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The Curse of Ticonderoga

Opening

Private Doakes wished he was wearing more than his red uniform coat as he patrolled the outer ramparts of the fort on this night. It was as cold as it always was up here in the wilderness he admitted to himself, but the rains of the past few days were adding an extra chill to the air.

Under the moonlight, the bored Doakes went and leaned against the stone walls of the outer fort, and watched the moonlight shine down upon the lake. He stood there below the stars and between the mountains and thought that it certainly was a beautiful view. Nothing like it back home. Nothing like it anywhere else he'd ever been on this side of the Atlantic. Though besides Quebec and Montreal and Crown Point all the the north and useless Skenesborough twenty miles to the south he admitted he hadn't seen much of it.

It was as he sat there and thought about the pretty view that movement in the shadows started, and as Doakes thought to himself that it would only be another two hours until his relief came up at dawn, that the black shadows began to move towards the fort.

Eventually though, it was too much for Doakes not to have noticed. Quickly unslinging his musket he shouted “Who Goes There?” It was clear to him now they were men, what seemed like a legion of them, imperceptible in the dark. Not a one of them answered, and it seemed as if for a moment they paused.

“Who Goes There?” Doakes yelled a second time. This time the host began to move forward again still in silence. This was Mohawk territory, certainly they weren't local tribesmen, whom were loyal to the king and if it was some sort of local militia fleeing an attack by the savages they would speak. Doakes began to fill with panic, but at the same time there was the training he’d gone though. He was in spite of it all after all, a professional. He raised his flintlock to his shoulder and steadied himself.

“WHO GOES THER---E!!!” His voice cracked as he tried to bellowed this time. The mob was at a run now, the first man, in some sort of blue or black coat with a large hat was carrying a sword, and he was now next to one of the ramparts, running on stone. Behind him were what seemed like thousands more. This, he thought to himself, was supposed to be a quiet posting. Nice and quiet, they'd said, there hadn't been anything of note going on since Amherst had taken it 16 years ago, they'd said.

He took aim and tried to stop his arms from shaking. These men of ill intent weren't stopping. “HALT!” came one final yell from Doakes is throat. None of them listened. They were almost upon him.

He closed his left eye. He looked down the barrel of his Brown Bess and saw the fellow with the sword. And as they had not obeyed his order he squeezed the trigger. For one brief eternal moment it seemed that nothing had happened.

And then the powder lit, and the gun blasted upwards in Doakes hands.

And then the man in the blue coat fell to the ground.

With that another man yelled “Get him!” waving at Doakes. On a drill, it would take the private some 30 seconds to reload his gun and by then it would have been far too late. So he did the sensible thing and ran.

The only problem being as he ran back inside the fort to yell alarm, he forgot one thing. And thus it was that his pursuers ran in as well, though the opened gate and into Fort Ticonderoga.

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“Come Out! Come Out you Old Rat!”

“... On whose authority to you enter the King’s Fort?”

“On whose authority? I come in the name of Great Jehovah, the slain Colonel Arnold, and the Continental Congress!”
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