Footprints of Betrayal (eBook)

A South African Hero's Struggle in the French Foreign Legion, Book 34

Meiring Fouche, Pieter Haasbroek (Autoren)

Pieter Haasbroek (Herausgeber)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
94 Seiten
Pieter Haasbroek (Verlag)
978-0-00-077893-2 (ISBN)

Infos

In the heart of the Sahara, the greatest threat isn't the sun.

It's the man wearing your uniform.

Sahara desert, 1940-1960. Legionnaire Teuns Stegmann, a battle-hardened soldier, is sent to Fort Murat, the French Foreign Legion's most remote and godforsaken outpost. He finds a garrison rotting from the inside with apathy, ruled by a drunken commander and surrounded by men who are more criminal than soldier. It's a powder keg waiting for a spark.

The spark arrives when a lone figure stumbles out of the endless desert, the commander's long-lost brother, with a story that's too heroic to be true. As mysterious tracks appear in the sand and the fort's armoury is secretly emptied, Teuns realizes he's trapped in a nest of vipers. A brutal conspiracy is unfolding, and the line between friend and foe is suddenly unclear.

Outnumbered and surrounded by traitors, Teuns and his few loyal friends must unravel the plot before the rebels make their final move. If they fail, they won't just face a firing squad, they'll be disarmed and abandoned to the merciless Sahara, where their honor and their lives will disappear in the warm desert sand.

A gritty, military thriller packed with suspense and classic action. Perfect for fans of Alistair MacLean and Jack Higgins who crave a relentless adventure where courage is tested and betrayal can show its ugly face at any time.

Step into this unforgettable thirty-fourth Sahara adventure now!

Textauszug

34. FOOTPRINTS OF BETRAYAL

Chapter 1

MAN FROM NOWHERE

Fort Murat in the south-eastern Sahara near the border of Libya is nothing less than a dump, or, at least, so thinks the tall soldier of the French Foreign Legion as he now paces back and forth with long, measured strides on the high walls of Fort Murat. Sweat repeatedly burns his eyes, and the heat is indescribable, although sunset is already approaching.

For the first time since joining the French Foreign Legion, this large blond soldier with his powerful physique feels resentment. It is because he and a few of his closest friends have been sent to this remote corner. He has extensive experience in the French Foreign Legion. He has served in all sorts of wretched places in the Sahara. He has been in Fort Laval so many times, which Legion soldiers consider the biggest dump in the entire Sahara.

But Fort Laval is tolerable compared to this. This Fort Murat is even worse. This place is like damnation. It is so remote that one feels utterly abandoned here, cut off from the outside world. You sit trapped here in the infinite expanses of sand near the borders of the Sahara and the endless western part of Libya.

As Teuns Stegmann, the South African, turned about and walked back along the wall, he wondered if it was truly necessary for them to send him and a few of his friends here to Fort Murat. They had never been here before, although they had all served in the French Foreign Legion for quite some time.

The reason given for why they had to be sent to Fort Murat was uncertainty regarding the loyalty of the garrison. This occurred following the rebellion of the generals in Algiers. When the rebellion broke out in Algiers, the order came that care must be taken to ensure the garrisons in the southern Sahara remained loyal to the high command of the French Foreign Legion. Then the Commander of Dini Salam, Colonel Le Clerq, summoned Teuns and his few comrades and informed them that they must go to Fort Murat to bolster the morale of the loyal troops and to assist if trouble arose within the garrison.

From the outset, immediately after the generals’ rebellion began, it was clear that large parts of the French Foreign Legion sympathised with the three generals who sought to overthrow French rule in Algeria.

That is all well and good, thinks Teuns, pacing here now, but the generals’ rebellion failed long ago. It was quashed almost immediately. The three generals have already appeared before the court and have been sentenced. Yet he and his comrades are still here in Fort Murat. A wave of nausea washes over him at the thought that they might possibly be kept here for months longer. His entire spirit rebels against the possibility of having to stay longer in Fort Murat.

He does not like these godforsaken surroundings, he does not like the isolation here, he simply dislikes most of the men in the garrison, and especially, he dislikes the fort’s commander. He dislikes the second-in-command even less.

He doesn’t know what it is, but the men have inspired revulsion in him. It is as if something is wrong with them. To him, they are not typical of men of the French Foreign Legion. He is accustomed to men like Colonel Le Clerq and Captain D’Arlan. Two outstanding fellows in the Foreign Legion. Perhaps it is because he is accustomed to the personality and methods of D’Arlan that the customs and conduct of Captain Rene Camus, commander of Fort Murat, grate on him so much. And perhaps it is because he is so accustomed to the conduct of their old Sergeant Catroux that he has so little regard for the local second-in-command, Lieutenant Heidenfeldt, a tall, thin, and arrogant German.

