Book Review Mounties…
TALES OF THE MOUNTED by William Brockie. Book Review Mounties RCMP
“I felt the bullet smash its way into the body of my horse a split second before the vicious, whip-like snap of a shot stung my ears…” from the short story “Trailing Killer Sleeman,” collected in:
TALES OF THE MOUNTED by William Brockie, Ex-Constable RCMP.
On the front flyleaf of TALES OF THE MOUNTED we read: “The author relates in simple, straightforward style the most outstanding experiences of the years he served with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He recalls these with particular vividness because they added grey to his hair and toughness to his soul.”
TALES OF THE MOUNTED, from Ryerson, collects 18 stories published over a ten year stretch. All narrated by Constable William Brockie of the RCMP.
Constable Brockie served both in uniform and undercover with success. In the wilderness areas of the Dominion, from the mountains of British Columbia to “the Far North’s vast white spaces, awesome in their unbroken silence.”
There are some good yarns here:
With nerve-shattering suddenness I found myself wide awake. The sounds that had aroused me came again. Snuffling, growling, animal-like sounds. Something was trying to get into the cabin.
Softly I sat up and slowly lowered my feet to the floor. My right hand groping beneath the pillow found my heavy service revolver. The heft of the weapon and feel of the cool metal was comforting. Gun in hand, I tiptoed over to the door and bent down.
The stench of a strong breath breath assailed my nostrils. It was an animal or animals.
Straightening up, I gripped my revolver tighter and placed my hand on the door knob. And at once jerked it away as if the handle had been white-hot. For someone or something was cautiously twisting the knob from the outside!
And so the first tale in the collection, “The Terror of Skeleton Valley,” heats up. Or chills down.
There are murders in these stories.
Shooting, stabbing and tricked into falling through thin river ice.
Madness from the silence. And the Voices of the North: “the wolves, the dogs, the wind, the sifting of the snow.”
— “You must go! You are heading for Ghost Lake. Go no farther,” said the very pretty Mietta Bowen, pointing her revolver at me. (from “Terror at Ghost Lake”)
— “What are wolves but wild huskies? What are huskies but half-tamed wolves? Alive you could easily tell the difference between a sled dog and a timber wolf. But, as both run all shades of colours, I defy anyone to tell the difference between a wolf or husky pelt. That’s why a crooked wolf hunter can get away with it. Providing he’s not caught in the actual act of skinning a dog.” (from “A Northern Skin Game”)
— Instead of grinning and making a jocular reply, to my surprise Robertson replied shakily: “They tell me they’ve found a murdered man near my farm and the cops are trying to fasten it on me.” (from “Case of the Unweighted Corpse”)
— “What’s that?” Hirst craned forward incredulously. “D’you think that single-handed you can do what scores of cops failed to do? Look!” His right hand flashed inside his coat and re-appeared holding a heavy revolver. “I could blast you full of holes before you could unbutton your gun case.”
“Obviously,” I admitted coldly. “Just the same, you’ll be coming with me.” (from “Trouble at Camp Six)
Although giving us plenty of action, these are more mystery magazine adventures than Northwesterns. Brockie tells us these tales with the dry just-the-facts-ma’am voice of a police report. They have their own lean masculine temperament. Memorable stories of hard men and determined women in a treacherous, sometimes haunted land.
“William Brockie” was the narrator’s name.
Which, in the real world, was a pseudonym of prolific pulp writer C V Tench.
Charles Victor Tench was born in the village of Hampton, on the River Thames, England, on July 20, 1892.
Tench first came to Canada in mid-1920’s. While settled in the Vancouver area, he travelled widely through the Canadian Northcountry. He wrote short stories and creative articles about the people and landscape there. He married Edith Maud Petersen, who became his life’s companion. In 1941, he served for a while as a Special Constable in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
He wrote many Northwestern stories. He also wrote many pieces for Western, Mystery and even some Science Fiction magazines. As well as for newspapers and popular true-life adventure magazines such as The Wide World.
