Chesapeake by James A. Michener Page B

discernible in the darkness, but Smith was not content with acquiescence; he required positive acceptance. With a firm thumb he raised the younger man’s face until stars gleamed upon it and their eyes were level. ‘Tell me, Mister Steed, why would I have got into the canoe almost alone, and ventured into the enemy camp? Men and iron obtain food. It is never the other way around.’
    In the dark night the two men glared at each other, with Steed determined to resist the blandishments of his captain. Smith, sensing this, lifted the young man’s head higher and said, ‘I insist that you make one more change in the part I have not yet improved.’
    ‘Is this a command?’
    ‘It is. In your account of our departure with the Indians, I want you to write that you volunteered, most gallantly.’
    ‘But you commanded me to go.’
    ‘If I had not, you would have volunteered, because you, like me, are a man of iron.’
    Steed made no reply, and Smith moved forward in the shallop, but soon he was back with another emendation. ‘Mister Steed, at the moment when I meet the Indian with the turkey feathers, must you emphasizethe fact that he is so tall and I so short?’ This time Steed said, ‘My description was ungracious, and I will gladly change it.’
    Still Smith was not through. Much later he awakened Steed with this suggestion: ‘I think you should add that Captain Smith was so struck by the giant size of the Indian general that he felt sure the man could not be a Choptank but was probably a Susquehannock.’
    Steed could not get back to sleep, and while the shallop rode easily on the waters of Choptank River he alternated between looking at the silhouette of the island he had named—soft and gentle in the night—and the dozing figure of his commander. Smith was an enigma, willing to make any alteration in the personal record of the trip, yet insanely determined to be accurate whenever geography was involved. At the entrance to every river he took repeated bearings. Constantly he consulted his compass, asking others to check him. He never entered into the log the height of a tree or the distance to shore without finding confirmation in the estimates of others, and with mapping he was meticulous. If he described the dress of a Choptank, he did so accurately.
    He was restless in his sleep, and toward dawn came back to tell Steed, ‘I think you can write that we shall not find gold or silver. That dream was vain.’ He spoke these words with such obvious sorrow that Steed shared his heartache, but with the breaking of the sun the little commander was all energy as he shouted to the men, ‘Well, to the westward passage.’ And he sped the shallop north to his next disappointment.
    He was a severe leader. One evening, as he assembled his company at the mouth of the Susquehanna, he whispered to Steed, ‘I want you to write with special care what I do and say this night.’ He then ordered the gentlemen to stand in one group, the sailors in another, and from the latter he commanded Robert Small to stand forth. When the man had done so he said harshly, ‘Lift your right arm,’ and when the arm was aloft, Smith stood on the fallen trunk of a tree and with a large goblet poured down the man’s arm a large draft of cold water. ‘Refill the goblet,’ he told Steed, and when this was done he ordered the sailor to raise his left arm, whereupon he emptied the water down that sleeve.
    ‘Tell the assembly what you did to warrant this punishment,’ Smith snapped.
    ‘I used an oath, sir.’
    ‘You spoke God’s name in anger?’
    ‘I did, sir. I had caught a large fish and he escaped.’
    ‘Return to ranks, Small.’ The little captain then wheeled to address the entire company. ‘If I demand that you conduct yourselves carefully, I have done the same. I have never drunk spirits, nor diced, nor gamed, nor smoked, nor uttered an oath, nor dallied with women, nor in any way diminished myself. I am a soldier, and I hold myself