Droubble: Hidden Meanings

Hidden Meanings

“Mail call.” George settled down on his cot. “One for you.”

Leland skimmed the letter. “That’s odd.”

“What?”

“Well, it’s a love-letter, ‘I’m-waiting-for-you’ kind of stuff.”

“Yeah?”

“But it’s signed ‘Bess.’ I don’t know no Bess.”

George paused. “You know what this means.”

“What?”

“The boys back home want us out. But they can’t help us outright.”

“True...”

“Look at this letter. To Gerry, it’s just another letter from home, but they know you know it’s a fake.”

“So?”

“It’s a code.”

They worked through the night, trying every kind of cipher they could come up with, but nothing ever seemed to work. Several days later, George was caught with the letter, complete with his scribbled notes. It didn’t take long for his captors to figure out what was up, and the two served out the war in seperate cells.

---

Bess gazed at the big moon through her window. She thought back on that one night with the beautiful soldier. They had scarcely had time to exchange names, but she felt that there had been a moment of deep connection. It lifted her heart to realize that at this moment he might be reading her letter...


(Interesting fact: Such techniques actually were used during WWII; see the NPR story that inspired this droubble...)