“One day,” said Wanoa. “Not many people die in one day.”
“One day?” cried Billy. “What— All right,” he said, jacket emptying again. “One day. And when that is through I suppose . . .” He glanced at Christina and saw that she would hold to her word then.
To find out more about Danger in the Dark and how you can obtain your copy, go to www.goldenagestories.com.
Glossary
STORIES FROM THE GOLDEN AGE reflect the words and expressions used in the 1930s and 1940s, adding unique flavor and authenticity to the tales. While a character’s speech may often reflect regional origins, it also can convey attitudes common in the day. So that readers can better grasp such cultural and historical terms, uncommon words or expressions of the era, the following glossary has been provided.
bale ring: in a large tent, the canvas is perforated by holes where the support poles will be. Each hole is fitted with a sturdy metal ring, which is a bale ring. The poles are placed in the rings as the canvas lies on the ground and the rings are raised up the poles by ropes using block and tackle.
bale ring to stakes: everything and everybody; the whole circus.
billiken: a doll created in 1908 that had elf-like pointed ears, a mischievous smile and a tuft of hair on its pointed head. It was a symbol of good luck. Named after its manufacturer, the Billiken Company of Chicago.
bime-by: by and by; eventually.
Black Forest: a wooded mountain range in southwestern Germany. It is known for its highlands, scenery and woods, and in early times it was impenetrable. The Black Forest region is blessed with a particularly rich mythological landscape. It is said to be haunted by werewolves, sorcerers, witches, the devil in differing guises and helpful dwarves who try to balance the scales.
Borneo: the third largest island in the world, located in southeastern Asia.
Brobdingnagian: of or relating to a gigantic person or thing; comes from the book Gulliver’s Travels of 1726 by Jonathan Swift, wherein Gulliver meets the huge inhabitants of Brobdingnag. It is now used in reference to anything huge.
bull man: bull hand or bull handler; circus employee who works with the elephants.
bung starter: a wooden mallet used for tapping on the bung (cork or stopper) to loosen it from a barrel.
Chamorro: a people inhabiting the Mariana Islands; also the language of these people.
chumps: suckers; people who are gullible and easy to take advantage of.
coconuts, string of: money, especially a large number of bills.
Colossus of Rhodes: a giant statue of the Greek sun god Helios, known by the Romans as the god Apollo. Considered one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the statue stood at the entrance to the harbor of Rhodes, a Greek island, for approximately fifty-five years. It was built in 280 BC to commemorate the island’s survival of a year-long siege. Made of bronze and stone with reinforcements of iron inside, the Colossus measured about 120 feet in height. It is sometimes said to have straddled the harbor so that ships sailing in and out went under its legs and is depicted in one account as shielding its eyes from the sun with one hand.
crumb castle: cookhouse; where the circus crew eat.
de facto: exercising power or serving a function without being legally or officially established.
dogfish: a small bottom-dwelling shark with a long tail.
fagots: bundles of sticks, twigs or branches bound together and used as fuel, a torch, etc.
G-men: government men; agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
governor: the head of the show.
gravedigger: a hyena.
hackman: the driver of a hack or taxi.
hawsers: cables or ropes used in mooring or towing ships.
high traps: trapezes high in the air or the people who work them.
high wire: a tightwire act high in the air, or the performer on it.
hoople: ring; the circle in which circus acts are presented. The center ring is about forty-two feet in diameter. It is heavily made, as it is where most of the animal acts perform, and it has to be strong enough for the horses to walk on.
horse piano: calliope; a musical instrument consisting of a series of steam whistles played like an organ. Mounted on a horse-drawn wagon, it is part of the circus parade. It is typically very loud and produces sound that can travel for miles.
howdy: howdah; a seat on the back of an elephant or camel.
John Law: an officer of the law.
Juggernaut car: a large forty-five-foot-tall, multi-ton chariot used in India during annual Hindu processions in honor of Krishna, also called Jagannatha (meaning “Lord of the Universe”). Devotees have sometimes been crushed accidentally as the massive car slipped out of control. Many have also been killed in the resulting stampedes. The sight has led to the use of the word juggernaut to refer to other instances of unstoppable, crushing forces.
juice joint: a midway concession stand; refreshment stand.
kick ’em: kickoff parade; the making of a street parade to bring people in to see the circus. Developed in the mid-nineteenth century, the circus paraded through the streets to announce its arrival and to drum up business in the community. Such parades featured marching elephants, caged lions and tigers in circus wagons, clowns, etc.
kife: the act of bilking the locals of their money; swindle.
kinker: acrobat or contortionist.
lot lice: local townspeople who arrive early to watch the unloading of the circus and stay late.
mestiza: a woman of mixed native and foreign ancestry.
mite: a very small creature.
mitt reader: palmist; palm reader.
pad room: room near the animals where pads, harness and tack for the elephants and horses are kept. It is not really a dressing room, though most of the animal people congregate there and might put their wardrobe there for the kickoff parade.
physiognomy: the features of somebody’s face, especially when they are used as indicators of that person’s character or temperament.
pony: a unit of measure for liquor; a glass or the amount of liquor it will hold, usually one ounce (29.6 ml).
proboscis: the elongated, protruding mouth parts of certain insects, adapted for sucking or piercing.
