Summary “Captain Sorvey’s Head” Bussenard
Part one. Milk Pumps
Boer farm. Military court. British officers sentenced to death the drill of David Potter for poisoning cavalry horses. Appeared suddenly a young man asks to postpone the execution for a huge bail, but the judges are adamant, and the drill is shot. The young man leaves with Paul – the son of the murdered. Unexpectedly it turns out that the young man is a well-known scout of the Boers, Jean Grandier, nicknamed “Captain Sorvi-head.” The British are beginning to chase, but Jean and his friends manage to escape from the persecution.
There is an Anglo-Boer war. In the battle near the town of Ladysmith, the Boers defeated the English. They are captured by Colonel Duke of Richmond – the chairman of the trial of the drill of Potter. Soon he is killed by Paul Potter, revenge for his father.
Captain Sorvey-head during night reconnaissance is captured by the British and is imprisoned on a pontoon camp for prisoners, standing in the
Mrs. Adams receives news that her son, Captain Adams (another of Potter’s executioners), is seriously injured. Mrs. Adams and her lieutenant go to the front, to the hospital for her son. When they come to Olifansfontein, where the hospital is, Adams is already dead.
The positions of the Boers are not far away. The dirty head jumps to the horse left by someone and jumps to the outposts of the Boers. Despite the bombardment, he gets to Boer positions and meets friends.
Part two. Fighting giants
There is a battle at Kimberley. Despite the victory over the British, the commander of the Boers, General Cronier, does not give orders to catch up and finally break up the retreating. At night the camp of Boers falls under the fire of an approaching English armored train. The detachment of
Cronie sends the Daredo-head with a secret letter to General Joubert. The path is most conveniently done on bicycles. The daredevil takes with himself his colleague Fanfan. Having destroyed a whole detachment of English Ulans along the way, after going through enormous difficulties, they reach their goal. After resting, the friends go back to Cronier with a reply from Joubert.
Army Cronier is in Magersfontein. A large army of Englishmen gradually bypasses the Boers, surrounding them. Cronier does not believe in the possibility of encirclement and does not take any action. Soon the army of Boers is surrounded, and the British begin a massive shelling. After a week of resistance, the Boers surrender. Jean Grandier, Fanfan and Paul Potter are captured by the British. Unexpectedly, the company commander of Canadians Francois Junot recognizes his old friend Jean Grandier and, from solidarity with French compatriots, helps them escape from captivity.
When crossing the river, Paul suddenly disappears. Sorv-head and Fanfan face five Englishmen and those seize them. Captain Russel, another executioner of David Potter, commands the detachment. Roussel orders to hang Captain Sorvey-head and Fanfan, but at the last moment Paul Potter appears in English and shoots all the soldiers, not allowing them to commit execution. Friends hang Captain Roussel and leave for the Boer army.
Part Three. Dynamic War
The command instructs Captain Sorvi-head to blow up the Taba-Ngu reservoir controlled by the British. Jean Grandier, Fanfan and Paul, in the guise of the shepherdesses who led to the watering hole, approach the reservoir. While Paul is distracting the soldiers, his friends are laying dynamite in the walls of the reservoir. After their departure, the reservoir explodes. British lancers go in pursuit of saboteurs, but “Molokososy” kill them, and the three survivors are forced to change into the clothes of the cowherd boys and go back.
Scouts return to the farm, where they were located earlier. There are several of their military comrades there. Suddenly the farm is surrounded by a detachment of Englishmen. The exchange of fire begins. The dirty head thinks of how to escape from the environment. The besieged bind the dynamite cartridges to the cow’s horns, set fire to the cartridges and try to drive the cows out to the British, but the cows refuse to move. And then the old mistress of the farm with her daughters lures the animals from the farm and dies under their hoofs. Cows run out, dynamite starts to explode. The English are crumpled and discarded.
Scouts set fire to the farm and leave, after which they collide with detachments of British lancers and in heavy fighting defeat them. The daredevil decides to go on reconnaissance to the enemy camp, and orders his soldiers to make their way to the Boer army.
In clothes taken from a murdered English soldier, he enters the camp under cover of night. Seeing all that was needed, he tries to sit on one of the horses and leave, but the rugged horse drops it, and in the camp noise rises. The dirty head is hiding in a large officer’s tent and sees there the famous Major Colville, the last survivor of the executioner, David Potter. He ties the sleeping Colville, before hitting him with a gun on the head, and exits the tent. The batman of the major notices him and raises the alarm. The dirty head again has to hide.
To successfully exit the camp, he buys in the shop a few bottles of whiskey and distributes patrols on his way. Already at the exit from the camp, he again attracted attention, killing a soldier who was trying to detain him. Anxiety rises again, but the Sorvi-head successfully escapes from pursuit on horseback and gets to his own.
One day at the Blesbukfontein farm there appears the detachment of the Ulans of Major Colville and brutally destroys all the inhabitants of the farm. After that, a detachment of Captain Sorvi-head kills the English, including Colville.
The army of Boers under the pressure of the British is compelled to go beyond the river Vaal. The crossing is complex, but the English are already close. They are arrested by the “Molokosy” and almost all die. Among the advancing again is Francois Junot and takes the wounded Jean and Fanfan from the battlefield.
A few months later, Jean Grandier wrote a letter to his sister from Cape Town, where he reports that he and Fanfan are in the infirmary under the strict supervision of the British, but they will still try to escape in order to continue to fight for freedom.
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)