A companion to The Strand, The Wide World was a British illustrated true-adventure magazine released between 1898 and 1965. Charles Tench was a prominent contributor. He featured in issues from 1927 till 1959. He built his own faithful following.
The March 1944 issue of The Wide World published two of his stories. “Humpie,” under his own name was about “the unfortunate choice of a gold-seeking partner.” And “Trailing Killer Sleeman,” as by William Brockie, told of “a Mountie’s challenge handling a cop-killer.”
A Man of Many Names.
He published most of his work as C V Tench or William Brockie. But he also wrote as Ned Ward and the prolific author is reported to have used a number of other pseudonyms. His works appeared from the mid-Twenties till the early Sixties.[1]
Under his own name, Tench contributed action-packed Northwestern fiction to the magazines All Star Western & Frontier Magazine, 20-Story Magazine, The Story-teller. As well as The Danger Trail, Adventure Trails, Hutchinson’s Adventure & Mystery Story Magazine and The British “Master Thriller Magazine Series.”
Tench would later publish in the hardboiled detective magazines The Saint Detective Magazine and Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine.
As William Brockie, he published in Complete Northwest Magazine and in one of the most beloved and long-lasting pulps of them all, North-West Romances.
Book Review Mounties – He published two collections of his best Mountie writing.
The first was in a magazine format: TALES OF THE NORTH-WEST MOUNTED POLICE: Thrilling Stories of Canada’s Famous Frontier Force, by C V Tench, #23 in “The Master Thriller Series.” It was released by The World’s Work (1913) Ltd, Surrey, England in January, 1939, just before the outbreak of World War Two.
This edition collected 16 of his Mountie yarns…
From early works like “Swinton’s Folly” which had appeared in the April, 1927 issue of The Danger Trail — to later works like “Lame Evidence” (as by William Brockie) from the May, 1938 Complete Northwest Magazine. [2]
Book Review Mounties – Then came his only hardcover book release (the William Brockie collection I’ve reviewed here): TALES OF THE MOUNTED, Ryerson Press, Toronto, 1949…
Charles Victor Tench suffered from arteriosclerosis in his later years. He passed away in Vancouver General Hospital on December 17, 1963. He was 71. His wife Edith left British Columbia and was never heard from again.
In concluding one of his last written stories (appearing in FATE Magazine in October of 1963), Tench wrote: “I am now retired, living in modest comfort at Hampton-on-Thames, Middlesex, England…” Perhaps Edith had returned to their English country home.
“Live Free, Mon Ami!” – Brian Alan Burhoe
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[1] C V Tench’s later short writings explored his own experiences with paranormal and supernatural phenomena in magazine articles. Examples are “The Severed Head Spoke” in FATE, August ’60. “Can We Walk Out Of Our Bodies?” in Exploring The Unknown, June, ’61. “Ships That Pass Out In The Night” in Tomorrow Magazine, Winter,’63. And “Attacked By A Bodiless Hand” appearing in FATE, October,’63, in which he wrote that he was retired and living “in modest comfort at Hampton-on-Thames, Middlesex, England.”
The final article was reprinted in the 1965 Paperback Library edition of THE STRANGE AND THE UNKNOWN, Compiled and Edited by the editors of FATE Magazine. This paperback sits on my Strange Experiences shelves.
[2] The Master Thriller Series had previously published an edition (#2) with the exact same cover art and title — TALES OF THE NORTH-WEST MOUNTED POLICE — as the later #23. This #2 contained eight short stories by top Mountie Fiction writers Harwood Steele, James B Hendryx and two by William Byron Mowery. Other writers included Walter W Liggett, J Allan Dunn and T Von Ziekursch. Not one story was by Tench.
TALES OF THE MOUNTED by William Brockie – Book Review Mounties RCMP.
Posted Canada Day, July 1, 2023. Celebrating the RCMP 150th Anniversary.
Book review, C V Tench, FATE Magazine, Master Thriller Series, Mountie fiction, North-West Mounted Police, North-West Romances, pulp fiction writer, pulp fiction magazines, RCMP, Tales of the Mounted, Tales of the North-West Mounted Police, Wide World Magazine, William Brockie, Western writer.
