Speaker 1: You are trapped in a native quarter of Mozambique, with
Speaker 1: the police closing in on you while at your feet
Speaker 1: like two dead men, and standing beside you is a
Speaker 1: sultry girl who offers you escape.
Speaker 2: We offer you escape, designed to free you from the
Speaker 2: four walls of today for a half hour of high adventure.
Speaker 2: Tonight we escape to Mozambique in Southeast Africa and a
Speaker 2: fantastic series of adventures. As Percival Gibbon tells it in
Speaker 2: his story of the Second Class Passenger.
Speaker 3: That's me, Ronald A. Dawson, second class passenger. Oh, I
Speaker 3: could have afforded first class by pinching a little.
Speaker 4: Here and there. But nobody back.
Speaker 3: At Ralston's Department store and Cedar Rapids will ever know.
Speaker 3: The important thing is, They'll say, Ronald Dawson in drapery
Speaker 3: is taking a cruise around the world.
Speaker 4: And then there's really very.
Speaker 3: Little difference in the accommodations, and the second class passengers
Speaker 3: are every bit as interesting as the first class crowd. Hey,
Speaker 3: miss Patterson, for instance, you'd look far to find a
Speaker 3: more charming, likable and all together desirable young lady.
Speaker 4: Just the life of the party.
Speaker 3: We'd gotten to be quite good friends by the time
Speaker 3: our crews put in at Mozambique. Although the competition was
Speaker 3: always stiff, I can tell you there were times when
Speaker 3: I wish those other two Jones and Twitchell had missed
Speaker 3: the boat somewhere along the line.
Speaker 5: Well, we're still a good couple of hours before we sail.
Speaker 4: I'd say, how about a ride in one of those
Speaker 4: native carriages? Is bad as.
Speaker 6: They'd be clean?
Speaker 3: Well, personally I doubt it, really, mister daw But I
Speaker 3: don't know is I'd care too much now that Wozo
Speaker 3: made me woozy.
Speaker 5: Stuff woto it would take a Greek to think up
Speaker 5: a drink like that.
Speaker 4: I take it you kill me.
Speaker 5: We might do the fortune. Know the guide book says
Speaker 5: it's the main point of interest. Let's see, built by
Speaker 5: the Portuguese of sixteen.
Speaker 4: Hundred and forties.
Speaker 3: Never mind the statistics, I dare say the forces as dreary.
Speaker 7: As the rest of this plays, Mozambique is not at
Speaker 7: all like what you would imagine Mozambic to be.
Speaker 3: Like what.
Speaker 5: It's one horse tunnel right main street, a couple of alleys.
Speaker 8: So Turkey. You know, you think they do something about.
Speaker 3: It in this day and eight well, it will be
Speaker 3: a relief to get back on board ship and have
Speaker 3: a nice hot bath.
Speaker 5: And real American food instead of that greasy probably octopus
Speaker 5: we had for luncheon that Greek place.
Speaker 7: Yes, awful part of the broadening experience of travel.
Speaker 1: Like that cute idol, I thought, you know, I just
Speaker 1: can't wait till I mister.
Speaker 8: Dawson, Yes, miss Patterson, where's my idol?
Speaker 4: She knew?
Speaker 3: Why why I thought Jones had it or twitched not me,
Speaker 3: old man?
Speaker 7: Oh no, by you insisted on cannying it for Miss Patterson.
Speaker 3: I don't remember, Oh dear, oh dear, I must have
Speaker 3: left it back at the Greek restaurant.
Speaker 4: I'm so sorry. I did so want that idol.
Speaker 8: Do you think you could go back for it, mister Dawson, Well, yes,
Speaker 8: miss Patterson, of course that is so.
Speaker 4: I wonder if i'll have time before the boat, says.
Speaker 8: Oh, I'm sure you will, if you hear.
Speaker 5: Certainly, old man, you got more than an hour yet, Well,
Speaker 5: I rather thought I terribly nice of you.
Speaker 4: Yes, well, i'll go at once. Oh you are so kind,
Speaker 4: my dear.
