What mystery lay behind the desertion of an Arab village by its inhabitants? And what caused the mass desertions from Dana Talani, the French Foreign Legion outpost in the Sahara? Men had unexpectedly found themselves with so much money they had lavished drinks upon their comrades - and then they were gone. The French wanted answers to these questions - questions posed to two American legionnaires, Duke and Cream ... and in solving the desert mystery their lives came perilously close to extinction.