Vengeance Sweeps the Sahara (eBook)

Sand, Blood and Survival - A French Foreign Legion Series in the Sahara, Book 4

Sandbergh Beyers, Pieter Haasbroek (Autoren)

Pieter Haasbroek (Herausgeber)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
123 Seiten
Pieter Haasbroek (Verlag)
978-0-00-082157-7 (ISBN)

Infos

In the French Foreign Legion, every man hides a secret.

For an American known only as Tex, his is vengeance and he intends to keep it.

In the sun-scorched wastes of the post-WWII Sahara, the French Foreign Legion is a refuge for the damned. Among them is Tex, a formidable American cowboy whose calm demeanor conceals a burning purpose. He isn't running from his past. He's hunting a monster from it, a sadistic ex-Nazi captain responsible for an unspeakable wartime atrocity who now leads a feared band of killers.

When a desperate plot to desert offers a path to his prey, Tex is thrust into a lethal game of survival. Surrounded by traitors, cutthroats, and an impending Arab uprising, he must outwit both his comrades and his sworn enemy. Failure means more than just a lonely death in the sand. It means a war criminal escapes justice forever.

A relentless page-turner of classic action and suspense, this is a must-read for fans of gritty historical thrillers and high-stakes adventure fiction. Perfect for readers who love the desperate survival of Alistair MacLean and the military intrigue of Jack Higgins.

Start your unforgettable Sahara adventure now with the fourth ebook in the series!

Textauszug

Chapter 2

There was the twilight, and Arabs sliding down the dune to the west, against which the wind had sculpted sand ripples, and Le Clerq, screaming and staggering, entering the desert, and no one knew why, except for that furtive little group that had dispersed so quickly just moments before.

Tex stood there as the sergeant-major rode up, and then he suddenly saw the movement on the sand, the orange-coloured undulation across the sand that had now become like silk. He watched it, until it went under the sand and became still, but the serrated ripple was perfectly clear, just beneath the surface of the sand.

Trane stood there, pointing with his finger, and exclaimed.

“Clerq is done for... That thing bit him while we were resting...”

Tex froze for a moment and looked quickly at Trane.

The sergeant-major yelled at Le Clerq.

“Come here... come back...” But he did not come back. He fell forward into the sand, kicked feebly, and then gradually became still there on the sand.

“He’s a pig and a baboon!” thundered the sergeant-major... “Only a fool like him would go and lie on a sand adder!”

Then he wheeled his horse around and returned to where the non-commissioned officers were yelling at the men to prepare for a fight.

Petrie stamped his foot on the adder, now coiled beneath the sand, and the snake, dying, writhed out of the sand. Tex walked over, and there were others witnessing the final scene. Tears, weeping from his left eye. The Meisie, his lips curled in disgust, and Duclos, grinning as if a snake had bitten him. The Bulgarian stood a few paces away, and his face seemed content, for he smiled faintly with his ugly mouth, and Tex noticed it.

It was just the usual attack by the usual number of Arabs. In the past year, every single force that had come to relieve the garrison had been attacked by the Arabs. But each time the attacks grew stronger, and from the coast, there were reports that restlessness among the various tribes was increasing and that a major conflict could erupt at any moment.

Le Clerq, lying there in the sand in the semi-darkness, was forgotten, and the men knelt on the small ridge where they had come to rest, their Lebel rifles still in their hands, their fingers on the triggers.

Tex was among his American comrades, and Pronker lay making quips at Louis the Camel. Bonaparte was thinking a little, but he was ready to react when the order to fire came. And Koskofski, Planmaker, was quickly thinking of a plan in case the Arabs captured them.

The Arabs made their appearance on the ridge to the west, about three or four hundred of them, white-robed and upright in their saddles. They milled about, and their chattering was audible.

These Arabs, Tex thought, always made the same mistakes. Instead of storming in, firing from the outset, they first held a noisy council and encouraged one another. But within a few seconds, they would come storming, screaming. They would fight bravely and recklessly, but the Lebels would empty too many saddles, and then they would disappear again just as quickly as they had appeared.

If these Arabs, however, got their hands on a bunch of Lebels and a machine gun or two. Sergeant-Major Ransconi came riding along behind them, calling them his children. He was a brave man, though a barbarian who should have been dead long ago, and he sat death-defyingly on his black Arab stallion.

“Mes enfants, my children, you are children of France... You will fight... for certain you will fight. Today you will bring honour to the Tricolour, and you will punish these barbarians for their audacity in attacking the famed Legion...” Thus he encouraged them, manfully and bravely.

The mass of white figures in the saddles spread out, forming a thin, long line. Then they charged, and the fading light glowed softly on sabre and scimitar, dagger and rifle barrel.

They screamed their war cry and charged at their accursed enemies.

“Allah-o-Akbar!”

The cry rose in a raw wave from hundreds of enraged throats. With that cry on their lips, they were prepared to ride into death itself.

