Speaker 1: You are standing on a bridge over Owl Creek, a
Speaker 1: noose around your neck. You have but a few seconds
Speaker 1: left to live, A few seconds left to plan your escape.
Speaker 2: Escape produced and directed by William N. Robson, and carefully
Speaker 2: contrived to free you from the poor walls of to
Speaker 2: day for a half hour of high adventure.
Speaker 1: To night, we escape to the war between the States
Speaker 1: and a muddy stream in Alabama, as we recall one
Speaker 1: of the Grit eight short stories in American literature, An
Speaker 1: occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Fierce.
Speaker 3: A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama,
Speaker 3: looking down through the ties at the swift water twenty
Speaker 3: feet below. The man's hands were behind his back, the
Speaker 3: wrist bound with a cord a rope closely encircled his neck.
Speaker 3: It was attached to a stout cross timber above his head,
Speaker 3: and the slack fell to the level of his knees.
Speaker 3: He watched a piece of dancing driftwood racing down the
Speaker 3: current beneath his feet.
Speaker 4: He thought, if I could just breathe my hands, I
Speaker 4: might throw off this moose and dive into the creek.
Speaker 4: If I swam under water, i'd be safe from her bullets.
Speaker 4: If my wind held out, I could make the southern bank,
Speaker 4: take to the woods, and get away home.
Speaker 3: Hayden Farquha, Alabama planter, stood at the end of a plank.
Speaker 3: A captain of the Union Army and a sergeant stood
Speaker 3: at the other end. When they stepped aside, the plank
Speaker 3: would tip upward, and Peyton Farquhar, Confederate spy, would slip
Speaker 3: between the ties to hang above the muddy water of
Speaker 3: Owl Creek until dead. Even in this far outpost of
Speaker 3: Sherman's march to the sea, the formalities of death are
Speaker 3: observed by these men who were most familiar with him.
Speaker 3: The captain's company is drawn stiffly at attention along the
Speaker 3: tracks on the northern side.
Speaker 5: Of the bridge.
Speaker 3: The lieutenant stands erect on the bank of the stream,
Speaker 3: the point of his bared saber scraping the gravel on
Speaker 3: the roadbed. Peyton Farquhar is being ushered into the Confederate
Speaker 3: beyond with every Union amenity. The captain stands aside. Now
Speaker 3: only the weight of the bulky sergeant counterbalances Peyton Farquhar
Speaker 3: at the end of his thin board.
Speaker 4: They say that this is a moment when all the
Speaker 4: past events are your life tumble into your memory. But
Speaker 4: how could anyone know who has come back from the
Speaker 4: dead to tell what dying is like. I don't recall
Speaker 4: any childhood memories. Now the past does not engulf me
Speaker 4: in this naked moment. I'm only aware of what's here now,
Speaker 4: those Yankees lined up on the bank, his captain's tired eyes,
Speaker 4: that turkey buzz had circling up there waiting for me,
Speaker 4: and that noise have beaten drive and sound like a
Speaker 4: distant engine, a pump roll of thunder on the summer evening,
Speaker 4: coming closer. Get them out, choke me.
Speaker 1: It's your heart, of course that you hear, stepping up
Speaker 1: its cadence, pounding under the forced drive of fear. Now
Speaker 1: you see nothing, remember nothing, sense nothing but this strangling,
Speaker 1: suffocating beat of your own heart, throbbing its final protest.
Speaker 1: You stand there, erect.
Speaker 3: The work is nearly at an end. Now the captain
Speaker 3: draws his sword, flourishes it to a carry sings out
Speaker 3: of command.
Speaker 6: All right, all right.
Speaker 3: The men on the bank smartly spread their legs, thrust
Speaker 3: hands forward over the rifle barrels. The sergeant on the
Speaker 3: end of the plank takes one step to the left.
Speaker 3: The plank tips forward ward, and peyton farquead drops between
Speaker 3: the timbers of oh Creek Bridge.
