Weird Shorts: First Selection (Gerald G Swan, 1944)

Weird Shorts: First Selection was published by Gerald G. Swan in 1944 and priced at 7d. This 36-page stapled pamphlet contains 7 short stories. It is actually the only edition.

Up first is “In Alien Valleys” by Henry Rawle.
Typical social gathering at the local pub, one of those fire-side chats, discussing ghosts and psychical phenomenon and the traditional naysayers that take control of the conversation until the ‘silent-looker-on’ off to the side coughs their way into the discussion. This person is usually another noted scientist or doctor or, just some bloke that knew to attend one of these gatherings. In any case, his morbid tale is of his own mind suffering astral projection but the effects are proven by his awakening and the marks left behind by a giant taloned bird are upon his very body. Naturally, anyone can scoff at this conclusion. While the tale of being projected onto another planet was a fun read, the freshly made scars could be readily faked from a variety of sources. The tale has a very “dated” feel to it.

Henry Rawle has contributed many weird tales to the
British mags of old, including the following:

• Armand’s Return, (ss) Ghosts & Goblins, 1938
• The Bride of Yum-Chac, (ss) Occult #1 ’45
• Dr. Gabrielle’s Chair, (ss) Space Fact and Fiction # 2 ’54
• Fiorello (ss) New Acorn Jun/Jul 1949
• Flashback, (ss) Occult #2 ’46
• Gruenaldo, (vi) Weird Story Magazine #1 ’46
• The Head of Ekillon, (ss) Ghosts & Goblins, 1938
• In Alien Valleys, (ss) Weird Shorts #1 ’44
• The Intruder, (vi) Weird and Occult Miscellany, 1949
• Marley’s Masterpiece, (ss) Mystery Stories #18 ’39
• Revanoff’s Fantasia, (ss) Tales of Ghosts and Haunted Houses, 1939
• Silvester’s Oasis, (ss) Weird and Occult Library #3 ’60
• The Voice of Amalzzar, (ss) Weird and Occult Library #2 ’60

Next is Trevor Dudley-Smith’s “The Immortal Guardian,” which also treads upon the usual. A woman’s long-suffering brother is dying, and, commits suicide. Before dying, he surrenders onto her his ring to wear, and promises to watch over her throughout life. Much time has past since his departure, and, while she and her husband are driving away to catch a flight, she is horror-stricken to note the ring is missing! They return to the hotel and learn that a maid found it in the shower drain. How did it fall off? It had never come off or been removed prior. They miss their flight, and next morning, while reading the newspaper, the husband is in awe to learn that the plane crashed. Was it fate, luck, coincidence, or … her brother?

The former name of Elleston Trevor, he obtained greater
fame later as Adam Hall with his “Quiller” crime novels.

“Sigrid’s House” by Dallas Kirby is a tale of demoniacal possession.
Long ago, a lovely lady married a preacher and then tried to corrupt his soul and sell it to the devil. He fought her and the house exploded from within, after he fought her off with his silver cross. Every seven years, a stranger happens along and is stranded in the vicinity and happens upon the house and is never seen or heard from again. Enter our hero, a detective on assignment, headed off to investigate illegal transportation of drugs. He never makes his destination, for his wheels become stuck in the mud during a torrential downpour. Seeing a light in the distance, he decides to make a break for it and finds himself at a desolate mansion of sorts. Entering, a servant brings him to his master, a stunningly beautiful girl. Whether his drink was doped or she worked black magic upon him is unclear, but, he becomes aware dreamily that he has told her of his entire assignment, etc., and then jerks fully awake as a spark from the fireplace burns him. Shucking the evil power holding him, he’s now fully coherent and in perfect control of his faculties. Midnight is drawing near and he realizes that he is in the evilly rumored Sigrid’s House. He goes down to the basement, and finds the girl in a trance calling out to the devil himself, and an evil THING does manifest. Realizing that he is to be the final sacrifice to bring her Self back to life (and the demon, too) he lunges forward upon the preacher’s old silver cross, performs some brief battle with cadaverous creature from hell using the cross, and the home and explodes. He awakens in Hoyt, where he was to perform his duties. He is battered and bruised from his ordeal, but is being aptly cared for by a woman, whose husband found him dazed and near death, clutching in his hands a branch of wood in the form of a crucifix…

Dallas Kirby is the alias of David J. Gammon; he contributed two
other odd bits, both to the publisher Gerald G. Swan, being:

• Come Brother, Come!, (ss) Weird and Occult Library #2 ’60
• The Incredible Solution, (ss) Yankee Science Fiction #21 ’42

“Night of Terror!” by E. A. Cross is more a crime story than a weird one.
Your typical fat, bloated, rich asshole is driving through the countryside when his car fails him. Walking to a home in the remote region during a storm, he is welcomed by an older man, whom turns out to be a scientist. While left alone, the visitor stumbles into the laboratory and discovers that the man is insanely carving upon brains of missing “other” visitors and leaving them alive as brainless halfwits. Scared out of his mind, the portly man tries in vain to escape but is captured, tied to a bench, and commits suicide rather than be operated upon. The joke is on him. The intent WAS to scare him to death, as a prank. The asshole, turns out, had stolen another man’s woman and she died. The scientist was the father, and the halfwit running around? the woman’s original betrayed lover, also in on the gag.

