Legion Pulp: Forgotten of God by Houston Day

It’s the 15th of the month and time for a pulp fiction story about the Foreign Legion.  This one was written by Houston Day and appeared in a “Short Stories” issue dated March 10, 1933 (see the cover below).  I’ve never heard of this author before and it appears he/she has only written about 22 or so pulp stories from about 1929-1936 (according to FictionMags Index).  Maybe Houston Day is a pseudonym or one of the magazine’s alternate identities used by it’s regular writers.  In any case there are several other interesting titles under this authors name that I’ll be looking for at the next Pulp Convention (The Arab’s Beard, The Caid’s Rifle, Murder in the Rif, and Mutiny in the Desert seem to be Legion stories).  Forgotten of God is a pretty short story at only eight pages but is uniquely written in the first person perspective–something I haven’t seen much of in the pulps.  I originally found this story floating around on the usenet groups but it seems to have originated from Pulpgen.  I was initially not quite sure about the method depicted in the story that involves a unique use for an artillery percussion fuse but I suspended my disbelief and enjoyed it anyways.  BTW, take a look at Pulpgen.com.  There are lots of short pulp stories available for download at this site.

Forgotten of God