5. THE FORT IS SILENT

Chapter 1

THE SILENT FORT

It looks exactly as if the sand dunes are swimming and floating in the heatwaves, as if the earth’s crust is moving up and down, forming long, swaying folds like a boiling mass stirred by the heat.

And it is already late afternoon here in the south-eastern Sahara. But this has been a terrible day, surely one of the worst that even this hardened group of men marching through the sand has ever experienced here. It feels as though the soles of their feet are already cooked, for all day long the relentless heat of the sand has burned through their thick boots. Their backpacks feel like lead upon their backs, and they can no longer see clearly from their eyes, so much have the heat’s glare tormented their vision and the sweat burned them. It seems to them as if they left Dini Salam months ago, though it has only been a few days. As they march onward now, it feels as though they have no future and no tomorrow. In this moment, they feel dead to the world, devoid of energy and interest.

“If a bunch of Arabs showed up now, they could knock me dead with a cow’s tail,” sighs Private Fritz Mundt, the biggest man in the French Foreign Legion. “They could do whatever they want with me, and I wouldn’t offer any resistance.”

“If I were to lie down now, I’d sleep for a whole blissful week,” says Private Teuns Stegmann, the tall, blond South African walking beside Fritz. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so utterly exhausted in my life. This is murder, this kind of marching in this dreadful heat. Looks like the Sahara wants to punish us too, as if the Legion isn’t punishing us enough already.”

“Give me a Wiener Schnitzel and a huge flask of Italian Chianti, straight off the ice,” speaks Jack Ritchie, trudging along in the same row as Stegmann and Mundt. “After that, you can bury me...”

The other two glance quickly and surprisedly at the blond Englishman as if he has committed an offense by uttering those words and conjuring that vision before them.

“I think you’ve got a screw loose, Englishman,” snorts Teuns Stegmann, “otherwise you wouldn’t talk such nonsense in these circumstances and at this moment.”

“Are you stark raving mad, Englishman?” bursts out Fritz. “Don’t you know we’re heading to Fort Laval? Don’t you know we’ll be living there for three months on dry biscuits, tinned meat, and dried fruit? They should make a law against you fellows talking about food and cold wine when a man is dying of hunger and thirst.”

“They should put them against the wall and shoot them,” opines Teuns.

“I was just dreaming out loud,” says Jack apologetically. “If a man can’t eat and drink, he can at least dream, right?”

“Next time, dream your dreams so that we can’t notice them,” grumbles Fritz, spitting an old quid of tobacco into the sand. Then he takes down his water flask and holds it to his mouth, but it is futile, for not a drop remains.

“You don’t have to make that gesture every time you want to drink, Fritz Mundt,” Jack Ritchie chides him. “Why don’t you ask for water if you’re thirsty?”

The big German smiles at Jack, who holds out his water flask to him. “You might as well finish this little bit of water too, since you’ve already drunk all of mine,” says the Englishman.

“You have such a good heart, they ought to give you the Croix de Guerre,” teases Fritz, taking the water flask and drinking one mouthful. “Anyway, we should be at the fort by dusk. Then we can drink w