043- Beau Geste

Tired out from a strenuous weekend? Get a little too much sunburn? What a get away from it all. We offer you escape! You are stealthily stalking into a silent desert fortress. Walking into what you know may be a trap.

Around you stand a legion of dead men. And over you, an unseen, menace hangs in the African night. Escaped, designed to free you from the four walls of today for a half hour of high adventure.

Tonight we escaped to Africa, to the Sahara, to an earlier day, and one of the greatest adventure mysteries of all time. Percifold Christopher Wrens, Bo-jes. It reported being brought to my headquarters and took a chew three days before, and I'd had the squadron on horse and ready to leave within ten minutes.

It would be no continuous force march ever since. The camel scout had reported that the Zenden of Outpost was under attack from a force of at least 2,000 Arabs and that the tiny garrison had little chance of survival.

As we came up to the last crest of San Dune shutting off our view of the lonely mud fort, I ordered my sergeant major to these Montemenian form skirmish lines while I rode on a head to reconnoiter.

At the top of the ridge, I rained in my horse and sat staring in amazement. Over the two hundred yards of their sand stretching up to the walls of their fort, nothing moved. There was no sound, no sign of life.

The oasis of to my left was deserted. The Arabs were gone. In the dread galore of France still waved overhead. The two shots of work were fired from the fort, and the bullets kicked up a spats of dust off the one side of me.