The air being thick and oppressive, and all of us tormented with the itch and by abundant fleas which had invaded our quarters, sleep was a stranger to me the night of the 8^th. No sooner did welcome rest steal away my waking sense, and I begin dreaming, but a bite would rouse me; and so I lay staring into darkness, breathing the rank, unhealthy vapors of the night, hemmed on one side by Dr. Trefusis, and on the other by Will.

Come the dawn, Dr. Trefusis spake to me, for neither would sleep come to him. We ceased even the pretense of slumber, and he whispered, “The morning star ariseth.”

With some bitterness, I replied, “The evening star is barely abed.”

“The evening star is also the morning star,” Dr. Trefusis informed me. “’Twas Parmenides first noted it. They are both Venus.”

I mumbled an assent and complained of my bites; and he avowed his worse; and both of us went so far as to express dissatisfaction at the chorus of the birds, which, with the dawn, had swelled to a great noise.

So were we engaged when the attack began.

With the first blast of the great cannon, all were awake. We heard shouting throughout the camp, and scrambled from the ground and beat at the flap of our tent that we might see what had transpired.

At this came the second blast, louder even than the first, a brisk, sharp blow that rebounded across the whole architecture of the sky, as if the earth itself convulsed.

I had now scrambled outside the tent — and could see others running through the lanes between companies, screaming and making signs of utmost alarm in the gloaming.

From the detonation, ’twas a larger gun than ever the rebels had displayed to us previous; and it had shot two cannonballs through the stern of the Dunmore, which tore through the whole length of the ship, shattering window, post, and hull.

Now began the rebels a bombardment of our camp, that eventuality always feared, and through the half-black of night we saw the cannonballs leaping through the tents, tearing them asunder, saw the dark bodies struggling beneath them.

Repeatedly now, we perceived the flares of artillery on the mainland, and the haze of motion in the air — heard the eruptions upon the ships as shot and shell battered them, heard the cries of those waking to disaster.

We knew not what to do; a panic seemed general, and no officer appeared to offer guidance; and still the bombardment fell upon the camp. Now replied our guns from Fort Hamond, and among the ships — I could not see from which — there was steady fire.

We heard the cry of orders, but could not determine who made these demands. Men scurried past us without so much as their muskets, leaping into the ditch we had dug across the promontory, and confusion everywhere reigned supreme.

There was, abruptly, a halt to the fire as both sides prepared their batteries.

“Sweet mercy,” said Bono, his arm around his wife.

“They shall land soon,” said I. “They shall cross the channel.”

“I could wish,” said Dr. Trefusis, his hands behind his back, peering down at the fire, scraping at it with his toe, “I could wish that the embers were yet hot enough to boil tea. After a night such as that, there could —”

The grapeshot which killed him took off most of his skull. He spun and his body was thrown forward, so that he lay beside the ashes of our fire.

Nsia’s breath was labored; I feared she suffered from some asphyxiation, and went to tend to her; all her attention being fixed on the object behind me. Bono too, as I struggled with his wife’s hands to remove them from her mouth, paid me no heed, and did not aid me with my intervention, but rather regarded what lay there with looks bespeaking the greatest agitation; and though I sought to remove Nsia’s hands from her mouth, I found they were already at her sides, and she paddled at me, calling my name and resisting the annoyance of my ministrations.

He lay beside the fire and little of his face remained. His hand was in the embers, and smoked.

As I recall it, Bono and I spake for some time, though I cannot recall of what we spake. The light rose. As flight was now general — the breastworks of Fort Hamond being blasted to pieces before us — I did attempt to raise up the body and carry it with me.

He weighed nothing, my tutor, my preceptor; he weighed nothing, and I had carried him across the waters. We fled to Boston once, through the Bay, and all had lain before us, novel and unknown.

I stood with him half-hefted, my arm around his waist.

Then another volley of detonations rang out. With the rising light, I now could see the floating town off the northern shore of the island; the shot fell upon the fleet from the sky, ripping through deck and hull, while warships struggled to come about and return the fire, and tenders towed great ships still crippled without sail, without wind, at low tide.

