Speaker 1: Set up with the everyday grind. I want to get
Speaker 1: away from it all. We offer you.
Speaker 2: Escape, escape designed to free you from the four walls
Speaker 2: of today, for a half hour of high adventure.
Speaker 3: You are making your painful way over the great India desert,
Speaker 3: alone and dying of first while behind you, pursuing you
Speaker 3: by the fanatical copy is who once bowed.
Speaker 4: To you as king, and now call for your life.
Speaker 2: Tonight we escape to India and two soldiers of fortune
Speaker 2: who pushed fate too far. As Rudyard Kipling told it
Speaker 2: in his famous story The Man Who Would Be King.
Speaker 5: One Saturday night, it was my unpleasant duty to put
Speaker 5: the paper to bed alone. It was a pitchy, black knight,
Speaker 5: as stifling as a knight can be in India and June.
Speaker 5: It was very still, save for the ticking of the
Speaker 5: clock above my desk, which seemed to shutter the black
Speaker 5: heat of the night. As the hands crept toward three
Speaker 5: a m. And then from the outside my door I
Speaker 5: heard voices.
Speaker 1: There only yes, and why are you so you don't
Speaker 1: remember a thing?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 1: I can't order, then job purporder.
Speaker 5: Haven The authority turn us back for impersonating newspaper man newspaper.
Speaker 2: And then there was the Trine, yea.
Speaker 4: Half of which you had as throne if I remember correct.
Speaker 5: Oh wait, that flaming red hair, that bald head, Old
Speaker 5: Daniel driver and peachy conahead, let's die.
Speaker 1: Well what you two? One is time? If it's money,
Speaker 1: I haven't got it.
Speaker 4: And if it's a fight, it's too beastly hot.
Speaker 5: Again, less yourself easy, because we have come asking for
Speaker 5: nought except for information.
Speaker 2: We've been all over this country and we've concluded that
Speaker 2: injury isn't big enough for such as Daniel and me.
Speaker 4: So where are going away? To the kings?
Speaker 2: Kings in our own divine right?
Speaker 4: What I we shall be king?
Speaker 5: We've signed a solemn contract, each to help the other,
Speaker 5: and neither of it to look at liquor or women.
Speaker 1: And two we have become king.
Speaker 5: And I've never heard of such a fantastic idea. What
Speaker 5: do you want of me but a look at such
Speaker 5: maps of Kapiistan as you might have of that.
Speaker 1: Maps of Kafiristan. That's where we decided to go.
Speaker 5: And don't you realize that not one single Englishman has
Speaker 5: ever gone into the Characteristan mountains and lived at mouth?
Speaker 4: Again, you have a good deal more likely to become.
Speaker 5: Dead men than kill anyway, I don't believe you had
Speaker 5: the slightest intention of traveling a mile outside of Deli.
Speaker 2: Then you should come down to the Surai market place
Speaker 2: in the morning time, where a caravan.
Speaker 1: Leave for a note. Now look, look you to him.
Speaker 5: I'm a news man, not a no man. Now why
Speaker 5: should I come down to that filthy Peston? Not so
Speaker 5: sure that you're either what you mean?
Speaker 4: You say you're amuseman.
Speaker 5: But here's the chance to see the start are the
Speaker 5: greatest story of all time, and you'd pass it up
Speaker 5: because you're too blasty lazy to get up there early
Speaker 5: in the morning.
Speaker 1: Come along, grab at my life.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but if you should have a change of art,
Speaker 5: come to the Serai in the morning and see whether
Speaker 5: we'd be.
Speaker 3: Liars or not.
Speaker 5: And so they left, those two lovable scoundrels, and I
Speaker 5: sat alone in my office, thinking the kings of Kafiristan
Speaker 5: kings indeed. But then, perhaps, just perhaps they might pull
Speaker 5: it off and it would be something to keeble home.
Speaker 5: And so it was that the next morning I was
Speaker 5: making my way through the dirty, milling clouds of the
Speaker 5: Serai market.
Speaker 1: Place, the.
Speaker 4: Far Canaan our stars and heard you should not laugh
Speaker 4: at him. Save the witless surrounder the protection.
Speaker 1: And who is the fellow anyway?