Elizabeth Anne Cross contributed at least two more shorts, both
to Swan, being general fiction stories. 

David Alun presents us with an awfully good tongue-in-cheek sinister spoof on Adolph Hitler as Udolph Litter. In “The Demon and the Dictator,” a lesser demon is sent to earth to corrupt a tiny country’s tyrant into committing flagrant atrocities. The dictator is repulsed by Melite, the ugly little demon, so it changes form to a fuckably cute little girl in a dancer outfit. We are led to believe that Udolph kisses the girl (and is zapped) and they might even have intercourse over the years. Melite convinces him to sign off on a form to provide Melite with a “ball” and in exchange, Melite gives him the world (sort of). Many many years pass and Udolph is conquering the world but is not ready to die just yet, each time becoming more and more wretched and evil. Melite suggests killing the Jews (I’m surprised this made it into the text). Tired of waiting, Melite uses his demon abilities to coerce Udolph to blow his brains out, and Melite collects an evilly hardened little ball, being Udolph’s soul. Melite was assigned to obtain a solidly functional soul-ball for the upper demons to play Rugby with, incidentally…. It’s a damn good story, despite the spoof being chillingly close to reality.

This author’s identity has never been cemented, however,
I suspect that this is David William Alun Llewellyn. Who?
Yeah, that’s what I said, too. Check out the following link.
If you read it and concur, let me know. I’m fairly confident this is our man.
http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/llewellyn_alun

In “The Revenge of Arnul,” author W. P. Cockroft presents a man whom has been wronged and robbed his whole life by a man that competed with and bettered him in all tasks and assignments and goals throughout childhood and later years, even going so far as to claim the woman he loved. Tired of the constant suffering, he went on to pursue a career in the sciences, an area the other had zero interest. Many years, decades perhaps, pass. The scientist sends a letter of invite to his one-time competitor, and he accepts, but brings a gun with him. He realizes that something is afoot, and is prepared to defend himself. The scientist informs him that he has created a time machine and he has succeeded in sending a motion camera into the future and recorded certain events. He shows him one such reel, indicating the wife’s great sorrow. And then he shows him his own death, being hanged for the murder of the scientist! Angered and frightened, he attacks the scientist and threatens to destroy the machines, believing the scenes are faked. While fighting, he fatally shoots the scientists, whom laughs to death, proclaiming his own death was what was needed to solidify the future’s reality, otherwise, it was just one of many such futures. With his dying breath, he tells his killer to play one last reel. The man plays the reel, which shows HIM entering the house, going into the library, talking to the scientist, and plays on through to the final kill scene. In a fit of utter insanity, he destroys everything and is arrested for murder. His lawyer can’t fathom why he won’t plead to self-defense, but, he’s seen the future, and knows that the hangman’s noose is unavoidable….

I wrote up another Wilfred P. Cockroft tale many months ago
(see: They Came From Mars) but never discussed the man himself.
He contributed to SF and Weird fandom alike from
1934 through 1954, appearing earliest in the world’s
first science fiction newspaper (Scoops), made a couple sales to
American pulps, appeared in Britain’s debut issue of Tales of Wonder, etc.

I. O. Evans presents a ghoulish Norse revival of “The Kraken.” Bringing in a geologist to investigate seaside phenomenon of the sea floor seeming to rise, Jarvis is gobsmacked to learn that the sea does indeed appear to have risen several dozen feet, making the bottom quite visible in places. Numerous tourists have come to the beach to take pictures, boats aplenty are adrift, anchored and watching, and the British navy is on the scene, when, inexplicably, the whole of the ocean floor suddenly rises and bubbles to the surface, becoming a rubbery gelatinous mass. The situation worsens when tentacled claws shoot out and begin grasping sea-goers and dragging them under for nourishment. Jarvis, our geologist, immediately realizes that they are dealing with the historically fantastic Kraken of Norse mythology, but, hasn’t a clue how to defeat the creature. The navy does battle with the beast, and the beast retaliates by pulling an entire warship under. Depth charges are unleashed, and the Kraken drops and creates a whirlpool that drags every ship under to a watery grave. Nothing seems to kill or permanently injure the beast. Bombs fail. Cannonballs bounce off the rubbery body. Anti-aircraft fire penetrates but really does nothing else, other than annoy the creature. In the end, it is the English weather that sends the critter swimming away to the deeper and COLDER recesses of the Atlantic depths.

