Category: pulp classics

Posted on

Crash on Delivery chapter 3

Now over in Alsace-Lorraine, in a Heinie stronghold, a monocled Herr Oberst was pawing the dew of concern from a brow that was as wide as a garden gate. “Ach, mein Herrs,” he gutturaled wearily, “der Marks ve moost haben. Alreadty yedt der Marks dey ben lower by der Cherman Banken. Der troops by der groundt vill lizzen vhen der promise cooms, but der flying Offiziers, ach, smardter yedt dey ist, hein? Ein, drei Staffels dey say dey moost get der back pay— oddervise dey dondt fly! Und Staffel Noomber Sieben ist der besser by der front. Ach, der Dumkopfs know der Marks ve moost haff zo ve buy der bullets mit shells to shoodt, und yedt der Marks dey vant alzo! Donnervetter, first der Marks und den der Vaterland. Idt vas like dis nefer by 1870!”

“Nein, nein,” a bespectacled Junker shook his head mournfully. “But don’dt haff der vorry, Herr Oberst. I haff der Marks in zwei, drei Tags, you see. Ofer der lines ist vun Frenchman—zo agent K-4 he giffs me der vord—und der Frenchman he helps der Kaiser efen if he does nodt vant to. Enough Marks he has, mein Freunds, to pay idt der Fokker und Albatros flyers, ja I look for der vord from K-4 any minute, Herr Oberst.”

“Gut! You gedt idt der Marks, Kapitan Schlushwig, und it giffs some of dem to you alzo, ja.”

Posted on

Crash on Delivery chapter 2

Even so, the brass hat had been somewhat careless with the truth, though it would not be polite to call him a liar. In the presence of Phineas Pinkham he had told Garrity that what he had to say was not a pilot’s business. But after he was gone, the Spad flyers of the Ninth found out that every last one of them fitted into the word picture that the Colonel had painted.
“Why the big bum!” Phineas snorted when the C. O. enlightened them as to the orders that had come from the Wing. “Bat flyin’ he wants, huh? Awright, see if it bothers me. You heard what he said—that it wasn’t none of my affair. That lets me out. I got a witness, haw! It’s you, Major! The brass hats sure are a panic. They are like the managers of the pugs who say ‘Go out an’ slug, kid. He can’t hurt us!’”
“Are you all through?” Garrity inquired with a pent-in restraint that sent his blood pressure up to the explosion point. “Well, in just twenty minutes you take the first hop over the lines, Mr. Pinkham. How do you like that for apples, you freckledfaced baboon?”
“I always do my duty,” Phineas retorted loftily. “A Pinkham never questions orders. No sir! I will find out why the Heinies are tryin’ to land a crate behind the lines near Souilly—as well as knock any of them knockkneed who try it. If a very young Jerry spy is waiting to get picked up, he will have hardenin’ of the arteries and no teeth by the time it happens. I will solve the mystery, Major. Watson, my violin! I feel like a bar or two of Choppin before I get in the mood.”
“Yes,” Garrity cracked, ignoring
Phineas, “a Hun ship was seen in the vicinity of Souilly three nights ago. It was flying low, heading for Germany, and it may have dropped a spy for some reason or another. If they did drop one, they’ll have to pick him up.
That’s logic.”
“Haw-w-w-w-w! I dropped a dame once,”
Phineas chortled. “She is still where I tossed her, for all of me. It is not sense. Well, adoo, bums. I go—but I will be back, cur-r-r-rses! The next time I will git the mortgage, haw-w-w-w!”
“I will do it yet,” the Old Man kept yelling even after Phineas had taken a Spad off the tarmac and was flying toward the muttering lines. “I will kill him! I will take the consequences with pleasure. I can stand just so much! I can—I’ll—Crr-ripes!”