A command cracked out, and the Legionnaires’ fingers tightened on their triggers. The thin white line stormed towards the blue ridge where the Legionnaires waited, the sights of the Lebels steady behind the visors.

Tex, meanwhile, was thinking. It was not going to be so easy to repel this attack. These Arabs were growing in number. But he could not think further, for the captain’s command cut through everything.

“Fire!”

The mighty report from hundreds of rifles cracked hard and short, like the blast from a single great cannon, and it echoed down the line. Arms moved like steel pistons as they ejected the empty cartridges and reloaded.

Quickly, almost imperceptibly, as if by a stroke of magic, many saddles on the charging horses were emptied, and riderless horses ran wild across the desert, into the path of other mounted horses, often causing the latter to stumble and fall.

When the gunpowder smoke cleared slightly, it was evident that there was confusion on the attackers’ left flank, but the centre and right flank of the line still stormed resolutely towards the ridge where the thin blue row of Legionnaires awaited them.

In this moment, Captain Duvet made his great blunder. His trouble was that he despised everyone except those born into high station who later became officers. On the back of his snorting stallion, he sat behind the centre of his own line and observed how the left wing of the Arabs disintegrated and withered. He thought. Another volley, and these mad dogs will all be in flight.

He waited too long with the second command to fire. He allowed the surging tide of Arabs to come almost to bayonet range before he screamed in his thin voice.

“Fire!”

The screaming, bloodthirsty phalanx of Arabs was in the centre, among the Legionnaires, before the smoke could even clear.

A sergeant commanded.

“Bayonets!” and then he collapsed as the razor-sharp Arab sword struck his body.

Tex and the Americans had instinctively bunched together, and in this moment, with death so near, they forgot the weight of their rucksacks. Around them, horses milled, neighing in fear, staggering, striking out with their hooves. And some did not neigh, they screamed like maddened stallions in pain.

Lean, sallow Arabs leaned from their saddles, striking with their sharp weapons, their teeth glinting in the last light, and they screamed their war cries here in the bloody confusion. There were a few bloody moments of thrusting, giving way, and then striking with the butt of a rifle. Dust rose beneath the milling mass, and the battle swayed back and forth. There was the sound of men’s voices rising and climbing in bloody emotion as they tried to kill, fearing that otherwise they themselves would be killed. Occasionally a shot rang out, but it was mostly the ringing blows of steel on steel. Men fell, bleeding, and struggled away through the confusion, and others fell and moved no more.

Tex swung his rifle wildly at the Arabs, his height helping him to easily knock them from their saddles. Pronker and the others were pinned down by two riders almost on top of them, but Tex leaped in and knocked one from his saddle, and he almost demolished the other bearded rider as well.

But another bearded rider appeared from the melee, and the next moment the American was sent flying through the air. When he came to his senses again, he found himself behind his comrades, who were fighting fiercely. He grabbed his Lebel, leaped up, and jumped back in, though he felt blood on his face, warm and flowing.

In that moment, the attackers fell back. Only in the centre had the Arabs succeeded in getting among the Legionnaires, when the captain had ordered the firing too late. The Legionnaires now poured lead into the new wave of Arabs rushing forward to help their comrades.

The first volley made the reinforcements waver, and then the Arabs’ front line broke, and they turned and fled into the increasing darkness creeping over the desert from the east. Many of them, however, did not manage to escape. One of these was an Arab who had to fight his way past the group of Americans to get away. Tex saw the swinging scimitar, flashing dully as it swung, and in that instant, the tall American sprang forward, grabbed one of the rider’s boots, and flung him from the saddle.

The Arab, in his long white robe, fell with a dull thud onto the sand, and within seconds, half a dozen Legionnaires were there, bayonets ready to impale the fallen man.

But the Legionnaire from Texas was there first. He stood astride the semi-conscious Arab, the barrel of his Lebel glinting. The bayonet protruded before him, but this time it was not aimed at Arabs...

“Stay where you are,” Tex commanded. “This Arab is my prisoner...”

He himself did not know why he was doing it. In the heat of battle, one kills everything that comes one’s way, but it was as if Tex instinctively felt that he should not let this man die.

He bent down and pulled the Arab to his feet, trying to see his face, but it was difficult, for there was almost no light left. Yet he could see that this was no ordinary Arab... This fellow had something about him that set him apart.

There were not many prisoners, for the Legion did not usually take prisoners. In all, there were about four, including the one Tex held.

Pronker growled.

“If you think you’ve done a good thing, you’re mistaken, Tex. That fellow is going to suffer a lot, and in the end, he’ll be dead anyway, you know...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 9.9.2025
• Übersetzer: Pieter Haasbroek, Ai
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Fantasy
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• ISBN-10: 0-00-082157-8 / 0000821578
• ISBN-13: 978-0-00-082157-7 / 9780000821577