Fouche / Haasbroek Blood in front of the Sun

A South African Hero's Struggle in the French Foreign Legion, Book 8
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-928498-85-8
Verlag: Pieter Haasbroek
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 131 Seiten

Reihe: Sahara Adventure Series

They sentenced a rebel queen to die at dawn.

By sunrise, she was gone... and five heroes were taken to pay the price.

Sahara desert, 1940-1960. Captain D'Arlan of the French Foreign Legion and his elite soldiers thought their war was over. They'd captured Brigitte Bonnet, the beautiful and ruthless leader of the Doelak warriors. But on the eve of her execution, she vanishes from a locked cell, aided by a traitor who sells them all for gold.

Ambushed and taken prisoner, D'Arlan and his men are dragged into the merciless dunes by a treacherous merchant. Their new prison is the endless sand, their sentence a slow, agonizing death. Brutally tortured for a secret they swore to protect, the location of the legendary Sabre of Doetra, every passing hour is a new nightmare of pain and thirst.

With loyalty fractured and their bodies broken, their only weapons are their wits and an unbreakable will to survive. But as hope fades and the vultures begin to circle, they face a final, horrifying choice. Reveal the secret that could ignite a war, or die protecting it.

A relentless military action-adventure layered with the high-stakes tension of a classic thriller. Perfect for fans of Alistair MacLean, Wilbur Smith, and pulse-pounding historical fiction.

Step into this unforgettable eight Sahara adventure now!

Autoren/Hrsg.

Fouche, Meiring

Haasbroek, Pieter

Weitere Mitwirkende

Ai

Haasbroek, Pieter

Leseproben

8. BLOOD IN FRONT OF THE SUN

Chapter 1

DEATH AWAITS

The young woman with the auburn hair and green eyes rose once more from the hard wooden bench and walked to the small barred window, through which the cool evening wind blew onto her face. It caressed her warm cheeks as she gazed out at the twilight slowly descending over the desert, the desert she loved so dearly and longed for so intensely. She watched the ribbon of red cast by the setting sun against the purple sky, and then looked further southward, to where the sky deepened to blue, to where the Atlas Mountains must lie.

Somewhere, a clock struck eight.

Slowly, stroke by stroke, the chimes sounded like damnation to her.

She quickly shut her beautiful eyes and then slowly let her forehead rest against the bars.

“One more night!” she murmured, her hands clenching convulsively. “Just one more night!”

Suddenly, she felt the sweat cold on her brow and felt her hands tremble with disbelief and fear.

For now, for the thousandth time, she realised again that this was her last night on earth, the very last. Perhaps tomorrow morning she would still see the sun rise. Perhaps not.

She swiftly turned away from the window and returned to the wooden bench. She sat down upon it, her head between her trembling hands. She felt the pounding of her heart and the throbbing of her blood like hammer blows against her temples.

“The last night, the very last!” she whispered despairingly, her gaze suddenly fixed on the deep, grey granite of the cell walls surrounding her. If only she had the strength, she would have pushed these walls down with her hands to be free again, to feel the heat of the sun on her hands once more, to feel the cool caress of the desert wind on her glowing cheeks again, and to feel the rhythmic sway of a great horse beneath her once more.

She heard again the distinct words of the French general, as clearly as if he were uttering them now in her presence.

“The tribunal finds you guilty, Madame. You are guilty of sedition, criminal incitement, and bloodshed. You will be executed by firing squad in this fort tomorrow morning at sunrise. Is there anything you wish to say?”

There was so much she had wanted to say, so many things she had wanted to scream at these French authorities. But strangely, while those devastating words still echoed in her ears, she had been unable to utter a single word. She who had led the desert warriors in so many bloody attacks, she who had ordered great men tortured until they cried like lost children, she who had done all that, had then found no words to say.

For a moment, she thought of the Atlas Mountains, of the great basin where the capital of the Doelaks lay. She thought of the large, cool palace she had inhabited there and of the subservience of the fierce desert warriors she had commanded.

But only for a moment, because then her thoughts immediately returned to everything that had happened today. The heat in the small hall of the barracks building, the high-ranking French officers in their impressive uniforms, the questions, the cross-examination, and the accusations. She thought of the long days she had spent in this cell before they began their trial. The long, solitary days that had dragged by so slowly.

She sprang up from the bench again and went back to the window, grasped the cool bars with her hands, and stared into the evening light that slowly deepened across the world. There was a catch in her throat, and then she let her face sink, sobbing, against the cold granite.

One more night!

Just one more night!

When morning comes, when the light returns, then comes death.

She sobbed, and the tears rolled down her cheeks, the first time in many years. The last time she had sobbed was when she learned that the Foreign Legion had killed her sister Karima, leader of the Doelaks, here in the desert. That was the last time.

But now she sobbed, because fear had made her a woman again. It had torn the warrior’s mantle from her and removed all the brutality and rage from within her.

She was now just an ordinary, sobbing woman again.

