The final week before the exercise was harsh.
Rain hammered the Reims plateau for four straight days.
The ground turned to a brown soup, and two of the light tanks refused to start after a storm flooded their cabins.
Canvas tents flapped violently all night.
One even tore loose and landed against the side of the fuel trailer, narrowly avoiding disaster.
Men were soaked, shivering, bruised but none of them quit.
The drills, now second nature, continued.
Morning maneuvers were run before sunrise, often in total silence.
De Gaulle called it "learning without thinking."
Moreau called it survival.
No new supplies had arrived.
The radios worked barely.
The trucks were barely holding together.
And then came the envelope.
A plain beige rectangle, slipped under Moreau's tent flap before dawn.
No sender.
No signature
Just a single date, a time, a map coordinate and one word written in sharp black ink:
Observe.
Moreau handed it to de Gaulle over coffee.
