SAHARA SIX
(A Mace Bullard Patrol)
By James Hopwood
Pro-Se Press
126 pg
Adventure tales of the French Foreign Legion were a staple of the classic pulp magazine titles. These were hardy stories of brave men who for whatever reasons were societies’ cast-offs and banded together under the French flag. It was a brotherhood where loyalty was demanded and survival was never guaranteed.
Writer James Hopwood wonderfully captures both the non-stop action and pure essence of those early action yarns with his Mace Bullard series. Bullard is a man with no past, suffering amnesia after having been mugged on the streets of Rabat. Thus he joins the local Legion troop and is accepted by them without so much as a shrug. Soon he finds himself stationed at Fort Granuille. There, while on patrol under the command of a tough by-the-book Sgt. Le Pen, Bullard sees combat against a group of Malaci Arab raiders. When Le Pen is knocked unconscious, Bullard takes command and saves the patrol but refuses to follow the remaining enemy into the hellhole desert known as The Sun’s Anvil.
Because of this decision, Le Pen charges him with insubordination and Commander Renault has no option but to punish Bullard by assigning him to a distant outpost called Sahara Six. There Bullard finds a dilapidated fort occupied only but three men, one woman, and a dog. The captain is a drunk, the cook a woman, the mechanic has only one hand and the remaining rookie legionnaire is Sgt. Le Pen’s own nephew. All the other soldiers had long since deserted leaving this motley group behind. And if that wasn’t bad enough, shortly after his arrival, the outpost finds itself under siege by another band of Malaci following the orders of their leader, the fanatical El Hakim.
From the first page to the last, “Sahara Six” propels the reader along with reckless panache expertly showcasing one action sequence after another. All of which are brilliantly described in glorious pulp bravura. There is nothing slow or boring about this tale and fans of the old pulps are in for a rousing treat. New Pulp has never been better.