Speaker 1: It takes longer to tell it. As you drop downward,
Speaker 1: you lose consciousness. You are as one already dead. Then
Speaker 1: you awaken sharply in pain to feel, not to think,
Speaker 1: just to feel the cutting pressure on your throat, the
Speaker 1: agonies of pulsating fire shooting from your neck downward, to
Speaker 1: feel the fullness, the congestion, the head bursting with suffocation,
Speaker 1: distantly beyond outside of yourself. You hear a splash. Remotely,
Speaker 1: you sense cool, wet, green darkness. The rope has broken.
Speaker 1: You have fallen into the stream. Now thinking returns slowly.
Speaker 1: You know for the moment you are safe from drowning,
Speaker 1: because the rope around your neck tightly keeps the water
Speaker 1: from your lungs.
Speaker 4: Then I shall die hanging at the bottom of a river.
Speaker 4: And that's absurd. If I could get my hands free,
Speaker 4: I must get my hands free. Come peting. They can't
Speaker 4: lick you. Try again once more, good boy, The rope's
Speaker 4: given again. Try once more. That does it, my boy.
Speaker 4: Now the rope around your neck. You must breathe. When
Speaker 4: you come to the surface. You must breathe quickly, or
Speaker 4: if they haven't hanged you and they fail to drown you,
Speaker 4: you can't let them shoot you. Loosen rope around your neck.
Speaker 4: You must get it loose.
Speaker 1: Now it takes so much long that hell. You are
Speaker 1: now in the fullest possession of your senses, and again
Speaker 1: time stops. You feel the ripples of the water upon
Speaker 1: your face, and hear their separate sounds as they strike.
Speaker 1: You see the trees on the bank, and the leaves
Speaker 1: and the veining of each leaf, and the very insects
Speaker 1: on them, the locusts, the brilliant bodied flies, the gray
Speaker 1: spiders stretching their webs from twig to twig, the prismatic
Speaker 1: colors of the dewdrops upon a million blades of grass.
Speaker 1: You hear the humming of the gnats, the beating of
Speaker 1: the dragon fly's wings, the strokes of the water spider's legs.
Speaker 1: A fish slides beneath your eyes, and you hear the
Speaker 1: rush of its body parting the water. All this you
Speaker 1: see and hear in an incalculably infinite instant of time.
Speaker 1: Then you hear something else. You dive deeply, but above
Speaker 1: the ringing in your ears, you hear the folly of
Speaker 1: the rifles, and as you rise toward the surface you
Speaker 1: meet shining bits of metal, singularly flattened. The distorted and
Speaker 1: spent bullets oscillating slowly downward pasted you. One catches in
Speaker 1: your color, and it feels uncomfortably warm. You snatch it out,
Speaker 1: and this gray piece of Yankee lead reminds you of
Speaker 1: the gray uniform of the soldier who is responsible for
Speaker 1: you being here. You recall that it was only night
Speaker 1: before last when the soldier had ridden up the driveway
Speaker 1: as you and your wife sat under the magnolia trees
Speaker 1: in the cool twilight.
Speaker 4: Good evening, sirch you, good evening, Corporal. Ah wonder if
Speaker 4: I might trouble you for a glass of water? Sir?
Speaker 4: Why of gouse?
Speaker 7: I'll disturb yourself, Peyton, I'll go fetch it.
Speaker 4: You're most kind, ma'am if you'll just indicate the.
Speaker 7: Well nonsense, you just sit a spare with my husband.
Speaker 7: You luck as if you could do with some rest.
Speaker 4: Yes, ma'am, reckon I could. I'll be back and thank you, ma'am.
Speaker 4: Who's commanded you? With Corporal Colonel Tolliver, Sir, thirteenth North Carolina.
Speaker 4: We get so little news down here. How are things
Speaker 4: going at the front? Not good, sir. The Yankees are
Speaker 4: getting ready for another advance. They're repairing the railroad, got
Speaker 4: it in shape almost to our Creek bridge, and they
Speaker 4: got an outpost there. Once they can run the trains
Speaker 4: beyond the bridge. There's nothing to stop them between here
Speaker 4: and Atlanta. Then why hasn't the bridge been destroyed? The
Speaker 4: military couldn't get near it. A civilian might. Oh, Creek Bridge,
Speaker 4: that's not far from here? Is it less than twenty miles?
