H. Bedford-Jones's Buccaneer Blood

Buccaneer Blood from Altus Press collects five rollicking pirate adventure tales by H. Bedford-Jones, all published in the pulp magazine Argosy in the early 1930s.

Canadian-born H. Bedford-Jones (1887-1949) was an incredibly prolific pulp writer, mostly of adventure stories (often in historical settings) although he also wrote science fiction and westerns.

These five loosely linked short stories recount the adventures of Irish soldier of fortune and pirate Denis Burke.

Escape! appeared in Argosy in November 1931. In 1703 Burke is in the French service, until he is rash enough to make a very unflattering remark about Louis XIV. Now he will need to leave France in a hurry, keeping one step ahead of the king’s wrath.

Burke can be hot-headed but he is clever and determined and his boldness counts in his favour. He is a master of the art of bluff. If he can find a ship he has a chance. He will have to steal the ship but that prospect does not daunt him.

Luck of the Sea Burkes was published in Argosy in January 1932. Having assumed the name Captain Mayo Denis Burke has his first success as a pirate, capturing a fine Spanish frigate. He learns of great riches that are his for the taking, if he and his crew are prepared to fight hard enough. His crew will certainly fight for money.

There is a woman involved as well. There usually is where Denis Burke is concerned.

Spanish Gold appeared in Argosy in March 1932. A Spaniard tells Burke of a sunken galleon, lying in shallow water with a fortune aboard. This sets off a series of double-crosses and deceptions. Everyone wants that fortune but it’s not as straightforward as it sounds.

Burke encounters a woman from his past. Maybe she’ll be an ally.

There’s also plenty of action and suspense.

Buccaneer Blood is from a September 1932 issue of Argosy. Denis Burke is never really at his best when he isn’t at sea but he has a plan for the future which cannot be executed at sea.

He is trying to pass himself off as a French nobleman. He has good reasons for not wanting to be recognised as either Denis Burke or Captain Mayo.

His problem is that a French officer has indeed recognised him as the notorious wanted outlaw Denis Burke.

He may also have found love. He is not sure, but maybe he’s ready for marriage, something he had never considered before.

Spanish Blood is Proud Blood appeared in Argosy in March 1933.

Burke has fresh plans. Or rather a variation on earlier plans. If he succeeds he will no longer be a hunted man. His new plan is of course crazy and daring.

The trouble with being a pirate is that you find yourself associating with the wrong sort of people. Treachery is an ever-present danger. You have to be careful whom you trust.

Bedford-Jones did this sort of thing extremely well. He knew how to strike the right balance between action and romance and he knew how to keep a story powering along. He throws in lots of plot twists as well.

If you love pulp fiction and pirate adventures, and I assume that includes everybody, then Buccaneer Blood is highly recommended.

The Blue Ice by Hammond Innes

Hammond Innes (1913-1998) was one of the big guns in the British thriller scene in the postwar years. His first novel appeared as early as 1937 and by 1948 when The Blue Ice was published he was already a very well established writer.

Innes differed slightly from other popular British thriller writers of his era (writers like Ian Fleming, Alistair MacLean, Gavin Lyall and Desmond Bagley) in that his books were adventure fiction rather than dealing with espionage or organised crime or similar subjects. 

The hero of The Blue Ice is also not in any sense a professional. He is not a secret agent or an undercover cop. He is a mining engineer. The heroes of the earlier generation of British thriller authors who flourished during the 1920s and 1930s were also usually not professionals but they were enthusiastic amateurs who actively sought out adventure. Innes’s hero is not of this type. After retiring young (he’s thirty-six) following a meteoric business career all Bill Gansert wants to do is to sail his yacht to the Mediterranean, soak up some sunshine, lie on some beaches and sample the local wines. He has no desire whatsoever for adventure.

Gansert’s plans change when his old boss asks him to go to Norway instead of the Mediterranean. Another minerals expert, George Farnell, has just been found dead there. Gansert knew Farnell quite well and he’d like to find out what happened - the story doesn’t quite add up. Before his death Farnell had sent a mineral sample (of a very valuable mineral indeed) to Britain, hidden inside a chunk of whale meat. 

Gansert is certainly intrigued by the puzzling circumstances of Farnell’s death but the main reason he agrees to go to Norway is the thought that Farnell really had made a very major and very valuable find. It’s not that Gansert is motivated by money - he’s simply obsessed with minerals and loves the challenge of developing a new mine. He’s like a butterfly collector on the trail of an exceptionally rare specimen - he just can’t help himself.

Gansert will have some uneasy company on the trip. Firstly there’s Jill, who knew Farnell very well (although just how well Gansert isn’t sure). Secondly there’s a shady Norwegian businessman who happens to represent a competitor, or possibly a future partner, to Gansert’s old company. And thirdly there’s the crippled Dahler, a Norwegian exiled from his country for collaborating with the Nazis.

