Speaker 1: Getting impatient for baseball diseasing to start, have a touch
Speaker 1: of spring fever. I want to get away from it all.
Speaker 1: We offer you escape.
Speaker 2: You are in mid ocean aboard a jink ship. Already
Speaker 2: nine men have died, and do you know that some
Speaker 2: malignant forces aimed at you from which you cannot escape?
Speaker 1: Escape designed to free you from the four walls of
Speaker 1: today for a half hour of high adventure.
Speaker 2: Tonight we escape to the North Atlantic in the year
Speaker 2: nineteen hundred and to a sailing ship whose very name
Speaker 2: struck dread in sailors hearts. As Joseph Conrad told her
Speaker 2: in his famous story The Brute, you.
Speaker 3: Could never tell it. Just by looking at her.
Speaker 4: Proud and strong and beautiful on the outside, you couldn't
Speaker 4: see the black heart inside of her, and you'd never know.
Speaker 4: She'd killed at least a dozen men and maybe more.
Speaker 4: Or I knew her, knewer for the murderin she devil
Speaker 4: she was.
Speaker 3: I saw the day she.
Speaker 4: Killed her first one, and I was there too when
Speaker 4: she finally made a.
Speaker 3: Big mistake and killed the wrong person.
Speaker 2: For that was a long time later.
Speaker 4: She had a name, all right, But after that first day,
Speaker 4: her first killing, nobody with the family ever used it again.
Speaker 4: Everyone else from that day on would look at her,
Speaker 4: half afraid, half snarling, and they called her the brute.
Speaker 4: I remember I was fourteen the day my father took
Speaker 4: me down to the South Thames Boatyard to watch the
Speaker 4: launching of the ship. My brother Charlie was there, of course,
Speaker 4: eight years older than me, and very proud of his
Speaker 4: one gold stripe now that he'd be made Enoficer in
Speaker 4: the App's line. Charlie and father were talking. I just
Speaker 4: stood and listened to the moon. Didn't say much of
Speaker 4: anything myself.
Speaker 2: Look at her, Dad, ever see a ship in your
Speaker 2: life with lines like that? I bet you allowed sail
Speaker 2: any clip on the China Trade.
Speaker 3: Oh that remains to be seen, Charley.
Speaker 2: How soon are they going to launcher any minute?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 2: I'd give a lot to be sailing on her instead
Speaker 2: of on the Malcolm Aps.
Speaker 5: Oh the Malcolm's a good ship, soun as good as
Speaker 5: ship as into the Apps family owned.
Speaker 2: So I'm not kicking. I'm glad enough to be through
Speaker 2: apprentice ship and get my commission. But even at that,
Speaker 2: I'd almost rather be a bosoner on this ship than
Speaker 2: play it made on the Malcolm.
Speaker 3: Stand at Colchesters to be her captain.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's right, all was commanded with the absent Son's line.
Speaker 2: Look at the size of her dad, she's a full
Speaker 2: two thousand tons less half a time, Charlie. Well, good morning,
Speaker 2: mister Germy. Mister Wilmot, hello, need how.
Speaker 3: Do you do sir?
Speaker 6: No, childlie, she came to one thousand, nine hundred and
Speaker 6: ninety nine and a half when we measured it.
Speaker 2: Roupe well, two thousand tons or not, mister Germy, you'll
Speaker 2: never build a better ship than this one.
Speaker 6: I hadn't know, charlebe I built her the way mister
Speaker 6: Opps wants there. She's big and she's stout.
Speaker 2: But I don't know.
Speaker 3: And what's your reason for saying that?
Speaker 6: No reason that makes any sense about the devil's own
Speaker 6: time with her cabin doors gemming when they shouldn't, edge
Speaker 6: covers that wouldn't fit after they'd been measured up, blocks.
Speaker 2: Fell in for no reason at all.
