Dunes of Desolation (eBook)

A South African Hero's Struggle in the French Foreign Legion, Book 14

Meiring Fouche, Pieter Haasbroek (Autoren)

Pieter Haasbroek (Herausgeber)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
117 Seiten
Pieter Haasbroek (Verlag)
978-0-00-077721-8 (ISBN)

Infos

Her Parisian dreams dissolved into a Sahara nightmare.

Her husband murdered, she is now the prize for the most ruthless bandits in the desert.

Sahara desert, 1940-1960. Denise Ormonde's world of love and luxury is shattered when a savage outlaw disguised as a Legionnaire invades her remote outpost. Now a captive, she is a pawn in a deadly game, forced to rely on a courage she never knew she possessed to survive the brutal men who see her as nothing more than a spoil of war.

Thrown into this maelstrom is Sergeant Stegmann and his small, hardened band of French Foreign Legionnaires. Outnumbered and outgunned, they are sent on an impossible mission. Track the phantoms, rescue the woman, and survive the merciless Dunes of Death. But their enemies are not just bandits. The desert itself is a killer, and betrayal lurks behind every dune.

The stakes skyrocket when a priceless map to the Sahara's hidden oil wealth becomes the ultimate prize. With a madman's army closing in, Stegmann's team must fight not only for their lives and Denise's freedom, but to stop a secret that could ignite a war.

This high-octane action-adventure thriller is a relentless journey into the heart of danger. Perfect for fans of classic, pulse-pounding suspense and gritty, high-stakes mystery that will leave you breathless.

Step into this unforgettable fourteenth Sahara adventure now!

 

Textauszug

Chapter 2

DANGEROUS MISSION

Madame Denise Ormonde turned her face to the wall of her bedroom and began to weep bitterly, almost hysterically. Pierre, her Pierre, would not return to her. The realisation struck her with such overwhelming force that she could no longer remain upright. Her legs gave way beneath her, and she slowly slid down the wall.

But then her sobs suddenly ceased. Who said this scoundrel was telling the truth? Who said he wasn’t just trying to mislead her for his own purposes? She sprang to her feet, for at that very moment, she heard the rumble outside. It sounded like the two jeeps returning now. She grabbed the revolver and ran out.

In the doorway of the living hut, she stopped short. There came the two jeeps from beyond the supply hut.

But it wasn’t her Pierre and his men sitting in them. At least, it didn’t look like it to her. From here, it looked as though they were men of the Foreign Legion approaching. And shortly behind them came a few riders with loose horses alongside them.

Denise swayed there for a moment. Then it must be true. Then this strange scoundrel hadn’t tried to mislead her. Then this group approaching had murdered her Pierre...

With a short cry, she stormed down the steps, swung into the saddle, and galloped around the corner. This was a strong horse, and it could carry her far. She wanted to see her Pierre, even if it was the last thing on earth she did. She wanted to see him, whether he was alive or dead.

“Pierre!” she screamed wildly, digging her heels into the animal. “Pierre, I’m coming...” There was a peculiar sound to her voice, like someone who had suddenly become unhinged.

She barely heard the short burst from the automatic rifle from the lead jeep. She was scarcely aware that the horse was slowly folding beneath her, like something that suddenly had no legs left in it, but had just become a limp mass.

And the impact of the hard sand as her body hit the ground hardly registered for Denise Ormonde either.

She had been riding hard when they shot the horse dead with the automatic rifle. When the animal fell, she was thrown far from the saddle, her head hitting the sand first. The revolver she still held in her hand fell onto the sand some distance away. Denise only felt the hard blow, saw stars dancing before her eyes, and then everything went black around her. It was as if she were sinking into a very deep, dark whirlpool, swirling and floating, and then she knew nothing more...

In Dini Salam, the foremost garrison town of the French Foreign Legion in the southern Sahara, it was shortly before sunset. The men, their torsos bare and glistening with sweat, lay listlessly on the beds in the large barrack hall. This afternoon, Sergeant Catroux had nearly worked them to death with drills here in the courtyard.

“One would swear we are on the verge of undertaking a massive campaign,” complained Fritz Mundt, the large blond German who didn’t have much hair left on his big, shiny bald head.

“Catroux suffers from whims,” replied Teuns Stegmann, the tall South African wearing only his undershorts and heavy boots, lying panting on his cot, sweat forming a shiny path across his broad, intelligent forehead.

“Before I leave the Foreign Legion,” said Podolski, the big Pole, “I want to grab Catroux by the throat one day and strangle him until foam comes out of his mouth.”

“One day when he leads another patrol through the desert, we should all desert and leave him alone to be slaughtered by the Doelaks,” vented Jack Ritchie, the rather thin blond Englishman, expressing his venom against the small, swarthy sergeant who could work them so hard when it felt like one could suffocate from the heat.

It was little Petacci, the small Italian, who brought them back to their senses. “You’re all just talk,” he accused them. “Here you lie boasting, but when the trouble starts, you just do exactly as Catroux says again.”