Speaker 4: And mad pre Savee was arrived only this morning from Ashmir.
Speaker 5: I see I see you side, Come look at my
Speaker 5: camels loaded with toys to please the eye of an army.
Speaker 1: No, now, go about your business. I haven't any use
Speaker 1: for toys.
Speaker 5: He is our wondrous toys. Indeed sibe fit for a
Speaker 5: king of Kafiristan. What my good lord and your drevet
Speaker 5: cuiet come along. I have two camels just beyond the
Speaker 5: warrior the blessings of pir Khan, and the gracious sidebe
Speaker 5: consents to look at the poor toys of a priest
Speaker 5: from Ajmere.
Speaker 4: Over this way, where's Commagen here we are. Permit me
Speaker 4: to present my servant as a mere god.
Speaker 1: At your service, Governor. Well, guy, did lay party?
Speaker 5: And if they fool this crowd and they said, they're
Speaker 5: probably good enough to get you across the border, and
Speaker 5: good enough to get you killed. Get and killed is
Speaker 5: no part of the contract Peche and me draw up,
Speaker 5: although perhaps killing fits in with our plans in a
Speaker 5: different sense. Feel around underneath the toys there and the
Speaker 5: camel bag.
Speaker 2: Huh my, good lord, the rifles twenty brand new liandfields
Speaker 2: with ammunition to matt Yeah, and twenty good reasons to
Speaker 2: make your death certain.
Speaker 4: Any patroon of the hill tribes would kill his own
Speaker 4: mother to get a rifle.
Speaker 5: Now, what harm a poor mad preside? Allah protects me?
Speaker 5: Mad is writer, and so was Lord five and Roads
Speaker 5: and Bonaparte drive out the camel specie.
Speaker 4: We have a long way to go before we become king.
Speaker 5: As a student listened to the camel bells fade away
Speaker 5: in the pisties, did I wondered if it might not
Speaker 5: be a glorious thing to go to kafurrias stand and.
Speaker 1: Be a king.
Speaker 5: Three years pass in India, much as they pass in
Speaker 5: any other land. It grows hot, then the rains come,
Speaker 5: and then they heat again. The paper duly records the
Speaker 5: death of a sultan rash Putana, and the trees in
Speaker 5: the courtyard grow a few feet fallow, and finally time
Speaker 5: in its circle turned up another night, much like the
Speaker 5: one three years before. Once again I sat alone in
Speaker 5: the office, listening to the clock and waiting for some
Speaker 5: unimportant item to come over the wire from Europe it
Speaker 5: was long after midnight when my office door slowly opened. Well,
Speaker 5: I say you might knock first, you know, Look, look,
Speaker 5: good lord man, what's wrong?
Speaker 6: You don't know who I am here?
Speaker 4: No, no, I haven't the faintest idea have it here.
Speaker 4: You'd better sit down, old fellow.
Speaker 1: You're in a bad way.
Speaker 6: Yes, thank you. It's a whole year. I've been walking
Speaker 6: right here in this very office. We suddenly you're setting
Speaker 6: right there and given us the maps.
Speaker 1: You've been sitting here ever since.
Speaker 5: No, no, man couldn't change that much in three years.
Speaker 5: You're not pitchy connaheen.
Speaker 6: Yes, I was the king of Kafilis Dan Me and
Speaker 6: Daniel Travi, real crime kings.
Speaker 1: We was.
Speaker 6: It's just true gospel.
Speaker 1: What in the name of Heaven have they done for you?
Speaker 1: Pitchy pitchy, a new peachy k He's a king, a
Speaker 1: real golden crown on either told me he does. He's
Speaker 1: dead now.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, no, you're peachy Kanahan, you are, and
Speaker 4: you must put yourself together.
Speaker 1: Poor poor You've got to keep looking in in my eyes.
Speaker 1: Maybe everything won't.
Speaker 4: Go to piece, all right, all right, No, tell me
Speaker 4: what happened to pech.
Speaker 6: We left the caravan and yaddallah, and we struck off
Speaker 6: into the ears. Yes, go on a week signals for travel,
Speaker 6: Daniel me. First there wasn't no roads, and after a
Speaker 6: while no woo. There was always the drums. Sometimes there
Speaker 6: was close sometimes father, most of the time we could
Speaker 6: hear them.
