First Published on 29th August 1949* - 184 pages
* This information is taken from a letter
from A. P. Watt & Son to W. E. Johns in my collection
(For the first time in a Worrals book published by Lutterworth
Press, Johns is credited as Capt.
W. E. Johns)
The original first
edition dust jacket – showing the original book price of 6 shillings – by
Reginald Heade (born Reginald Cyril Webb) 1901 – 1957
WORRALS GOES AFOOT
Click on any chapter for a summary of the events in that chapter or
see the general story summary below
I – AN ARGUMENT AND AN ASSIGNMENT
VII – ALARMS AND COMPLICATIONS
XI – A DESPERATE RECONNAISSANCE
Air
Commodore Raymond brings Cedric Collington (known as
Colin Pasha) from the Foreign Office to meet with Worrals and Frecks. A road is
being built to link the Sudan with Southern Transjordania
and part of it is crossing the Sinai Peninsula. The local natives are being
supplied with weapons and ammunition to stop the building of the road and Collington wants help in finding out who the smugglers are
and how the guns are getting into the country. Worrals and Frecks go to
Alexandria and stay in the Hotel Medina. Here they meet with Colin Pasha's
agent, Melinos. Worrals has an idea and borrows a
hundred seers (a seer is about two pounds in weight) of charas
(an Indian form of hashish) which has been seized. She then goes to see a
suspected drug dealer, called Nicopoulos, and offers
to sell him the drugs, saying that she has flown it in. A Julius Markoff then
attends at the Hotel Medina to complete the transaction and Worrals asks to
meet with his boss. She is taken secretly to meet a five man
syndicate who agree to buy the charas for £5000 on
condition she stops selling drugs as it will affect their market and that would
have unpleasant consequences for Worrals. Worrals asks if she can sell other
the items she has, guns and ammunition. The syndicate are not interested in the
weapons but Julius Markoff is. Markoff sends Worrals
and Frecks on a long journey with a letter of
introduction to meet someone who would be interested in buying the guns.
Worrals takes with her, another agent and friend of Melinos,
called Maki, to act as translator. Travelling by native boat to Douba, the boat meets with a steamer and loads boxes of
small arms ammunition on board. The boat then travels on to its secret
destination. However, a Government boat intercepts the native boat and Worrals
has to bluff it out. Worrals is taken on board the Government boat and is
surprised to find Melinos on board. He has come with
an urgent message. The identity of Worrals and Frecks is known and Markoff has
now sent people to kill them. Worrals insists on continuing with the mission.
Worrals is returned to her boat and the crew are happy in the belief that
Worrals has prevented them from being searched. The next complication is when
another boat, sent by Markoff, attacks them. Worrals is able to persuade her
crew the attacking boat is a pirate ship and by a clever ruse causes her
pursuers to run aground. Arriving at her destination, Worrals and Frecks meet
with Sheikh Abd-el-Katil on the beach. They then
travel up to a plateau to meet a man calling himself Mr. Cosmo. Here, a deal is
done for Worrals to sell the guns she purports to have and for her to be paid
in British pound notes. Cosmo then leaves by caravan. Maki can see the beach
and sees the pursuing boat arrive. It means that very shortly their cover will
be blown. Maki is sent to take the information they have gathered back to Melinos whilst Worrals and Frecks
steal the only two horses on the plateau and set off after the caravan. This
they do just in time as a runner has arrived from the beach. Cosmo's caravan
stops at an oasis and when it is dark Worrals and Frecks move up to get water.
Here they see where the guns are buried. Sheik Abd-el-Katil
arrives to warn Cosmo that Worrals and Frecks are Government agents. Getting
water and returning to where the horses were left, the girls find that the
horses have gone. They then face a desert walk back to the sea in the hope of
meeting a Government boat. After signalling to a passing plane both Worrals and
Frecks are captured by Arabs and taken back to Cosmo. Cosmo plans to beat the
girls to make them talk before killing them, but they are saved by the timely
arrival of paratroopers landing at the oasis. Both Cosmo and the Sheik are
killed in the resulting battle. Colin Pasha and Melinos
arrive to tell our heroines that Maki had been picked up and their signal to
the plane had been received, so he was able to organise their rescue in the
nick of time.
With the exception of the frontispiece, there are no story
illustrations in this book – and the frontispiece is merely the upper part of
the cover illustration!
Frontispiece
Click on
the picture above to see it in more detail
French
edition – Le Demon des Sables – (The Devil of the Sands) – There were no illustrations in this edition
Worrals Goes Afoot
Subtitle - none
Publication Details - published by Lutterworth Press