Speaker 4: You say? They have an outpost there on which side?
Speaker 4: The other side? Nothing on this side but a couple
Speaker 4: of pickets half mile out on the railroad and a
Speaker 4: single sentinel at this end of the bridge. And that
Speaker 4: bridge is important, sure is? What if it were destroyed
Speaker 4: hold up the Yankees for several weeks. Suppose a man
Speaker 4: civilian like myself should elude the picket post and get
Speaker 4: the better of the sentinel. What could he accomplish? Well,
Speaker 4: I was there, we could go. Just before we had
Speaker 4: to pull out. There's a heap of drift wood come
Speaker 4: down and last winter's flood and caught on the trestle
Speaker 4: at this end looked mighty dry and tender than me.
Speaker 4: I see a fella with enough gumption might get through
Speaker 4: and set fire to it. It ought to burn like toe,
Speaker 4: Yes it should. Of course, a fella'd have to have
Speaker 4: plenty of gumption. The Union command has promised to hang
Speaker 4: in a civilian called fooling around the railroad?
Speaker 5: Is your water coffer?
Speaker 7: Right out of the springhouse?
Speaker 4: Thank you kindly, ma'am.
Speaker 7: Mine, it's cool and nice, and here's a smidge in
Speaker 7: the corn bread.
Speaker 4: I thought you might be hungry. I'm mighty grateful, ma'am.
Speaker 4: It's ladies like you that keeps the saus together and
Speaker 4: fighting these days.
Speaker 7: My what a nice company.
Speaker 4: Well, reckon, I better hit the letter. I got a
Speaker 4: lot of ride, and I hit him. Eat tonight. Good
Speaker 4: luck tell you, corporal, and thank you for the information.
Speaker 4: You'd be taking a chance soon, but you couldn't do
Speaker 4: a greater service for your country. I remember that, corporal. Goodbye, ma'am, goodbye, corporal, goodbye, sir,
Speaker 4: many thanks, goodbye, Hayton. What was he talking about? What
Speaker 4: my dad, the corporal?
Speaker 7: What did he mean by service to your country and
Speaker 7: taking a chance?
Speaker 6: Nothing?
Speaker 7: Peyton, tell me it was nothing, really, My dead, Teyton Farquoy.
Speaker 7: If you're fixin to take any chances for our country,
Speaker 7: I want to know about it. Now, you just speak
Speaker 7: your peace.
Speaker 4: There's nothing to say except'in. I'll be goin away for
Speaker 4: a day or two on a little tread.
Speaker 7: Is it dangerous?
Speaker 6: Pain?
Speaker 1: Not very.
Speaker 4: You'll be back, yes, my dear, I promise you, I'll
Speaker 4: be back.
Speaker 1: You'll break the surface of our creek for a second time.
Speaker 1: And now you're much further down the stream, further away
Speaker 1: from the Union soldiers on the bridge reloading their guns,
Speaker 1: the ramrods flashing in the morning sun.
Speaker 4: That captain will make the same mistake again. You'll order
Speaker 4: them to fire it will Heaven help me? I cannot dodge.
Speaker 1: Him a head, another more terrible sound. Cannon. They've trained
Speaker 1: a cannon on you and close.
Speaker 4: Next time, I'll use a charge of grape rifles and
Speaker 4: grape covering the water from bank to bank. I'm done
Speaker 4: for them.
Speaker 1: Then something seemed to grab you, and you're whirled round
Speaker 1: and round, spinning like a waterlog top. You're caught in
Speaker 1: a vortex, a whirlpool. The water, the banks, the distant ridge,
Speaker 1: the soldiers become indistinct blurs and again. You're helpless. You
Speaker 1: feel dizzy and sick to your stomach, just as you
Speaker 1: felt last night when you crept up the bank or
Speaker 1: the lone sentinel on the south end of the bridge
Speaker 1: and discovered that the sentinel was not alone.
Speaker 5: There is boys grabby.
Speaker 8: I hadn't pah, well, mister Peyton farqquhy, We've been expecting you.
Speaker 4: How did you know my gude ways? But look here,
Speaker 4: I'm a civilian.