“Take him,” said Pro Bono. “We got — Take him — We —” and neither he nor I could speak, but we ran. The corpse weighed upon my shoulder — light as thrushdown, thought I — light as thought — and yet as I ran from the bombardment he slewed to the side, as if seeking to touch the earth, and Bono lifted him once more so he hung fully upon me.

As the cannonballs fell, before us, over the grass, over uneven beds of moss and stumps where we had sawed down forests to build defenses, fled the King’s soldiers and our camp followers: Loyalists in green velvet, children half-dressed, a Negro woman in a stained crewel petticoat, once of the finest, blotched with mud, and soldiers clutching their coats.

They were all shouting there — at the northern tip of the island, where we were mobbed — shouting for transports — the crush was unimaginable. The wavelets broke across our feet, and he was in the mud at my side.

Bono insisted that I must leave him; officers now strode among us, calling out for us to form.

I wished to cry, and made some attempts; but found it impossible.

I hunched upon the mud and observed that the transports did not appear like to come for us, the water erupting so frequently with the plumes of detonation. I could not quiet my chest; the pitch of my heart was forward and steep; the arms quivered in fits.

Leave the body, Private, said a lieutenant I did not know. Come with us. Leave it. He ain’t going to dance away.

“I will put him by a tree.”

Yes, be quick.

“Sir, I will lay him against a tree, where the sun will not fall on him.”

Famous.

“In the shade,” said I. “It is no disrespect, to lay him —”

Soldier! Attend!

“He needs burial.”

Set him down there and form.

Bono lifted the feet; the body was dripping with sand.

My breath did not come easily.

Some time later, I was sensible that we marched in columns. We were arrived at the isle’s eastern shore; we unloaded cartloads from the stores. I no longer supported Dr. Trefusis.

I said to Bono, “It is noon.”

He replied, “You left him. He’s against a tree.”

The rebel guns had ceased.

They were preparing some new onslaught. I wondered, through my confusion, when we should be removed from the island.

That day, Major Byrd commanded all of us, though he was red with the smallpox; he delivered his orders from a cart pulled by men of our Regiment. His face was scarred with the pox, but he was stern of gesture. We saw him roll past.

I was ordered to stand near the breastworks overlooking the inlet between island and mainland. The rebels were plain to me. The other soldier stationed in the picket, a man unknown to me, asked me when I thought they would put in with their boats and cross over to us for an assault. I could little understand why he believed I should have this intelligence; I shivered throughout the whole of my body.

I wished to see Bono, that we might conduct the burial.

I do not know how I passed the hours, for my mind was in so great a tumult, it scarcely operated.

I wished still to cry, and attempted it again; and once again, my effort failed, all tears occluded.

The afternoon was green; this do I recall; the haze in the atmosphere pregnant with the tinct of leaf and grass, so the water, the sky, all appeared submerged. Looking toward the sick camp, I saw the sufferers gathered outside the huts we had built for them, waving their hands in fear.

I watched them for some while; and then was called away.

In the night, we returned to the encampment on the northwest point. We hauled cannons for an artillery company. This occupied some hours. I was no longer fearful. We rolled tents and retrieved as much as we might.

I came upon our tent, our fire-pit, our blankets. Bono was there rolling his belongings into a bundle, but his actions were slow and hesitant. He regarded, perplexed, the rocks encircling our dead embers.

I squatted across from him. He looked up, but we exchanged no word.

Dr. Trefusis’s blood was on the sand where he had fallen. I reached down and touched it with my fingers. It had dried; and the thought came to me that he had been dead for some twelve hours.

I ran my fingers through the sand; I pressed both of my hands into the dirt and left my impress in the earth.

I still could shed no tears, though calculating for that purpose, I marshaled thoughts of him — memories of that excellent being, gentle and caustic, rocking in the nursery at the College of Lucidity, his knees pulled up against him, regaling me with tales of warriors such as I wished to be, a warrior such as now I was.

