Originally published in the November, 1938 issue of Golden Fleece, reading from Black Vulmea’s Vengeance, Berkley, NY, 1979, pages 87-142
This four-chapter novelette is Robert E. Howard’s interpretation of the 17th Century Irish pirate he characterized to fill in for Conan in a non-fantasy setting. This is obviously the second in a hopeful series of pirate yarns, with the recent back story of Black Vulmea drawn directly from Swords of the Red Brotherhood, which was a re-write of the Conan tale The Black Stranger. Before continuing with the review of Swords of the Red Brotherhood, it should be more entertaining to see the infamous Irish pirate of Howard’s imagination in all of his piratical glory. In many ways, Black Vulmea is Howard’s most realistic hero.
It is prudent to recognize that Howard was obviously well read enough in early modern English history to know of the Irish extermination and deportation measures taken by the British Crown in the 1600s. He was certainly well read in terms of piracy, with the chief leadership characteristic of both Conan and Vulmea being the same as the infamous pirate Blackbeard, that their crews suffered terribly against the enemy and these captains somehow emerged alive from the disasters they themselves led their men into! Also, there is the fact that Irish merchant captains were far more likely to resist Barbary pirates than English merchant captains and also more inclined to lend a castaway or renegade beset by colored savages a hand. I do not know, and doubt, if Howard was apprised of these facts through his own reading. If not, he intuited the hard-headed and generous Irishman on the seas in the form of Black Terrence [1] Vulmea.
Portrait of an Unrepentant Hero
Unless you can get a hold of the long out of print Black Vulmea’s Vengeance or the complete works of Robert E. Howard in e-book, this is not an easy story to find. What follows is the first scene and an excerpt from the second scene, which, together, paint the picture of the ultimate ethnic hero. Where Conan’s hate is generalized and principled—expressing a universal disdain for fate-appointed tribal enemies and civilized sots—Vulmea’s hatred is palpable; his rage against Englishmen for the slaughter and enslavement of his people and against the man that hung him up to die when he was a little boy, is so hot the reader expects the page to peel back. Additionally, Vulmea has the crucial aspect of the Conan character that makes him so appealing to men and so revolting to emasculated males and women—he’s an asshole!
Out of the Cockatoo’s cabin staggered Black Terrence Vulmea, pipe in one hand and flagon in the other. He stood with booted legs wide, teetering slightly to the gentle lift of the lofty poop. [2] He was bareheaded and his shirt was opened, revealing his broad hairy chest. He emptied the flagon and tossed it over the side with a gusty sigh of satisfaction, then directed his somewhat blurred gaze on the deck below. From poop ladder to forecastle it was littered by sprawling figures. The ship smelt like a brewery. Empty barrels, with their heads stove in, stood or rolled between the prostrate forms. Vulmea was the only man on his feet. From galley-boy to first mate the rest of the ship’s company lay senseless after a debauch that had lasted a whole night long. There was not even a man at the helm. [3]
But it was lashed securely and in that placid sea [4] no hand was needed on the wheel. The breeze was light but steady. Land was a thin blue line to the east. A stainless sky held a sun whose heat had not yet become fierce. Vulmea blinked indulgently down upon the sprawled figures of the crew and glanced idly over the larboard side. He grunted [6] incredulously and batted his eyes. A ship loomed where he expected to see only naked ocean stretching to the skyline. She was little more than a hundred yards away and was bearing down swiftly on the Cockatoo, obviously with the intent of laying her alongside. She was tall and square-rigged, her white canvas flashing dazzlingly in the sun. From the maintruck [7] the flag of England whipped red against the blue. Her bulwarks were lined with tense figures, bristling with boarding pikes and grappling irons, and through her open ports the astounded pirate glimpsed the glow of the burning matches the gunners held ready.
”All hands to battle-quarters!” yelled Vulmea confusedly. Reverberant snores answered the summons. All hands remained as they were.
Wake up you lousy dogs!” yelled the captain. “Up, curse you! A king’s ship is at our throats!”
His only response came in the form of staccato commands from the frigate’s deck, barking across the narrow strip of blue water.
”Damnation!”