Speaker 8: I wave their breath. Thank your maker. We didn't shoot
Speaker 8: you in the back. We don't do things that way
Speaker 8: up north. You'll get a trial. Everything fair and square,
Speaker 8: ring well ie well.
Speaker 1: The whirlpool spins faster and faster. A sharp piece of
Speaker 1: drift wood tears at your coat. The churning ground water
Speaker 1: choked you. You know there is nothing you can do,
Speaker 1: as you had known it last night when they shoved
Speaker 1: you into a tent near the bridge to face the
Speaker 1: infantry captain with the tired eyes.
Speaker 8: Here is sir, right on schedule.
Speaker 5: Good work, sergeant. Is this the land of lieutenant?
Speaker 4: That's him? What you're the corporal who stopped at my
Speaker 4: plantation last night. That's right, mister Farquhar. But I'm not
Speaker 4: with the thirteenth North Carolina Volunteers.
Speaker 5: Mister Farquhar, this is Lieutenant Saltonstall, Intelligence Officer, fifth Massachusetts Regulars.
Speaker 4: You've trapped me. You deliberately led me into a trap.
Speaker 4: I'm a civilian and a plant.
Speaker 5: Yes, and also a Southern patriot according the Act of Espionage.
Speaker 4: You can't prove it.
Speaker 5: We don't have to.
Speaker 4: This is the most despicable most This proves once more
Speaker 4: that Anna is a stranger in the North.
Speaker 5: I'm too tired to listen to a recital of the
Speaker 5: code of a Southern gentleman. Mister Farquhar. I'm afraid the
Speaker 5: distinction between your ethics and my lack of them would
Speaker 5: escape me this evening.
Speaker 4: But why have you done this? Why have you deliberately
Speaker 4: trapped me.
Speaker 5: The best way to eliminate civilian resis distance is to
Speaker 5: lure it into the open. You fell for the baby
Speaker 5: to bed.
Speaker 4: Now look here, it's my constitutional rights, which constitution, the
Speaker 4: Constitution of the United States, or Jeff Davis's.
Speaker 5: You in sudden yankee, remember your manner, sir.
Speaker 4: I demand to try it.
Speaker 5: You've just had it past a guard of room. Sergeant. Yes,
Speaker 5: we'll hang him in the morning.
Speaker 1: Something tears at your face scratching, and you realize that
Speaker 1: the whirling has stopped. You open your eyes. You're lying
Speaker 1: on the southern bank of the stream, out of sight
Speaker 1: of your enemies. Safe. The gravel which has scratched your
Speaker 1: cheek now seems soft as new pig cotton. The forest
Speaker 1: around you is a garden of luscious beauty, reeking with
Speaker 1: a heavy perfume of freedom. Even the whiz and rattle
Speaker 1: of the final charge of grape screaming through the tree
Speaker 1: tops seems a benediction from the battle cannonea.
Speaker 5: If you leap to your.
Speaker 1: Feet and run into the woods south towards home, your
Speaker 1: neck is swollen and throbbing with pain. You carry it
Speaker 1: cock towards your left shoulder as you push through the
Speaker 1: matted brush. All morning, you tear your way through the undergrowth.
Speaker 1: Your jacket is tattered and your face criss crossed with
Speaker 1: bloody scratches from the brambles. Every few moments you stop.
Speaker 1: You stop to listen for the sound of dogs, But
Speaker 1: all you hear is the sleepy buzz of the forest,
Speaker 1: and the blood throbbing through your heated brain brings another thought,
Speaker 1: which is an insult. No dogs. You are not even
Speaker 1: important enough to the Yankees for dogs. It's nearly noon now,
Speaker 1: and for half an hour you've been plunging through a swamp,
Speaker 1: waist deep in green ooze. Your neck hurts constantly, your
Speaker 1: head throbs, and your tongue is thick. It tastes like
Speaker 1: brown cotton, not swarm before your eyes, catching in your eyelids.
Speaker 1: Busquitoes buzz in your ears, drill deep in your hands,
Speaker 1: and swollen neck. You cannot go any longer. You slow down,
Speaker 1: you stop. You reach tortopalmetto root for support, and it
Speaker 1: slithers from your grasp and slides softly into the water.
