Penalty Expedition (eBook)

Sand, Blood and Survival - A French Foreign Legion Series in the Sahara, Book 12

Sandbergh Beyers, Pieter Haasbroek (Autoren)

Pieter Haasbroek (Herausgeber)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
121 Seiten
Pieter Haasbroek (Verlag)
978-0-00-082163-8 (ISBN)

Infos

One woman holds the key to their survival and their damnation.

To live, they must become the butchers of their own brothers-in-arms.

In the unforgiving Moroccan desert, Fort Valeau is a forgotten bastion of the French Foreign Legion. It's a place where men go to disappear, led by the battle-hardened Captain Monclaire. His command is a volatile mix of outcasts, including Basie Beyers, a South African giant running from a lethal past, and Pete Haver, a disgraced officer whose sharp tongue is as dangerous as any blade.

When a relief column is annihilated by a brutally efficient enemy armed with modern weapons, the fort is besieged and overwhelmed. Captured and facing unimaginable torture, Monclaire's men are offered a hellish choice. Lure an even larger relief force into a waiting massacre, or die screaming in the sand. Their captors are not simple rebels, but a ghost army led by the beautiful and sadistic Tania. She is a woman with a shocking secret and a dark, twisted obsession with Basie.

As loyalty clashes with survival, Basie is drawn into a dangerous, passionate battle of wills with his beautiful tormentor. With hundreds of his comrades marching blindly toward the slaughter, Monclaire must orchestrate a desperate gambit, knowing that one false move means the end of them all.

A blistering blend of classic action-adventure and a high-stakes military thriller, this novel is a relentless story of courage, betrayal, and the savage fight for survival. Perfect for fans of Alistair MacLean and Wilbur Smith.

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

Textauszug

Chapter 1

FORT VALEAU

Corporal Diepel, the Swede with the pockmarked face, spat out his quid of tobacco, and it landed softly before a line of Legionnaires. A fly, grown rather corpulent, buzzed over to investigate. Then, disappointed, it abandoned its inspection. There are many things this fly might savour, but assuredly not this quid from Corporal Diepel. No, nevermore.

The corporal prepared to address twelve fellows. He did so often. This Diepel was a man who could talk prodigiously. But he was also a good soldier of the French Foreign Legion.

He said. “Tomorrow, a relief column is due to arrive here. But you all know that already, don’t you? We begin the march to Dini Sadazi as soon as they arrive. You certainly won’t be sorry. Neither will I. This fort is like hell itself. One gets no rest here. We shall thank our lucky stars the day we are gone from this place.”

He fell silent for a moment, staring at that quid upon the sand. Then, with his small, beady eyes, he looked up at the twelve fellows before him. His face resembled an old, weathered walnut.

“There was a time when service in Fort Valeau meant a man could fight, you could fight a great deal indeed. The Arabs did not like us being stationed in this fort. The Dalaks, the Bormoen, and the Riffs. No, they tried to exterminate us. In those days, the Legion meant something. But not anymore. Today, we are little more than common police. Today, they hardly use us. When there’s trouble, the aeroplanes are sent, and a few bombs are dropped. Then the Arabs run. Not that one can blame them. I’d run too, once the bombs started falling.”

From somewhere in the middle of the line of men came a heavy sigh. It emanated from a large, massive private, a South African named Basie Beyers, a man who had once been a boxer on the Witwatersrand, but who had then killed a man in a fight and sought refuge here in the French Foreign Legion. That was not all. The boxing episode had merely been a pretext. After the Second World War, Basie had simply been unable to adjust properly to civilian life. He had broken away and come to don a uniform once more, here in the far north of Africa.

Through motionless lips, Basie now whispered. “This fellow is driving me to distraction. Does he imagine it’s pleasant to stand here in this bloody hot sun listening to him? Who feels inclined to endure his sermons now?”

Private Pete Haver, the Englishman, standing beside Basie, nodded ever so slightly and then said, a little louder. “Yes, he’ll talk himself into the ground yet. He enjoys having an audience, and we, of course, are the ideal audience.”

Corporal Diepel was just about to babble on further when he caught a word or two of what Haver had said. He glared at the Englishman and said. “Private Haver... step forward!”

A rather long silence ensued, broken only by the cawing of a vulture circling somewhere overhead and by the soft sighing of sand constantly shifting under the onslaught of the fierce desert wind. Diepel stared intently at Haver, and Haver, in turn, stared at a section of the barracks building directly in front of him.

When Diepel spoke again, his words were ominously soft. “Can it be that you are not interested in the things I have to say, Private Haver?”

Haver opened his mouth to speak. It was a mistake.

“Attention!” Diepel bellowed. “You probably imagine you can strut about here on the parade ground like a crane,” Diepel said to the Englishman.

Haver’s reply made Basie gasp slightly. “I wouldn’t be able to say, Corporal,” Haver said. “I don’t have much knowledge of how cranes walk.”