Speaker 5: Oh man, yeah, Now it's no brace to be stopping
Speaker 5: up right here.
Speaker 1: It's no use, Daniel, what's got into him? The poor
Speaker 1: beasts are done in and starve with ourselves. I've gone no.
Speaker 4: Further and we'll go on without him. I'm not come
Speaker 4: this far to die on the side of the mountain. Wait.
Speaker 1: Look, Daniel, I would need them rocks, U.
Speaker 5: Men, they are y a's a score of more of them,
Speaker 5: and one goes out of the rest in nought.
Speaker 4: But those narrows they got a pair of the rifle
Speaker 4: of peg rot.
Speaker 1: You are, Daniel.
Speaker 5: It's now that way start to become kings here here
Speaker 5: and some cattridges too easy enough, peachey. I'll drop the
Speaker 5: spect lets the rear first. Then we'll lay a few
Speaker 5: at their feet.
Speaker 4: No arm to the one in front. We may need him. Now,
Speaker 4: old hold it, Daniel, look at him. Ah, right on
Speaker 4: that blooming faces leader.
Speaker 1: He's coming out alone, well.
Speaker 5: And good, he's gonna go pop. You meet him, Pache,
Speaker 5: keep your rifle by look at him, Daniel. He's as
Speaker 5: fair as us with yellow hair, so he is part
Speaker 5: of the lost tribes. These people are sopped.
Speaker 4: I await your command.
Speaker 1: Oh, ye who speak with the voice of thunder?
Speaker 4: Why the lord dairy peachey? Will you luck?
Speaker 5: It's the old Afghan tongue. He speaks, speaker. Who are
Speaker 5: and whence do you come? I am high priest and
Speaker 5: the chief of the village of Plushkai.
Speaker 1: A journey of only a few hot.
Speaker 4: Beats, it's Bashkai. How many people there are?
Speaker 5: Number in the thousands, and I'm all villagers in the
Speaker 5: hills more than a.
Speaker 1: Man has fingers and toads.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that peachy. Here's our kingdom meat to order,
Speaker 4: and you you are going to take us to Bashkai.
Speaker 4: Do you understand?
Speaker 3: I understand the voice of thunder that you speak.
Speaker 4: Oh, he's a smooth one. Peachey. He does something that too.
Speaker 4: What's your name, Mazurk? That's too long. He We'll call
Speaker 4: him Pache.
Speaker 2: He has the look about him of an old soldiering
Speaker 2: friend of eyes Billy.
Speaker 4: So he touched. Hey, we bestow a name on you.
Speaker 5: From now on, you'll beat Pillyfish and put this on
Speaker 5: your drums.
Speaker 4: Tell them two kings have come out of the mountain tops.
Speaker 4: Two kings that speaking words are fund that so they
Speaker 4: are trembles.
Speaker 7: Tell them two kings have come to Camparistan, Joe, Peche,
Speaker 7: Why are.
Speaker 1: You sitting out here in the dark.
Speaker 4: I've been thinking. Man has to stop and think sometimes.
Speaker 1: But anything special.
Speaker 5: Then look at him, Pache, Look at that blinking campfires
Speaker 5: are cleaning in the dark like the jewels in the crown.
Speaker 2: Yes, Daniel, and a fine job for sure. All twenty
Speaker 2: three villages, you're joined together as one.
Speaker 5: It is the army you train to be thankful it
Speaker 5: two thousand men with a fair knowledge of better eyes.
Speaker 1: Some of them's a bit green at Itiot.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there ours now, every man, jack, woman and child.
Speaker 4: We own a body and soul.
Speaker 2: Yes, we're kings now, Daniel, not proper kings yet, but
Speaker 2: we will be.
Speaker 4: Yeah, sooner than you think. Pechy's that now.
Speaker 5: Billy Fish told me something today that fair amazed me.
Speaker 5: These people know the craft. They're freemasons, Danuines, I'm possible
Speaker 5: so well. Me it's gospel true. He give the grip
Speaker 5: and everything.
Speaker 4: It's old.
