The Death Watch

 

cover art by Rudolph Belarski

A couple of months ago, I reviewed one of J.D. Newsom's excellent Foreign Legion stories. That particular story had been published in the October 1940 issue of Foriegn Legion Adventures. I've been periodically reading through the other stories in that issue and ran across yet another really good one.

"The Death Watch," by Theodore Roscoe, is narrated by a retired legionaire named Corday, who recounts a particular adventure he shared with a comrade years earlier.

That comrade was not your typical legionaire. He was small and Corday tells us he looked like a wax doll. He was nicknamed "Jack the Goat," because of the goatee he sported and was regularly bullied by others in his unit.

The bullying stopped when the unit attacks a hill occupied by Arab bandits. Jack not only performs bravely under fire, he also gets five Arabs to surrender. Cut off from the other legionaires, Jack uses the body of the Arab chief as a shield and somehow makes the dead man talk--ordering the others to give up.

Jack doesn't provide an explanation for this, though I don't think that I'm spoiling anything when I reveal one of the twists at the end of the story. If you don't realize Jack is a ventriloquist the moment this happens, you aren't really trying.

Corday and Jack are later part of a small Legion unit being shipped to Somalia to put down a rebellion there. They are put aboard a rusty steamer along with a large unit of colonial troops. These troops prove to be unhappy and perhaps prone to rebel. Soon, the officer in charge of the Legionaires has been murdered.

A new officer is brought aboard-- a man strong on discipline but who makes the mistake of bringing his pretty wife on board as well. It's here that the racial attitudes of 1940 come into play--when the colonial troops do mutiny, one of the reasons given is that the black men immediately want to rape the white girl. Also, the legionaires had been contempteous of the black troops from the get-go. I don't know if the author shared this attitude (because good art is often produced by flawed people) or if he's simply giving his characters the mindsets they would have had. Also, to keep it all in proper story context, the troops were acting rebelious before the woman came aboard AND rampaging mutinous soldiers (even if you sympathize with their reasons for rebelling) don't have a great record with women, regardless of respective skin colors.

But if you are a fan of old pulp fiction, as am I, you know that you'll run across racial bigotry from time to time and either enjoy the story in proper context or walk away. This is a story worth sticking with, because the action scenes are great. Both the battle on the hilltop early in the story and the fighting on the ship are exciting set-pieces.

On the ship, Corday, Jack and the girl are soon the only survivers other than the mutineers. The crew has run out on them, taking the only lifeboat with them. They have a machine gun set up on the bridge and are desperately holding off the mutineers. 

It's Jack that comes up with a plan. They are close to shore and know of a Legion platoon that's supposed to be nearby. Jack will hold the bridge and protect the girl. Corday will swim ashore (a long and dangerous swim), try to contact the platoon, find a boat and come back.

It takes Corday many hours to get ashore and, by the time he has found the platoon and they commandeer a boat, over two days have passed. They have to then search for the ship in foggy weather.

When they finally find the ship, Jack is still holding out. Using skills as a puppeteer and ventriloquist, he's turned his dead comrades into apparently "alive" soldiers.

That's a bit of a spoiler, but as I said, if you don't figure out that Jack has relevant show-biz skills during that initial action scene, you simply aren't paying attention to what you are reading. If I were to take points away from this story, it would be that this twist and a twist involving the identity of the girl are immediately predictable. But the overall ambiance of the story--the superbly described action and the high tension inherent in Corday's journey to find reinforcements--is great.

You can find this one online HERE.