I can tell an even more tragic story…
Long ago in a time of peace and prosperity for all, there was a beautiful city called Habitat De Sud that was surrounded by picturesque plantations and farms. Once day with out warning a huge Galleon appears in the bay and out march fearsome troops! The Plantation and farm workers are captured and enslaved. The Indians remove and burn there comfortable french overalls and force them to wear skirts and turbans. The Indians paint their skin dark and force them to travel a grueling 3 movement points instead of the leisurely 2 they are accustomed to.
They endure 70 years of slavery in the hands of the Indians, even when there are no more railroads to build they are forced to wear their captors outfits and are locked up in small cramped dirty cells. In the distance they hear the sounds of muted gunfire and explosions through their thick cement walls. they go to sleep every night never knowing if it is the sound of Indians killing Frenchmen or if it is the sound of their French brothers and sisters beating a path through hell to save them. They can only hope the latter is true and force themselves not to lose hope.
They hear the guards whispering to each other. Whispering stories of a French armada encircling India, stories of French and American troops occupying Indian cities, stories of those troops searching everywhere…but for what? The french slaves know! The allied forces are searching for them. Their freedom is almost at hand! The mood of the concentration camp sky rockets and french songs of liberation are quietly sung amongst each other. Quietly…for fear of cruel beatings still loom in the air…
However, these hopes are in vain. It is not long before they are all clapped in irons and marched onto ships. Ships that are headed to more work, slavery, and wearing of Indian disguises in other foreign lands.
Meanwhile, back in the Allied HQ, France and America had been keeping close tabs on the hostages and their intelligence division noticed them (as well as several transports) missing. The only assumption was that they were being moved, but where? They could only guess to the east as that was the most direct route away from France. The French dispatched two of their fastest destroyers to see what they could find. Low and behold in the distance they saw three transports fully loaded. This caused quite a delima for the sailors. With the Indian disguises how could they tell their countrymen from the Indians? Capturing all of them to figure it out later was also out of the question, there simply wasn't enough room on the two destroyers for everyone! That's when the men sonar room noticed something. It sounded like morse code, it was faint. . . like the sound a turban being hit against the hull of a transport. The message read "La Garde meurt, mais ne se rend pas." the message just repeated and repeated until it stopped mid sentence. There was nothing else to do. . . the free frenchmen and the frenchmen who were enslaved all agreed that death was a fate preferable to slavery. With a tear in his eye the commander gave the order to sink all of the transports so that their mission of liberating the captured french workers could be fulfilled.