Speaker 7: Now mind you don't.
Speaker 4: Miss the boat. Oh goodness, I'll try not to.
Speaker 3: Why chances are I'll catch up with you before you
Speaker 3: reach the landing stage. We'll wait for you.
Speaker 7: Feel the very.
Speaker 3: Last minute, I could have throttled that supercilious Jones, insisting
Speaker 3: I had time.
Speaker 4: I knew there was time, but I had no desire to.
Speaker 3: Run off for a heavy bronze curio and leave Jones
Speaker 3: and Twitchell alone with miss Patterson. She was too nice
Speaker 3: a person, and they were such dreadful boars. Yes, and
Speaker 3: I suspected them of being phonies too, But there was
Speaker 3: no helping it now, so I made my way back
Speaker 3: up the main street toward Lazarus Restaurant, where we'd had
Speaker 3: our indigestible Greek lunch. Somehow, this main street of Mozambique
Speaker 3: looked different now, in the quick African twilight. The little
Speaker 3: saloons and the sidewalks were filling with men of every
Speaker 3: nationality and color, and many of them wore knives thrust
Speaker 3: through the belt of their thin white suits.
Speaker 4: Knives that looked as sharp.
Speaker 3: As the glances they threw at me, and I must
Speaker 3: confess I felt a little.
Speaker 4: Strange and unwanted. And then, lounging toward me.
Speaker 3: In the crowd, I saw a large woman clad in
Speaker 3: a sort of burnouse, but her brown face was unveiled.
Speaker 3: Her lips were painted scarlet, and from the corner of
Speaker 3: her mouth.
Speaker 4: Dangled a cigarette. Her eyes were heavily mascarage.
Speaker 3: And when she looked at me, terror seized me. I
Speaker 3: was afraid she would speak to me, and I didn't
Speaker 3: know what I should do or say. But she didn't instead,
Speaker 3: And the way the laiterers responded, I was convinced that
Speaker 3: they were laughing with her at me. I must say
Speaker 3: I was relieved to reach the entrance of Lazarus Restaurants.
Speaker 9: Anything good evening, said no, no, thank you.
Speaker 4: You see well, as a matter of fact, I just
Speaker 4: lunched here today and very good, excellent.
Speaker 3: Yes, well, I left a curio here, probably under the table.
Speaker 3: Did you find it, eh, a curio, yes, some sort
Speaker 3: of a bronze god it was wrapped in newspapers.
Speaker 4: Yes, we got him right here for you. Oh have you?
Speaker 4: That's good. I'm in a hurry to get back to
Speaker 4: the boat. Yes, you better harry pretty soon. She rain rain.
Speaker 4: Why there's not a cloud in the sky.
Speaker 9: You see every night chirain in Mozambique.
Speaker 4: Yes, well you ought to know.
Speaker 3: But I still dull it if yes, well here by yourself.
Speaker 9: As as Arista. Yeah, you hurry quick before they Oh, don't.
Speaker 4: Worry about me. I'm not made of sugar, you know. Well.
Speaker 3: In just the few moments I had been inside the restaurant,
Speaker 3: night had fallen, that sudden nightfall of the Tropics. I
Speaker 3: looked overhead and clearly saw the stars. Thinking what a
Speaker 3: bad weather forecaster that Greek was, I tucked Miss Patterson's
Speaker 3: silly bronze idol under my arm and started off for
Speaker 3: the waterfront. I hadn't gone two hundred yards when a large,
Speaker 3: warm drop of rain splattered on the back of my neck,
Speaker 3: and then two more on my hat, and before I
Speaker 3: could take cover under an arch it was raining like
Speaker 3: Iowa in April. It didn't look like it would let
Speaker 3: up soon, and I wondered if there might not be
Speaker 3: a shorter way to the waterfront than the long walk
Speaker 3: down the main street and then the long way.
Speaker 4: To the left along the docks.
