“Trophy”
Henry Kuttner writing as Scott Morgan
Thrilling Wonder Stories, Winter 1944

As I mentioned in my post on “A God Named Kroo”, this is the second of three stories Kuttner had in this issue of Thrilling Wonder. Unlike “Kroo”, “Trophy” isn’t a humorous yarn. It’s a science fiction story with a nice little horror ending.

Like “A God Named Kroo”, this story concerns the Japanese theatre of operations during WWII. This time the viewpoint character is a Japanese officer who is also a Western trained surgeon. In fact he’s one of the best surgeons in the world.

The backstory is that he and his men are marooned on a remote island in the Pacific when they see a US plane. They attempt to lure the plane to the island one evening and are almost successful when a flying torpedo shaped object zoomed by, causing the plane to crash. The airmen aren’t the pushovers the Japanese soldiers are expecting. A gun battle ensues, and the surgeon and a single airman are the only survivors.

The next morning the surgeon is hunting the airman when he discovers a pile of gold coins on the path. He suspects a trap, and he’s right. Only it’s not the airman who has set the trap.

I’ll not say anymore about this one. If you’re alert, you’ll figure out what the twist is. I don’t want to give it away. I’ll just say that “Trophy” is Kuttner in his dark mood. It was a solid tale, perhaps not to the level of some of his better known work, but a good story nonetheless.

“Trophy” was reprinted in 1945 in THE SAINT’S CHOICE OF IMPOSSIBLE CRIME (Leslie Charteris, ed.) of all places. I have no idea if it was published under the Morgan pseudonym or Kuttner’s real name. It hasn’t seen print in 70 years.