Speaker 6: I don't know, mister Wilmot, But if she were a
Speaker 6: human being, I'd say that maybe she's insane. Oh come now,
Speaker 6: you've been working too hardens to Germany, better take a
Speaker 6: vacation now that she's finished.
Speaker 2: Well, like Goodine, I say, let's Maggie Colchest up there,
Speaker 2: the captain's niece. Is she going to do the christening?
Speaker 6: That's right, Telly, and I better get down below now
Speaker 6: my own men are going to knock the stays loose
Speaker 6: and let her slide down into the water.
Speaker 3: Oh good, mister Jermy, and aked mister come on board.
Speaker 2: Put the celebration off which he's launched, Bring the boy.
Speaker 3: And thank you.
Speaker 2: We should be there and let her go any minute now, Dad,
Speaker 2: I'm going to sail on that ship someday.
Speaker 4: Oh you probably sail on a lot of Apps Line
Speaker 4: ships before you through, Charley.
Speaker 2: Look, look they give them Megan the champagne now, and
Speaker 2: she's going to christ Listen.
Speaker 3: The f yepslum so that their name? All right?
Speaker 2: I'm not glad.
Speaker 3: She started to booth. There she goes, so look at
Speaker 3: that speed. I never saw it. Damn look out.
Speaker 2: Lord, if I'm right into the way, isn't she She
Speaker 2: went over him.
Speaker 1: He didn't fall.
Speaker 3: A timber rolled off the deck and knocked him under.
Speaker 2: She said, right over him, mister Jermy. The man who
Speaker 2: built her for his lunched in blood.
Speaker 3: If that means anything, he's a brute. Of the murders. Now,
Speaker 3: Charley still think you'd like to sail Anna.
Speaker 2: It was an accident. It doesn't mean anything.
Speaker 3: Perhaps not.
Speaker 2: I'll sail on her some day, sooner or later.
Speaker 3: I will sail honor. Well.
Speaker 4: The way things worked out, I was the one to
Speaker 4: sail on her first, instead of Charlie. He'd gone on
Speaker 4: out to the orient of all the Malcolm. And six
Speaker 4: months later, when I started my apprenticeship, I found the
Speaker 4: company had assigned me to report to Captain Colchester on
Speaker 4: the Apps Family or the Brute.
Speaker 3: As everybody was calling up privately. There was some kind
Speaker 3: of mix up.
Speaker 4: In the sailing orders, and by the time I came
Speaker 4: on board and Tug already had a line on the
Speaker 4: big sailing ship and was starting to ease her stern
Speaker 4: first out into the channel.
Speaker 3: All right, now, hang up the flat.
Speaker 4: Captain Colchester was at the tap of shouting orders to
Speaker 4: the tug. Cap Jim and the mates were forward somewhere
Speaker 4: handling the check line.
Speaker 5: You've got the slap now all away.
Speaker 4: I stood to the waist, waiting for a chance to
Speaker 4: report in, and watching a young fellow about my own
Speaker 4: age was doing something or another upper loft on the
Speaker 4: mismast above me. The tug had drawn the line out taut,
Speaker 4: but the ship hadn't started to move yet.
Speaker 3: You've got no way yet. While I jed up your four.
Speaker 4: Speed, the tug was churning the water to froth, and
Speaker 4: the howser was tight as a bowstone, but we still
Speaker 4: didn't move.
Speaker 2: All.
Speaker 4: Then suddenly the ship gave a lurch and started back
Speaker 4: like a bucking horse. The men foreted no chance to
Speaker 4: ease the kit check tack cable, and a second later
Speaker 4: had snapped the ship tuned down back and then sheared
Speaker 4: off to bring off the smash against the pier head
Speaker 4: that knocked me sprawling on the deck.
Speaker 3: And at that moment.
Speaker 4: The lad who'd been working aloft on the mouse crashed
Speaker 4: down onto the deck, not ten feet away from me,
Speaker 4: and he lay there without moving.
Speaker 5: Give a hand up here on my waistraight, young hawk
Speaker 5: has just fell out of the tops.