Speaker 1: Water moccasin. Fear finds you at last. Terror, which stood
Speaker 1: aloof when you fled the executioner's bullets, now embraces you
Speaker 1: with clammy unction a water moccasin, the deadly cotton mouth.
Speaker 1: Now each branch and roots seems to writhe under your glance.
Speaker 1: The swamp is undulating with certain death. You plunge on
Speaker 1: through the dark stinking oos, on and on, tripping, stumbling,
Speaker 1: never stopping, for terror rides your back, flogging you with
Speaker 1: a whiplash of fear.
Speaker 6: Jethro gonna have my speting fill as a film gig
Speaker 6: time you just drink this shy up tea, Miss.
Speaker 4: Beeting, thank you, thank you. Jethrow? Yes, miss, what are
Speaker 4: you doing here? I live here? Well, what happened?
Speaker 6: I was paddling my dog out home through the swamp
Speaker 6: with mess of catfish. I sees you lying out there
Speaker 6: on the bank in front of my cabin.
Speaker 4: Jethrow, I heard, I thought you were dead.
Speaker 1: Of course, you thought Jethrow was dead. You knew he
Speaker 1: had consumption when you sold him. You knew he couldn't
Speaker 1: last long, and he wasn't earning his keep. His wife
Speaker 1: and his daughter had carried on some at first, but
Speaker 1: after a while they calmed down. At last you'd heard
Speaker 1: Jethrow was dead.
Speaker 6: He thought I was dead, Miss Peyton, I say, don't
Speaker 6: you know what's happened to me? I'm free. I'm free
Speaker 6: at last.
Speaker 1: So news travels fast, even in the middle of his
Speaker 1: back would swamp. This lonely black has heard of Abe
Speaker 1: Lincoln's traitorous emancipation proclamation, and they believe it with the
Speaker 1: faith of children.
Speaker 4: Yes, sir, I'm free.
Speaker 6: I speak pretty soon.
Speaker 4: My woman, my little gal come along join me. Yes, yes,
Speaker 4: of course they will.
Speaker 6: Jethro isaay, mis Peyton.
Speaker 4: They well, yes, yes, indeed they're both fine. You your
Speaker 4: daughter's growing into a young beauty. Miss Fogg was brought
Speaker 4: into the kitchen, beginning to train her for the house.
Speaker 6: Well, well what do you think of that m and
Speaker 6: my woman? She's still seeing as putty?
Speaker 4: Yes, Jethro, sundays at meetin time, we can hear all
Speaker 4: the way up to the big house.
Speaker 6: That woman's voice is put in all the angels.
Speaker 4: Jethro. I don't know how to say this, but I
Speaker 4: really was sorry about having the sell you. But there
Speaker 4: wasn't anything I.
Speaker 6: Understand, Miss Peyton, don't fit, don't mind. I don't forgive
Speaker 6: you long ago.
Speaker 4: I have for sure.
Speaker 6: Don't the Lord tell us to forgive those who tresp
Speaker 6: us again us? Don't Lord promises we shall be free?
Speaker 6: Why don't you worry nothing about my speaking?
Speaker 4: And I quite spot quiet jigger?
Speaker 6: Quiet you, mister hood raise her bag and afresh, No, sir,
Speaker 6: ree lork, Miss Peyton, there's a horse coming down the road.
Speaker 4: Horse, look there, soldier.
Speaker 6: When our soldiers.
Speaker 4: Corporal look like Jethro, you got to hide me?
Speaker 6: Was I got to hide you? My speedon?
Speaker 4: Don't ask so many questions your insolence. You forget I'm
Speaker 4: free now well as an old friend of mine. Please
Speaker 4: don't ask any questions. Just hide me. Don't tell that soldier.
Speaker 6: Anything, for sure, I reckon I can do that for
Speaker 6: old friend, Miss Peyton. Yeah, you get done on this year.
Speaker 6: Bit that'said. Put the covers over the side here, you
Speaker 6: snug is a tack in the rabbits here.
Speaker 4: Remember, don't tell him anything.
