My Adventures Between the Covers
I’ve been reading stories written by Louis L’Amour. I’ve always enjoyed his tales of daring-do. I started by reading his Western cowboy tales. I thought I’d collected and read them all until I found a collection of stories that I hadn’t read. Most of them seem to be written about seafaring tales during the era of II World War. These adventures deal with espionage and the hero Jim Ponga sailing on a tramp steamer named Semaramis. His travels take him through the Indian Ocean, Borneo, Australia, and the Philippines. These enemies were greedy men, German spies, and Japanese military. His friends and crew members were from all nationalities: Russian, Chinese, and natives from the South Seas. Each crew member had a special quality. One member was a powerful burly man and several were good on the anti-aircraft guns aboard the ship or great seafaring men. One younger guy was great in the jungle, good at tracking etc. Somehow Jim was able to also defuse the German plots in South America. The Nazis had designed problems to divide the United States military so they couldn’t concentrate on the war efforts in Europe and Japan.
In each story Jim was always in a fist-to-cuff brawl where he was hit on the head, knocked unconscious, and tied up. Each time he managed to free himself and escape while killing a multitude of his enemies. Returning to his ship, he was able to destroy many of the enemies, their planes, their ships, fuel depots, and even a submarine or two.
About halfway through this book Lois L’Amour switches to another hero. The new hero emerges as Turk Madden. Turk’s magic carpet ride is an experimental amphibian Grumman plane that had been designed for war. But because it was only an experimental model, it was never put into production. The settings for this character and his airplane were again in the Far East and sometimes his flights took him along the coastline of Russia in an attempt to thwart the Japanese aggression. His companions varied more. Different names of men that change from story to story.
One thing that doesn’t vary is the introduction of a slim heroine. Sometimes the woman is a damsel in distress. At other times she becomes an integral member of the adventure team. She might be helpless or she may offer intelligent information of the local topography or customs. One other thing that remains constant is the woman has often been duped by one of the villains and becomes a hostage to be rescued by Turk. At the end of each tale, the woman is left alone with the hero.