Cursing luridly, he lurched in a reeling run across the poop to the swivel gun which stood at the head of the larboard ladder. Seizing this he swung it about until its muzzle bore full on the bulwark of the approaching frigate. Objects waved dizzily before his bloodshot eyes, but he squinted along its barrel as if he were aiming a musket.
“Strike your colors, you damned pirate!” came a hail from the trim figure that stood the warship’s poop, sword in hand.
”Go to hell!” roared Vulmea, and knocked the glowing coals of his pipe into the vent of the gun-breech. The falcon crashed, smoke puffed out in a white cloud, and the double handful of musket balls with which the gun had been charged mowed a ghastly lane through the boarding party clustered along the frigate’s bulwark. Like a clap of thunder, came the answering broadside and a storm of metal raked the Cockatoo’s decks. A round shot as big as a man’s head smashed into the falcon, ripping it loose from the swivel and dashing it against the man who had fired it. The impact knocked him backward headlong across the poop where his head hit the rail with a crack that was too much even for an Irish skull.
In the next scene, Vulmea, in irons, the only survivor of his crew, is hauled before the British Captain John Wentyard. A long, heated conversation follows, during which Vulmea does not attempt to hide behind a royal letter of marquee, but declares himself a pirate, cursing the captain roundly. The discussion between enemies, spiced with ethnic hatred, is punctuated with this great exchange:
“You killed seven of my men,” harshly accused Wentyard
“And you killed all of mine,” retorted Vulmea. “Poor devils, they’ll wake up in Hell without knowing how they got there.”
The story line that follows is not complex, with only a few turns—which is quite realistic—and is combined with palpable ethnic, racial and personal hatred, honor, sentimentality and Vulmea’s ultimate decision to help his white enemy against a horde of Cimarroons [8] who have allied themselves with the Indian tribes of the jungle coast of what must have been Columbia or Equador. Their story is a savage quest for redemption and revenge. There are some points in the story where the characters explain their actions in unreasonable detail, which I understand is a common literary convention that Howard might have felt obliged to use in an attempt to break into a straight adventure sub genre.
Black Terrence Vulmea is, next to Bran Mak Morn, Howard’s most realistic hero, and is only rivaled in terms of passion by the obsessively driven Solomon Kane. I am convinced that the actual pirate, Blackbeard, was the historical hero that inspired Howard in his presentation of Conan in The Black Stranger, and whose raging, duplicitous spirit carried over to the creation of Black Vulmea for the rendering of The Black Stranger into a straight adventure yarn in the pirate sub genre. There are some clues to this in The Black Stranger, Swords of the Ted Brotherhood, and in Black Vulmea’s Vengeance:
1. The willingness of the hero to abandon his crewmen to their fate
2. The henchman with the large sword in TBS and SotRB, based on the Scottish highlander who cleaved Blackbeard in his final battle
3. The rivalry with an English Captain in BVV
4. The deep fear expressed by the other captains for Conan/Vulmea in TBS and SotRB as well as these two Gaelic, barbarian, heroes having an ability to charm civilized women.
If you can find a copy of Black Vulmea’s Vengeance, do yourself a favor and read it.
Notes
1. I find it adorable that Howard gave Terrence as Vulmea’s middle name, as Terrence has been a favorite name for African Americans since emancipation.
2. The high rear deck usually reserved for commanders and helmsmen
3. You could not even trust this guy to manage a college football team!
4. The Pacific. There was a British man of war that went on a two year cruise around the world hunting for Spanish prizes, and when they finally hit the jackpot had been at sea for so long that their clothes were mere rags. I cannot recall the year or the ship, but this early English Pacific adventure, raiding Spanish galleons shipping from Manila to Acapulco, fits well with Howard’s two Vulmea stories, both based in the Pacific, when it was still regarded as a safe place for Spanish shipping out of convoy, but not a traditional venue for pirate yarns.
5. Archaic term for port, or left, with starboard meaning right side.
6. Modern Hollywood heroes do not grunt
7. Wooden ball, disc or cap at the top of a mast, as on a flagpole
8. Escaped black slaves—generally those who escape right off the slave ship via wreck or upon release from chains to work in the fields, also known as Maroons, who formed African tribal entities and were largely made up of prisoners of war who had been sold into slavery by African kings. Giving a former African general a sugar cane machete and directing him to get to work was, on some occasions, the last act of a Spanish or French plantation overseer.
America in Chains