Speaker 1: Have you come this far just to be turned in
Speaker 1: by a wolf gathering black who talks crazy? If jeth
Speaker 1: throw knew this great clad corpor was really a Union lieutenant,
Speaker 1: he guarantee his freedom by turning you in. Even so,
Speaker 1: he bears you a big enough grudge to turn you
Speaker 1: in anyway, unless, of course, he's planning to dispose of
Speaker 1: you himself.
Speaker 5: Yes, that's it.
Speaker 1: That's why he talks so silly about the Lord and forgiveness.
Speaker 1: He's going to do you in himself him.
Speaker 4: Don't tell him I was looking for him, Yes, I'll remember,
Speaker 4: not tell him. Just keep minding your own business. Uncle,
Speaker 4: you live.
Speaker 6: Longer, Yes, sir, I sure, will.
Speaker 4: You come out now?
Speaker 6: Mispating, I declare I don't understand none of this, you says,
Speaker 6: not tell him. You're here, he says, not tell you
Speaker 6: he's been here? What is this all about? My spreed?
Speaker 5: Boy?
Speaker 4: HiT's nothing, Jethrow, nothing, I over man some money. I'm
Speaker 4: not ready to pay it.
Speaker 6: Oh I see, I wouldn't know about that money. Something
Speaker 6: never bothered me like it bother some money and me
Speaker 6: is all has been strangers.
Speaker 1: What does she mean by that money's never bothered? Mean
Speaker 1: like it's bothered some what's she picking up that knife.
Speaker 4: For, Jethro? What are you going to do that night?
Speaker 6: Oh? I was just fixing to slit up some of them.
Speaker 6: Catfish's gotten a dog out. Looked like you could do
Speaker 6: with the little food mines Paiden.
Speaker 4: Oh no, no, thank you, Jethrow. I really got to
Speaker 4: be on my way. I want to get home by
Speaker 4: son down. If I can't, sure wouldn't be no bother
Speaker 4: cut up a couple of can No, thank you, old friend.
Speaker 4: If you'll just tell me which way I should go
Speaker 4: to get home.
Speaker 6: Well, I don't rightly know, miss Peyden. I reckon from
Speaker 6: the way the sun's reclining be down the road. That
Speaker 6: away quite a tolerable piece.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they should be about right.
Speaker 6: I never been back, you know, I never tried to
Speaker 6: go back since I've been free. Yes, I know, but
Speaker 6: I reckon it won't belong to my woman. My little
Speaker 6: gal comes here to mean, of course, if you get back,
Speaker 6: mister Peyton, if and you see him, you tell him
Speaker 6: I'm here waiting for him.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I'll do that, Jethro, I'll do that.
Speaker 1: You get away from there fast. The shelves of the
Speaker 1: road crunching under your muddy boots, that grinning savage standing
Speaker 1: in the doorway of the shack, the knife in his hands,
Speaker 1: and each moment until the road bends and cuts off
Speaker 1: the cabin from view, you fear he'll come after you,
Speaker 1: the knife poised to plunge in your back, to pay
Speaker 1: you for the first you gave him when you send
Speaker 1: him away to die. But he's still standing, grinning foolishly
Speaker 1: and waving as you turn the bend. Now you feel safe,
Speaker 1: but only for a moment. Then you hear a sound,
Speaker 1: the sound of a horse. It must be the Corporal
Speaker 1: and Gray from the fifth Massachusetts Regulars. He's coming back
Speaker 1: down the road, searching for you, hounding you, coming to
Speaker 1: take you back to oul Creek Bridge, back to a
Speaker 1: rope that won't break under your weight. You walk faster
Speaker 1: and faster, and always the sound is there, growing louder
Speaker 1: and louder, and you run as fast as you can
Speaker 1: down the shell road, which stretches clear to the horizon
Speaker 1: between the green walls of scrubby pines. How long have
Speaker 1: you been running down this endless road? It's dark now?