The most interesting character in the tale is Farnell. Even though he’s dead when the book begins his shadowy presence in the background dominates the story. Farnell had been obsessed by mineralogy to an extreme degree, he had been convicted of fraud and during the war had worked (in slightly mysterious circumstances) with the Norwegian Resistance. The war is yet another shadow looming over the story. It seems like everyone involved claims to have fought for the Resistance but all have also been suspected of collaborating with the Nazis. There’s an atmosphere of suspicion, deception and betrayal and when you add the lure of greed the combination is obviously going to be explosive.

Innes made something of a specialty of maritime adventure tales and a large part of this novel takes pace at sea, or by the sea, or even under the sea. Later the action moves to the snow-covered wastes of a glacier with an epic ski chase. The British thriller writers of the postwar period seemed to be strangely drawn by settings involving ice and snow. Alistair MacLean was of course famous for his superb use of such settings in novels like Night Without End but Desmond Bagley (in Running Blind) and Gavin Lyall (in The Most Dangerous Game) also used such settings with considerable skill. Innes certainly makes the most out of the Norwegian locales. 

Innes was noted for spending a great deal of time researching his novels and the effort obviously pays off in this case. Modern readers might not be too thrilled by the detailed descriptions of a whaling station but it does add atmosphere.

This is not what one would call an action-packed story. There’s not much action at all until quite late in the story. Mostly Innes relies on slowly building up the tension, and he does this very successfully. When the action does pick up it does so quite effectively.

The Blue Ice is more a psychological thriller than an action thriller but the author carries it off with both flair and subtlety. Highly recommended.

The Python Pit

George F. Worts was a prolific contributor of adventure stories to both slick magazines and pulps. He was born in Toledo, Ohio and died in Hawaii in 1962 (some sources say 1967 or 1968). He is best-known for the Peter the Brazen stories written under the pseudonym Loring Brent. Under his own name he wrote a series of stories chronicling the adventures of Singapore Sammy, including the novella The Python Pit which appeared in the May 6th, 13th and 20th issues of Argosy in 1933.

Worts was a pulp writer who achieved every pulp writer’s ambition - to break into the slick magazines like Collier’s where real money could be made. He enjoyed great success during the 20s and 30s and half a dozen of his stories were made into movies.

Singapore Sammy is Samuel Larkin Shay, a young American who was cheated out of his inheritance (a vast fortune) by his step-father Bill Shay. Now Sammy, along with his pal Lucky Jones, makes a living as a trader in the South Seas. They have a fast schooner named the Blue Goose. Trading might be his living but Singapore Sammy has one driving ambition - to find his step-father and force him to restore his fortune. Then he intends to kill him.

Sammy has heard that Bill Shay is heading for the island of Konga, east of Celebes. No sane person goes to Konga. It is an accursed place, inhabited by ghosts, or cannibals. Or possibly ghostly cannibals. The waters around the island are infested with sharks of unusual savagery. On the other hand those waters are rumoured to be a fabulously rich source of pearls.

Sammy and Lucky are therefore voyaging to Konga, much to Lucky’s dismay. They’re not the only ones heading for Konga. There’s also a beautiful young American girl. Her father lives on the island and she needs to get urgent medical supplies to him. Despite his misgivings Singapore Sammy agrees to take her along. And sure enough his misgivings are fulfilled. Lucky falls in love with the girl! This is the worst misfortune that could befall an adventurous sea rover.

I’m not going to spoil the story by revealing anything of what they find on Konga except to say that there’s plenty of adventure involved.

Singapore Sammy is pretty much a generic pulp hero - an impulsive, two-fisted man of action but brave and noble. The story could also be described as a rather generic example of the pulp adventure story. This is true enough, but these are features, not bugs. A lot of people fail to appreciate that a rigid adherence to genre conventions is actually a plus if you’re writing genre fiction. The knack of writing good genre fiction is to stick to the conventions whilst still coming up with exciting and imaginative tales, and to make sure that your story has the right ingredients in the right proportions - in the case of adventure stories that means fast pacing, lots of action, a little humour, a touch of romance, narrow escapes from certain death, suitably villainous villains and beautiful but dangerous women. The Python Pit has all those ingredients and Worts knows how to combine them expertly. The result is entirely satisfactory.

Of course a pulp story written in 1933 is going to be rather politically incorrect, and The Python Pit certainly qualifies on that count. My advice is that if political incorrectness bothers you then you might be wise to keep away from 1930s pulp fiction. Part of the fun of pulp stories of this era is that when you read them you’re journeying back to a different world and you have to accept that world on its own terms. By his own lights Singapore Sammy is a brave and noble hero who hates injustice, it’s just that he sees injustice in 1930s terms.

Worts style is pure pulp. Don’t expect glittering prose. He was however a skilled writer who knew how to spin a fine adventure tale.

The Python Pit is one of four Singapore Sammy novellas included in a collection (called The Python Pit) published by Black Dog Books. It’s also included in the Otto Penzler-edited Big Book of Adventure Stories published by Vintage Books.

The Python Pit is immensely entertaining stuff. Highly recommended.