30. SAHARA ADVENTURE SERIES — TRAITOR OF DINI SALAM
The narrative unfolds in the unforgiving Sahara, at Dini Salam, a crucial outpost of the French Foreign Legion. An aircraft lands bearing a significant passenger who delivers startling orders from the Legion’s high command. These directives lure the garrison directly into an ambush. The opening scene is set in Algiers, where fifteen high-ranking Arabs, including a man named Private Oosterman clad in a captain’s uniform of the Foreign Legion, devise a plan. Ebrahim Rama, the intelligent leader, reveals a scheme to conquer Dini Salam. Oosterman, now Captain Jerome Dreyfus, is tasked with delivering false orders to Colonel Le Clerq, the commander of Dini Salam, which will lead the garrison on a feigned maneuver, thus rendering the fortress vulnerable to external attacks.
Teuns Stegmann, a South African serving in the French Foreign Legion, plays a pivotal role in the unfolding drama. He is the one who spots the approaching aircraft and later, during seemingly routine guard duty, discovers the Arab horsemen and a traitor in the uniform of the Foreign Legion. His keen observation and swift action in shooting the traitor expose the entire conspiracy, but this also leads to his own capture by the Arabs. Teuns becomes a pawn in Ebrahim Rama’s master plan and is compelled to lead a column of 300 Arabs, disguised as legionnaires, towards the fortress of Dini Salam.
The tension reaches a critical juncture as Teuns leads the treacherous column to the gates of Dini Salam. At that moment, he is forced to act, though he does not yet know what he will do. The words of Captain D’Arlan, “if we lose Dini Salam, then we lose the Sahara…,” echo in his thoughts. The fate of the fortress, and possibly the entire Sahara, rests upon his shoulders. Will Teuns find a way to halt the Arabs, or will Dini Salam fall, and with it, all hope of rescue for the trapped garrison in the desert?
