Review of “Fear” by Achmed Abdullah: Halloween Countdown

6) “Fear” by Achmed Abdullah

I would like to warn the reader that this story, published in 1919, sometimes uses language that would be, at best, insensitive and at worst offensive by today’s standards. It comes with white supremacist/darkest Africa undertones. However, if the two MCs are examples of the master race, we may as well let the dolphins run the show.

Plot:

Stuart McGregor and Farragut Hutchison are two young adventurers and world travelers in the early 20^th century. The reader is told that Hutchison disappeared into the African jungle ten years earlier, and the surviving McGregor is haunted by the last sight of him, walking away with “six giant, plumed, ochre-smear Bakoto” warriors.

In one earlier drunken adventure, Hutchison received an elaborate tattoo on his back in an effort to impress a young lady. It featured an eagle in profile, showing one eye that appears to wink when Hutchison moves or flexes his muscles.

In a subsequent drunken escapade, our heroes (?) “insulted the fetish of the Bakotos” while the men of fighting age were away from the village. They did a “vulgar, intoxicated dance in front of the idol” and ground burning cigar ends into its “squat, repulsive features.” They then looted the village and fled before the warriors returned, all the while looking over their shoulders as they headed toward the coast and the protection of the Union Jack and the comfort of white-people faces, slang, curses, odors, and obscenities.

Dang. Can’t take you boys anywhere.

When McGregor and Hutchison aren’t paying attention, the Bakoto warriors overtake them. Reasonable men, the warriors want payment for the insult and theft. They demand an impossible choice, and Hutchison walks off into the jungle with them. McGregor swears the eagle tattoo winks at him. He is terrified and remains terrified.

Thoughts:

Author Abdullah sets a mood of dread and hidden danger on the first page of the story, describing the African jungle:

“The pall of sodden, stygian darkness all around; the night sounds of soft-winged, obscene things flapping lazily overhead or brushing against the furry trees that held the woolly heat of the tropical day like boiler pipes in a factory; the slimy, swishy things that glided and crawled and wiggled underfoot; the vibrant growl of a hunting lioness that began in a deep basso and peaked to a shrill, high-pitched, ridiculously inadequate treble; a spotted hyena’s vicious, bluffing bark; the chirp and whistle of innumerable monkeys; a warthog breaking through the undergrowth with a clumsy, clownish crash—and somewhere, very far away, the staccato thumping of a signal drum, and more faintly yet the answer from the next in line.”

Sometimes, the drumheads are made with human skin. Uh-huh.

In this brief tale, the author creates an atmosphere not of guilt or pangs of conscience but of fear. The guilty party does not regret his actions or choices. On the contrary, he says he would do the same thing again. He’s simply scared out of his wits, ten years later.

In short, the story is about jerks and karma with a bit of magic and a warning not to piss off gods you don’t understand, even in “darkest Africa.”

I was unfamiliar with the name “Bakoto,” but couldn’t find it anywhere. Perhaps it is an alternative spelling for a real people or, as I strongly suspect, a name the author conjured out of thin air.

I’m on the fence about this one. On the one hand, it shows a coward living in fear and getting his well-deserved comeuppance. On the other, the two main characters bring to mind the s-faced yahoos at the end of the bar who talk too loudly, harass the female barkeep, and remain astonished about why “that miserable bitch” eighty-sixed them. I found reading about them unpleasant, but that’s my take.


This story can be read here:

This story can be listened to here: (22:04)


Bio: Achmed Abdullah (legal name Alexander Nicholayevitch Romanoff) (1881-1945) is believed to have been born in Yalta, Crimea, of Russian and Afghan heritage, but was educated in Great Britain and served in the British military. He is now best known for his novelization of the 1924 film The Thief of Bagdad, but wrote widely for the pulps following WWI, publishing some one hundred short stories between 1915 and 1939. While little of his life story can be verified, he claimed to have been a spy for the British military and to have traveled widely in the Far East and Middle East.



Title: “Fear”
Author: Achmed Abdullah (legal name Alexander Nicholayevitch Romanoff) (1881-1945)
First published: Detective Story Magazine, February 4, 1919
Length: short story