Speaker 5: The craft is older than the memory of men, and
Speaker 5: up here in the hills they've been preserving it all
Speaker 5: these years. Why some of the eye priests know up
Speaker 5: through the fillow craft, but they don't know the third degree,
Speaker 5: you see it, Peachey.
Speaker 4: They don't know the third degree, but we do.
Speaker 1: Daniel, what is it you're fixing to do?
Speaker 8: Do?
Speaker 9: We're going to be proper kings.
Speaker 4: We got them going and coming.
Speaker 5: Now I'm going to turn the whole country into one
Speaker 5: grand lodge, raise some of the priest to the third degree,
Speaker 5: and for me, I'll be the grand master of Kafiristan.
Speaker 1: You've got the right. We've never been officers in a.
Speaker 4: Lodge, right. What's a king got to do with asking
Speaker 4: for our right?
Speaker 1: I'm against it, Daniel. It's no good to go fooling
Speaker 1: around with the crop.
Speaker 4: You talk like an old woman. The thing will work,
Speaker 4: I know it will.
Speaker 5: We'll make it a bloomin ceremony, regular aprons with the
Speaker 5: symbols and the.
Speaker 4: Marks all for us pige The king's the Kafirrish child.
Speaker 5: Everything is prepared muster and the priests and the people wait,
Speaker 5: well longer, Billy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, now, peachy, how do you like my apron?
Speaker 1: The Wonderer's saw it for fair Daniel.
Speaker 4: Made a white almond skin. It is, and the Master's
Speaker 4: mark with him a little studied the mark? You know
Speaker 4: the meaning of the mark that I do.
Speaker 5: It's got into you, Billy, is a thing that's passing. Strange, muster,
Speaker 5: strange and radish. Have Alona very pg right with you, Daniel,
Speaker 5: and we go under the temple steps.
Speaker 4: We'll give him what far they're blinking eyes out, That's
Speaker 4: what we'll do.
Speaker 5: Look at I'm peche right down on the bloom.
Speaker 4: And knees and yelling their fool.
Speaker 1: Head George Hay's a good thing to be a king, Daniel?
Speaker 5: The mark?
Speaker 1: Behold the mark?
Speaker 4: Ye know what's wrong with the priest?
Speaker 1: Believe it looks like trouble, Daniel?
Speaker 4: No stand where you are? Must they recognize the mark?
Speaker 4: A great stone in the floor. Why do they turn
Speaker 4: it over? Wait? Oh, it's the same. There's the mark.
Speaker 4: Speak up, bellyfish, what's the maiden of it?
Speaker 5: See for yourself, loop Daniel carved on the back of
Speaker 5: the sun. Tis the Master's mark, all right, And the
Speaker 5: same as the sign you wear. Only a few of
Speaker 5: the priests have known of the hidden mark on the stone.
Speaker 4: What is the name? The many who have doubted you
Speaker 4: were a god? Doubt no longer? And you, billy, what
Speaker 4: do you think?
Speaker 1: I muster?
Speaker 4: I think that now it is the time for the.
Speaker 1: Ooh, tave you GOLs and crowns?
Speaker 4: Hi, how they glitter hit for the brow of the king.
Speaker 1: It's what we come for here.
Speaker 4: Now pull them on.
Speaker 1: We'll turn ourselves.
Speaker 4: Now ride well, listen to him. You know something, pitchy.
Speaker 4: We come here to be kings, and that we are
Speaker 4: all right but blamed if we ain't a couple of
Speaker 4: Roman gods. Taboo with a million people down on their knees.
Speaker 4: Well enough, peachey, So it was God's You became as
Speaker 4: well as kings.
Speaker 1: But then what happened?
Speaker 4: What became of Daniel Rabbit Travitt?
Speaker 1: Are you Daniel Travitt?
Speaker 4: Once?
Speaker 1: He's a king? Now Daniel is? Where's a golden crown?
Speaker 5: Conn was with dig trying to pull yourself together? Now
Speaker 5: I'll try good. Now you became kings, You and Daniel
Speaker 5: kings of all coapurists. He was a fine figure. Daniel
Speaker 5: was with his red red in that golden crown.
