In Which Sarge Bemoans Fate, but Bemoans Quickly

Cpl.,

I have not heard from you. Last letter worrisome, but this absence worries more. Mercerier is gone, though we killed his right hand man, you were right that Devenuelle was working with him Nwargo stabbed him in the throat and he is dead.

Mercerier got away as a sudden dust storm broke out everywhere around us. It was a war in shards and the air around us rasped about, cut through by bullets and explosions. The silent desert radiated sound and we were as shadows to each other, soon the echoes faded as guns became useless, whether by sand or by fear of killing one's own, who's to say? We hunted each other through the night, the flashes of phospherescence that lit up the cyclones of dust in which man killed man. My knife was my panache and I killed four men trying to hack my way to Mercerier, I wondered, as I stilled that fourth man, holding my hand to his mouth and easing him down gently, almost as a lover, what voice waited to answer his. I felt the deep shame again, but there was no time for that, he had entered on his own volition and probably would have had little use for thoughts of myself.

But it was not for him I mourned. Nor for myself, obviously, I am fallen and know ways to forget this horrible fact, and I can say that my ideals still stand. But for that voice that finds pleasure in his, Cpl., few know how cold the world actually is.

Mercerier was away, we got a few rounds off as he escaped, but he sacrificed five men who laid an excellent covering fire for his escape. We killed three of those men and captured two others, they were poor tribesmen paid very little, they must have sacrificed themselves for that one small moment of meaning. Perhaps they were promised much to their families. Nwargo interrogates them still.

Disappointment is keen, but this means out of Chad for now. I welcome that, the emptiness haunts and brings certain memories too close to dreams. I have not slept but that I would call it repentence.

I must go to Estonia and Latvia again. I have compensations to make.

While there, we will work to discover this mole. I must remind you of something:

The morning cat drinks good cream.

Sarge