3. THE SCARLET RIDERS

Chapter 1

THE STRANGERS

"This is all utter nonsense," grumbles Fritz Mundt, the German, the largest and strongest man in the French Foreign Legion, as he pulls out an enormous red silk handkerchief and wipes the sweat from his broad neck. He supposedly received this garish handkerchief once in Algiers from a cheerful Algerian widow, who subsequently relieved him of all his holiday pay after he had downed a third bottle of sour wine. "A medal has to be given to some old Arab, and then we have to slog for miles through the sand and heat to go give it to him. Why couldn't D'Arlan just take a horse and deliver the lousy medal himself?"

"You'll complain yourself to death yet, big fellow," says Teuns Stegmann, the tall, blond South African slogging through the searing Saharan sun beside the German. "You ought to feel honoured that the Capitaine chose a few of us to accompany him on this mission. This is a special assignment, and old El Abbas deserves to receive a medal from the French government. You can almost count loyal Arabs on one hand, and old El Abbas is one of them. Tomorrow he turns seventy, and he has never caused the Foreign Legion any trouble. He is a good friend to France, so give the devil his due."

"What about the colonel, couldn't he perhaps have delivered this wretched medal too? He could just take a horse."

"Because Colonel Le Clerq has other duties," mocks Jack Ritchie, the Englishman walking on Fritz's other side. "The colonel has more to do than hand out medals. That's why he sent D'Arlan. Besides, who knows what pretty little thing you might not run into tonight in the oasis El Wadak..."

Fritz just snorts, and it is perfectly clear that all this talk does nothing to alleviate his concerns. He walks on silently, staring ahead through the heat. He sees Captain D'Arlan's kepi's long white neck-cover fluttering in the light breeze, where he strides at the head of his small column of twenty men through the burning sand.

"Just take a sip of water, Marshal Rommel," jests Podolski the Pole from behind Fritz, offering his water flask. Fritz's own flask had been empty for an hour already, as it takes a lot of water to keep his large frame going.

Fritz snatches the flask from Podolski's hand and takes a large gulp. The next moment, he jerks forward, coughing and sputtering, because Podolski had laced his water rather strongly with brandy. Fritz practically bellows as he coughs and chokes, and D'Arlan, the small, sunburnt man at the head of the line of men, is just about to turn around to see what is happening, when his eye catches something else...

"Halt!" calls the captain commandingly, and the men need no second invitation to stop. They lean on their long rifles and then, for the first time, truly look up. The sun hangs low above the western horizon, and a cool breeze has risen from the direction of the Atlas Mountains, which tower far to the right through the blue haze.

"What the devil," says D'Arlan, raising his binoculars to his eyes.

They are on a large sandy plateau, as flat as a tabletop. But near the southwestern end of the plateau lies a long, steep dune, formed during last week's sandstorm.

D'Arlan walks a few paces forward as if thinking he might see better that way.

He quickly adjusts his binoculars.

Is he seeing things, dreaming dreams?

It simply cannot be! No, his senses must be deceiving him.

Legionnaires... No! And yet it is... What on earth is going on?

The men all see it with their naked eyes, although they cannot discern the details as well as D'Arlan. Bent far forward, Fritz Mundt walks quickly towards the captain, stops beside him and says, "Mon Capitaine, what on earth is going on now? Those are Legionnaires... and yet..."

"I wish I knew what was going on here," says D'Arlan. "It leaves me utterly bewildered..."

The men all draw closer, their necks craned forward, and form a semicircle around their commander.

Around the point of that dune, perhaps a mile ahead of them, a line of camels had come running, at full speed, their tails in the air. When the men first saw them, those camels were moving as if the devil himself were behind them. On each of those camels is a rider, and on some, even two.

And then the horsemen came out from behind the dune... They move up alongside the line of camels, as if intending to surround the camel riders.

And then the shots began to ring out.

One camel after another is brought down, collapsing in a cloud of dust.

All this is a mystery to D'Arlan.

But the greatest mystery for him is that those riders are soldiers of the Foreign Legion! Yes, those horsemen are soldiers of the Legion.

