LAKE GEORGE & FORT WILLIAM HENRY ... Arrest Thru The Stockade

[INTERIOR BARRACKS - LOW & WIDE - DAY

door CRASHES inwards. Twelve British sentries storm in. Four bear torches.

REVERSE: HAWKEYE, UNCAS, CHINGACHGOOK, TWO COLONIALS & SOME MOHAWKS

are out of the bunks and moving with them with tomahawks, knives, a flintlock ...]

SERGEANT: [O.S.] You! Halt!

[BRITISH SENTRIES

their muskets aimed mostly at Hawkeye.]

SERGEANT: As you were!!

[Hawkeye freezes. The others slow down, indecisive ... Hawkeye drops his tomahawk and says something in Mohican to restrain Chingachgook and Uncas. The British in the torchlight with the long muskets and bayonets are an image out of Goya.]

SERGEANT: Take him!

[Hawkeye's spun around and while his hands are bound.]

CHINGACHGOOK: [Mohican; subtitled] Why do they make my son prisoner?

HAWKEYE: [Mohican; subtitled] I helped Winthrop and the others leave ... This fight is not yours, father. I love you and my brother. And you should leave this place now and go to Can-tuck-ee ...

CHINGACHGOOK: [Mohican; subtitled] What will they do with my white son?

[One of the guards - scared to death by Chingachgook - nervously fingers his musket.]

GUARD: Get back from him!

[HEYWARD

enters.

HAWKEYE

shrugs in answer to Chingachgook's question.

HAWKEYE'S

moved out. As he passes Heyward, his eyes lock on his.

CUT TO ...

INTERIOR MUNRO'S QUARTERS - CORA - DAY]

CORA: He saved us! We are alive only because of him ...

[WIDEN:

Heyward, Munro, Cora. We've entered mid-argument. An adjutant comes and goes. Heyward and Munro are sensitive to appearances in front of the adjutant. Cora couldn't give a damn.]

MUNRO: The man encouraged the colonials to desert in this very room, in my presence. He is guilty of sedition and must be tried and hanged like any other criminal, regardless of what he did for my children.

CORA: He knew the consequences. And he stayed. Are those the actions of a criminal? ... Duncan, do something.

HEYWARD: He knew the penalty for breaking regulations. He ought to pay without sending you to beg.

CORA: You know he wouldn't send me ...! You misrepresented what you saw and caused this. [frustrated] I, too, was at that farm. It was as he said ...

MUNRO: Not with enough certainty to outweigh British interests in this fort.

HEYWARD: And who empowered these provincials to pass judgment upon England's policies in her own colonies? To come and go without so much as a "by your leave."

CORA: They do not live their lives "by your leave." ... They hack it out of the wilderness with their own two hands, burying their dead and their children along the way.

HEYWARD: [distant] You are defending him because you've become infatuated with him.

[Cora is having her intelligence written off as a hormone attack. She contains her fury.]

CORA: Duncan, you are a man with a few admirable qualities. But taken as a whole, I was wrong to have thought so highly of you.

[Heyward's shot through the heart.]

MUNRO: But the man is guilty of sedition and subject to military justice and beyond pardon.

CORA: "Justice"? If that's "justice" ..., then the sooner French guns blow the English army out of America, the better it will be for these people.

MUNRO: You do not know what you are saying!

CORA: [explodes] Yes I do! I know exactly what I am saying. And if it is sedition, then I am guilty of sedition, too!

[She exits, leaving them there.

CUT TO ...

INTERIOR FORT, STOCKADE - NIGHT

Heavy timbered door. A sentry. They stand at attention when Cora passes as opposed to barring her entry.

INTERIOR CELL - HAWKEYE

comes to the door, grips the bars with his hands and looks at Cora.

THROUGH THE BARS TO CORA

They are silent for a moment, then ...]

HAWKEYE: Sorry ... can't ask you in.

[Cora's pale smile.]

CORA: They're going to hang you. [pause; soft] Why didn't you leave when you had the chance?

HAWKEYE: Because what I am interested in is right here ...

CORA: What would you have me do?

[He touches her hand.]

HAWKEYE: Webb's reinforcements will arrive or not. If they do not arrive, the fort will fall. If that happens, stay close to your father. The French will protect the officer class among the English.

CORA: No. I will find you.

HAWKEYE: Do not. [pause] Promise me.

[Cora drops her forehead to Hawkeye's hands wrapped around the bars. She acquiesces, nods. Then HEAVY SHELLING commences. Cora & Hawkeye look up. Mortar bombs begin striking the fortress. Still dark. The final French bombardment has started.]

CORA: The whole world's on fire, isn't it?

[A pause.]

HAWKEYE: This part of it sure is ...

[Reaching through the bars set in the thick door, their hands clasp each others. On that image ...

CUT TO ...

EXTERIOR FORT WILLIAM HENRY - VARIOUS CUTS - DAWN (2ND UNIT)

French cannoneers in Batteries #1 and #2 fire again and again. They work like precision drill teams.

FRENCH TRENCH

ending in Battery #3 is complete and surprisingly close to William Henry's walls. Crews reload the squat and massive newly arrived thirteen inch mortars.

MORTAR ONE

The flash-hole is primed. The burning fuse is jammed into the bomb. The primer charge is lit off and the crew ducks as the crude iron belches red flame and black smoke into the lightening sky. The second mortar ROARS. Then a THIRD.

CUT TO ...

INTERIOR FORT WILLIAM HENRY - ENGLISH CANNON CREW - NIGHT

tries to return fire but can't under the heavy French bombardment. The French mortar bomb arcs in and EXPLODES smoke, flame and shrapnel, wiping out most of the crew. The fortress is under the heaviest attack we've seen. Wounded are in shock or terrorized. Another mortar bomb arcs in and explodes part of a building and casement, starting a fire. Another lands in the grounds. People scatter. It doesn't explode. One soldier dashes to rip out the fuse. As his hand is inches away ... EXPLOSION.

CUT TO ...

INTERIOR STOCKADE - HAWKEYE - DAWN - LATER

protects Cora through the bars as she half sleeps through the muffled roar. Then the thundering stops. Hawkeye seperates himself from her and crosses to the window.

EXTERIOR FORT, MAIN GATE - HAWKEYES POV: CHEVALIER DE LEVIS

bows deeply to Major Beams. A French honor guard of five men is behind him. A white scarf is on his sword tip. The fresh destruction of the fort is apparent. Debris smolders.

INTERIOR FORT - STOCKADE - HAWKEYE

crosses to an awakened Cora. He touches her face. He's desperate to drill these next words into her brain.]

CORA: What is it?

HAWKEYE: I don't know. Whatever happens you stay with your father. You stay among the officers.

[Cora looks up at Hawkeye. We feel forboding. O.S. are heard drums ...

CUT TO ...]

The PARLAY