“I’ll tell you how it is,” Whitcomb said again. “We got two militia regiments inside the fort—Massachusetts regiments. We’re trying to get ’em to stay and fight. Maybe we can keep ’em and maybe we can’t. They say their time’s up in two days, and they got to go home. If we take Verrieul’s body in, we got to tell ’em what happened—tell ’em we shot one of our men by mistake. Those Massachusetts regiments, they wouldn’t like to hear anything like that! They get scared easy. If they heard about Verrieul getting shot, they’d be afraid of getting shot themselves. They know they deserve to be. They wouldn’t stay here five minutes after they heard about Verrieul. That’s how it is. We can’t afford to lose a man: not a man!”

“How many have you got altogether?” I asked.

“Two thousand, not counting militia,” Whitcomb said. “Counting militia, three thousand.”

“Three thousand!” I repeated. “You’ve got three thousand?”

This confirmation of what Nathaniel had told me—of insane blundering on someone’s part—made me sick.

“Three thousand if you want to count militia,” Whitcomb said, “but if you know what’s good for you, you won’t count ’em.”

Doc sighed. “Well, where’ll we bury him?”

… We were outside the old French lines, the earthworks that protect Ticonderoga on the landward side. Whitcomb shouted a warning to those in the works, then led us across a low embankment and into the trenches. There were men on the fire steps. We saw them only as blurs against the stars.

We went down the slope behind the trenches and out to the stone fort, perched on its high point above the black void of the lake. Soldiers with lanterns stood guard outside: within the fort, lighted windows fronted on the drillground. We halted before the very room in which Gates had capered before us like a sly old woman, nine months before, when he learned from Wilkinson how Whitcomb had captured two Britishers. It was like old days when the door across the hall flew open; for there stood Wilkinson himself, his jaw-bones a-throb, as if he privily chewed some small and savory morsel.

“Where’s the general?” Whitcomb asked.

“Perhaps,” Wilkinson said in that soothing voice of his, “perhaps I can attend to this for you. The general hasn’t had much rest since he sent his little boy to Albany last Sunday.”

“You mean he’s gone to bed?” Cap Huff asked.

Wilkinson looked hostile. “That, sir, was the implication I intended to convey.”

“Well, get him up,” Cap said. “Look here, what we got!” He gestured largely toward us. Wilkinson stalked to the general’s door with his peculiar careful gait. He tapped on the door with an air of secrecy, listened a moment, and went in. We heard him knocking at another inner door.

“What’s this place Wilkinson lives in?” Cap asked hoarsely. “I ain’t never seen it.” He dodged into the room from which Wilkinson had emerged and was back in a moment, looking innocent.