Son of a Sea Cook

 

cover art by H.C. Murphy

Read/Watch 'em in Order #126

S.B.H. Hurst was a prolific contributer to the pulps during the 1920s and early 1930s, but I never happened to have read one of his stories before. This, in fact, is one of the joys of being a fan of the fiction from that era and living in an era where more and more of these stories are being made available online. There's always a writer out there whose stuff I haven't yet read.

"The Son of a Sea Cook" is the next story to appear in the May 1927 issue of Frontier Stories. Since this is indeed my first Hurst story, I don't know if he normally injected humor into his tales. If he did, I really gotta read more. This story is funny.

The action is set entirely aboard a sailing ship and the main character is a big and often drunken sailor named Epictetus Jones. ("Father forgot what he wanted to name me, so he left it to the minister, and Epictetus is what the minister did.") There's also a cook on board. But the cook isn't really a cook. He's a seller of "Ladies' fancy wear" who fled to sea to escape a scandal that's too embarassing for him to ever describe to anyone. And he doesn't know how to cook.

So, as the story opens, the cook-who-can't-cook bribes Epictetus with a bottle of booze and the promise of ten dollars to pretend to the cook is his father. That way, Epictetus can protect the cook from being beaten up when dinner turns out to taste terrible.

But Epictetus quickly gets drunk on his bottle. This leads to a fight, which leads to the cook's lack of skill being revealed to everyone. This, in turn, leads to the cook being fired from that job and sent before the mast, where he is constantly tormented by the rest of the crew. Epictetus is on another watch, so isn't available to protect him.

Well, this in its own turn leads to a faked suicide, stolen food and a hunt (led by the ship's second mate) for a food-stealing rat that is too clever to be caught in normal traps. 

And THIS, in turn, eventually leads to the conviction by most of the crew that the ship is haunted.

I don't want to go into more detail than this, because I don't want to spoil the story for you. You can find it online HERE.