Speaker 3: Eh.
Speaker 2: That's too bad?
Speaker 3: Is he? Is he dead?
Speaker 5: Captain Colchester, he's dead, boy, Get a hold of yourself.
Speaker 5: Don't stand at tremblin. You never seen anybody die before, yes, sir,
Speaker 5: on the day they launched this ship h jermainn Eh,
Speaker 5: your young ned Wilman, I suppose the new apprentice. Yes, sir,
Speaker 5: no doubt you may have heard this ship called by
Speaker 5: an unpleasant name once in a while, Yes, sir, the Brute. Well,
Speaker 5: you'll be kind enough to remember why you are born.
Speaker 5: That her name is the Apse family, and she's had
Speaker 5: her share of accidents, the same as any other ship.
Speaker 5: Is that quite clear? Yes, sir, get along forward with
Speaker 5: you and stow your gear away on the folks. You'll
Speaker 5: take over young Hawkins duties for the time.
Speaker 3: Be Yes, sir.
Speaker 4: I sailed aboard the Brute for the next four years
Speaker 4: and watched her kill nine men during the time we
Speaker 4: got so we try to outguess her, try to figure
Speaker 4: out how she'd do it the next time. But no
Speaker 4: matter what we think, we never were right.
Speaker 3: And it wasn't only the killing, it was everything.
Speaker 4: Most ships of little ways all their own, and you'll
Speaker 4: learn about.
Speaker 3: Him and allow for him, ah, but not her.
Speaker 4: She was like a crazy woman. You never knew what
Speaker 4: she'd do next. I remember once off the Gold Coast,
Speaker 4: she ran before a gale for two days as pretty
Speaker 4: as you please, and then broached to twice the same afternoon,
Speaker 4: flung the helms and clean over the wheel the first
Speaker 4: time and the second time swamped herself fore and aft
Speaker 4: and split out every stitch of canvas. And after we
Speaker 4: got the decks cleaned up, we found one seaman had
Speaker 4: gone overboard.
Speaker 3: He was her fifth I guess it was, or maybe
Speaker 3: the sixth. Oh, she was beautiful.
Speaker 4: The Aps family was big and proud and beautiful, and
Speaker 4: along with it a killer, a.
Speaker 3: Black hearted sea going route.
Speaker 4: My brother Charlie was on the China Run all that time,
Speaker 4: first on the Malcolm and later on the Lucy Epps.
Speaker 4: I we never happened to hitpot on the same time. Finally,
Speaker 4: the time of my apprenticeship was up. We boomed into London.
Speaker 4: At the end of the trip. I went before the
Speaker 4: board of my papers. I guess they figured anybody who
Speaker 4: could stay alive for four years on the Brute must
Speaker 4: be a seaman. Anyway, I passed, and mister Apps handed
Speaker 4: me my sailing orders along with the commission. I was
Speaker 4: assigned as third mate to Captain Colchester on the Apps family.
Speaker 5: Well, congratulations and ed glad you got to stay with us.
Speaker 3: Thanks Captain Colchester.
Speaker 5: You've you'd a hard work and a prentice, and I've
Speaker 5: no doubt what you'll be a good officer. In fact,
Speaker 5: we have a man on board who'll make sure of that.
Speaker 3: Why what do you mean, cap'na got a new first
Speaker 3: mate in this trip?
Speaker 5: Come in, Charlie, Charlie, Well hello, they youngster. I say
Speaker 5: you've been doing a bit of growing the.
Speaker 2: Last five years.
Speaker 3: Charlie. I didn't even know you were.
Speaker 4: In port in for a week down country there, I
Speaker 4: hear you fool the board. Careful man, you're talking about
Speaker 4: your own third mate, so.
Speaker 2: They tell me, And you'll be jumping lively on this trip.
Speaker 3: Mebore, easy, easy, don't forget. I know this ship and
Speaker 3: you don't.