Idrisyn Oliver Evans contributed only the one known weird story,
one science fiction tale involving a robot-boxer
(The Passing Show, 15 Jan 1938), and translated
two of Jules Verne’s tales (“Frritt-Flacc” and “Gil Braltar”)
both for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author_talk:Idrisyn_Oliver_Evans
For further interest, here is a link detailing his books:
https://www.librarything.com/author/evansio

In conclusion, below are the publication’s specs:

Weird Shorts: First Selection [#1, 1944]
(London: Gerald G Swan, 7d, 36-pages, 4.75 x 7.5 inches, stapled pamphlet, cover art: unknown)
2 * In Alien Valleys * Henry Rawle
5 * The Immortal Guardian * Trevor Dudley-Smith
8 * Sigrid’s House * Dallas Kirby
15 * Night of Terror! * E. A. Cross
21 * The Demon and the Dictator * David Alun
25 * The Revenge of Arnul * W. P. Cockcroft (sic)
30 * The Kraken * I. O. Evans

2015 September 17: “They Came from Mars” by W. P. Cockroft

“They Came from Mars” is a tiny, 16-page, double-column science fiction yarn written by Wilfred P. Cockroft, and published by Gerald G. Swan (reportedly in 1945). There are no ads within providing any indication of publication. Date of publication is based on British Library records, and, undoubtedly, info found in fanzines.

The tale opens with the wreck of a man-made spaceship on the coastal beach of Mallen. Arriving late on the scene is Doctor Morson. Three sailors had already clambered into the ship to rescue the crew, but the three they found and extracted were well past death. Morson enters and accidentally cuts himself on the hull. Inside, he discovers a fourth corpse and a diary. This latter he retains, for his interest in this whole space affair is aroused.

Returning home, his hand is throbbing, and he settles down to read the diary. About less than half of the booklet deals primarily with the daily recorded exploits of the crew, their arrival on Mars, and records of plant life and animals, etc. They attempt to capture a six-legged furry critter (see cover scan) for further investigation. However, a bright, indescribable object zooms toward them and they run for their lives, and the animal captured, now has escaped.

They depart the red planet for earth but each are afflicted with pain and other ailments begin to take hold. Turns out they were all injured while on Mars. The ground they walked on in places managed to slice into their space boots. Each sick, desperately in flight to return to earth, the diary abruptly ends and leaves no clue as to what transpired…but, the doctor already has a clue, as his own hand continues to throb….

The story then shifts from space story to more of a weird sort of feel to the tale.
Morson continues to treat patients and his own ailment worsens to the point that he is an incoherent, non-functioning entity. He is sent to an asylum; shortly thereafter, his estate is sold. The asylum doctor attends the estate sale and is outbid on a full lot offer of all the doctor’s books by a competing doctor (Harvey) whom was an old friend of Morson’s. Harvey discloses that he wants the books for certain reasons. Eventually, time passes, and he finds the diary among the trove.

He returns to the asylum and shares his discovery with that doctor; they compare notes, and he notes that he believes Morson, as they know him, is dying, and is infested with some form of Martian parasite, that will “seed” once Morson’s body fully terminates. That it does! They run from and seal the airtight room just in time as the body explodes a spray of particles into the air. The “alien” has seeded, and is looking for a fresh host to inhabit.

And, what of the three sailors? The doctor traces their activities to the Orient, and learns that through some odd mishap, the entire ship went down, all hands down to the frozen watery depths of the sea. Did the alien entities die, or, are they forming even now their own ranks under the sea, to one day take over the entire human race? Only time will tell…..

Honestly, I’m sure that most glance at the story and give it the rolling-eye treatment, write it off as purely juvenile, but, no, I disagree. It is a first-rate job, with a solid plot, and the weird-strange-bizarre is smartly handled and everything is rationalized, which is precisely the foundation for what the editors of Weird Tales magazine desired of their own stories.

I would love the opportunity to read further stories by Mr. Cockroft one day. I possess a further half-dozen assorted other tales by this author. Perhaps one day I’ll give those stories their due.

SIDE NOTE: I wonder if it terribly irked that man that so many blithering idiots then and now continue to erroneously spell his name as Cockcroft rather than Cockroft….