Teuns Stegmann cannot help but smile here on the walls of Fort Murat as he thinks about what would happen if a truly serious attack by the Arabs were to be launched here. In this fortress, there is such a spirit of apathy. There are even signs of a lack of discipline. Lack of order. Lack of authority. Sometimes one doesn’t know who the commander is, whether it is Captain Camus or Lieutenant Heidenfeldt. This is also easy to understand, as Captain Camus is in a state of perpetual intoxication most of the time. Then it is Lieutenant Heidenfeldt who takes matters onto his shoulders.

It has already struck Teuns that, in the time since he and his comrades arrived here, not a single patrol has been sent out into the desert. Le Clerq considers patrols the eyes and ears of any French fortress. But apparently, Captain Camus does not view it in that light.

It was as Teuns Stegmann neared the next guard walking towards him that he saw the man staring out across the desert. The guard moving towards Teuns here is a short Italian whose name he does not even know and in whom he has not the slightest interest. The Italian looks like a rogue to him. Possibly that is why he ended up here in the garrison of Fort Murat.

This truly is the end of the line in the Sahara. One cannot go further than Fort Murat. It must surely be the last hiding place for all sorts of scum and criminals from most countries in Europe.

Teuns sees the Italian shield his eyes with his hand and stare out across the sand. Fort Murat is situated on a vast sandy plain. For defensive purposes, the fort is very well located, as there are no high dunes near the fortress. One can see for miles across the open sandy plains, making surprise attacks by hostile forces practically impossible, that is, if the guards on the walls of Fort Murat are vigilant enough.

The tall blond South African turns and also looks in the direction the Italian is staring. A cold prickle runs through his warm body, for he feels it is high time he found some distraction in Fort Murat. The men are so bored, their tempers so frayed, that just last night there was a savage brawl in the barracks. Men can no longer look at each other without wanting to fight. There has almost been a shooting here in the fortress square. It is high time the men received some diversion from the outside.

Teuns looks out over the sand towards where the sun is setting. The western sky is deep red like the blood of many cattle. And far beyond the plain lies the flat horizon.

Teuns immediately sees what the other guard has spotted. It is a person approaching there across the level sandy waste that stretches westward and northward from Fort Murat into the heart of the Sahara.

The man approaching comes roughly from the northwest. That is a peculiar direction, Teuns thinks. The next fortress from Fort Murat lies somewhat north-eastward. From the direction the man is now coming, there is scarcely even a caravan route.

He rests his rifle before him, his hands instinctively tightening around the bayonet. What he sees before him is a simple phenomenon, yet an astonishing one, he realises full well. It is just one person approaching across the sand.

From here, it is clear that the man is weaving back and forth across the sand, that he is stumbling forward with difficulty, and that he must evidently be near death already. He stumbles and falls once, struggles up again, and lurches onward in the direction of the fort.

“Looks like we’re getting a visitor,” says the Italian guard cynically and without the slightest feeling.

“Yes, a peculiar visitor,” says Teuns. “One man out of the desert... How do you explain that? And from the northwest, no less. Surely the most inhospitable part here in the vicinity of Fort Murat.”

The Italian’s two wine-brown eyes laugh at the tall South African. “I stopped trying to explain the secrets of the Sahara long ago,” says the Italian.

Teuns barely hears what the man says as something extraordinary has struck him. A moment ago, he did not know who that man could be. Even if he had known, it could have been an Arab, or a white wanderer who had lost his way in the desert, or possibly another Algerian rebel who had somehow become lost in the Sahara. His thoughts reached out in all directions, trying to form an idea of who it could be approaching the remote Fort Murat from this direction, out of the endlessness of the Sahara.

But now he knows who that man is.

When the man fell again, the sunlight struck him in a particular way. And it revealed something to Teuns that hits him so hard that he quickly steps to the side of the parapet, just as if he could see better from there. But he knows that what he saw is the truth, or, at least, that his eyes did not deceive him.

The wretched creature struggling along there is a member of the French Foreign Legion.

Teuns can make out the white kepi on his head. He can make out the whitish trousers and the dark blue military jacket. Yes, that is a Legionnaire.

The Italian guard has also noticed it. He appears silently beside Teuns.

“It’s a Legionnaire,” says Teuns.

“So I see,” says the Italian. “Perhaps another one of the rebels.”

Teuns looks sharply and sideways at the Italian, but the Italian’s dark face is completely expressionless. “Perhaps he’s a fugitive from the forces of the rebel generals,” says the Italian mockingly.

“Quite possibly,” says Teuns evasively. “Quite possibly.”

Then he turns quickly and walks to the inner side of the parapet from where he can look down onto the courtyard of Fort Murat. The courtyard is deserted. The heat down there is almost unbearable, so that all living things are under cover. He looks down at the door of the guardroom, then cups his hands to his mouth and calls for Sergeant Rancoule, officer of the guards. Teuns has to call three times before the reluctant Sergeant Rancoule appears in the doorway of the guardroom.

“What is it, you little beast?”...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 25.8.2025
• Übersetzer: Pieter Haasbroek, Ai
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• ISBN-10: 0-00-077893-1 / 0000778931
• ISBN-13: 978-0-00-077893-2 / 9780000778932