“Oh, you take it back, then?”
“I’m sorry that I have to regret the expression, for, Dick, that is what you are.”
There was the faintest suspicion of a smile on her face, and I could not become quite as angry as I did on the first occasion. But she showed no inclination to take the harsh word back, and perforce I left very much dissatisfied.
When I returned to our camp I found much activity prevailing. It seemed to be the intention of our leaders to close in and seize the prize without further delay. No attack was to be made upon Burgoyne’s camp, but the circle of fire which closed him in became broader and pressed tighter. The number of sharpshooters was doubled, and there was scarce a point in the circumference of Burgoyne’s camp which they could not reach with their rifle balls, while the British could not attempt repayment without exposing themselves to destruction. Yet they held out, and we did not refuse them praise for their bravery and tenacity.
The morning after my return I said to Whitestone that I gave the British only three days longer. Whitestone shook his head.
“Maybe,” he said, “and maybe not so long. They’ve been cut off at a new point.”
I asked him what he meant.
“Why, the British are dying of thirst,” he said. “They are in plain sight of the Hudson—in some places they are not more than a few yards from it—but our sharpshooters have crept up till they can sweep all the space between the British camp and the river. The British can’t get water unless they cross that strip of ground, and every man that’s tried to cross it has been killed.”
I shuddered. I could not help it. This was war—war of the kind that wins, but I did not like it. Yet, despite my dislike, I was to take part in it, and that very soon. It was known that I was expert with the rifle, and I was ordered to choose a good weapon and join a small detachment that lay on a hill commanding the narrowest bit of ground between the British camp and the river. About a dozen of us were there, and I was not at all surprised to find Whitestone among the number. It seemed that if I went anywhere and he didn’t go too, it was because he was there already.
“I don’t like this, Whitestone. I don’t like it a bit,” I said discontentedly.