My hands were in the dirt, amidst the traces of him — he who was my father, my grandfather — and I lifted that dirt to my face and put his mark upon me. I dragged the ash across my cheeks, the blood over my lips — I ground the dust into my eyes with the heels of my hands — blinding myself with him — and that element stinging — at last, I wept.

And now my heart finally broke, for which, at last, I was grateful. I lay his grave-dirt upon my tongue. It tasted of blood and birth, and of the world upon which we had walked together for a little space.

I cried, and was smeared with the funeral ashes, my tears cutting tracks; Bono came to my side, weeping too, and put his arm around me, and said my name, and we sat in the dark with the rebel watch-fires burning in the air across the water; and we mourned.

We left our tent, as it was too torn from grapeshot for salvage.

Through the night: our torches; the trundling of the wooden trucks through mud; a slave riding past in a phaëton, smoking a pipe; the women weeping on the shore, awaiting the dinghy which should row them to their berth. I carried a child upon my back as her mother walked beside me.

Great crowds still waited for transport at the beach, before the rebels should set out in their boats to conquer the island. It was a scene of utmost confusion.

Pro Bono and I sought out the body of my tutor, where he leaned against a tree. We began to dig a grave, though there was no solemnity there, no rite, no sorrow even, at that chore. We were interrupted by a subaltern, who scolded us and told us to leave the body lie. We protested; but curiously, without vigor, for the body seemed so empty.

We left him once more, called to labor.

At dawn, the firing began again. Bono and I were at the time deployed with a cart upon the northwest point. We ducked at the first blows, then, accustomed to detonation, hurried with our burden toward the embarkation point.

We could not forbear looking backwards, across Milford Haven. A schooner burned in the shallows.

The rebel canoes spilled from the creeks and darted across the inlet, muskets firing. A sloop’s crew assayed flight in their longboat, but they were overtaken. The fleet of canoes passed them by, paddling strong for the isle.

We could see across the Haven, toward the hospital; and there we spied the distant sick struggling out of their huts. Our soldiers ran past them toward our fleet, anxious to escape before the rebels landed and overran them.

We watched sick men crawling upon the ground, holding out their hands in supplication to Redcoats who scurried past; begging to be lifted and carried.

Upon the northern beach, we encountered Captain Mackay, who received each detachment of our Company, and bade us unload our cart into one of the boats. We did so swiftly, and returned to his side.

Over the stumps and rutted tracks of the island, we saw the enemy militia land in their canoes and gain the isle. They swarmed across our emplacements and redoubts, observing us with the temerity of the conqueror.

Captain Mackay did not mark their progress. We gestured at them and he turned. Bono informed him that from the promontory, we had seen the far end of the island, and that none had yet removed the sick; that they were crawling to the water for fear of the enemy.

“Removed?” said the Captain.

“The sick, sir,” said I.

“What mean you, ‘removed’?”

“We are evacuating,” said Bono.

The captain nodded assent. “They have been removed, soldier,” he lied.

We began to remonstrate; but he walked away, calling orders, and we heard Olakunde’s drum bidding us fall in.

“They can’t leave them,” said I, and then, emending: “We. We cannot be.”

“Jesus have mercy on us,” said Bono. “Please have mercy.”

“They cannot leave the sick,” said I, “to fend.”

We were sent forward to wade into the surf and greet our transport. I stood with the water around my legs.

We were soon embarked; they rowed us out toward the Crepuscule.

Smoke arose behind us from the island, and with horror, we saw that it issued from the pest-house. The sick lay there still, and the fire burned, and the smoke arose. The rebels had laid torch to the hospital huts, afraid of contagion. They had set them afire with the dying still lain there.

We gained the ship and boarded. Once more, we were within the hold.

Behind us, my tutor lay against a birch, his jaw torn asunder and hanging.

And so we were defeated, and awaited our last, long flight and the end of our campaign.