It was only these few who were talking like this. The other men just lay there motionless, for it was too hot to talk. Some dozed off, others tried to keep the pesky flies away from their faces, a task almost impossible in this hot nest of a place called Dini Salam.

Colonel Le Clerq, commander of the garrison in Dini Salam, was also feeling the heat today. He had been in the Sahara for many years, but today the world felt too confined for him, it was so hot. Therefore, he had decided to leave his stuffy little office a bit earlier this afternoon and betake himself to the small officers’ mess, where he could at least get a cool glass of beer to knock back. On a day like this, there was only one thing to do. Don’t move and drink as much beer as you possibly could so you could constantly remain in a semi-stupor.

Colonel Le Clerq had just closed his drawer for the last time and picked up his officer’s baton to leave when the radio technician burst into the office, saluted briskly, and handed Le Clerq a radio message.

“What are you bothering me with now, fellow?” Le Clerq asked irritably. “I am just about to leave the office.”

“I’m afraid it’s important, mon Colonel,” said the radio technician.

Le Clerq stood looking for a long time at the piece of paper the radioman had thrust into his hand. He couldn’t quite believe what was written there. He had experienced many difficulties in this Sahara, but this kind of trouble...

It was a short, concise message. An incomplete message. Apparently, this simple piece of information had been cut off by death.

It simply stated.

“Emergency call Dini Salam... Pierre Ormonde and geological party under attack by twelve unknown riders in uniform of the French Foreign Legion... Armed with automatic rifles... I am wounded, but I managed to find the jeep with the radio transmitter... Or...”

Le Clerq slammed his officer’s baton down on the desk. “Summon Capitaine D’Arlan,” he commanded hoarsely. Then he turned around, flung his officer’s cap onto the desk, and sat down again, pulling a flask of cognac from the drawer and taking a few deep swallows.

“Mon Dieu,” Le Clerq said with a sigh, reading the message through once more. “Just as if I don’t have enough trouble with the Arabs.”

Captain D’Arlan, slender, pale, and a bundle of alert energy from head to toe, entered moments later, saluted formally, and stood before Le Clerq’s desk.

“There’s trouble again, Capitaine,” said the colonel somewhat dejectedly, sliding the message towards D’Arlan. The captain read it quickly, and when he looked up at Le Clerq again, his pale face had turned white.

D’Arlan sank onto the chair without being asked or ordered to do so. He slid the piece of paper back across the gleaming surface of the desk to Le Clerq with a limp hand. Then he swallowed hard once.

“You look like a ghost, D’Arlan,” said the colonel.

“The murder of Pierre Ormonde and his party is bad enough,” said D’Arlan. “But the worst part is that the man has his wife there...”

Le Clerq leaned forward abruptly, slamming his flat hands hard on the desk. “What? What are you saying now, mon ami?”

D’Arlan nodded numbly. “Madame Ormonde is one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. When I led the patrol past there recently, I stopped by Ormonde’s camp to see if everything was still in order. The madame was there then. She is visiting there.”

“This is dreadful. D’Arlan... What will become of the poor woman? These are clearly bandits parading in the uniform of the Foreign Legion... What will become of the woman?”

D’Arlan shook his head, shocked. “I know who these people are,” he said softly. “They must belong to Koebikof’s gang...”

“Koebikof?” The question broke deeply from Le Clerq, and this time there was fear in his calm eyes.

And Le Clerq had ample reason to be terrified, for he had tangled before with this Russian bandit who roamed the desert with his strong gang, supposedly helping the Arabs fight for their freedom and independence. He knew well how narrowly D’Arlan and a large patrol from the Dini Salam garrison had once escaped Koebikof and his bandits when they attacked an oil camp and wiped out everyone there.

“I am sure it is Koebikof,” D’Arlan said again.

“But this only speaks of twelve riders,” replied Le Clerq.

“It must be just one of his patrols...”

“What about that woman?” Le Clerq asked almost in a whisper.

D’Arlan shrugged, closed his eyes, and shook his head. “I shudder when I think about it,” said the captain. “They are utterly reckless. They have not the slightest respect for death, how will they have respect for a woman, and such a stunningly beautiful person as Madame Ormonde? It is shocking... shocking... Ormonde was one of the best young scientists France has produced in recent years.” D’Arlan said this gratingly.

“It doesn’t help for us to worry about the fate of the woman, let us do something, mon ami...”

He stood up quickly and moved to the map on the wall, searched rapidly with his finger, and then found the region where Ormonde’s camp should roughly be located. He made a quick calculation. “It is nearly two hundred miles to Ormonde’s camp, D’Arlan...”

“It is a good two hundred miles, mon Colonel,” D’Arlan agreed, having come to stand behind the officer.

Le Clerq walked back to his desk, sat down. Rubbed his eyes. “This is another one of those delightful situations,” he said almost despairingly. “We will have to send a patrol immediately.”

“What good would a...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 25.8.2025
• Übersetzer: Pieter Haasbroek, Ai
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• ISBN-10: 0-00-077721-8 / 0000777218
• ISBN-13: 978-0-00-077721-8 / 9780000777218