Review: Up the China Sea - H. Bedford-Jones

When I reviewed Edmond Hamilton’s “The World With a Thousand Moons”, I mentioned that it reminded me of some of the nautical adventure yarns written by H. Bedford-Jones. That put me in the mood to actually read one of those stories by HB-J, and the one I picked was “Up the China Sea”, a novella originally published in the July 10, 1923 issue of the iconic pulp ADVENTURE and available as a stand-alone e-book on Amazon, the edition I read. (Ignore the old-fashioned pirate on the e-book cover; this is a modern-day yarn.)

The protagonist of this story is a stalwart sailor named Bracken, who’s the first officer of a steamer called the Fengshui. (I have to admit, the ship’s name is a bit of a distraction at first, but I soon forgot about it.) The steamer leaves Singapore and heads up the coast to salvage the cargo off a ship that wrecked. Bracken doesn’t fully trust the captain and suspects there’s more going on than he knows about, and of course, he’s right. The wreck holds secrets that involve the attractive widow of its late captain, and Bracken and his crewmates aren’t the only ones after them.

Bedford-Jones doesn’t keep the plot twists secret for very long since the bulk of the story is devoted to scenes of chasing and fighting and cold-blooded murder, of capture and escape and daring rescues. All the stuff of classic pulp adventure yarns, in other words. Bedford-Jones keeps things racing along to an exciting, bullet-flying climax.

I always enjoy stories like this, and “Up the China Sea” is no exception. I really like the way Bedford-Jones writes, and that clean, propulsive style makes a story like this—which is just a tad bit by the numbers, to be honest—very entertaining to read. If you’re a fan of his work, it’s very much worth reading. If you’ve never sampled one of his yarns before, it wouldn’t be a bad place to start since it’s an example of the type of story that Bedford-Jones did better than just about anybody else.