Speaker 3: Surely one of these alleys that turned off to the
Speaker 3: left would lead me directly to the harbor and the
Speaker 3: landing stage. So I left the protection of the archway
Speaker 3: and turned into the alley at my left. Four steps
Speaker 3: from the main street, and I was engulfed in darkness,
Speaker 3: waiting to filth and mud over my ankles. But I
Speaker 3: was certain that I was on the right track, so
Speaker 3: I walked it straight into a blank wall. I turned
Speaker 3: to retrace my steps, but I could see no lights anywhere.
Speaker 3: I dunned along the wall until it gave into another alley,
Speaker 3: followed it to another blank wall, and then into another one.
Speaker 3: Now it began to rain in earnest I stopped, looked
Speaker 3: about me, not a light, not a sound except the
Speaker 3: rush of rain. And then slowly, a sickening fear flowed
Speaker 3: through me as I realized that I was completely hopelessly lost.
Speaker 2: For want of a nail, the shoe was lost for
Speaker 2: want of an angle, the job may be lost. Every
Speaker 2: Friday Night, raining stars and rising stars of show business
Speaker 2: bring their best acts to CBS and get advice for
Speaker 2: improvement from three top showmen, Clifton Fatiman, Abe Burrows and
Speaker 2: Broadway playwright director George S. Kaufman. It provides an unparalleled
Speaker 2: hour of entertainment plus an unusual look at the inside
Speaker 2: of show business. The program This is Broadway the time
Speaker 2: Friday nights the station. Most of these same CBS network stations.
Speaker 2: Don't miss this is Broadway. And now we returned to
Speaker 2: the second act of Escape and tonight's story. Second Class
Speaker 2: Passenger by Percival Gibbon.
Speaker 3: I stood alone and frightened in the tortuous back alleys
Speaker 3: of Mozambique, alone, frightened and lost. If it was dark before,
Speaker 3: it was now black as a tube. I struggled on
Speaker 3: through the rain. I don't know how far I walked
Speaker 3: through those foul and fetted passageways, nor for how long.
Speaker 4: That at last, feeling.
Speaker 3: My way around the corner, I saw a slit of
Speaker 3: lighte a horizontal flicker beckoning beneath.
Speaker 4: The door, and I heard voices.
Speaker 3: I moved forward, feeling my way, hands outstretched before me.
Speaker 3: I found the door, lifted the bronze idol and wrapped
Speaker 3: it against the wet blackwood.
Speaker 4: The voices stopped. What do you are?
Speaker 3: I've lost my way, I'm wet through and I don't
Speaker 3: know where I am.
Speaker 4: Would you please let me in?
Speaker 10: Yeah, of course you may come in. You aren't exactly
Speaker 10: who we expected.
Speaker 8: But come in, come in. What is that? I beg
Speaker 8: upon that parcel you are carrying?
Speaker 3: Oh oh, this this is a curio on an idol
Speaker 3: of some sort of friend of mine left it at
Speaker 3: a restaurant.
Speaker 4: A tourists from a cruise boat. Yes, that's right. How
Speaker 4: did you know?
Speaker 6: What are you doing here? So late? So wet? The
Speaker 6: boat sail soon?
Speaker 4: Yes, yes I know.
Speaker 3: I was trying to take a shortcut to the landing
Speaker 3: stage and I got lost somehow. You see, I came
Speaker 3: ashore with some friends from the second class.
Speaker 4: I left them to come back and fetch this idol.
Speaker 4: Give the young man a chair. You're going, Oh, thank you,
Speaker 4: but I must go on. If you can just direct me,
Speaker 4: never find your way in this rain.
Speaker 10: We'll not stop for a while.
Speaker 4: Yet, you may as well wait here. Well that's hard.
Speaker 6: We may be able to provide some entertainment for our
Speaker 6: second class tourists as Marrain's friends friends.
Speaker 8: The police are not my friends.
Speaker 4: You led them to ask.
Speaker 8: You are responsible for the police search not please. You
Speaker 8: have been stupid to kill a man for no reason.
Speaker 8: Stupid you day night you get caught, you go to christ.
