[1] The limited-edition 70 page paperback collection was issued in November 2014[4] and featured both a foreword and a pin-up illustration by 2000 AD artist Rufus Dayglo[5][6] and a cover by Richard Pearce.

[8][9] As the British Eighth Army is routed by an Afrika Korps counter-attack in January 1942, Pete Carey and pretty boy Joe Peach are the only survivors of a column of Stuart tanks ambushed by Panzers.

They escape to a nearby village only to find it has also been overrun, and discover just four survivors in hiding - Second Australian infantryman Hardisty, Army Catering Corps Corporal Rudge, 'Taff' Moody of the Royal Welch Fusiliers and Perot Singh from the 3rd Indian Motor Brigade.

Demoralised and far behind the retreating British lines, the group are about to surrender to a German half-track when a crazed man with sergeant stripes tattooed on his arm, handcuffs hanging from one wrist and a Bren gun kills the would be-captors.

They destroy a German detachment at a watering hole, finding they were escorting a Waffen-SS colonel carrying important dispatches revealing the location of a secret communications centre at El Homra.

He then leads them to a successful attack on El Homra; the Germans send out an expert sniper known only as the Limping Vulture - an old enemy of Baker's - to pick off the squad in response, wounding Carey and Hardisty.

A friendly fire incident sees Baker shoot down an RAF Bristol Blenheim; the unit tries to rescue the surviving crew before roving Tuareg nomads kill them.