“The Red Swimmer” (Weird Tales, April 1939)

Bloch, Robert. “The Red Swimmer.” Weird Tales, April 1939, pp. 83-97.
archive.org/details/wt_1939_04/page/n83/mode/2up

Luke Treach is an English pirate who has found some good luck. He has taken a Spanish galleon—a fine ship—and replaced its crew with his own. Instead of running off with the stolen goods, he decides to impersonate the Spanish captain and deliver the goods at the intended port so as not to raise suspicion in any way. All goes as planned until the Comandante requests that “Captain Obispo” take on two passengers: a father and his adult daughter. Treach reluctantly agrees until he sees the vast wealth his passengers bring on board. Then he decides to get out of port for a few days, toss them overboard, and keep the loot. The daughter is especially beautiful, however, and so he modifies his plan to spend time with her. The father tells of his research into occult magic (including weather control) and about having discovered the secret elixir of immortality.

Treach laughs at this, kills the father, and assaults the daughter. Both vow revenge. Days later, the ship is wracked by a sudden and intense storm. Treach and three men escape into a lifeboat. They are pursued by a red terror that plucks the one by one into the water. Treach is in sight of Dominica when the thing finally comes for him. It is the flayed corpse of the daughter who exacts her promised revenge.

I am looking forward to “Terror in Cut-Throat Cove” for a great Bloch pirate story, but this one is not quite it. It seems on a rail. The bad guy ignores every warning, and his comeuppance is exactly as promised. I don’t like the potential of this imposter crew sailing, perhaps, eventually to legitimacy as they weigh the costs and benefits of the pirate life. Given the sudden chance to live life legally on the open sea, I wonder if any—or even Treach himself—were tempted toward the straight and narrow. It might have made for an interesting character study, a meditation on lives of hard work and low wages. Alas, this is less interesting than that. It’s not Bloch at his best, that’s for sure. One interesting note. This story was reprinted in the UK 1945 as part of the same American fiction series that published Sea Kissed by Bloch and Benson Herbert in. This series featured naked women on the book covers and included works by Jack Williamson, Edmond Hamilton, E. Hofmann Price, John Wyndham (he of The Day of the Triffids!), Ray Palmer, Otis Adelbert Kline, and others. I wonder if anyone owns the full run of all eleven volumes. That would be a treasure worth Luke Treach’s time!!