Posted on

Crash on Delivery chapter 1

This is a story of high finance as well as high flying. It never would have been written if a couple of Yankee doughs had not found a cache of Jerry marks in a deserted abri near Vaubecourt.
You see, a year before Uncle Sam peeled off his coat and spat on his hands to take a poke at Kaiser Bill, the Frog poilus had chased the Heinies out of the aforementioned Frog hamlet. And the Jerry brass hats, evidently very hard pressed, were satisfied to escape with even their skivvies. They left behind them a Boche paymaster and payroll buried in a mass of debris.
The doughs who stumbled over this treasure left the Heinie paymaster where they found him— because he was no longer fit for circulation—but the marks, having escaped the blast of shells, soon began to circulate throughout France; and thereupon reports hit Chaumont to the effect that a flock of Yanks, the majority of whom had failed to pass an intelligence test, had purchased the Kraut legal tender at various places and had paid for it with honest-to-goodness French and American currency.
Outside Bar-le-Duc, in the Frog farmhouse which served as headquarters for the Ninth Pursuit Squadron, Major Rufus Garrity was hearing the lowdown on these Yankee financial geniuses from a colonel who was tarrying over business so that both he and his official automobile could take on liquid refreshments.
“Yes sir, Garrity,” the brass hat prated, “these doughs have been selling the marks at prices that are outrageous. They tell the dumb guys they pick out for customers that they will be in Germany before long and that they will need marks and plenty of ‘em. So they give ‘em about twenty marks for ten francs. That’s robbery!
“What’s more, they will also be charged with confiscating Allied property and the sticking up of Boche prisoners. They’ll get the jug for it—those doughs. But we’ll grab ‘em all right. The Intelligence Corps is on their tails right now and expects to round ‘em up in no time. Damndest thing I ever heard, Garrity.”
“Why the dirty crooks!” Lieutenant Phineas Pinkham horned in indignantly. “Why them doughs will be lousy with Frog dough before they know it. How do guys get so lucky, huh?”
“They won’t be so lucky when they get thrown into a klink for twenty years,” Garrity clipped. “How much do you think they got out of that old dugout, Colonel?”
“Well, it’s a safe bet that they found at least eighty thousand marks,” the brass hat came back. “They sell ‘em forty thousand francs and—that’s
some profit!”
“Ain’t that just my luck?” Phineas complained. “I have pancaked in about three different trenches since I’ve been over and I never hit that one where the marks were. I never was lucky. I took a dozen chances on an egg beater at a ladies’ aid supper once back in Boonetown and my Aunt Isora only took one—and she won it! And all them dumb doughs ready to pay two francs for— haw-w-w-w-w! It is awful what they don’t know about foreign exchanges, ain’t it, Colonel ?”
“Ah—er—Garrity,” the braided, baywindowed high officer said testily, “I came in to have a quiet chat with you. This Pinkham fellow— hasn’t he any idea of discipline or respect for his superior officers? Do they all walk over you like this, Major? I want the man out of here! I have other matters to discuss that are none of his affair. Hmph! Hmm!” he blustered.
The Old Man turned on Phineas. “Get out of here,” he exploded. “Who do you think you are? Coming in like this and—”
“Napoleon,” Phineas said promptly. “But nobody will believe me, haw-w-w-w-w!” Then shaking his head, the Boonetown nuisance went out. “Huh, I would like to meet up with them doughs. Boys!”

Posted on

The Specter at the Feast chapter 7

About Pat,” he answered, and I saw
Harlan start and clench his teeth, “they found her at the bottom of that embankment near Merrick’s corner this morning in her wrecked car—dead ! Her mother called me about a half an hour before they found her. She asked if I knew where she had gone for the night. She said Pat had decided suddenly around eleven o’clock last night that she had behaved foolishly about refusing to go to the party and had climbed into her roadster, chuckling over the surprise she would give us when she walked in time for the banquet. Her mother seemed to have a premonition of what would happen for she said it had been drizzling when Pat left and she had cautioned her against driving too fast on the slippery road. I—I hadn’t the heart to tell her we hadn’t seen Pat. I was afraid, too, so I dressed and went out—but they had discovered her body. Poor little Pat,” he finished with a sigh.

Harlan had slumped into a chair and sat staring into space. I motioned Bob to follow me into the studio, and without a word we took the thing of bones and replaced it in its corner. As we turned away, I noticed a strand of hair caught in the bony fingers of the left hand!
“Probably Sally’s—last night,” Bob said, “She was nearest, wasn’t she?” I didn’t answer but I felt cold all over as I walked away.
I have never told anyone of the dream Harlan so vividly related to me that morning. I’d merely be thought an impressionable fool if I did, I guess.
To the rest of the world, Pat was just a member of the reckless younger generation, speeding in typical fashion on a slippery night road to join a party of waiting friends and ending disastrously at the bottom of a cliff. Too bad, but quite a natural denouement these days!
Call me superstitious if you will, but I can’t think of the affair without having grave doubts as to its natural conclusion.
If spirits do live on, in that vague place we call the Borderland, retaining their earthly personalities, then they must indeed retain their earthly emotions as well.
Novello had loved Pat. Can death change that? Since Pat continued to love his memory, was he not, as Harlan had said, still the lucky rival ?
But he was a rival unable to defend his mortal memory from the blasphemous and unsportsmanlike treatment to which it had been subjected! Suppose this fact had taunted him into contemplating an interrupted victory—into taking Pat across the misty frontier that had intercepted their love?
Who knows?

Posted on

The Specter at the Feast chapter 6

We had been so stunned by this horrible finale to our dinner that I don’t think anyone moved until Sally Folsom’s hysterical giggle broke the spell. There followed a few moments of excited discussion, mostly in monotones, while some of the boys admonished Harlan to “buck up,” while others winked and talked about “his having had too much.” The girls had gone for their wraps, since now it seemed impossible to resume frivolities.

There was a small but comfortable ante-room off the studio that Professor Kalin had allowed the boys to fit up for use during the winter months, and we had often taken turns at spending the night there when we wanted to work late or get an early morning start on some particularly interesting subject. It had been good-natured “Chubby” Collins’ for that weekend, but he took Harlan there and offered it to him in embarrassed sympathy;

“Go to bed, you sap, and get some shut-eye. That’s what you need. I gotta take Betty home.”

“Terrible, wasn’t it? Gave me such a nasty twist, I can’t get it out of my mind. Well, it’s only seven o’clock, Andy,” he concluded. “Shall we go out for a little cool morning air, before we have breakfast and brighten up the place?”

We were about ready to leave when Bob came in.

“How do you happen to be up so early ?” he asked. “Have you heard, too?”

“Heard what?” I asked quickly.