Speaker 2: And I'll learn her quick enough. Been wanting the chance
Speaker 2: for a long time, and between us, I think we
Speaker 2: can even break this jinx. Lad.
Speaker 5: Shall be no talk of a jinx on this trip,
Speaker 5: at least not in the cabin, as long as Maggie's
Speaker 5: going along.
Speaker 3: Maggie.
Speaker 2: Who's Maggie?
Speaker 5: Ask your brother. I think he's the one who talked
Speaker 5: her into the trip, though she claims it's for a
Speaker 5: healthy I'll leave you two to get acquainted. We'll be
Speaker 5: about ten days loading. If you've got any plans.
Speaker 3: What's he talking about? Charlie.
Speaker 2: Who's Maggie his niece, Maggie Colchester. You remember her, the
Speaker 2: girl christened the ship? Of course?
Speaker 3: Holy well he's not dead.
Speaker 2: I told you where I've been spending shortly is for
Speaker 2: the last year and a half.
Speaker 3: No, Charlie, I didn't know anything about it.
Speaker 2: Well, let me show you something. Yeah, Now, if I
Speaker 2: have my way, megg be wearing this before the trip's over. Yeah,
Speaker 2: take a look.
Speaker 3: Blimey, that's all right.
Speaker 2: Yes, I bought it in Cape Town. It's the blue
Speaker 2: white diamond set in platinum.
Speaker 3: Is it big enough to go on her finger?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 2: It's big enough, all right. That's where it's going if
Speaker 2: I can talk her into it.
Speaker 3: And who's going to talk who into what?
Speaker 2: Molly Er, Maggie. I was saying that I hoped I
Speaker 2: could talk you into going ashore for dinner with me.
Speaker 3: Oh were you now, you big liar?
Speaker 2: Oh, Maggie, this is my brother Ned, Ned, This is Maggie.
Speaker 3: How do you do? And are you into the officers too?
Speaker 4: I'm the new third mate.
Speaker 3: Well, I certainly help you all more truthful than your brother.
Speaker 2: Maggie's invitation to dinner I am accepting with pleasure.
Speaker 3: See you both later, all right are But Nah, Charlie,
Speaker 3: she's lovely.
Speaker 2: She's more than that, Ned, she's everything as far as
Speaker 2: I'm concerned.
Speaker 3: Well, in that case, good luck. I hope you get her.
Speaker 2: And we'll see about that. Anyway. With Maggie aboard, we've
Speaker 2: got to make sure this jink ship stays on good
Speaker 2: behavior for once. It'll be the first time if she does,
Speaker 2: when it's the first time we've had both the Wilmots
Speaker 2: on board. The gunner. We'll tame her down, Ned, we'll
Speaker 2: make a calm and peaceful as an old warehouse. Just
Speaker 2: you wait and see if we don't.
Speaker 7: Ah.
Speaker 3: And the strange part of it was he was right.
Speaker 4: We stood out past Grave's End and made the passage
Speaker 4: to the China coast in a hundred and twenty one
Speaker 4: days of her finest weather you've had ever hoped to meet,
Speaker 4: and for the first time in her bloody life, the
Speaker 4: old ship settled down and sailed herself as neat as
Speaker 4: you please. Charlie and I talk about it sometimes when
Speaker 4: Maggie wasn't around. He'd always laugh and say, the brute
Speaker 4: knew when she'd met her match, but she didn't dare
Speaker 4: try to.
Speaker 3: But the two of us.
Speaker 4: When I was more ready to give the credit to
Speaker 4: Maggie to think maybe she'd charmed the old murderers away,
Speaker 4: she charmed all the rest of us.
Speaker 3: From the second day out.
Speaker 4: Maggie was the secret darling of every man on board.
Speaker 4: She was all over the ship, here, there, and everywhere,
Speaker 4: with red tam and her bright blue eyes, never still
Speaker 4: a minute at having the time of her life. If
Speaker 4: she'd come along for her health, she'd found it. Before
Speaker 4: we passed Gravesend, we raised the storm on the passage
Speaker 4: back and ran four days in a heavy gale.