Basie could not understand why Haver would speak like that again. He was always looking for trouble, and now he was courting a spell of carrying a packsaddle in this impossible heat. Every time, Haver was punished simply because he could not hold that tongue of his. And it was so astonishing, for he was, after all, a very good soldier, this Englishman. But hold his tongue? Utterly futile.

Haver’s response slowly penetrated Diepel’s comprehension, and suddenly it struck him like an explosion in his brain. That pockmarked face contorted with rage. “So, you’re trying to be clever as well, are you, Private Haver? Very well. I shall speak with Captain Monclaire this evening. Then you can stay here. You will not be going to Dini Sadazi. You can remain behind and serve a further term. How do you like that, my dear private?”

Pete Haver’s eyes narrowed just a fraction, and his voice was soft, yet still faintly conceited. “That is justice, I suppose, Corporal, but I am entirely certain you will miss me, and our amicable little chats.”

There was a light clatter. A rifle had fallen from someone’s hand. It was Private Basie Beyers’s rifle that had fallen. Corporal Diepel swung his attention away from Haver. He stared, dumbfounded, at the rifle and then at Basie Beyers.

“You wretched slob! Look what you’ve done now! You can’t even hold a rifle in your paws!”

He glared at Basie as if unable to utter another word, but then he erupted again. “You’re like a woman. You’re soft and rotten. What you have done is a transgression of French military regulations, my dear private. You will find that out soon enough. Pick up that rifle!”

Basie, with that tall, lithe body of his, stooped and picked up the rifle. He had achieved his objective. He had diverted Diepel’s attention from Haver. For now the corporal was again expounding on the military shortcomings of the modern privates of the Foreign Legion.

“Today’s recruits have no courage... no discipline whatsoever... It was the men of the past who had to fight. They probably would have wept some days, but they had no tears left to cry.”

Dini Sadazi is some two hundred miles from Fort Valeau, or about six days’ normal march. A radio message from Radazi had stated precisely when the relief column would depart from there, so that it could be determined with great accuracy when the column would arrive at Fort Valeau. Captain Monclaire, commanding officer at Valeau, had indicated that the column could be expected at Valeau around eight o’clock in the evening.

When eleven o’clock arrived and there was still no sign of the relief column, Monclaire began to grow somewhat irritable. A special dinner, with the finest available wines, had been prepared for the officers of the incoming column, but Monclaire knew full well that even the best chef cannot keep a fine meal warm indefinitely without it spoiling. He glanced irritably at his watch once more and then looked out again through the window of the mess hall. A full moon hung high in the sky. The walls of the fort were clearly visible in the moonlight, appearing even more formidable tonight than usual. He watched a sentry patrolling there on the western rampart. It was from that direction that the relief column was due to arrive. And that sentry, some forty feet above the ground, would spot them while they were still far off in the desert. He would also be able to hear them from a great distance. One hundred and twenty men marching through the desert in full battle gear are not exactly as silent as fairies. When this sentry sighted the column, he was to fire a single shot. Then a sergeant and six men would proceed to the fort’s gate, while the orderly officer would go to the sentry on the western rampart. Once this formal identification was concluded, the orderly officer would give a signal. The great gate would be opened, and the sergeant and the six men at the gate would present arms.

Only thereafter would he, Monclaire, be able to enjoy his dinner.

Monclaire swore softly and turned away from the window. He gazed longingly at the dining table. He looked at the neatly starched tablecloth, the white napkins, the gleaming glasses, the polished knives and forks with their ivory handles. The last time he had seen a table set in this manner was three months ago, when he had arrived here with the relief column and the then-commanding officer of Fort Valeau had received him.

“Good heavens!” Monclaire said, vexed. “This is really too much. I have always arrived here dead on time. Why cannot the same courtesy be extended to me? This waiting about is making me ill.”

It was typical of Monclaire that he could face the gravest danger, even death itself, without batting an eyelid, yet the fact that he had to wait before he could partake of his dinner unleashed a profound anger within him, making him feel as though he could scream.

When midnight arrived, however, his reactions slowly began to change. He left the mess hall and walked down the long, uninviting stone corridor to his office. At this time of night, his office felt alien and unwelcoming. He lit the two lamps suspended from the ceiling and then rang the small bell on his desk.

An orderly, his eyes heavy with sleep, came to stand before Monclaire.

Monclaire quickly scribbled a few words on a slip of paper. He wrote. “From Commanding Officer Valeau to Secretary, Commanding Officer Dini Sadazi. Repeat day and hour of departure relief column to this fort.”

He handed the slip of paper to the orderly. “Dispatch this immediately,” Monclaire ordered.

When the orderly had departed, Monclaire lit a cigarette and waited. He knew he was now running a considerable risk of appearing utterly foolish. There were a hundred trivial things that could have delayed the column. And yet, a relief column is never late. This march through the desert had always been calculated with geometric precision. Therefore, it was necessary to ascertain whether an error had perhaps occurred with the column’s...

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: 0-00-082163-2 / 0000821632
• ISBN-13: 978-0-00-082163-8 / 9780000821638