The Curious Quests of Brigadier Ffellowes
Sterling E. Lanier
The Curious Quests of Brigadier Ffellowes
Brigadier Ffellowes 02
(1986)
Sterling E. Lanier
Contents
INTRODUCTION
FORE/THOUGHT/WORD
GHOST OF A CROWN
AND THE VOICE OF THE TURTLE ...
A FATHER'S TALE
COMMANDER IN THE MIST
THINKING OF THE UNTHINKABLE
THE BRIGADIER IN CHECK AND MATE
FIRST MOVE
COUNTER MOVE
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INTRODUCTION
If Old Lanier tells you he's his own role model for the Brigadier, don't you believe him!
I've known Lanier for fifteen years now the first ten of them through the mails with never a face-to-face meeting. In those ten years, I learned that he had gone to Harvard, Yale, or Princeton depending upon the man's particular needs, whims, or faulty memory and that he possessed doctorates in anthropology, archeology (oh hell, Sterling, have it your way, archaeology!), sociology, animal-husbandry, podiatry, geriatrics, criminology, herpetology (I believed that one), and gynecology. I also learned that he had traveled to Tibet, Afghanistan, the North and South Poles, Pellucidar, the Ahbor Valley, and Kir Asa.
During the five years before we actually met, he described himself (glowingly) as a composite of Andy Jackson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Lord Nelson, insisting that they were presidents of those colleges he had attended. Then, I guess he remembered my fondness for George Fraser's writings, and he added Harry Flashman to the aforementioned trio. "Without the cowardice, of course. Harumph!"
Indeed, when I finally met the man he was dressed in a ragged, faded brigadier's uniform that he had scrounged or stolen somewhere. It didn't take me long (about eight belches and a few other assundry contributions to the peace of the land) to see a similarity between Flashman and Lanier. I was reminded that the Apaches had a name for Flashman (*Flashman and the Redskins.) which, translated to its briefest form, came out as "breaker of wind."
Harumph! yourself.
In person, however, Lanier admitted to me in an unusual, lucid moment that he had never been west of Philadelphia nor east of the Maryland shore, and that his role model for the Brigadier was probably a lot closer to me that it was to him. But lucid or not, Lanier never lost his braggadocio! (Alright, damn you, Sterling, I'll italicize it there: braggadocio!)
You may ask, and justifiably so, why a man of my reputation would involve himself with so disreputable a character. As a matter of fact, it is a question that I have asked myself many times. We have very little in common, and even a proximity to the man gives me the shudders. After all, Lanier is at least thirty years my senior, (*Mediator's note: Lanier and Grant were born in the same year. What Grant obviously refers to is physical appearance. Lanier appears to be much the older man.) and his reading tastes are generally quite abominable. Oddly, we do share a liking for that ancient and honorable subdivision of the fantasy genre called the "lost race" tale. But where my taste for this type of fiction includes such novels as The Face In the Abyss and The Sunbird, Lanier's great favorites are Bomba the Jungle Boy and the Lost City and The Bobbsey Twins in the Unknown Land: A Romance of the Polar Pit. (*Mediator's note: Published 1901. This novel is rumored to have been written by Lanier's younger brother employing a pseudonym.)
What absolutely defies and mystifies me, though, is the man's writing. Lanier's Hiero books (he pronounces it "Hero," and woe to the uninitiated who chooses to call it "Hyro") are good, solid novels that have achieved no small degree of popularity, while his juvenile, The War for the Lot, is really a competent effort. Best of all his output, however, are the tales of the Brigadier Ffellowes, most of them first appearing in Ed Ferman's excellent Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Seven of these episodes were collected in one volume by Walker & Company, a New York publisher, in 1972, under the title of The Peculiar Exploits of Brigadier Ffellowes. And while the book was reprinted in England shortly thereafter, it has been out of print for a number of years a highly sought-after book and most difficult to obtain.
The Peculiar Exploits is lauded in an introduction from no less an expert than Arthur C. Clarke, so I doubt that Lanier has somehow hypnotized me into liking these things without my knowledge. (That is not to say that he wouldn't try!) The first three stories - "His Only Safari," "The Kings of the Sea," and "His Coat So Gay," each one getting better and better as one progresses are enough to hook a person on the Brigadier tales. The final four are just frosting on the cake!
Not many writers can equal the delight afforded by these tales, but Lanier does it again with this new volume of six more tales The Curious Quests of Brigadier Ffellowes. As good as are the stories found in Exploits, I don't think that any of them can overshadow such gems as "Ghost of a Crown" or "A Father's Tale." Curious Quests is a real joy to read, and I hope there will be more ... many more ... before the series ends.
But something does not add up. The Brigadier stories are clever, well-plotted, well-written, and they display a broad knowledge that I have never been able to discover in Lanier himself. Indeed, the tales are such good fun that, from the first reading of the first book, I suspicioned the involvement of a second party. Is there a Francis Bacon who would perhaps forego the glory of authorship for the filthy lucre proffered from the purse of this wealthy rogue?