Speaker 1: Is it night? Or has the blood trapped in your
Speaker 1: head by the suffocating rope at last burst into your
Speaker 1: congested eyeballs and blinded you? Will it next pour from
Speaker 1: your swollen and bruised neck into your brains, stopping all
Speaker 1: sensation instantly, bringing to a welcome end this day of
Speaker 1: agony and flight, ridiculous fantasies of fatigue and fear. You
Speaker 1: can see the darkness is the black of a sudden
Speaker 1: summer storm. That lightning flash clearly shows the white road
Speaker 1: ahead and the black silhouettes of trees along the sides.
Speaker 1: And since you're sure that you can see, the other
Speaker 1: senses return. You hear the rumble of the thunder, You
Speaker 1: feel the insupportable ache of your straining lungs, the leaden
Speaker 1: weight of your tired feet, and now the patter of rain,
Speaker 1: first washing the stinging sweat from your stretched and bitten face,
Speaker 1: now pounding harder, flowing down across your hatless head, matting
Speaker 1: your hair, slowing your headlong gait to a dog trot.
Speaker 1: Another flash of lightning directly overhead. For an instant you
Speaker 1: see the soldiers of Owl Creek Bridge standing at the
Speaker 1: side of the road, rifles leveled their eyes, boring down
Speaker 1: the sights, aiming at your heart. Again. You're running, and
Speaker 1: the rain has turned to hail. Pellus as big as harmony,
Speaker 1: beat down on you, pound your swollen, bruised neck, hammer
Speaker 1: at your countless cuts again the lightning, And on the
Speaker 1: other side of the road, the great clad corporal sits
Speaker 1: astride his horse, waiting for you.
Speaker 4: Now you take him in. Now no.
Speaker 5: Lift.
Speaker 1: Bold of lightning strikes a tree ahead of you, and
Speaker 1: in the white, blinding light it stands Jethrow, black and grinning,
Speaker 1: knife raised in the air.
Speaker 4: Not Jethrow, forgim me, forgive me.
Speaker 1: He's gone. And now you see, dangling from each tree
Speaker 1: along the road, a noose swinging in the wind. Wherever
Speaker 1: you turn, wherever you look, a noose waiting for you,
Speaker 1: A noose which wriggles like a water moccasin. You are
Speaker 1: standing on the green lawn of your plantation, before the
Speaker 1: high columned entrance. The storm is over. The clouds are
Speaker 1: black and menacing all around the horizon. But through a
Speaker 1: break in the sky overhead, glorious sunlight streams down, bathing
Speaker 1: your garden and your house in heavenly light. You are home.
Speaker 1: And now you hear a rustle of crinoline, and down
Speaker 1: from the wide portico, Stay, your beloved wife. She walks
Speaker 1: across the wide lawn, arms outstretched.
Speaker 7: Peyton, my dear, your back, just as your promised you'd
Speaker 7: be for this moment.
Speaker 1: You have endured the agonies of this day. And were
Speaker 1: those agonies multiplied a thousand times, they would be small
Speaker 1: price for the benison of this breast, the sanctuary of
Speaker 1: these arms, the security of these lips. You stepped forward
Speaker 1: to fold your wife in your embrace.
Speaker 3: The rope, stretched tight, sang like a bowstring. Peyton Farquhar
Speaker 3: was dead. His body with a broken neck, swung gently
Speaker 3: from side to side beneath the timbers of Owl Creek brid.
Speaker 2: Escape is produced and directed by William N. Robson and
Speaker 2: Tonight brought you An occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by
Speaker 2: Ambrose Bierce in a radio adaptation written by mister Robson.
Speaker 2: The part of Peyton Farquhar was played by Harry Bartel.
Speaker 2: The narrators were Bill Conrad and Bill Johnstone. Jethro was
Speaker 2: played by Louis van Ruten. The special musical score is
Speaker 2: conceived and conducted by cy Fure.
Speaker 1: Next week, you are trapped in the pitch darkness of
Speaker 1: a ruined mansion and groping for you. Stalking you is
Speaker 1: a homicidal maniac armed with a knife, from whom you
Speaker 1: must escape.
Speaker 2: Next week we escape with Joseph Hergersheimer's gripping story Wild Oranges.
Speaker 1: Good Night.
Speaker 2: Then until the same time next week, when we again
Speaker 2: offer you escape. This is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System.