Speaker 3: I stood by and held my breath.
Speaker 4: Ready for anything, and nothing happened. The old lady App's
Speaker 4: family held up her head and sailed along like a
Speaker 4: sea gull. Any time before she'd have buried her gunnelle
Speaker 4: in the quartering seas.
Speaker 3: But now all the water she shipped you could put
Speaker 3: in a teacup.
Speaker 4: One hundred and nine days from Hong Kong, we raised
Speaker 4: the Dungkness light, and early the next morning picked up
Speaker 4: a tug off.
Speaker 3: Sheered us for the long tow up river to London.
Speaker 4: The ship followed along on the toe line like a
Speaker 4: puppy on a leash, and we moved slowly up the
Speaker 4: river past Graves End. All of us were glad to
Speaker 4: be home, but Maggie most of all, I think, because
Speaker 4: she'd never been at sea so long before. I had
Speaker 4: to smile at the way she danced around on the bows,
Speaker 4: picking out one landmark after another as we came to them,
Speaker 4: sometimes standing up on the spare anchor we'd taken in
Speaker 4: on the fore deck in order to get a better
Speaker 4: look at the river banks ahead. She wasn't wearing the
Speaker 4: ring yet, but I knew she was going to, and
Speaker 4: it was only teasing Charlie as long as possible.
Speaker 3: What's wrong, Ned?
Speaker 4: A tug stopped her engines solision up ahead in the channel. Charlie,
Speaker 4: looks like a yawl and a schooner fell together.
Speaker 2: Yes, Oh, looks like they're turning it up now because
Speaker 2: we can move again a couple of minutes. Maggie, why
Speaker 2: don't you go on the after deck.
Speaker 3: You're on the way up forward there.
Speaker 1: I'm all right, Charlie, stop worrying.
Speaker 3: We're almost better. Save your orders with the crude, Charlie,
Speaker 3: she ranks.
Speaker 2: You take orders from her any day. Yes, we are
Speaker 2: almost to Ned. We've had a lucky voyage.
Speaker 4: Who's the first halfway peaceful trip I've ever made in
Speaker 4: the old brute. I told you we'd tame her down.
Speaker 4: She's turned over a new leaf. Ned well, it won't
Speaker 4: last long if she keeps on shearing off there and
Speaker 4: drifting back down the channel.
Speaker 2: Huh, yes, we're heading straight for those fishing smacks.
Speaker 4: Better have the tug start up and hold a toad
Speaker 4: line on her. I've seen her do this before.
Speaker 3: Ahi.
Speaker 2: The tug take up the slack and get us straight
Speaker 2: in the channel, hurled it against the current.
Speaker 4: Any other ship would have held teddy for the two
Speaker 4: or three minutes we stopped.
Speaker 3: Button up the old Rapp's family.
Speaker 4: And now when the tug tightened up in the holes
Speaker 4: are pulling at an angler across her bows. She wouldn't respond,
Speaker 4: wouldn't budge. The old girl wanted her own way.
Speaker 3: She was just as stubborn as ever. A hoil a tag.
Speaker 2: We're still drifting up and up to full speed, Come fander.
Speaker 2: When I saw a ship back like this.
Speaker 4: The heavy hawser was pulled so tight it was humming,
Speaker 4: and tug's pedals with her engines full, whipped up the
Speaker 4: water like a mill race, And then it happened. The
Speaker 4: heavy towing chok tore loose.
Speaker 3: From the deck.
Speaker 4: The Hausam began sliding across the bow, ripping out rails
Speaker 4: tuncheons like masticks.
Speaker 3: And my heart was going to sleep under the troops
Speaker 3: of the spare anchor, the anchor that Maggie was tending on.
Speaker 2: Maggie, get off the ancle, look at.
Speaker 4: She tried to jump clear, but she was too late.
Speaker 4: The great anchor had tipped up on its side, clasped
Speaker 4: her about the waist like a monster's arm of steel.
