Bloodhound in the Sahara (eBook)

Sand, Blood and Survival - A French Foreign Legion Series in the Sahara, Book 2

Sandbergh Beyers, Pieter Haasbroek (Autoren)

Pieter Haasbroek (Herausgeber)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
131 Seiten
Pieter Haasbroek (Verlag)
978-0-00-082161-4 (ISBN)

Infos

One man's oath of vengeance is another man's death sentence.

In the Sahara, both will be paid in blood.

Amidst the blistering heat of a Sahara desert rebellion, American Foreign Legionnaire Tex has a secret mission. He isn't fighting for France. He is hunting a ghost from the last war, the brutal ex-Nazi General Sturmer. The man responsible for the murder of his brother and a thousand others. But in the desert, ghosts carry guns.

Now a deserter, Tex is trapped between warring armies, a band of treacherous legionnaires who want him silenced, and Sturmer's own ruthless partisans who hunt men for sport. With his few loyal friends cornered and a vicious killer closing in, every sunrise could be his last.

The stakes are more than just justice, they are survival. To fail means not only letting a monster escape but leaving everyone he cares about to be swallowed by the endless, blood-soaked sands.

A relentless blend of classic action-adventure and gripping military thriller, this story of grit and vengeance will leave you breathless. Perfect for fans of Alistair MacLean and Wilbur Smith.

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

Textauszug

Chapter 2

Someone called out in a gruff voice. “Halt! Move an inch, you wretched bluecoat, and you’ll peel from that saddle like rotten hide!”

Tex calmed his horse by touching its neck with his hand and rubbing it gently. He gripped the Lebel rifle tightly in his other hand, but he knew it was futile to try and use it. He had noticed how those rifles were aimed at him, he had seen those faces, and he knew he would die before he even had his rifle to his shoulder.

He narrowed his grey eyes to slits, not to keep out the sun that was rapidly sinking in the west, but because he was unconsciously afraid that his enemies would read his thoughts.

For it would afford these men particular pleasure to see him die.

They were the traitorous deserters who had delivered the fortress of El Kwatra into the hands of the Arabs in exchange for safe conduct across the desert to the seacoast.

Their leader was Le Clerq. Tex sat looking at him, at his long, sallow face that was always dirty. He had a filthy black shock of hair that left grease on his cap, on his pillow, on anything on which he laid his head. He was an outcast, a cruel Parisian ruffian who held sway over other cruel men because he was crueller than they, and because he was quicker to use his fists and boots... and his knife. Tex sat looking at that long nose, at those brown, gleaming eyes that gained a new light at the prospect of cruelty.

Tex knew now it had been a mistake to come to this hamlet seeking water. It would have been far more pleasant to perish of thirst in the desert...

Le Clerq said softly, with malicious acuity.

“Oh, so, you American swine! This day you will not easily forget. You will remember it as the most sorrowful in your sorrowful life!”

With that, he sprang forward, unable to restrain his hatred any longer. Tex had once, there in the fort of El Kwatra, given him a thrashing in front of his followers that he could not forget. That, the vile Le Clerq could not forget.

He swung his rifle so that the butt went over his shoulder, his entire being glowing at the thought of what he would do to this lanky American before he died.

Tex jerked his body back, but it was too late. The heavy butt struck him on the temple, a glancing blow because he had tried to wrench his head away, but a blow heavy enough to send him tumbling from the saddle. He crashed into the dust and lay there for a few moments, half-dazed.

Le Clerq kicked Tex. Then he kicked again. The others drew nearer. They too were eager to kick this former soldier of the Foreign Legion.

Meisie was the first, after Le Clerq, to put the boot in. It was in his nature, for though he had the face of a pretty girl, his soul was like that of the devil. If one saw his large, innocent blue eyes, one would never dream that he delighted in doling out cruelty. One would never say it, looking at his blushing cheeks that had never yet had to feel the touch of a razor.

He kicked, but at the same time, Tex had begun to roll, and the kick did not strike him heavily.

He was still half-stunned, but gradually he began to regain his senses. He tried to think quickly. There was something he ought to remember, something that could turn the tables against these men.

The dwarf Quelcos also kicked, screaming simultaneously, for he could not yet forgive the world for making him so small. He was never at peace with himself or with his comrades.

The Bulgarian, with his foul breath, cursed and raised his rifle, taking aim at Tex, and the Belgian, whose one eye wept incessantly, struck Tex with his fist just as he staggered to his feet.

Tex was still trying to dredge something from the past, and now that the blurriness before his eyes was dissipating, he began to see, began to remember.

The executioner Petrie came rushing forward, the man who had left France because he had become a candidate for the guillotine, he who had felt the thumbscrew after beating an old man, who could have been his father, to death. He, the executioner from Marseille.

