“You may go to your sloop, lad. There is nothing further to be said until you hear from me again.” I hurried out, and was no more than in the open air when the sentry whom I had eluded caught me by the collar, as he asked sharply: “Are the British landed, lad?” I was in doubt as to whether it was right to satisfy his curiosity, and he, understanding why I delayed in answering, shook me playfully, as he said: “There can be no harm done by your talkin’, if such be the case, for it must all be known in a few minutes.” “They are comin’ ashore at Gravesend bay,” I replied, and as he released his hold I ran across the Green, avoiding as best I might those men who would have stopped me, for it appeared that all who were nearabout when I ran so swiftly to headquarters, had an inkling of what was my purpose. The sloop was made fast to the bulkhead when I gained the water’s edge, and not less than an hundred stood nearby, nearly all of them soldiers in uniform, who were questioning my comrades as to the cause of our coming. Abel had refused to answer any questions whatsoever until he saw by my return that our report had been made, and then he gratified the curiosity of the by-standers in so far as he believed was right. Before half an hour had passed we learned that troops had been sent over to the island day after day until the greater portion of our army was ready to meet the invader; but there yet remained so many in New York that the wonder to me was how they might be ferried across, until I saw the whale-boats, skiffs, sloops, and every kind of a craft that could be mustered, gathering nearabout where we were moored. All was bustle and seeming confusion for an hour or more, and then as rapidly as might be these boats which had been gathered so suddenly, and it seemed to me mysteriously until I learned that the greater number of them had been kept under waiting orders, were loaded to the gunwales one by one with men, after which they set off for the opposite shore without heed to either military or naval formation. Then Lieutenant Winterbottom came down hurriedly with orders for us to pull around to Peck’s Slip, and wait there for General Putnam and his staff. “Their horses have already been taken across in a flatboat, therefore you will have no difficulty in ferrying them. Once they are landed, the orders are that the sloop ply back and forth carrying whosoever may apply for passage, and this you are to do so long as any soldiers remain on this side desiring to cross.” When we had worked the sloop around to the slip we saw nearby fifteen or twenty casks of sea-bread, made of pease meal, hard as flint, and I noticed that as each man passed he took as many as could be carried conveniently, whereupon I asked Abel Grant if he believed such as that was the only food our soldiers would carry with them.