Prussian drill sergeant: a drill sergeant from Prussia. Prussia, a former northern European nation, based much of its rule on armed might, stressing rigid military discipline and maintaining one of the most strictly drilled armies in the world.
Punchinello: a comic character; Italian puppet character and probably the source of Punch, the chief male character of the Punch and Judy puppet show, dating back to the seventeenth century. He is the cruel and boastful husband of nagging wife Judy and the language is often coarse and satirical.
razorback: circus day laborer; man who loads and unloads railroad cars in a circus.
red light: a car; in the circus, this term is used when circus workers go to collect their pay and all they see are the red taillights of the employer’s car receding in the distance as he drives away with all the payroll.
ringmaster: the circus Master of Ceremonies and main announcer. Originally, he stood in the center of the ring and paced the horses for the riding acts, keeping the horses running smoothly while performers did their tricks on the horses’ backs.
rosinbacks: circus horses used for bareback riding, or the performers who ride them; the performing horses became known as “rosinbacks” by the circus personnel, after rosin, the non-slip foot powder that was placed on the horses’ backs and used by the performers.
rubbering: rubbernecking; gawking or gaping; twisting or craning one’s neck as if it were made of rubber in eager curiosity to see something.
rubber mules: work elephants.
sanctum sanctorum: an inviolably private place.
Scheherazade: the female narrator of The Arabian Nights, who during one thousand and one adventurous nights saved her life by entertaining her husband, the king, with stories.
shill: t
he cohort of a dishonest gambler; a circus employee who poses as a customer, plays a game (and is secretly allowed to win), or stands in line to make the box office look busy and motivate other customers to buy a ticket for the show.
slip artist: escape artist; a performer who entertains by escaping from confinement. Some of the performer’s tricks are accomplished by illusionists’ techniques.
spec: spectacle; the opening procession of a circus; a colorful pageant within the tent of all performers and animals in costume, usually at the beginning of the show. Used figuratively.
spots: circus music.
square-cube law: the way to calculate how much the surface area of an object changes as you scale its size up or down. This mathematical law states that the volume of an object (the size of the three-dimensional space occupied by the object) will change by the cube of the scale, while the surface area will change by the square of the scale; i.e., if a 2" square block is made twice as big (2 x 2), the surface area of the block will be four times as big, but the volume, and therefore the weight, will be eight times as much (2 x 2 x 2). If one kept increasing the block in this way, it would eventually collapse under its own weight. Conversely, if an object’s size is halved, its structural strength (surface area) will be one-fourth of what it was, while its volume, and therefore its weight, will be only one-eighth of what it was. So, proportionally, it would be stronger.
SS: steamship.
stateroom: a private room or compartment on a train, ship, etc.
stern: the rear end of a ship or boat.
stint: a pause; halt.
stock: a kind of stiff, wide band or scarf for the neck.
strawberry shortcake: dishonest money.
swallow-tailed coat: a man’s fitted coat, cut away over the hips and descending in a pair of tapering skirts behind. It is usually black and worn as part of full evening dress.
thistle chins: local residents.
van: vanguard; the forefront.
white wagon: the circus main office on the lot.
L. Ron Hubbard in the
Golden Age of
Pulp Fiction
In writing an adventure story
a writer has to know that he is adventuring
for a lot of people who cannot.
The writer has to take them here and there
about the globe and show them
excitement and love and realism.
As long as that writer is living the part of an
adventurer when he is hammering
the keys, he is succeeding with his story.
Adventuring is a state of mind.
If you adventure through life, you have a
good chance to be a success on paper.
Adventure doesn’t mean globe-trotting,
exactly, and it doesn’t mean great deeds.
Adventuring is like art.
You have to live it to make it real.
— L. Ron Hubbard
L. Ron Hubbard
and American
Pulp Fiction
BORN March 13, 1911, L. Ron Hubbard lived a life at least as expansive as the stories with which he enthralled a hundred million readers through a fifty-year career.
Originally hailing from Tilden, Nebraska, he spent his formative years in a classically rugged Montana, replete with the cowpunchers, lawmen and desperadoes who would later people his Wild West adventures. And lest anyone imagine those adventures were drawn from vicarious experience, he was not only breaking broncs at a tender age, he was also among the few whites ever admitted into Blackfoot society as a bona fide blood brother. While if only to round out an otherwise rough and tumble youth, his mother was that rarity of her time—a thoroughly educated woman—who introduced her son to the classics of Occidental literature even before his seventh birthday.