Speaker 4: It had carried her with it and swung down and
Speaker 4: over and smashed against the side of the ship.
Speaker 3: She went into the water.
Speaker 2: Take tart of the deck net.
Speaker 3: I'm going in after ned, Ned, was that Maggie, Yes, sir,
Speaker 3: she's she's overboard, Captain Cortester.
Speaker 2: Maggie, Oh the dirty.
Speaker 3: Murder and brute. Now it's women she's killing. Let go
Speaker 3: the port all the simcy. Yes, I ket a bottle.
Speaker 4: I hadn't told Charlie, and I didn't say anything about
Speaker 4: it to Captain Colchester. But I stood there and I
Speaker 4: knew it wasn't any use because I'd seen the way
Speaker 4: the heavy anchor had carried her over and then swung
Speaker 4: in to smash her against the bow before it dropped
Speaker 4: her into the water. And I'd seen the way that
Speaker 4: water beneath the bow.
Speaker 3: Was all colored red.
Speaker 4: They found her at late afternoon when the tide turned
Speaker 4: and she floated clear of one of the mooring boys,
Speaker 4: and the next morning we tied up in the landon docks.
Speaker 4: The men had been happy at coming into their home pot,
Speaker 4: but now they remembered how she'd been happy to their
Speaker 4: own darling. I'd never before seen a cruel leavership so quiet,
Speaker 4: and some of them, when they reached the wharf, turned
Speaker 4: back and cursed her under that breath.
Speaker 3: Finally, it was only Charlie and.
Speaker 4: I alone on the quarter deck, and Captain Colchester was
Speaker 4: below somewhere in the cabin.
Speaker 3: She never wore ned the ring.
Speaker 2: She never wore it.
Speaker 3: She would have, Charlie, I know she meant to. She
Speaker 3: was just having a little fun with you, that's all.
Speaker 2: With all of a sudden board, Why did the blute
Speaker 2: have to go for Maggie? Why?
Speaker 3: I guess there's not much answer for that.
Speaker 2: Cho was everything I wanted, everything.
Speaker 4: Yes, Charlie, I.
Speaker 2: Know I talked into making the voyage. It was my idea.
Speaker 3: It's no good, Charlie, this kind of thinking.
Speaker 2: I guess you know that I don't know. She's everything
Speaker 2: I wanted.
Speaker 3: Charlie. Over here, Captain, I'm going ashore.
Speaker 5: The ship keepers come aboard, and now to you free
Speaker 5: to go whenever you're like thanks, sir, Charlie, I am nothing.
Speaker 5: I'm resigning command in the morning. I'll never sit foot
Speaker 5: and board her again as long.
Speaker 2: As I live.
Speaker 3: I feel the same way, sir.
Speaker 5: Well come into the company office in a day or
Speaker 5: two and sign out for the log.
Speaker 3: Good day, gentlemen. Charlie, we better go ashore too.
Speaker 2: We're down here, yes, I I suppose we are.
Speaker 3: I lerange to have our gear picked up later. There's
Speaker 3: no use of captain. I missed him, but but yard,
Speaker 3: I'm off. The main mast fell right behind him. I
Speaker 3: have missed me a murdering room. And that was your
Speaker 3: last chime.
Speaker 2: Ned that yard was made faster dunkenness, and now it
Speaker 2: falls out of the top. So the ship lying still
Speaker 2: at the wharf, Yes, Charlie, come on, let's go ashore.
Speaker 2: Wasn't the devil satisfied for one trip? So now way
Speaker 2: of stopping her. How many waters you want to kill? Charlie,
Speaker 2: mad thed bake me home.
