It was a hideously costly advance for the Dutch … but in the end it was an advance, hard-won or not. Sam argued that we should strike our headquarters immediately and get the wagons rolling back toward Striver, where we could at least supply ourselves in the event of a siege.

Then Julian’s crow’s-nest observer dashed into the tent and told us he had seen smoke across the water.

Julian stepped outside, taking a pair of captured field glasses with him. His position was more exposed than it would have been even an hour ago—Dutch shells burst dismayingly nearby—but he stood unmoved in his bright Major General’s uniform, looking out over the leaden waters of Lake Melville.

“Smoke,” he confirmed, when Sam and I joined him. “A vessel approaching under steam. Burning anthracite, by the look of it, which makes it likely one of ours.” And after a moment’s pause: “A mast. A flag. Our flag.” He turned to Sam with a kind of fierce satisfaction in his eyes. “Tell the men to hold their positions at all costs.”

“Julian—” Sam said.

“None of your pessimism right now, Sam, please!”

“But we don’t know for certain—”

“We don’t know anything for certain—battle is risk. Give the order!”

And Sam, like a dutiful servant, did so.

Ten minutes later the whole ship was visible, and it was the familiar Basilisk, Admiral Fairfield’s vessel. We expected the rest of the American armada to follow in its wake.

But we were mistaken in that hope.

Soon it became obvious that there was the Basilisk—and there was only the Basilisk.

I cannot describe Julian’s appearance as this unwelcome truth sank home. His skin took on an additional pallor. His eyes grew haggard. His bright blue and yellow garb, which he had worn so boldly, clung to his slumped shoulders like an admonition.

Admiral Fairfield did what he could with his single ship. The Basilisk was one of the finest vessels of the Navy, and he worked it ingeniously. He came in under full steam, all sails reefed, the ship’s stacks gouting smoke as if half the coal in all the world were burning belowdecks. He slid obliquely past the Dutch wharves at Goose Bay, strafing the town with well-placed cannon shots. Then he came up the shoreline and attempted to shell the Mitteleuropan positions where we fought. That bombardment would have helped us enormously, had it succeeded. But the Dutch shore batteries were well-manned and well-entrenched. They raked the Basilisk in return. She withstood the barrage for many minutes, trying to work in close enough to be of some use to us. But the closer she got, the more vulnerable she became. Her masts were nearly chewed away, and flames had broken out on her forecastle by the time she finally gave up the attempt. She could do nothing but limp away while her engines were still capable of turning her screws. She seemed to be headed for Striver, or some other protected place up-lake.

Julian watched until she was nearly out of sight. Then he turned and ordered Sam to call a general retreat. His voice sounded as chill and eerie as if it emanated from a gap in some old hollow log. Sam was glum as well, and walked off speechlessly, shaking his head.

A retreat is not as glamorous a thing as an attack, but it can be accomplished either well or badly, and Julian deserves credit for a careful withdrawal from the disaster Goose Bay had become.

Still it was a costly and humiliating maneuver. By the time we were in acceptable form for a forced march to Striver, the Dutch were swarming at our backs. Julian assigned fresh troops (in so far as we had any) to the rear, and their careful feint-and-fall-back operations helped protect the bulk of the army.

Much of our cavalry had been lost in the futile foray behind the Mitteleuropan lines, so we were vulnerable to sniping from Dutch horsemen. Their detachments came at us from oblique angles, attempting to cut away companies of American troops and “take them in detail.” More than a few infantrymen were scooped up in this fashion. But whenever such a firefight erupted Julian would ride to the place like a human battle-flag, to shore up morale; and we fought these battles with a ferocity that appeared to startle and unnerve our opponents.

By sundown we were within sight of the outskirts of Striver. Messengers had warned the garrison that we would be arriving under Dutch harassment, and a defensive perimeter, with abattises and lunettes and clean lines of fire, had already been established. These were a welcome sight for battered survivors. The Dominion wagons went in ahead of us, so that their cargo of wounded men could be received by the field hospital.

Julian and Sam, and I along with them, helped fight the rear-guard action while the bulk of our men sought the safety of the captive town. This went well enough for a time, for the Dutch had straggled in their pursuit and couldn’t put together a formal assault. But as soon as their artillery came up we were in a ticklish situation.

Explosive shells landing in a tight mass of men, all of whom are within sprinting distance of safety, are a perfect recipe for death and panic. That’s what happened. In terms of actual losses it wasn’t too bad—Striver’s defenders silenced the Dutch cannons as soon they could range in on them—but the mossy ground in front of our entrenchments was quickly watered with a great deal of patriotic blood, and festooned with other patriotic body parts, during that long cold and terrible dusk.

Julian on his horse was a conspicuous target, and I was astonished that he was not picked off immediately by some far-sighted Dutch rifleman. But—as in the Battle of Mascouche outside of Montreal—he seemed wrapped in some cloak of invulnerability, which warded off hot lead.

The miraculous protection didn’t extend to those beside him. Our battle-flag went down when a staff officer’s horse was killed by shrapnel from an exploding shell. Sam dismounted at once and stooped to retrieve the banner. But he had barely raised it again when a Dutch bullet took him, and he toppled to the ground.

I don’t remember exactly the events that followed, except that I rallied two men who helped me carry Sam to a Dominion wagon, where he was stacked with a dozen other wounded soldiers awaiting treatment. The ambulance driver flogged his mules when I told him he had one of Julian’s staff aboard; and I rode along with him to the makeshift hospital in that wide street in Striver called Portage.

Sam’s wound was in his left arm, below the elbow. I couldn’t tell whether it was a bullet or shrapnel that had struck him. Whatever it was, it had broken the narrow bones above the wrist and torn away so much flesh that what remained was little more than tags and tatters. His entire left hand was nearly severed, and kept its association with his body only by the merest hinge of bloody gristle.

He was conscious, though groggy and pale, and he told me to tie a tourniquet about his arm to staunch the prodigious bleeding. I did so. I was glad to be helpful, and did not mind the blood which spattered across my already torn uniform, so much of it that when we arrived at the hospital an attendant looked at me wide-eyed and asked me where I was hurt.

The hospital was already crowded, and quickly becoming more so as cart-loads of injured men were unloaded at the door. Three medics were in attendance, but two of them were already engaged in operations that couldn’t be interrupted. Luckily there was a kind of triage-by-rank being practiced, and the third doctor came promptly at the announcement of Sam’s high position.

The doctor made a hasty inspection of Sam’s injury and announced that it wanted an amputation. Sam did not like this idea, and began a feeble protest, until the medic doused a cloth with liquid from a brown bottle and held it against Sam’s mouth, which caused the patient’s eyes to close and his struggles to abate. It looked more like murder than mercy; but the physician, rolling up one of Sam’s eyelids to inspect his pupils, seemed satisfied with the result.