John Fowler went expecting to find a sort of lotus land. But on the

sun-kissed Comoro islands he found

fascinating tales of intrigue and murder, mostly centering around a

mysterious French mercenary

' Abdallah's death led to Denard's enforced disappearance, with the

question of his implication in the assassination still open '

WE WERE standing on a beach of silken sand shaded from the midday sun

by the fronds of a few palm trees. The barbecue sputtered and the smell

of grilled seafood mingled with the salty tang of the sea.

Tony Kaye was answering our questions patiently. What sort of man is

Bob Denard? ''I'll tell you,'' he said, ''Bob Denard is a gentleman. He

always stands up when a woman comes into the room.''

Denard, you should know, has been a merchant of death. He was big in

the mercenary line.

Kaye got to know him when Denard was kingmaker on Grande Comore, the

largest of four small volcanic islands dotted in the Indian Ocean

between Madagascar and the the mainland coast of Mozambique. A South

African, Kaye ran the island's diving and sea sports business from a

beach house beside the air-conditioned hotel filled with South African

holidaymakers which is the island's biggest employer. Cool in his sweat

shirt and shorts, he gave a graphic description of how he scuttled

Denard's invasion vessel in a sheltered bay, where it now lies encrusted

with weed and coral, a haven for underwater life.

It all seemed unreal in this lotus land. Here on a tropical isle,

separated from the local impoverished, black population by barriers

stronger though less tangible than the hotel's perimeter fences, it

seemed unlikely that any white European should want to engage in the

murky power politics of a tiny, third world community, a place as

insignificant in the world as it is on the map.

Yet the Frenchman Robert-Pierre Denard, mercenary fighter in a host of

unstable states from the Congo to the Yemen, had been heavily involved

in Comorean politics for more than a dozen years. He had been a key

figure in three revolutions and counter-revolutions there, had trained

and led its security force, had been the friend of successive presidents

(and, some suspect, possibly implicated in the assassination of one) and

had finally been spirited into exile with the connivance of both France

and South Africa when international disapproval made the place at last

too hot for him.

I'd not heard of Bob Denard until I was invited to join a visiting

party of half a dozen travel writers. To tell the truth, I'd never heard

of the Comoros. But as the days passed -- we were there for only a week

-- more references to this strange episode in the recent history of

paradise island began to emerge.

Much of the information came from Ali Toihir, a smartly dressed man in

his early forties who lived in one of the villages nearby but spent his

days as ''public affairs attache'' at the hotel -- a title I took to

mean liaison officer with the island's officials.

Ali Toihir -- educated, articulate and intelligent -- had played his

part in island politics. I was never quite clear what his involvement

had been, though we were told he had once been speaker in the island

assembly and he had certainly been a minister in the government of Ali

Soilih, a young radical who came to power on the back of a coup

engineerd with Denard's help in 1975. Ali Soilih attacked privilege and

corruption and tried to overturn old established ways with the help of a

cadre of youngsters he called his jeunesse revolutionaire, an outfit

which bore a passing resemblance to the young zealots of China's

cultural revolution.

Denard later masterminded Ali Soilih's overthrow once his regime had

come to grief. Ali Soilih did not survive.

For 12 years after Denard and his band of 46 desperados waded ashore

from their ship, the converted 75-foot trawler antinea, he controlled

security on the island for his new boss, the restored president Ahmed

Abdallah. He also dabbled in various commercial ventures. He married a

local woman, raised a family, and fell in love with the place. Opinions

differ about whether he was a good or bad influence. Opinion is also

split over the coup which ended in Abdallah's death with five bullet

wounds in his chest. This led to Denard's enforced disappearance from

the scene, with the question of his implication in the assassination

still open.

I was reminded of all this when I came across a recently published

book, Last of the Pirates -- the search for Bob Denard, by journalist

Samantha Weinberg. We knew of Weinberg because shortly before our

arrival on Grande Comore she had spent time there pursuing her

researches. ''She's writing Bob Denard's biography,'' we were told.

Weinberg has made a good stab at chronicling Denard's dubious career

and untangling his curious involvement in the politics of Grande Comore,

though Denard himself remains something of a shadowy figure. He seems to

be a quiet and undemonstrative man, quite unlike such heroes of

mercenary derring-do as ''mad'' Mike Hoare, and -- as some of his

acquaintances maintain -- he may have acted conscientiously and not

dishonourably, according to his lights. But, as I said, opinions differ.

Having read about the Antilea landing, Clint Eastwood briefly

considered starring in a film of the Denard story, and Denard spent time

on Eastwood's ranch near Hollywood discussing it. The project never

reached the stage of shooting.

Last year Denard returned to France, where charges against him were

virtually dropped after a brief trial. He is now a mercenary in

retirement.

On my last morning in the Comoros I set out to discover the wreck of

his rusting trawler. It's one of the tourist attractions, and can be

viewed from one of the glass-bottomed boats on hire from Tony Kaye. My

companions on board were a boatman an d a middle-age South African

couple. But the sea was choppy and when we got to the reefs the woman

became unwell and we had to turn back for the shore. All that I saw

through the glass bottom (actually, a rather misty plastic) were some

highly coloured grenadier fish.

And that's appropriate. Like his sunken vessel (renamed yet again as

the Masiwa), Bob Denard remains somewhat shadowy. But at least the

wreck, now that it teems with marine activity, is life enhancing in

decay.

* Samantha Weinberg's Last of the Pirates -- the search for Bob

Denard, is published by Jonathan Cape at #16.99.