I continue my reading of L. Patrick Greene‘s series about English adventurer Aubrey St. John Major, a.k.a. The Major, set in Africa, getting into the third and fourth volumes.
This series ran from 1919 to 1939, with a few in 1947 and ’48, for over 100 stories in Short Stories and other pulps. Steeger Books is reprinting these, and has put out six volumes so far, with almost half of the stories reprinted. Stories range in length from short stories to novellas, so I am uncertain how many further volumes will be needed.
Born in England, Greene (1891–1971) worked as a young man in Rhodesia for several years as a mounted policeman before being sent home after hurting his back. He would use this experience in his writing, setting almost all his works in Africa. He moved to the U.S. in 1913 and became a U.S. citizen.
In 1918, he started to write fiction for Adventure magazine, where the Major first appeared. He soon became an associate editor at Adventure, which forced him to write for other pulps. The Major moved to Short Stories, where he mainly appeared from then on, and some stories were reprinted in books for the UK and US markets.
He would return to England, I think in the 1930s, and would join the RAF in 1939, which caused a pause in his writing career, which he restarted after the war.
As noted, his major (though not only) series character is Aubrey St. John Major. Aided by his servant and friend Jim the Hottentot, the Major was an “illicit diamond buyer,” illegally trading diamonds in South Africa. Basically, if you bought diamonds from the locals instead of the diamond cartels, it was considered illegal and you were a criminal. But despite this, he often helped the innocent and sent criminals to jail (or ensured they came to justice), and was respected by the locals as a “man among men.” And did so often, tweaking the noses of the bad guys and the authorities.
The Major is a real character. He is always dressed in immaculate, white linen clothing, with a pith helmet and weapons. He wears a monocle in his right eye. His manner of speaking with a drawl makes him seem a fop and an easy target. But those who cross him soon discover otherwise. In one story I read, he bodily picks up a man, holds him over his head, then turns him over his knee and spanks him like a misbehaving child.
Having read the first two volumes, I knew what to expect. What I have found interesting is that several stories will be linked by having the Major deal with a certain villain. While each story is separate, they continue an underlying storyline. This is delved into in Ed Hulse‘s intro in the fourth volume. This probably helped with selling these groups of stories as a book, which many of these stories were at the time.
Volume 3, subtitled The Heels of Achilles, has seven stories from May 1924 to October 1925, with illustrations, plus two bonus items. The first three stories continue the storyline involving the criminal “Whispering” Smith. The Major continues to interfere in his criminal enterprise. In the first, he involves himself in Smith’s scheme to steal gold. In the second, Smith sets up someone to either frame the Major or otherwise eliminate him, but it doesn’t quite go as expected. In the final one, things come to a quite final conclusion.
In “The Hat Trick,” the Major meets Lola de Sousa. She is either a woman down on her luck, trying to sell her legit diamonds, or someone trying to trick the Major. As usual, he comes out on top. But she will be returning in the rest of the stories, which will involve a native uprising, and the Major being joined by a couple of others known mainly as “Yank” and “Cockney.” Who will come out on top in the end?
As to the bonus items, one is a note that ran in Short Stories, commenting on the black-necked cobra by Greene. The other is also from Short Stories, some correspondence by a reader with a response by Greene.
Volume 4, subtitled Sinews of War, has eight stories with some bonus materials and illustrations. There is also a new introduction by Ed Hulse, who speaks on the main storyline that runs through most of the stories here. Also, most of the stories here are from Short Stories, but one appeared in the British 20-Story Magazine. Usually, when a story about the Major appeared there, it would be later published in Short Stories, but I don’t think this one was.
The first story, “A Bloomin’ Idol,” finds the Major in a port city of Mozambique after the events of the last few stories. He and Jim come to a seedy bar, the Major wanting to find out why the owner is interested in an idol owned by someone he met. After a fight in the bar that leaves the bar owner dead and the American who owns the idol fatally wounded, do we learn the full story? Our unnamed American tells us that he was in the area of Kilimanjaro with his uncle and sister. His uncle had discovered a secret movement of many African tribes to push for “Africa for Africans” and plan an uprising. Leaving his sister to care for his sick uncle, he left with a report by his uncle and an important idol. But he was betrayed and lost the report, only holding on to the idol. The Major promises to help out. But he only has this basic information and that this is centered on the “Mountains of the Moon.”
Most of the rest of the stories here are tied to this one, as the Major and Jim try to get help from British authorities but are ignored, and on their own, they work their way to these “Mountains of the Moon,” dealing with various attempts at slowing them down or stopping them. As usual, the bad people who try to stop them are always white men. This is another exciting and interesting storyline with the Major.
A fun series, and I look forward to the next volumes and the further adventures of the Major.
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