Dorgan's Devil-Devil

By Lamb Harold and Betancourt John

What was the secret of Dorgan's power over the South Sea island's natives? Classic historical adventure fiction first published in the March 15, 1918 issue of Adventure magazine.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wildside Press
• Release date: Jul 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9781667640006

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COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Copyright © 2022 by Wildside Press LLC.

Originally published in Adventure magazine, March 15, 1918.

Published by Wildside Press LLC.

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INTRODUCTION

Harold Albert Lamb (1892–1962) was an American writer, novelist, historian, and screenwriter. In both his fiction and nonfiction work, Lamb gravitated toward subject related to Asia and Middle East. Before the 1920s, Lamb was an advocate of inclusive literature and history, saying to The New York Times in 1953, It all came out as an intense irritation over the fact that all history seemed to draw a north-south line across Europe, through Berlin and Venice, say. Everything was supposed to have happened west of that line, nothing to the East. Ridiculous of course.

He wrote gripping adventure stories with exotic locales, which found a ready market in the pulp magazines of the early 20th century—most especially Adventure, where he published numerous tales between 1917 and 1936. He inspired many writers of the day, notably Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan the Barbarian. (Howard called him one of his favorite writers.) Others influenced by Lamb include Ben Bova, Thomas B. Costain, Gardner Fox, Harry Harrison, Scott Oden, Norvell Page, and Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson.

Dorgan’s Devil-Devil originally appeared in the March 15, 1918 issue of Adventure. For the sensitive, please note that this is a South Seas tale which includes dialect and some racist stereotypes. Please bear in mind the era in which it was written as you read it.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The germ of Dorgan’s Devil-Devil came from an experience of an uncle who commanded a ship on the China station and visited the Samoa and Fiji Islands. After one of these trips, he brought home a collection of shark-tooth swords and curious tales of the South-Sea Islands. The next time he came home, he was brought by his men, having died of sickness on the China station. Naturally, the islands offered many a tale to me of the Service.

In my opinion, justice is seldom done to one of the finest types of adventuring men—the officers of the United States Navy. This is probably because the writers and public are not in touch with them, except in war-time. Newspapermen see a good deal of the Service, but their writeups are confined to items of news value. Too much can’t be said in stories or newsprint of the men who do their work outside the bounds of publicity with indomitable pluck, for the increase of efficiency in the Service. Just tribute is paid the English naval officer, but the best tribute I have ever heard paid the American officer—not in war-time—has been from Englishmen who have followed closely the work of the American Navy.

—Harold A. Lamb

DORGAN’S DEVIL-DEVIL,

by Harold Lamb

I

Never heard of the Wu Fang Huan Steamship Co., have you, Matey? Mighty few people have; but just the same this Wu Fang Co. came near stirring things up lively on the Pacific a few months after the big war broke.

Don’t know the Tafahi Islands either, do you? They’re a little bunch of sandy atolls, like some one had sprinkled them careless-like around the ocean due south of the Samoas, and then forgot all about ’em. Every now and then some ill-found trading schooner slouches up from the Lakemba passage and takes on fruit and water from them. We used to pass the islands when the old Wabash was policing the Samoas. Old Jeff landed there from time to time. Old Jeff? Captain Jeffrey Bronson of the U. S. cruiser Wabash.

It was to see Dorgan that Old Jeff stopped off every six months or so, and we men did a bit of sea-lawyerin’ as to why he wanted to. Of course we knew Dorgan had been quartermaster before he drifted out of the Service to the South Seas and shipped as mate under Phil Warren, one of the toughest of the recruiting gang. Kid White said that in ’98 Dorgan saved old Jeff’s life at Guantanamo—and we let it go at that.

Anyway