Speaker 6: Kept himself aloof from the people, start of speaking when
Speaker 6: he walked out in front of the temple like the
Speaker 6: had a crawl on his.
Speaker 1: Stomach to worship him.
Speaker 4: Yes, but what happened?
Speaker 1: Man?
Speaker 6: Well, I I'll figure. Mostly it was winter coming up.
Speaker 6: Winds was starting up and clads was blowing down.
Speaker 4: From the north. Oh, it could blow beastly cold that
Speaker 4: winter wind. Who was out there at your belly? Can't
Speaker 4: found it anyway?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Now watch this, I have brought your food, master.
Speaker 5: She was the wild sheep, koury and rice above your knees? Girl,
Speaker 5: it inside?
Speaker 1: Why is it there? Y?
Speaker 4: You're a well favored wench.
Speaker 5: I do not understand.
Speaker 4: Why are you crawling on your name? It's sitting way
Speaker 4: to approach the god of Kafir.
Speaker 6: Stand?
Speaker 9: What's your name?
Speaker 1: Girl?
Speaker 4: My room?
Speaker 1: Things up?
Speaker 4: You're married? It does not yet be my happy fortune
Speaker 4: must ready mean?
Speaker 5: What a god? I mean?
Speaker 4: How do I seeing here? You find me pleasing?
Speaker 5: What your fish?
Speaker 4: It's more wonders and noonday sun and you look the
Speaker 4: look of eagles.
Speaker 9: H very well in a leave now, thank you, master, m.
Speaker 4: Hey j.
Speaker 2: Hej ahs you calling me Daniel, Oh fools a right.
Speaker 5: Good, mark that wind that sn You know winters are bad.
Speaker 5: Do this strike and fill their passes with snow. There'll
Speaker 5: be a little moving about afore spring.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're right, heyee, I decided to take a wife.
Speaker 1: But you can't do it, Daniel. We made a contract.
Speaker 5: That was till he was kings. Well, kings were playing
Speaker 5: these many months.
Speaker 1: Now, snow good, I'll tell you now, I'm against it,
Speaker 1: against it.
Speaker 4: You was against using the craft too, but look what
Speaker 4: it's done for us. This is different.
Speaker 1: Billyfish will tell you now the same as I.
Speaker 4: Do, Billy fesh eh, who's the king? Here?
Speaker 5: Him me?
Speaker 4: My mind's made up.
Speaker 5: Three days from now, I shall have me a while,
Speaker 5: and you could put it on the drums and tell
Speaker 5: every blighter out there in the ouse.
Speaker 4: Thingham, I'll hear a son, donna have a queen. Let's
Speaker 4: keeping a pitchy. They should have brought her in half
Speaker 4: an hour ago.
Speaker 1: I don't know, Daniel.
Speaker 4: How about you, Billy Fish.
Speaker 5: You put him up to stolen off, deliberate like, certain
Speaker 5: preparations must be made.
Speaker 2: Muster feet across the court with some of the priests.
Speaker 2: Maybe they're trying to buck her up a bit Daniel.
Speaker 2: She thinks she's going to die, you know, ah die?
Speaker 4: Indeed, why as it is against the loss of heaven
Speaker 4: for a woman to marry God, I'm not a god
Speaker 4: on a man. You know that by now, Billy know,
Speaker 4: and I should not want to think so. Muster. But
Speaker 4: either way this can mean only trouble.
Speaker 1: I beg you to reconsider, and I beg you to
Speaker 1: keep your mouth shut.
Speaker 4: Billy. I'm through waiting.
Speaker 10: I'm going over there to talk to the master. Please.
Speaker 1: Oh, we've got to go with him, Billy. I think
Speaker 1: it's gonna mean trouble. But come on, how many men
Speaker 1: can you depend on?
Speaker 4: No more than twenty with rifles. Most of my men
Speaker 4: are in Bashkai. And what shall we do. We shall
Speaker 4: have to make a run for it. I fear we
Speaker 4: might be safe in Bashkai. I've got bugling pools.
Speaker 1: Bring out the girl. Well now that's better.
Speaker 5: Yeah, girl, this is no way but obliged to behave
Speaker 5: ah smile now and give us a cares.