Enough of this! The play's the thing, and whoever planned the tales ... whoever did the writing ... did it competently; yes, even delightfully. If we give the devil his dues, that is to say if we allow that Lanier is the author of these tales, then certainly they are a breath of fresh air from the breaker of wind.
Donald M. Grant
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FORE/THOUGHT/WORD
Unaccustomed as I am to Public Writing, a word or two is necessary, if only in my defense.
When reading the average offerings to the trade of one D. M. Grant, I borrow the Apache name of the war chief, Geronimo: Goyathlay, or "He who constantly yawns." Crepitation also accompanies perusal of same.
My actual learning is somewhat scanted. The alleged "introduction" overlooks seismology, lycanthropy, ophiology, hagiology, telekinesis (and other ESP talents), metaphysics and cryptozoology among other studies.
Many of my venturesome field trips to little-known areas are ignored as well. To cite only one example, few know of my probe of the Islands of Langerhans, and the adjoining fringe of Gastroenteritis, a trip of some danger, since at the time I was badly infected with Mopery.
I must at this point, relate a true story, since it applies to a tale in this volume, a story unknown to either the publisher or to even any human being.
Many years ago, at age 14, when reading all of Doyle's Sherlock Holmes tales, I became perplexed over the mention of various Holmes adventures which were never written, at least in any book I could locate. A kindly English teacher explained that Sir Arthur mentioned many unwritten adventures simply to intrigue the reader and that they had no actual existence. A few months later, I heard the word pastiche and its explanation. Now, I had never intended to become a writer of any kind. But I swore to myself that I would write one story only, that of "The Giant Rat of Sumatra, for which the world is not yet prepared." I was going to write that one story for my own self and amusement. It never occurred to me at the age of 14 that I would ever write a real story that would be published! So that one story goes back a long way in my life. Whether it has any other distinction, I must leave to the readers.
I must now leave the aforesaid readers and return to a battle with the Internal Revenue Service. Since Mr. Grant pays me almost nothing and professes to be a charitable institution, founded for the va
guely literate, I have been struggling to get my miniscule royalties made "Tax Deductible." For some reason or other, the IRS professes not to believe the claims of this worthy man, a man who always tells the truth, despite his patent inability to run a publishing company of any significance or worth.
Remember that with the above statement goes another and much older one. "There's always one exception that proves the rule!"
Happy Reading.
S. E. Lanier 1986
P.S. In listing my favorite books, Grant skipped a famous wartime (Spanish American) thriller about himself, The Publisher Who Never Was.
N.B. Almost missed another Granterror (new word, but spreading). Hiero is properly pronounced "Hee-ehro," not "Hero."
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GHOST OF A CROWN
"Ghost stories are passé in some circles, I suppose," said a new member. I didn't know his name, but he was a younger man, of what, I guess, could be called a bookish type. He had rather thick glasses and a thin, angular face. He was drinking Madeira, which is not much in vogue with most of my acquaintances, but I didn't hold that against him either.
It was a cold spring night, and the club library had a fire lit at one end of the long room. A group of us were sitting in one of the big bay window alcoves overlooking Fifth Avenue, and the park looked rather gloomy in the drifting mist below. Personally, I'd rather hit Omaha Beach alone than go into it at night.
"I like them myself," said Bryce. He was something important in the Bank of New York. "I read them in my office, that is, when my secretary is busy." This raised a mild laugh. "In fact," he went on, unperturbed, "I have a standing order with Blackwells, in England, to send me any new ones that look good. And I even put myself on the lists of some of these jobbers that deal in science fiction, horror stories, and such things, in case some of the old ones come in that sound good." He sipped his drink. "Actually, I've found that some of the best are long out of print, and damned hard to get hold of."
Perhaps a banker was needed to break the ice, the image of bankers being so stuffy and conventional, even to those of us who knew better. It turned out that a whole lot of us read ghost stories, horror stories, wild fantasy, and so on. In no time an argument was raging over who wrote what, who wrote best (and worst!), and various schools of opinion began to get sorted out. For the library it was a pretty noisy scene. Two old gentlemen drowsing by the fire got up and left, muttering about seeing someone on the house committee, but we paid them no attention, being busy attacking H. P. Lovecraft or someone similar.
During a lull, the younger guy who had started the whole thing suddenly asked, "But why do you all enjoy these things? Is it because your lives are so dull today? Or is it that you'd really like to believe that there are things beyond our level of knowledge, powers of darkness, say, that still can reach us at times and in certain places? In other words, friends, what grabs you about all this, as the kids say now?" He was quite excited.
We all thought for a minute. Frankly, I don't think any of us had ever given a hell of a lot of thinking time to why we enjoyed being frightened or whatever.
The young guy, whose name turned out to be Simmons, went on. "Is it the same reason children ride roller coasters? Or do you think it may be something deeper, such as a feeling that the ancients, perhaps, knew more than we do, that a deep well of lost knowledge underlies all the broomstick and Halloween nonsense? And that by reading the stuff, you both acknowledge its reality and in a subconscious way, well, pay it a sort of respect?"