Speaker 10: Why don't you talk with the Prefect of police again?
Speaker 8: If you could just agn with work sometimes with jail.
Speaker 8: I have paid now it is your three.
Speaker 4: You could help us once more.
Speaker 6: Only once more, we could be out of this store
Speaker 6: and down the coastal Lorenzo Marquis or kept tower.
Speaker 8: Why don't you help us once more?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 8: Why will you say once more? Once more? Now there
Speaker 8: is no more?
Speaker 6: You a sheep pig, defiled and debauched.
Speaker 4: Dot.
Speaker 3: I begged your pardon, sir. What that's no way to
Speaker 3: speak to a lady.
Speaker 1: What yet?
Speaker 3: I'm serious. I don't like to hear such language used
Speaker 3: to a lady. I must ask you to apologize.
Speaker 4: What have you got to do with all this?
Speaker 10: You just came in out of the rain from the
Speaker 10: second class.
Speaker 8: I don't fight with him. The troubling off already?
Speaker 4: What right does he get to come in here?
Speaker 8: Yesterday you stopped the ah what it? Don't stop this one?
Speaker 8: You want the police to find you here with a corpse?
Speaker 4: A corpse?
Speaker 10: What does it matter how the police find us? We
Speaker 10: wait for them because we have no choice. You put
Speaker 10: them on us.
Speaker 4: We should go away with you.
Speaker 8: Why do you lie even to yourself? Why must you
Speaker 8: hide your own blame behind my skirts? You are not
Speaker 8: man nor beast?
Speaker 4: You are talk one. Don't you tear?
Speaker 8: Say you are just that? How short you.
Speaker 9: Know?
Speaker 5: You don't.
Speaker 4: Why you meddling American fool.
Speaker 3: You kills had backs that or I'll brain you with
Speaker 3: this idol with my own hands.
Speaker 8: I'll oh god, I carry your knife.
Speaker 3: I killed a man with this little curio, and you've
Speaker 3: killed another with your knife.
Speaker 4: Two men murdered. I must get back to this year.
Speaker 8: The sheep. We can worry about later. First we must
Speaker 8: get out of here. The police will arrive anymore. Come
Speaker 8: it is not raining so hot? Yes, did the police?
Speaker 8: They have come, police too. They will be on both
Speaker 8: sides of it here and perfectly still. I will tell
Speaker 8: you when it's safe to move. No, they are all around,
Speaker 8: so they won't come.
Speaker 4: Now where are we going?
Speaker 8: We are escaping, But if you'll know from what we
Speaker 8: are escaping, you would not care where. I hurry, hang
Speaker 8: on to my hand and hurry from the body. Now
Speaker 8: they're at the ruffle.
Speaker 4: What will we do?
Speaker 8: There is a door nearby. We must find it along
Speaker 8: the wall here, father heard it must be here, Yes.
Speaker 4: Yes, here it is. It won't budge it's bolted. Must
Speaker 4: push it in.
Speaker 8: It's the only way. It's again once more, good, my
Speaker 8: friend might great strong fring up these stairs?
Speaker 4: No, quickie, where are we going? Now wait the reader stops. Yes,
Speaker 4: the starter coming out.
Speaker 8: Look across the rooftops. There is a sheep out in
Speaker 8: the harbor.
Speaker 4: I must get to it.
Speaker 8: We are not safe yet. Over the wall, to the
Speaker 8: next roof. Hurry, you know, over the next pep.
Speaker 4: Are you all right?
Speaker 8: Yes?
Speaker 4: Come up quietly? What had over there at temps?
Speaker 8: Yes, you're not where the people keep on the roofs.
Speaker 4: You must walk like a right Who are they?
Speaker 8: Who knows? If they see us, they would think you
Speaker 8: had come for the women. There would be nothing to say.
Speaker 8: Someone scrawling out of.
Speaker 4: A man with a sheet wrapped round him. He's coming
Speaker 4: this way. Why doesn't he see us?
Speaker 8: Eyes are clouded with sleep. Perhaps if he seizes it
Speaker 8: will be too late.