Speaker 4: Oh the waightious better don't let them see the brot.
Speaker 1: Right back. Daniels are coming with not they can't do this.
Speaker 4: I am the king.
Speaker 10: Come on, Daniel, come on, gone founded edens.
Speaker 4: I'll come back. I'll come back and beat the blastered edging.
Speaker 1: That's what I'll do.
Speaker 5: Daniel here, we'll be back, all right, how much further
Speaker 5: believe only short way beyond this ridge, muster.
Speaker 1: Well, so far, so good.
Speaker 4: Hi, at least them blooming drums has stopped.
Speaker 2: We're at the top, Daniel.
Speaker 5: Here, and a right good climate's been h Wait, it
Speaker 5: seems the drums have come before us.
Speaker 4: Muster, God off, no less than nothing.
Speaker 1: Sending.
Speaker 4: They're quiet like with them, look a long knives in
Speaker 4: their ends.
Speaker 1: So it'll be not getting past some Daniel.
Speaker 4: No, we're done for Go back, Billy Fish, take your
Speaker 4: man away with you.
Speaker 1: Go with them, Peachey. It's me they want.
Speaker 4: I did it me the king.
Speaker 1: Dan, I'm sticking with you, Philly Fish. You clear out.
Speaker 4: I am your friend.
Speaker 1: I stay with you.
Speaker 4: That a good man.
Speaker 2: Believe they're coming now, Daniel, pech forget it, Daniel, I'll
Speaker 2: forgive you freely fully.
Speaker 4: Then let them come. Maybe one thing they can't change, Peachey,
Speaker 4: we've been killing change and alone, right, I don't come.
Speaker 6: Yeah, if it sliced open publie Fish like a blooming earring.
Speaker 6: He did here in the snow and the rocks, and
Speaker 6: good lord man. But you, Pitchy, you got away from them,
Speaker 6: got away from him? Did I?
Speaker 8: Oh?
Speaker 6: No, it stung me out on a tree. It drove
Speaker 6: nails right through the hand, said did that say? Look,
Speaker 6: I have fooled him, all right, because the morning coming
Speaker 6: I wasn't dead.
Speaker 4: And then I made him.
Speaker 6: Think i'd I thought it was my senses, and I
Speaker 6: was afraid you m because I was protected by Allah.
Speaker 11: Cut me down, Lennon after the while, let me go,
Speaker 11: you poor devil, What a dreven What happened to Daniel?
Speaker 1: Daniel Daniels a king? He wears a golden crime in him. Now,
Speaker 1: now what happened to him? He never left me all
Speaker 1: in long months walking on the road back. He kept
Speaker 1: me safe the mountains.
Speaker 6: I daned at night, but Daniel held up his hand.
Speaker 6: Pitchy came along bent double. I never let go of
Speaker 6: Daniel's hand.
Speaker 2: Hey, he's with me now here in this bundle, you know,
Speaker 2: old Daniels, even if it was a monoquent.
Speaker 8: Look at him now, well, now I have seen that
Speaker 8: we were really kings. Be on my way, you pardon.
Speaker 1: I let him go.
Speaker 5: There was little else to do. It was only hours
Speaker 5: away from his death. I sat there and stared at
Speaker 5: the bundle he had left lying on my desk. Stared
Speaker 5: as the pale shafts of dawn struck fire in the
Speaker 5: Red Beard. Stared at the gold crown sitting too large
Speaker 5: and heavy upon the wrinkled, mummified head of Daniel Rabbit.
Speaker 1: The Man Who Would Be King.
Speaker 2: Escape is produced and directed by Norman McDonald. Tonight, we
Speaker 2: have brought you The Man who Would Be King by
Speaker 2: Rudyard Kipling, adapted for radio by Les Crutchfield, with editorial
Speaker 2: supervision by John Duncle. Featured in tonight's cast for Ben
Speaker 2: Right and Wilms Herbert with John Dayner, Peggy Weber and
Speaker 2: Jack Crusham. Special music by Ivan Didmark. Good Night, Then
Speaker 2: until the same time next week, when once again will
Speaker 2: offer you escape. This is the United States Armed Forces
Speaker 2: Radio and Television Service.