The night crept slowly closer across the desert.

The morning was surely already being born somewhere across the sea in the east. The morning of her death.

“Drink and be merry, Brothers, for tomorrow or the day after, we might meet our end!” The harsh voice rose above the drone of many voices in the Arab café. It was the voice of Fritz Mundt, the big blond German, the strongest man in the French Foreign Legion. His enormous hand closed around the bottle again, and he refilled the four glasses before him.

“Prosit!” bellowed Fritz, raising his glass high. “Prosit, Boer fellow!” he yelled again, slapping Teuns Stegmann so hard on the shoulders that the blond South African gasped for breath.

A slight resentment flickered in Teuns’s blue eyes as he looked up sideways at the German.

“You need to keep your paws to yourself, big fella,” said Teuns. “If I were to get angry now, I’d punch holes through that carcass of yours!”

“Ho-ho-ho! Ha-ha-ha!” laughed Fritz, throwing his large head back. “Listen who wants to punch holes in Fritz Mundt! Just listen!”

“I’ve seen Teuns knock you to the ground before, big fella,” said Podolski, the Pole.

“He’s all talk,” added Jack Ritchie, the Englishman. “He can only drink and boast. I swear little Petacci will give him a thrashing one day if he annoys him enough.”

“But you’re all rather defiant tonight,” complained Fritz, putting his glass down and glancing sideways at the other three. “Everyone just wants to murder me.”

“You talk far too much, big fella,” said Teuns, taking a sip of the syrupy, unpalatable wine that was so sticky you could almost choke on it.

“Why can’t I talk?” Fritz wanted to know.

“Mundt,” said Podolski sharply. “Have you forgotten that a woman is going to be executed here tomorrow morning? I don’t think we’re in the mood for your extravagance tonight.”

“To him, it’s probably a big joke,” snapped Jack Ritchie.

Fritz quickly wiped his hand over his large forehead, and his eyes changed. Then a deep frown creased his face.

“Is it, is it really about this woman that you’re all so morose tonight?” He leaned far forward over the table as he asked the question. There was profound shock on his face. “She’s not a woman. She’s a witch.”

“Let it be as it may,” Teuns Stegmann rebuked him. “She is still a human being. And tomorrow morning she will be shot.”

“She’s a witch!” yelled Fritz, slamming his hands hard on the table. His eyes narrowed intensely, tension etched on his face. He clenched his hands. “Have you forgotten what she did to us? Have you forgotten how many innocent people she sent to a horrible death? She’s a menace in the desert! They should have put her against the wall long ago.”

“But she is also a woman,” said Jack Ritchie. “One doesn’t shoot women.”

“She behaved like a barbarian,” hissed Fritz furiously, quickly drinking his wine.

“They could have taken her away from here and imprisoned her, even deported her,” Teuns opined. “I shudder to think that a woman must be shot.”

“Heaven knows why they tried her here and why they want to execute her here. Why couldn’t they have done it in Algiers?” complained Podolski. “It will just needlessly set the world ablaze here in the desert again if they execute her in Dini Salam.”

“Brother,” said Fritz, “they can shoot her wherever they like, but the sparks will fly regardless. This is just the thing to get these yellow-bellies back on the warpath. And I think you’re the first man who’s going to pay the price, Teuns Stegmann,” said the German. “You’re the one who led her into the trap so Captain D’Arlan could catch her, aren’t you?”

“You make me tremble with fear, big fella,” said Teuns, trying to brush off the German’s remark. And yet, it stuck in his mind. He was the man who had so fatally led this woman into the arms of Captain D’Arlan and the Foreign Legion. He was the man who had stampeded the horses in the desert back then, when they trampled her sister El Karima to death.

“You don’t have to laugh, Teuns,” said Jack Ritchie. “These Arabs have it in for you, Brother. They certainly won’t miss any chance to cut off your eyelids and throw you in the sun for the vultures.”

“Don’t try to get on Teuns’s nerves,” consoled Podolski. “These yellow-bellies aren’t picky. They’ll roast any one of us if they get the chance.”

“Why so suddenly quiet, big fella?” asked Teuns.

Fritz first wiped his face.

“Funny,” he said, “she’s a witch, but I think of her eyes. Such beautiful green eyes and such beautiful hair. I really like that kind of hair.” He fell silent for a moment and then continued speaking. “But I hate her. When I hear the shots from the firing squad tomorrow morning, I will be grateful.”

“You unfeeling beast,” said Jack Ritchie, gulping down the rest of his wine.

“This is a very melancholy evening,” said Fritz, looking down at his hands.

“And then?” said Podolski, looking past Fritz towards the door. The others looked there too.

“It’s Abdoel Hoessein,” said Teuns Stegmann. “The biggest merchant in Dini Salam.”

“He looks rather friendly,” observed Jack Ritchie. “Probably made more money today than he’s entitled to again.”

“And he even dresses like some sheikh,”...