TO DUST AND ASHES IN ITS
HEAT CONSUMING
Five airplanes, including one piloted by Group Captain
Victor Carroon, trail UFOs that have appeared above London. One saucer is
followed by a plane flown by Flight Lieutenant Tug Carrington. In Mission
Control, Captain Boothroyd and Air Commodore Lord George Beltham give orders to
the pilots. Professor Bernard Quatermass dismisses Beltham’s claim that one of
his fellow investigators is an enemy agent. Harry Dickson breaks up the
argument. Dickson’s protégé is a sergeant seconded from the Marine Police,
Stanley Bulman, who mentions his nephew George.
Short story by Nigel Malcolm in Tales of the
Shadowmen Volume 9: La Vie en Noir, Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier, eds.,
Black Coat Press, 2012; reprinted in French in Les Compagnons de l’Ombre
(Tome 13), Jean-Marc and Randy
Lofficier, eds., Rivière Blanche, 2014. Professor Bernard Quatermass is the
protagonist of several British television serials and films, including
The Quatermass Experiment, which also features Victor Carroon. Tug Carrington
is an ally of aviator James “Biggles” Bigglesworth in novels by W.E. Johns.
Captain Boothroyd is the future Major Boothroyd, service armorer for the
British Secret Service in the James Bond novels. Lord George Beltham is a later
holder of the title once belonging to Lord Edward Beltham in Marcel Allain and
Pierre Souvestre’s Fantômas novels. Harry Dickson, “the American Sherlock
Holmes,” appears in pulp stories by Jean Ray and others. Stanley Bulman is the
uncle of Detective Sergeant George Bulman, who appears in the TV series The
XYY Man, Strangers, and Bulman.
This will be reprinted in the next volume of Harry Dickson stories that Black Coat Press is releasing. I really enjoyed the first volume (and just about anything I've read by Jean Ray.)
ReplyDeleteI always assumed Major Boothroyd was in the Army, but its been awhile since I read the James Bond books so for all I know he was in the RAF.
I'm guessing and hoping that most, if not all, of the new stories in that volume will have crossovers, considering Black Coat's track record with single-character anthologies. The fact that one story is titled "Moreau Lives!" is probably a good sign. I just edited my entries for this story, "Wings of Fear," and "Sleep No More," (all the reprinted stories that are in Volumes 3 and 4) to add Harry Dickson vs. the Spider to their publication history.
ReplyDeleteI don't recall whether Fleming ever specified which branch of the Armed Forces Boothroyd was in, and this bio doesn't give any details:
http://jamesbond.wikia.com/wiki/Q
Since I plan to get the Harry Dickson Vs. the Spider I'm hoping to it will have crossovers too. Mostly, I want it though because Jean Ray's fiction is hard to get in English. I know the White Lady of Pourville was originally published in a French Language volume of Shadowmen and includes among others Sexton Blake. I had my Lupin story translated in the volume and I was able to figure out that the story was the same one in both volumes. Not that I speak French.
ReplyDeleteI just assumed that the gun expert would be in the Army, but I don't suppose he has to be. There's an interesting story I just found out about Bond's gun.
http://jamesbond.wikia.com/wiki/Beretta_418