31. SAHARA ADVENTURE SERIES - DESERT TOMB
The narrative unfolds in the implacable Sahara desert, where a small patrol of the French Foreign Legion, under the command of the South African Teuns Stegmann, makes an alarming discovery. Amidst a threatening sandstorm, they find a well-tended grave marked with a cross bearing the words. “Here rests Jean Pierre Verchors. His blood shall be avenged.” Nearby, they discover a slaughter of livestock, and inside a cave, a terrified young Arab boy. An encounter with an old Arab at the devastated Kedar oasis reveals a mass murder perpetrated by a “falcon of the sky,” an aeroplane. Teuns, together with his loyal companions Jack Ritchie and Podolski, becomes ensnared in a deadly confrontation.
With unwavering resolve, Teuns leads his men in a desperate struggle for survival. The discovery of the Arab boy’s sabotage of their water supply considerably worsens their situation but also fortifies their determination. Despite the mounting tension and the loss of men, Teuns’s leadership and tactical acumen drive the small group onward. He utilises the environment to their advantage, but the constant attacks and the omnipresent stench of decomposing bodies physically exhaust them. The unexpected appearance and disappearance of a mysterious aircraft, acting sometimes as saviour, other times as foe, heightens the enigmatic nature of the situation in which they find themselves.
The climax is marked by a series of intense skirmishes, first with the Arabs and later with the deranged pilot, Andre Verchors. Teuns’s tactical prowess and his ability to think under pressure are tested time and again. He formulates plans and adapts them as the situation evolves. He plans an assault on the Arabs at Verchors’s hiding place. The ultimate confrontation with Verchors, driven by madness and vengeance, leads to a dramatic dénouement thanks to the intervention of Madame Verchors. Yet, even with Verchors’s death, questions linger. Who truly was this Verchors, and what greater powers were involved in this desert conflict?
