blackhole

The letter from the beyond

The last rounds were distributed. Each of the 35 soldiers put one aside for the "final assault", as all know, death is preferable than fall into the hands of those who surround them. Before killing the wounded and prisoners, the enemy mutilates so odious and every man who still holds the isolated small fort that night has seen with his own eyes the horrible spectacle of comrades and tortured before being slaughtered. 

We are in 1915, during the First World War, the borders of Egypt then occupied by the Turkish army, and Captain Marshall who control this handful of French know that the situation is hopeless. It's only a matter of hours. Once the day is lifted, it will be the ultimate enemy attack ... the last fight. It is impossible to hope for help. All the messengers who tried to pass were killed and their mutilated bodies are there, a few hundred meters, make presentations to their peers backed the dune. 

Captain Marshall has also, put a bullet aside. In the blowing up in his hand he thinks of the strange destiny that will kill him here in this arid desert of Sinai, where his great-grandfather also died here more than a century. Maybe not in this old fortress he holds today, but somewhere there. He was a captain like him and served under the command of Bonaparte, during the famous Egyptian campaign. His family still has the Sword of Honour Captain Marshall died in 1798 at the enemy he so often admired. 

Strange fate indeed that of the man who, 117 years later, finds himself as his ancestor in the same places ... face the same enemies. But there is about one glass of water per man, with twenty rounds per fighter, all hope is not lost. 

With the day, the assault will be given, and the hundreds Turkey, the allied armies of Germany, will rush to the fort. It should surprise! 

Captain need an idea to disguise his men, and as he reflects on the issue, his lieutenant occurs, escorting an old Arab wrapped in his bathrobe. 

- "This man claims to have a letter for you, sir." Marshall launches a suspicious look at the unknown. A letter? which could send him a letter? This old man is not an emissary enemy. Usually they are chosen younger and more representative. 

- "You have a letter for me? "

The old man approached the officer and looking straight into his eyes. 

- "Are you Captain Marshall? "

Despite the acquiescence of the military, the hooded man rests his question emphatically: 

- "It is you, Captain Marshall? "

- "Yep, that's me. Well, what do you want? "

Then the old Arab fell to his knees and worships Marshall who does not understand all the fuss. The man looks up at the sky a radiant with happiness, articulates incomprehensible sentences but unquestionably represent gratitude to the Most High, because facial expressions are revealing. Then Arabic recovers and tends to the officer a folded paper in a curious way. On the top is a name scribbled, barely legible as the ink used to write it is faded: 

"Captain Marshall." 

There is no doubt that this letter is well designed. As he unfolds the worn paper by asking a thousand questions about the identity of this mysterious correspondent, the old man looked at him with deep gratitude and said: 

- "My father would have been happy to give it to you himself! Allah made me do it for him. "

Captain Marshall is now holding an open letter to him. The author is writing his sloppy, almost unreadable. With much effort, the officer could decrypt the first three words: "My dear Marshall ...". So someone who knows him personally. "Immediately after receiving this order ..." The rest of the text is difficult to read, but it obviously comes from a superior. "... I am sending you a young native ..." Marshall suspends reading. The look he throws the old Arab reflected suddenly the greatest suspicion. 

Which may address this missive? there is no body of troops 20 miles around, and no one knows he is besieged on all sides for more than three days, and as for the young messenger is an old man! The look of the master slides at the bottom of the letter, the signature spreads, wide, muscular, incisive lightning. And there, Marshall believes to be the subject of an aberration. Unless it is not a hoax, because the letter is signed ... 

Bonaparte