Footsteps to Death

FOOTSTEPS TO DEATH - SAHARA ADVENTURE SERIES

In the second narrative out of the pen of Meiring Fouche, the French Foreign Legion meets up again with El Karima, the white princess of the Dulak nation. She had not forgotten the humiliation she had suffered six months ago, by the hands of the tall, blonde, South African, by the name of Teuns Stegmann. Not only had he betrayed her love for him, but he had also nearly destroyed her whole nation.

On one of their routine patrols through the hot Sahara desert, Sergeant Vermeer and his soldiers discover two dead horses that had been ridden by women. To their horror, they find out that one of the women is the wife of Colonel Le Clerq, the commanding officer of Dini Salam.

Shortly afterwards, a sheik arrives at the fort and demands that Teuns Stegmann should accompany him to Dutra, the stronghold of El Karima’s Dulaks. In exchange for Teuns, she will release the wife of Colonel Le Clerq. Colonel Le Clerq refuses the demand, so Teuns Stegmann has no choice but to escape out of the fort, with the Arab, against his commanding officer’s wishes.

In Dutra, Teuns quickly finds out that El Karima is a woman who breaks all of her promises, when he does not respond to her love for him. Not even when he fights a giant man with his bare hands,would she allow the colonel’s wife to be released.

El Karima then decides to have Teuns, and the French wife of Colonel Le Clerq, killed in Dini Salam, by having them torn apart between two horses, but that is a fact not known by the commanders in Dini Salam.

Help comes in the form of an unexpected source, when someone tells them about El Karima’s plans. She requests that the whole garrison of Dini Salam should vacate the fort, unarmed, and only then she will release the French wife of Colonel Le Clerq. Captain D’Arlan, the Houdini of the desert, has his hands full to try and rescue the soldiers and the prisoners. As if all of that isn’t enough, Colonel Le Clerq does something that shocks them to the core…