But he stopped in his tracks. Something had occurred to Tex. And it enabled him, for a moment, to turn the tables against these scoundrels.

Although he was a former Legionnaire, it now occurred to him that he wore a revolver at his hip. And this was something these scum had not expected. Legionnaires carried Lebel rifles, but not revolvers. When the Lebel had fallen from Tex’s hands, they had imagined they were now dealing with an unarmed man.

But now they stood swaying there, astonished and terrified, for Tex had drawn that revolver with that old, lightning speed he had learned when he was still a youngster.

This was something they could not comprehend. One moment there was nothing in the American’s hands, and the next moment the revolver sat there, large, bluish, and ominous. It seemed they had not even seen the movement of his hand, yet it had happened, and some of them stood there open-mouthed and gaping, drooling.

“Damn!” screamed Le Clerq, terrified, and sprang backwards. This gave his comrades weak knees. They all had rifles in their hands, but the rifles were no longer aimed at the tall, menacing American. Nor did any of them try to take aim, for they knew that this gleaming, bluish revolver would spit fire long before they had their fingers on the trigger.

“Stand back, you rabble!” threatened Tex. He felt like throwing the revolver away and taking them on one by one with his fists, but he reconsidered.

“Drop those rifles, you accursed ones!” yelled Tex.

But not one of them obeyed him. They were too afraid to use the rifles, but they were insolent enough not to discard their weapons.

They just stood there in the dusty “courtyard” of the hamlet, glaring at the tall man who had so unpleasantly surprised them.

Tex ran his tongue over his dry lips. His horse had trotted away, and he knew it was no longer nearby. He knew he could not open fire on this rabble, for before he had them all down, one or another would get him. And he also knew they would not drop their rifles. They were just waiting for that one deadly moment when his attention might be distracted.

Therefore, Tex preferred to start moving backwards towards where his Lebel must be lying. He might need it badly.

He bent down carefully and picked it up, his eyes constantly on those six who were just waiting to send lead through him.

He moved further backwards, towards an opening between the mud huts. Here he was now at a corner. He feinted. Then he sprang away and ran as hard as he could behind the huts. A shot screamed over his shoulder as he sprinted towards a group of huts. He dived forward to get behind them before the others could shoot. Four bullets whistled past him, but he had saved himself with the diving lunge.

That dive had scraped the skin from his elbows, but he did not even notice it, not until much later. He quickly sprang up again and ran, back and forth across open ground and behind huts. He ran on, cursing. Where was that wretched horse? What the devil could have become of it?

Suddenly he was out from between the buildings and found himself under palm trees whose dry leaves made a sickly rustling sound.

Before him was a chaos of water furrows irrigating small, intensively cultivated vegetable beds. He saw cucumbers, tomatoes, watermelons, onions, and other vegetables withering in the sun because there was no one to water them.

To his right was a furrow deeper than the irrigation channels. He hurried towards it and plunged into the water just before Le Clerq and the Executioner came into sight, their Arab cloaks billowing behind them. Those two had not seen where Tex had gone, but it was easy enough to guess.

Tex heard the hoarse voice, the voice of Paris’s back alleys. “Search through the huts, my children. We two here will search the vegetable gardens.”

The diminutive Frenchman wanted to kill Tex. He knew he had to eliminate him. At that moment, Tex whispered to himself. “He wants me dead, as sure as two times two is four... He’s a murderer. Cross him, and you might as well order your coffin... if you just let him get to you.”

But it was more than that.

Le Clerq and his renegades were in a desperate state. After betraying their comrades in the fort, they had been promised safe conduct to the seacoast. The Arabs had tried to keep their word. The crux of the matter, however, was that it had become known too soon in the garrison towns on the coast that El Kwatra had been wiped out.

One of the Legionnaires who had somehow survived the bloodbath in El Kwatra had gotten hold of a horse and slipped through the Arab lines to the large garrison town of Sidi-bel-Illah.

The French troops were immediately brought into battle order. Everywhere, Le Clerq and his gang encountered columns of soldiers moving south, blocking their passage to the coast.

When they encountered a patrol of native soldiers, they came under fire and fled back to this small oasis in the desert. Here, the Arab escort had simply abandoned them and departed. They saw no prospect of taking the group any further.

The gang was just considering their fate when they saw the lone rider coming over the sand dune. They were desperate men. They had tried to escape from the Legion because life in the desert had become a hell for them, and they yearned for the fleshpots of Europe. But even existence in the Legion was preferable to being shot against a wall.

Now, as they scurried among the Arab huts after Tex, a sudden, exciting thought took hold of Le Clerq.

If Tex were dead, no one would know they had played the traitor. He was the only...

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: 0-00-082161-6 / 0000821616
• ISBN-13: 978-0-00-082161-4 / 9780000821614