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We waited a minute, and then MacDonough's Song, broken but defiant, rose from undefeated Chicago. 'They seem fond of that tune, said De Forest. 'I should let 'em have it, Arnott. 'Very good, sir, said Arnott, and felt his way to the Communicator keys. No lights broke forth, but the hollow of the skies made herself the mouth for one note that touched the raw fibre of the brain.
Early in the action, the British sloop, Finch, fell into MacDonough's trap and grounded on the reef. The British commander was killed, with many of his officers. Still, the heavy fire of the guns would have given them the victory, but for MacDonough's foresight in providing for swinging his ships.
But another shot tore off the head of the gun captain and flung it in Macdonough's face with such force that he was hurled across the deck. At length all but one of the guns along the side exposed to the Confiance had been smashed or dismounted, and this last gun broke its fastening bolts, leaped from its carriage with the heavy recoil, and plunged into the main hatch.
MacDonough's orders were to hold control of the Lake. How he did it will be seen. The British fleet at Isle au Noix was slightly stronger than his own, therefore he established a navy yard at Vergennes, in Vermont, seven miles up the Otter River, and at the mouth erected earthworks and batteries. Brown agreed to launch a ship of twenty-four guns in sixty days.
Already a favouring wind had made it possible for Downie to leave Isle au Noix and sail down the lake with his gallant crew, under gallant canvas clouds. Tried men and true in control of every ship, outnumbering MacDonough, outweighing him, outpointing him in everything but seamanship, they came on, sure of success. Three chief moves were in MacDonough's strategy.
I therefore hope that after the war he will become one of the leaders in the advance of English poetry in the twentieth century, as he will remain one of the imperishable monuments of Victorian literature. The verse published in his latest volume of stories, A Diversity of Creatures, 1917, has the stamp of his original mind, and Macdonough's Song is impressive.
He was recognized by one of his former messmates in the "Active;" who, conveyed a prisoner on board the American commander Macdonough's ship, recognized him as he lay stretched on the deck, in the uniform of an American naval officer; his countenance, even in death, wearing the same stormful defiant expression which it assumed on the day that his beloved Esther perished on the scaffold.
Macdonough's handful of little vessels on Lake Champlain compelled the retreat of ten thousand British veterans of Wellington's campaigns who had marched down from Canada with every promise of crushing American resistance. This was the last and most formidable attempt on the part of the enemy to conquer territory and to wrest a decision by means of a sustained offensive.
'I'll just send our little girl in Bureau County a warning, said Arnott. 'She don't deserve it, but we'll allow her a minute or two to take mamma to the cellar. In the utter hush that followed the growling spark after Arnott had linked up his Service Communicator with the invisible Fleet, we heard MacDonough's Song from the city beneath us grow fainter as we rose to position.
The American victory made the position of Prevost's army wholly untenable. With the control of Lake Champlain in Macdonough's hands, the British line of communication would be continually menaced. For the ten thousand veterans of Wellington's campaigns there was nothing to do but retreat, nor did they linger until they had marched across the Canada border.
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