COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Copyright © 2009 by Wildside Press LLC.
Published by Wildside Press LLC.
www.wildsidebooks.com
Editor: John Gregory Betancourt
Assistant Editors: George H. Scithers, Darrell Schweitzer
THE BLOTTER, by John Gregory Betancourt
Meet Achmed Abdullah!
I’m not sure when I first became aware of the works of Achmed Abdullah. It must have been in the early 1980s, when I first began collecting pulp magazines, and spotted this curious Arab-sounding byline in issues of Adventure. I rapidly became a fan: this Abdullah fellow could write!
Many of his stories deal with exotic locales, usually Oriental. But even his Occidental tales are of interest, well written and fast paced, often with an unexpected twist or two. I began gathering his stories whenever I spotten them, and the result was one of Wildside Press’s first original collections of pulp stories: Fear and Other Tales from the Pulps, by Achmed Abdullah…the first new collection of his work in more than 50 years. (Needless to say, I recommend it highly.)
I could go on about him, but Darrell Schweitzer’s scholarship on Achmed Abdullah far exceeds by own, so I will simply quote part of his introduction to Fear:
* * * *
Those who met Abdullah found him very British in speech, manner and ideas. Indeed, he had been educated at Eton and Oxford (and the University of Paris), and had served in the British Army in the Middle East, India, and China, but he was actually the son of a Russian Grand Duke, the second cousin of Czar Nicholas II. His Russian name was Alexander Nicholayevitch Romanoff (sometimes given as Romanowski). His Muslim name was Achmed Abdullah Nadir Khan el-Durani el-Iddrissyeh. While the byline “Achmed Abdullah” was easy to remember and quite exotic, it wasn’t, strictly speaking, a pseudonym, and he came by it legitimately. Admittedly “Achmed Abdullah” was more likely to sell books of Oriental adventure than “Alexander Romanoff.”
Abdullah/Romanoff was born in 1881 and died in 1945. His birthplace is variously reported as Malta or Russia. What is certain is that after his army service, he embarked on a general literary career, writing novels and stories of mystery and adventure and some fantasy, with much of his work appearing in pulp magazines such as Munsey’s, Argosy, and All-Story. His first novel was The Swinging Caravan (1911), followed by The Red Stain (1915), The Blue-Eyed Manchu (1916), Bucking the Tiger (1917), The Trail of the Beast (1918), The Man on Horseback (1919), The Mating of the Blades (1921), and so on, all the way up to Deliver Us From Evil (1939). He edited anthologies, including Stories for Men (1925), Lute and Scimitar (1928), and Mysteries of Asia (1935).
Among his fantasy volumes, the story collection Wings: Tales of the Psychic (1920) is most recommended by aficionados. His best-remembered and most famous work is the 1924 novelization of Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.’s film, The Thief of Bagdad. As it has been reprinted many times over the years, clearly Abdullah’s Thief of Bagdad is more than a mere typing exercise. It is, after all, the novelization of a silent film, which meant the novelist had to be considerably more creative and invent most of the dialogue.
Abdullah’s connection with Hollywood did not end with a novelization. He had written plays for Broadway, such as Toto (1921) and went on to do a number of screenplays, including Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935), for which he and collaborators John Balderston and Waldemar Young shared an Academy Award. The film was based on the novel by Francis Yeats-Brown, but it is clear that Abdullah was eminently suited to the material.
THEIR OWN DEAR LAND, by Achmed Abdullah
OMAR THE BLACK sighed—and grinned a little too—at the recollection.
“There was Esa, the chief eunuch, yelling at me,” he said to his twin brother Omar the Red. “And there was Fathouma, the woman I had, if not loved, then at least left, smiling at me! Ah—I felt like a nut between two stones. Can you blame me that I sped from the place?”
He described how, with the help of crashing elbows and kicking feet, he bored through the crowd; how at a desperate headlong rush, he hurtled around a corner, a second, a third, seeking deserted alleys, while behind him, men surged into motion.
There was then pursuit, and the chief eunuch’s shouts taken up in a savage chorus:
“Stop him!”
“What has he done?”
“Who cares? Did you not hear? A hundred pieces of gold to the man who stops him!”
“Money which I need!”
“No more than I! Money—ah—to be earned by my father’s only son!”
Well, Omar the Black had decided, money not to be earned, if he could help it. He was not going to be stopped, and delivered up to the chief eunuch. It would mean one of two things: an unpleasant death or a life even more unpleasant.
For he knew the chief eunuch of old—knew that the latter, who had been fiercely jealous of him during the days of his affluence and influence at the court of the Grand Khan of the Golden Steppe, had always intrigued against him, always detested him, always tried to undermine him. And here, tonight, was Esa’s chance.
A chance at bitter toll!
Either—oh, yes!—an unpleasant death or a life yet more unpleasant. Either to be handed over by the eunuch to the Grand Khan; and then—the Tartar considered and shuddered—it would be the tall gallows for him, or the swish of the executioner’s blade. Or else—and again he shuddered—his fate would rest with Fathouma, the Grand Khan’s sister.
And—ai-yai—the way she had peered at him through the fluttering silk curtains of the litter! The way she had smiled at him! Such a sweet, gentle, forgiving smile! Such a tender smile!
Allah—such a loving smile!
Why—this time she might be less proud, less the great lady. Might insist on carrying out their interrupted marriage-contract. And what then of this other girl, this Gotha? A girl—ah, like the edge of soft dreams—a girl whom he loved madly.…
He interrupted his thoughts.
What, he asked himself, as his legs, one sturdy and sound and the other aching rheumatically, gathered speed, was the good in thinking, right now, of Gotha? First he would have to find safety—from the Grand Khan’s revenge no less than from Fathouma’s mercy.
Faster and faster he ran—then swerved as a man, whom he passed, grabbed his arm and cried:
“Stop, scoundrel!”
Omar shook off the clutching fingers; felled, with brutal fist, another man who stepped square in his path; ran still faster, away from the center of the town, through streets and alleys that were deserted—and that a few moments later, as if by magic, jumped to hectic life.
Lights in dark houses twinkled, exploded with orange and yellow as shutters were pushed up. Heads leaned from windows. Doors opened. The coiling shadows spewed forth people—men as well as women. They came hurrying out of nowhere, out of everywhere.
They came yelling and screeching: “Get him!”
“Stop him!”
“There he goes!”
“After him!”
The pack in full cry—two abreast, three, four, six abreast. Groups, solitary figures!
A lumbering red-turbaned constable, stumbling out of a coffee-shop, wiping his mouth, tugging at his heavy revolver.
Shouted questions. Shouted answers:
“What is it?”
“What has happened?”
“A thief!”
“No! A murderer!”
“Three