Speaker 4: Well then you won't.
Speaker 8: There.
Speaker 4: I took the fight out of him.
Speaker 8: He's my little nice just to break and he's light snow. No, no,
Speaker 8: he's still enough.
Speaker 4: Now he can't harm us.
Speaker 8: He's splendid, but only the bare hands to make an
Speaker 8: armedman harmed.
Speaker 4: I didn't know he was armed.
Speaker 8: Of course, that you may always be sure. Look during
Speaker 8: his boat a beggar. Yes, you are truly magnificent, my friend.
Speaker 8: You are a man hm.
Speaker 4: And you you are a wonderful woman.
Speaker 8: I was wondering when you would kiss me when you
Speaker 8: took offense at what the Russian said to me. I
Speaker 8: knew you would, but I wondered though soon.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, I suppose I knew too, in a way,
Speaker 3: at least I thought.
Speaker 4: How much I'd like to.
Speaker 3: But I wouldn't have had the courage before all this.
Speaker 8: I suppose courage. Your courage is of the lion, Your
Speaker 8: strength is of the boat.
Speaker 4: My boat. I mustn't miss it if.
Speaker 8: You want to go back to the second class.
Speaker 3: Well that's what I was trying to do when I
Speaker 3: knocked on your door. I've missed my dinner, as it is,
Speaker 3: missed your dinner.
Speaker 8: Yes, that is so, But haven't you gain something else?
Speaker 8: What me?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 8: Now, look at me? Is it nothing? Friend? That you
Speaker 8: have saved me for yourself? If you conquer men as
Speaker 8: though you were bred on the roofs of Mozambique, you
Speaker 8: fight like a hero a Russia blow a tumble, and
Speaker 8: you had them lying at your feet.
Speaker 4: I'd fight.
Speaker 3: I'd fight for you as long as as long as
Speaker 3: there was anyone to fight.
Speaker 8: You would, I know you would?
Speaker 4: You lead on where wherever you will come.
Speaker 3: Ah, you know, I don't expect anyone to believe this.
Speaker 3: Looking back, I'm still unsure that it really happened to me.
Speaker 4: It's as though I dreamed it. I don't know how
Speaker 4: many roofs we crossed after that, a dozen, perhaps, maybe twenty.
Speaker 3: I don't even remember the great ship lying out in
Speaker 3: the harbor, her lights blinking with the comforts of civilization.
Speaker 3: All my senses were focused on this slim, breath taking figure,
Speaker 3: leaning me across the rooftops to a shadowy destination in
Speaker 3: which only one thing was certain.
Speaker 4: She would be there.
Speaker 3: I suppose in that moment, armed only with the blood
Speaker 3: stained bronze Idle, I was invincible. At last she led
Speaker 3: me down a creaking wooden stair that hung precariously on
Speaker 3: the sheer side of a house, and once more.
Speaker 4: We were in the mud of a gloomy Annie.
Speaker 3: We made our way down the avey and out into
Speaker 3: a little square, where a night breeze wrestled in the
Speaker 3: palms and smelled of the sea, And across the way
Speaker 3: a dim light showed through a big open door.
Speaker 8: The little church is San Sebastian.
Speaker 4: After all this, come in.
Speaker 8: Kay and pokings, come.
Speaker 4: What did he wants.
Speaker 8: He says, he won't let me go at the.
Speaker 4: Devil he wants. What does he want you for?
Speaker 8: When did the police when they always arrested me when
Speaker 8: they get a chance.
Speaker 2: It's hands off.
Speaker 8: One one before you can get here? No, no, not
Speaker 8: that much to the church to sand your area might
Speaker 8: magnificent one. You fear no when you fight for me
Speaker 8: as long as there is when you want to fight, Yeah,
Speaker 8: we want to be someone to fight. They will never
Speaker 8: leave us alone?
Speaker 4: Will they follow us in?
Speaker 1: Here?
Speaker 8: I know one door? They will not there follow us through?
Speaker 4: What is that? This way?
