Sailor Steve Costigan

 

cover artist unknown

I'm glad that so much of Robert E. Howard's stuff is getting reprinted nowadays, especially those stories that show what a strong sense of humor he had.

That humor is probably most apparent in his stories about mountain man Breckinridge Elkins, but you can also look to Sailor Steve Costigan for both great fight scenes and laugh-out-loud moments.

Costigan is a somewhat naive sailor who is quick with his fists. In fact, his solution to many of the problems he encounters is punching someone.

The stories often have him on shore leave in a port somewhere (often but not always accompanied by his bite-happy bulldog Mike), getting entangled in an adventure that requires him to get into fist fights and always features one of those fights being a formal match in the boxing ring. 

"Sailor's Grudge" was published in the March 1930 issue of Fight Stories and is typical of how much fun a Sailor Steve yarn can be. Costigan goes ashore in San Francisco for a few days, this time without his dog, and meets a girl. Later, he finds out the girl has been forbidden to see him again by a big guy named Bert. Costigan deduces that Bert is a villain who is probably blackmailing the girl's father to force the girl to see him. It's not much of a spoiler to tell you that Costigan's deductions lack accuracy.

Anyway, Bert is the fight double for a movie star on a boxing film. Steve lands the job of the opponent in the big finale by beating up four other guys who want the part. Steve and Bert are supposed to fight for real for four rounds--giving the director some great fight footage---then Steve is supposed to take a dive. Close-ups of the movie star will be spliced in later.

What follows is a great fight scene--something that is also typical of the Costigan tales. Here's an example: 

We traded rights to the head and lefts to the body and he brought up a sizzling uppercut which might of tore my head off, hadst it landed. I buckled his knees with a right hook under the heart and he opened a cut under my left eye with a venomous straight right.

He then backed away, sparring and working for my wounded eye with a sharp-shooting left. Much annoyed, I followed him about the ring and suddenly dropped him to his knees with a smashing right cross to the side of the head. He bounced up without a count and flashed a straight left to my sore eye, following it instantly with a right uppercut to the body. I missed a looping right, landed with my left, took two straight rights in the face to sink my left hook into his belly, and he went into a clinch. We worked out of it and was fighting along the ropes at the gong.

The end is hilarious, with the movie almost ruined and a disillusioned Steve learning he's not going to get the girl after all.

Howard, famous for his Conan the Barbarian tales, is not always remembered for his sense of humor. But he should be.

Read "Sailor's Grudge" HERE.  And for a deeper dive into Howard's boxing tales, check out an excellent article HERE.