And it is they who are shooting. They are busy shooting down those camels one after another!

"Mon Dieu!" sighs D'Arlan, staring intently through the binoculars. "Are you seeing what I see?"

"Oui, Capitaine," say the group of men in unison.

"But there are no Legionnaires in this vicinity! We are the only patrol currently outside Dini Salam. And the next closest fort is 250 miles from here. And yet, those are Legionnaires. Look at their cloaks, look at their kepis... They are wearing blue trousers..."

"They are, without the slightest doubt, Legionnaires," says Fritz Mundt, choking again on Podolski's brandy.

The shooting has now ceased, and the remaining camels have been brought to a standstill. The group of about fifteen camels is now completely surrounded by the horsemen.

In the light of the late afternoon sun, they see the short flashes and know that the Arabs on the remaining camels are apparently trying to offer resistance with their curved knives. However, it does not last very long.

"Forward!" D'Arlan suddenly commands and begins to trot through the heavy, loose sand in the direction of this strange spectacle before them. The men follow him at a comfortable trot, for although they are dead tired after today's long march through the consuming heat, they now feel excited to see what is going on here.

While running, D'Arlan draws his large German Luger revolver and fires three short shots in succession into the air.

This causes a stir among the group there before the point of the dune. A few of the riders break away from the group and gallop a short distance towards D'Arlan and his men. Then they halt again and turn around.

The next moment, there is movement. The riders have formed a circle with the remaining camels between them. They wheel around and begin to move rapidly back in the direction from which they had just come.

D'Arlan shouts at them to wait. He fires a few more shots, but the strange caravan pays no heed to D'Arlan.

Within a few minutes, they have disappeared again behind the point of the dune.

D'Arlan suddenly stops in the sand, out of breath. "Well, strike me dead!" he says. "I've seen many strange things in the Sahara, but this is surely the strangest spectacle I have ever witnessed."

"Perhaps those men come from Fort Metz," suggests Teuns Stegmann.

D'Arlan shakes his head slowly. "Fort Metz is located at least two hundred miles to the east, mon Legionnaire... What would they be seeking here? And even if they were men from Fort Metz, they wouldn't move in this area without informing Colonel Le Clerq. After all, he commands this territory."

"Besides," interjects Jack Ritchie, "if they are men from Fort Metz, why turn tail and flee when they see a column of the Foreign Legion approaching?"

"Yes, that is the most remarkable part of it all," sighs D'Arlan as they now stride quickly towards where the five or so dead camels lie. "Legionnaires surely wouldn't run away from Legionnaires, would they?"

"A strange affair," says Fritz Mundt, biting off an enormous quid of tobacco to rid his palate of the taste of Podolski's peculiar brandy. "A very strange affair... and yet they are Legionnaires..."

Five camels lie dead in the sand, but not a single Arab!

D'Arlan stops beside a pool of blood... and he looks from the drag marks to the bloodstain and then at the tracks. He looks up questioningly at Teuns Stegmann, who has come to stand beside him.

"Wounded, that Arab is wounded, mon Capitaine," says Teuns. "But they apparently took him along. Even though they were in such a hurry..."

"Who says it wasn't one of the horsemen who fell here?" asks D'Arlan, testing this brave South African's powers of observation.

"The tracks here prove that this man fell from a camel, mon Capitaine, and the tracks further show that he was then lifted onto a horse," says the tall, blond man with a faint smile.

D'Arlan claps him lightly between his broad, angular shoulders and says appreciatively, "Correct. You ought to be in the secret service of the Foreign Legion, mon ami..."

"I am perfectly happy as a legionnaire under Capitaine D'Arlan," says Teuns, embarrassed. Then he springs a few paces away, bends down quickly, and picks something up from the sand.

Teuns's face contorts with astonishment. With intense concentration, he stares at the object in his hand... The object that the camels and horses had almost trampled under the sand during the brief struggle here.

Step by careful step, Teuns walks towards D'Arlan. "Mon officier," he says softly and hoarsely, "just take a look at this!"

D'Arlan practically snatches the object from Teuns's hand, and then all the men gather around him,...