Season 1 • Episode 8
LatestJohn kills Lejaune in the struggle, and then flees the fort on the approach of the relief column. Digby finds Michael's body and, remembering a childhood promise, gives it a Viking funeral – on a pyre – before fleeing himself. He finds John and they set off on foot, but is killed; only John is able to reach England where he returns the Blue Water to Lady Brandon – as Michael had known, a copy made when she had been forced to sell the original.
Brothers Beau, John and Digby Geste join the Foreign Legion, where they fall under the rule of tyrannical Sergeant Markoff. Beau and John are assigned to Fort Zinderneuf, where Markoff tries to break their spirit, aware of a dark family secret concerning a fabulous jewel one of them carries. As tensions rise, Arabs attack the fort and rivalries must be thrown aside in a desperate battle for life.
Production
BBC budget desert epic: charmingly threadbare, admirably ambitious.
Acting
Sergeant Markoff's mustache-twirling villainy carries the whole operation.
Creators
Terrance Dicks, Alistair Bell
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
This BBC adaptation came 46 years after the 1939 Gary Cooper classic, and somehow spent even less on sand.
The Foreign Legion romance peaked in British popular culture between the wars; by 1982 it was already archaeological curiosity.
GB