Speaker 8: Here? This door? First times, must rub my skirts close?
Speaker 8: Now come cleanly through the middle. Do not please, do
Speaker 8: not rub the world as you come. Now there we
Speaker 8: are sick for a while. They will not follow us
Speaker 8: through that door.
Speaker 4: Why not?
Speaker 8: It was the door of the unclean, the door of
Speaker 8: the lepers.
Speaker 4: The door It is all right.
Speaker 8: We didn't touch the bottom. See at the far end
Speaker 8: of the alley are the lights of the waterfront.
Speaker 4: Yes, where do we go now?
Speaker 8: We have a little time now to breathe the cleaner
Speaker 8: of the harborn. Then I know a little someone is
Speaker 8: coming shadow. What is it?
Speaker 5: Whether what's happened a good old dough.
Speaker 8: I do hope he's found my.
Speaker 4: Idol, the idol. I must return the eye, my friend.
Speaker 8: This is the greatest danger of all. Then you're waiting
Speaker 8: any longer before. Don't go there.
Speaker 4: Hello there, Well I got here before you, it appears.
Speaker 8: Did you find the idol?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 3: But for a moment there I was afraid I should
Speaker 3: miss the boat.
Speaker 7: I say, you, boy, you're a bit disheveled.
Speaker 3: What Yes, I got caught in the rain my idol.
Speaker 8: Oh, mister Dawson, you got it all dirty?
Speaker 4: Yes, it is a bit mussed. I dropped it once
Speaker 4: or twice. I fear that was clumsy of you.
Speaker 3: Nothing that a little soap and water won't put the
Speaker 3: right I dare say, well.
Speaker 1: We may hurry along.
Speaker 4: I'd hate to spend any more time in this dreadful place.
Speaker 4: There's the whistle.
Speaker 8: That's the last morning got everybody?
Speaker 7: Yes, yes, yes, are you coming, Dawson. Don't stand there
Speaker 7: mooning we'll miss the boat?
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, yes, And just a moment.
Speaker 7: I say not someone standing over there in the shadow
Speaker 7: of that alley.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure. I thought for a moment I could
Speaker 4: have sworn it.
Speaker 3: I saw you wave goodbye to someone well, perhaps I
Speaker 3: did to Mozambique to adventure and romance.
Speaker 4: Oh, I say that's good.
Speaker 7: That's very good adventure romance in this pestal I show
Speaker 7: you what.
Speaker 3: Would you say if I told you I had just
Speaker 3: killed a man, fled over the rooftops of the city,
Speaker 3: made love to a beautiful woman, but the police escaped
Speaker 3: through the leper's gates.
Speaker 7: Dawson, I said that you had the wireless imagination. I'd
Speaker 7: ever heard of. Nothing like that ever happens to a
Speaker 7: seven class passenger.
Speaker 3: No, I suppose you're right, nothing like that ever happened
Speaker 3: to a second class passenger.
Speaker 4: Come on, Dawson, will miss the ball.
Speaker 2: Escape is produced and directed by Norman McDonald. Tonight we
Speaker 2: have presented Second Class Passenger by Percival Gibbon and adapted
Speaker 2: for radio.
Speaker 4: By William N. Roabesen.
Speaker 2: Featured in the cast were Parley Bear as mister Dawson
Speaker 2: and Georgia Ellis as Marlene, with Paul Dubov, Ben Wright,
Speaker 2: Vivi Janis, John Dayner, Edgar Barrier, and Nester Piva. Special
Speaker 2: music arranged and conducted by Wilbur Hatch.
Speaker 4: Next week, you.
Speaker 1: Are located on a remote plantation in the crawling Amazon jungle,
Speaker 1: and an immense army of ravenous ants is closing in
Speaker 1: on you, swarming in to eat you alive, a deadly
Speaker 1: from which there is no escape.
Speaker 2: Next week we escape with Carl Stevenson's terrifying story line
Speaker 2: Engen Versus the Ants. Be with us next week at
Speaker 2: the same time, when once again we offer you escape