred, and I guessed they were a detachment on the way to join the northern army beleaguering Burgoyne.
“Chudleigh,” I said as we approached the first sentinel, “will you promise to do all that I say?”
“Of course; I am your prisoner,” he replied.
I hailed the sentinel, and my uniform procured for me a friendly reception. Chudleigh I introduced vaguely as a countryman traveling northward with me. The men were eating, and I told them we were making close acquaintance with starvation. They invited us to join them, and we fell to with great promptitude.
I could tell them something about affairs at the north, and they could give me the latest news from the south. They told me that Clinton was still below Albany, hesitating and awaiting with impatience some message from Burgoyne.