Well, the argument started afresh. Some of us admitted we liked being scared (I was one), especially if we knew we could always close the book! But a few others picked up Simmons' idea of a racial memory of the Ancient Past, and started telling of strange things that had happened to them or to people they knew. I noticed the really strange things were always those that had happened to someone else, while the ones that they had experienced in person sounded pretty flat.
I think almost everyone present must have had the same sequence of thoughts simultaneously. They ran: Yes, these experiences are dull and banal-sounding, and next Ffellowes!
And, of course, there he was. Leaning against the end bookcase in the alcove, just as if he'd been there all evening, and none of us, as usual, had even seen him come in! God knows how long he had been there, or how much he had heard. He was smoking a long thin cigar, very pale in color, and sipping brandy, which he took, incidentally, in a tumbler.
We introduced him to Simmons, who had never met the Brigadier before, and rather confusedly explained what we had been talking about, then more or less sat back, not quite panting, but pretty obvious.
Our English member smiled politely around at us. His pink face was bland, but the bright blue eyes were amused. Oh, he knew what we wanted, all right! If anyone in the room could lay claim to knowing the strange and the inexplicable, the man who had served the Empire all over the world, who had encountered more weird things in person than we had ever read about, was surely the man. And he knew we wanted a story. He teased us a little.
"I just had a nice brisk walk through the park. You chaps ought to get out more. You're all simply getting fat, sitting around here."
I ask you! A nice brisk walk, at 38°F, through Central Park at eleven at night! That was Ffellowes, all right. If a gang of muggers jumped him he probably became invisible! Yet none of us doubted he had come that way.
He turned to look at Simmons for a moment, in a reflective way, and I rang a bell for a waiter to bring us a fresh round. I had learned the signs by now.
"You postulate, Mr. er ah, Simmons," he was saying when I looked back, "that we are subconsciously aware of older things, or past, well, unpleasantnesses, which once had power, and might still, under certain circumstances? May I ask if those are in any way your own beliefs or are simply put forward as the basis of a discussion?"
Simmons kind of drew back a little. "It is a theory, I believe, that some people hold: that some places and some persons even, are influenced by the Ancient Past, and that certain things can allegedly be summoned by the right people, in the right place, and even at the right time. Personally, I have no views on the matter." His face turned a little pink. "I should say," he added, "no views that I care to give at the present time or verbally." He retired into his glass of Madeira, leaving us a little puzzled.
"I see," said Ffellowes, and I had the idea he did see, though what it was he saw, I was damned if I knew.
A waiter had drawn up another chair, and the brigadier sat down and took a dip of his brandy. The room was suddenly very quiet.
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"Many years ago," came the clipped English tones, "I had a friend who was Cornish. I don't mean he lived in Cornwall; I mean rather that he was Cornwall. His family, and, yes, he had a title, had lived there since time immemorial. They owned a ruined castle, and I mean a really frightful ruin, all tumbled stones, and also a delightful manor house, called Avalon House. Goodness knows how old the castle was, but the house was 18th century, a lovely thing of aged brick, surrounded by wild gardens and overlooking the Atlantic. It could be most windswept but was very wonderful even in Winter. There were great tangled hedges, which had been planted strategically, to keep off the worst of the wind, you know, but it still could howl about the eaves in a full gale. The family were not of great wealth, but not poor either. Occasional judicious marriages with nabob's daughters and city merchants, I expect. A very normal county custom and a very normal county family, of no particular note, with a fat paragraph in Debrett's Peerage.
"We'll call my friend the Earl of Penruddock, which sounds right and was neither his name nor his title. He and I had known each other since childhood, having gone to what we call a "little school" together, what you fellows call a grade school, I think. We were not the closest of chums, but rang each other up at times when one or another was in London, for a lunch or a drink. He was quite a normal specimen of his class, had served in the Grenadier Guards before succeeding to the title. He hunted with the Quorn
and grew prize roses. When he married, I was an usher, and his wife was equally suitable, a distant cousin with some money of her own, a jolly girl, who loved the country as he did.
"I was startled one day, therefore, to get a wire from James (that was his real given name) asking me down in a curiously urgent way, down for a visit to Avalon House. There was a sort of appeal in the wire, you know, something such as 'your advice most necessary' and 'would be extremely grateful if you could see your way,' and so on. All very peculiar from one of the most composed men I ever knew. I was doing odd jobs for the War Office already, and I found out James knew this, through what might be called the 'old boy's circuit'. Still, I couldn't imagine what had made him think of me in particular.
"I arranged a leave, ten days or so, with my chief, wired James to have me met and set off by train. It was late April, and as I changed to the small local train, a sort of Rowland Emmett affair with a staff all ninety in appearance, the countryside was really lovely. We went through a number of sleepy little towns and green valleys, until in late afternoon the creaky old car attendant warned me that Tolferry was next.