Speaker 4: Charlie was ten years older by the time we reached home,
Speaker 4: and it was two weeks before he'd do anything more
Speaker 4: than sit in his room and stare at the wall,
Speaker 4: saying nothing. Captain Colchester carried out his threat and resigned
Speaker 4: from the company the morning after we docked, and I
Speaker 4: filed my application for a transfer. The Apps family was
Speaker 4: reloaded and ready to sail, but she stayed on, lying
Speaker 4: at the wharf with nobody to take her out. And
Speaker 4: that's the way things stood for two weeks until one
Speaker 4: morning a bomb shell dropped.
Speaker 2: All Ned, Charlie.
Speaker 3: I wondered where you went this morning?
Speaker 2: And I left the house heard how do you feel fine? Ned,
Speaker 2: mister Apps tells me you've applied for the transfer another ship.
Speaker 3: Well, yes I did.
Speaker 2: As a matter of fact, you saw a man Apps
Speaker 2: as I stopped in the office this morning. Ned. It's
Speaker 2: up to you, of course, but I hope you'll change
Speaker 2: your mind another chance, the ship says tomorrow morning.
Speaker 4: Oh, so they finally found somebody crazy enough to take
Speaker 4: her out?
Speaker 2: Yes, they did.
Speaker 3: Me you you're going to skip of the brute.
Speaker 2: That's right, Ned, But I I to a short voyage
Speaker 2: north Atlantic run. You're afully glad to have you along,
Speaker 2: somebody I can depend on. If you feel like signing
Speaker 2: on again.
Speaker 4: Charlie, of course it's up to you, all right, Charlie,
Speaker 4: I'll sign on again. We boomed out past the Sheerness
Speaker 4: light and headed off, hugging.
Speaker 3: A lee shore in the stiff breeze.
Speaker 4: The ship drove herhead as steady as a barge, with
Speaker 4: scarcely a roller or quiver. But in spite of the
Speaker 4: smooth and easy way she handled, I couldn't help feeling uneasy.
Speaker 4: I could sense the black spirit of her brooding somewhere
Speaker 4: down inside, mocking and taunting us with her bloody memories
Speaker 4: and waiting for a new chance. By nightfall, we were
Speaker 4: running hard in along the Kettling coast, where those rocky
Speaker 4: headlands break.
Speaker 3: At intervals out of the shelving sandy beaches.
Speaker 4: The onshore wind held steady in our quarter, and the
Speaker 4: sun sank down behind the land some three miles away.
Speaker 4: It wasn't quite full dark yet when Charlie sent for me.
Speaker 4: I came up to where he was standing alone near
Speaker 4: the wheel let.
Speaker 3: You ned right, Charlie. Person said you wanted to see me.
Speaker 2: Yes, I did send for your ned held us said
Speaker 2: he is regards close the wind. I've been standing here
Speaker 2: thinking about Maggie ned A. She scrambled around over the decks,
Speaker 2: making friends with everybody, having the time of her life.
Speaker 3: Charlie, you've got to stop it.
Speaker 4: I'm all right. I like to think about her. It's
Speaker 4: this ship and all the memories around it. It's what
Speaker 4: I was afraid owner.
Speaker 2: It's all right, ned I want you to take charge
Speaker 2: of the crew and give an order. Of course you'll
Speaker 2: question the order, but you'll carry it out anyway. Do
Speaker 2: you understand what's what's the order? Charlie? Have all hands
Speaker 2: prepared to abandon ship?
Speaker 3: But why there's nothing wrong.
Speaker 2: Mister Wilmot. It is not an officer's place to question
Speaker 2: an order, but the captain. You'll lose your turn. Yes,
Speaker 2: you can give the order now, mister Wilmot.
Speaker 3: Charlie, I can't let you very well. Captain.
Speaker 5: All hands on deck stand by the boats, repair abandoned ship.
Speaker 4: All right, helmsman, find your place in the boats. I'll
Speaker 4: take over the wheel. I sir, you don't know what
Speaker 4: you're doing, Charlie, We're in no danger. There's no reason
Speaker 4: to abandon ship.
Speaker 2: You're always in danger aboard this black hearted brute. I'm
Speaker 2: put on the quarter now. You can get the boats
Speaker 2: in the water when you yields.
