Martin, Hansjörg Felmy, heads into the Sahara Desert to take a job at a pumping station operated by an American oil company. The truck that brings him to the site carries an empty coffin for a worker killed on the job, a stark symbol of the danger and the toll the assignment will take. Martin is the replacement, bound to a five-year contract that anchors him to this remote outpost and its unforgiving routine.
The station is run by Kramer, Peter van Eyck, an authoritarian figure with a disillusioned American temperament and German roots. From the outset, Martin and Kramer clash over leadership, authority, and the gritty pragmatics of surviving in such a harsh environment.
Martin’s coworkers include Fletcher, Ian Bannen, a noisy jokester; Macey, Denholm Elliott, an uptight former British major; and Santos, Mario Adorf, a silent Spaniard who keeps his own counsel. The base atmosphere is tense and exhausting, and the long days push everyone toward their limits.
Work is grueling, and the only real entertainment at the station is the nightly poker game that Kramer runs, a ritual that he insists the men participate in. The stakes are high, and the mood swings between camaraderie and coercion as the game unfolds under the desert’s oppressive heat and artificial glow.
One night, a heated dispute over a poker hand is broken by the sound of a car horn. A car crashes headlong into a stack of oil barrels, exposing Catherine, a beautiful young woman, and her seriously injured ex-husband Jimmy, Biff McGuire, who had been trying to kill both of them when they crashed. Catherine is brought to the station as Jimmy begins a slow recovery, and her presence immediately attracts the men's attention.
Catherine’s arrival unsettles the base, and she becomes a focal point for the men’s divided desires and suspicions. As she navigates the fragile dynamics, she forms a complicated relationship with Kramer, who becomes increasingly possessive and jealous. He vows to leave the station and take Catherine with him, a plan that intensifies the underlying tensions among the crew.
The jealousy surrounding Catherine’s presence grows sharper when a night arrives with a locked door and an intruding man inside her room. Macey, slavishly devoted to Kramer, suggests that Fletcher had spent the night with Catherine, fueling a dangerous misreading of loyalties. Martin, however, steps in to clarify the truth, informing Kramer that it was he who had spent the night with Catherine, not Fletcher, which heightens the rift between the two men.
Catherine continues to move between affection and distance as she visits Jimmy, who quietly professes his love and asks whether any advances occurred. She denies the advances, rebuffs Jimmy’s affection, and nonetheless returns to see him several times, unable to fully sever the ties that bind them.
In a final, tragic turn, Jimmy produces a large hunting knife during one of Catherine’s visits. The tension crystallizes, and Kramer later enters Catherine’s room to discover her dead on Jimmy’s bed, a bloody knife wound marking the room with violence. Catherine is taken away in a body bag, and Kramer is left alone in his room, overcome with grief and ruin at the consequences of the station’s dangerous entanglements.