But as any dedicated L. Ron Hubbard reader will attest, his world extended far beyond Montana. In point of fact, and as the son of a United States naval officer, by the age of eighteen he had traveled over a quarter of a million miles. Included therein were three Pacific crossings to a then still mysterious Asia, where he ran with the likes of Her British Majesty’s agent-in-place for North China, and the last in the line of Royal Magicians from the court of Kublai Khan. For the record, L. Ron Hubbard was also among the first Westerners to gain admittance to forbidden Tibetan monasteries below Manchuria, and his photographs of China’s Great Wall long graced American geography texts.
Upon his return to the United States and a hasty completion of his interrupted high school education, the young Ron Hubbard entered George Washington University. There, as fans of his aerial adventures may have heard, he earned his wings as a pioneering barnstormer at the dawn of American aviation. He also earned a place in free-flight record books for the longest sustained flight above Chicago. Moreover, as a roving reporter for Sportsman Pilot (featuring his first professionally penned articles), he further helped inspire a generation of pilots who would take America to world airpower.
L. Ron Hubbard, left, at Congressional Airport, Washington, DC, 1931, with members of George Washington University flying club.
Immediately beyond his sophomore year, Ron embarked on the first of his famed ethnological expeditions, initially to then untrammeled Caribbean shores (descriptions of which would later fill a whole series of West Indies mystery-thrillers). That the Puerto Rican interior would also figure into the future of Ron Hubbard stories was likewise no accident. For in addition to cultural studies of the island, a 1932–33 LRH expedition is rightly remembered as conducting the first complete mineralogical survey of a Puerto Rico under United States jurisdiction.
There was many another adventure along this vein: As a lifetime member of the famed Explorers Club, L. Ron Hubbard charted North Pacific waters with the first shipboard radio direction finder, and so pioneered a long-range navigation system universally employed until the late twentieth century. While not to put too fine an edge on it, he also held a rare Master Mariner’s license to pilot any vessel, of any tonnage in any ocean.
Capt. L. Ron Hubbard in Ketchikan, Alaska, 1940, on his Alaskan Radio Experimental Expedition, the first of three voyages conducted under the Explorers Club Flag.
Yet lest we stray too far afield, there is an LRH note at this juncture in his saga, and it reads in part:
“I started out writing for the pulps, writing the best I knew, writing for every mag on the stands, slanting as well as I could.”
To which one might add: His earliest submissions date from the summer of 1934, and included tales drawn from true-to-life Asian adventures, with characters roughly modeled on British/American intelligence operatives he had known in Shanghai. His early Westerns were similarly peppered with details drawn from personal experience. Although therein lay a first hard lesson from the often cruel world of the pulps. His first Westerns were soundly rejected as lacking the authenticity of a Max Brand yarn (a particularly frustrating comment given L. Ron Hubbard’s Westerns came straight from his Montana homeland, while Max Brand was a mediocre New York poet named Frederick Schiller Faust, who turned out implausible six-shooter tales from the terrace of an Italian villa).
Nevertheless, and needless to say, L. Ron Hubbard persevered and soon earned a reputation as among the most publishable names in pulp fiction, with a ninety percent placement rate of first-draft manuscripts. He was also among the most prolific, averaging between seventy and a hundred thousand words a month. Hence the rumors that L. Ron Hubbard had redesigned a typewriter for faster keyboard action and pounded out manuscripts on a continuous roll of butcher paper to save the precious seconds it took to insert a single sheet of paper into manual typewriters of the day.
L. Ron Hubbard, circa 1930, at the outset of a literary career that would finally span half a century.
That all L. Ron Hubbard stories did not run beneath said byline is yet another aspect of pulp fiction lore. That is, as publishers periodically rejected manuscripts from top-drawer authors if only to avoid paying t
op dollar, L. Ron Hubbard and company just as frequently replied with submissions under various pseudonyms. In Ron’s case, the list included: Rene Lafayette, Captain Charles Gordon, Lt. Scott Morgan and the notorious Kurt von Rachen—supposedly on the lam for a murder rap, while hammering out two-fisted prose in Argentina. The point: While L. Ron Hubbard as Ken Martin spun stories of Southeast Asian intrigue, LRH as Barry Randolph authored tales of romance on the Western range—which, stretching between a dozen genres is how he came to stand among the two hundred elite authors providing close to a million tales through the glory days of American Pulp Fiction.
A Man of Many Names
Between 1934 and 1950, L. Ron Hubbard authored more than fifteen million words of fiction in more than two hundred classic publications.
To supply his fans and editors with stories across an array of genres and pulp titles, he adopted fifteen pseudonyms in addition to his already renowned L. Ron Hubbard byline.