Speaker 3: Orry on steady, going on the quarter?
Speaker 2: He is he on?
Speaker 3: All right? Now?
Speaker 2: All hand.
Speaker 5: Boot.
Speaker 2: We shouldn't have any trouble running ashore with that beach
Speaker 2: there at the sands.
Speaker 3: Hey, what about you.
Speaker 2: I'll hold her steady until everybody's clear. You better go
Speaker 2: over the side your boat standing there.
Speaker 3: Oh no, not until you do. I'm staying with you, Charlie.
Speaker 2: You'll be a full med I'm doing this alone.
Speaker 3: No, Charlie, not while I'm here.
Speaker 2: Mister Wilmot, you will abandoned ship and take charge of
Speaker 2: the boats in the water. And that's an order, Charlie,
Speaker 2: I can't. Mister Wilmot, very well, Captain man sus spirit
Speaker 2: ladd and to a bay orders and step lively. You'll
Speaker 2: be a seaman yet.
Speaker 4: Good luck name, Thanks Charlie, stand by for you in
Speaker 4: the boat.
Speaker 2: Goss ld rye By.
Speaker 4: I slipped over the gunwale and dropped down into the
Speaker 4: boat that trailed alongside on a line from the rail.
Speaker 4: I'd hardly hit the bottom of the line. Second I
Speaker 4: knew Charlie had cut us loose in the ship. He
Speaker 4: was alone on and now alone in the night sea
Speaker 4: with a black brute, sir, Look, he's laid it over
Speaker 4: and away from the wind. Charlie had put the helm
Speaker 4: over hard, with a terrible shudder of her dark sails
Speaker 4: and a smother of white foam from her bows. The
Speaker 4: great ship healed about in a sharp turn, and then
Speaker 4: began to drive ahead like some mad king before the wind,
Speaker 4: straight before the wind, and straight toward the shore.
Speaker 2: Look, so the rocks in the headland.
Speaker 3: She's going to smash herself faster and faster. She plunged
Speaker 3: her head through the weltering seas.
Speaker 4: Faster and faster on the back of the gale, while
Speaker 4: the black hearted spirit of her screamed in the rat.
Speaker 3: Line, what is the name of heavenything I go to do?
Speaker 4: And now for one long instant? She hung poise at
Speaker 4: the top of a plunge, and then drove, smashing downward
Speaker 4: onto the road.
Speaker 7: We stood by as close as we dared for three
Speaker 7: hours while the killer ship hounded us up to bits
Speaker 7: and the surge in the sea. But we didn't find
Speaker 7: my brother Charlie, and from the first minute I knew
Speaker 7: we wouldn't because just before I'd left the ship, there
Speaker 7: by the helm, in the light of the binnacle.
Speaker 4: Lamp, I'd seen the thing he was holding, clenched tight
Speaker 4: in his hard brown fist. It was a tiny platinum ring,
Speaker 4: said with a blue white diamond.
Speaker 1: Escape is produced and directed by Norman MacDonald and Tonight
Speaker 1: Brought You The Brute by Joseph Conrad, adapted for radio
Speaker 1: by Les Crutchfield, featuring Dan O'hurleahey as Ned Wilmot and
Speaker 1: Eric Rolf as Charlie Wilmot, with Nina Cawden as Maggie,
Speaker 1: Jeff Corey as Captain Colchester Wilms, Herbert as German, and
Speaker 1: Parley Bear as the Father. Music is conceived and conducted
Speaker 1: by Wilbur Hatch. Next week.
Speaker 2: You will find the remote hill country of Afghan put
Speaker 2: in an ambush by the fierce Paton tribes, trapped in
Speaker 2: a hopeless fight from which there seems no escape.
Speaker 1: Next week we escape with Rudyard Kipling's gripping story The
Speaker 1: Drums of the Foreign app Good Night then until the
Speaker 1: same time next week, when once again we offer you escape.
Speaker 1: This is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System.