Speaker 1: Escape Escape Tonight to a rift in the South Pacific.
Speaker 2: A Columbia Broadcasting System and its affiliated stations presents Escape,
Speaker 2: produced and directed by William N. Robeson this The last
Speaker 2: of the summer series is The Fourth Man by John Russell,
Speaker 2: New Maya in the South Pacific, to a generation of
Speaker 2: French criminals, a word to be uttered in the same
Speaker 2: terrified breath with Devil's Island, the penal colony at Neu Maya,
Speaker 2: or the cutthroats, Garatas and Sadists from the dregs of
Speaker 2: French society were sent to a living death.
Speaker 3: Tonight.
Speaker 2: We invite you to escape from now Maya. In John
Speaker 2: Russell's The Fourth Man.
Speaker 4: The raft stood to open sea.
Speaker 1: A mat of pandana sleeves served for its sail, and
Speaker 1: a paddle of wood for its helm. It was woven
Speaker 1: of reeds and bamboo sticks, lashed upon triple rows of bladders,
Speaker 1: and it carried four men. Three of thems had huddled
Speaker 1: together at the far end. Their bodies were blackened with
Speaker 1: dried blood, and the hair upon them was long and matted.
Speaker 1: They wore only the rags of blue convict's uniforms on
Speaker 1: wrist and ankle. They carried their mark, the dark and
Speaker 1: wrinkled stain of the manacles. There was debots, doctor, man
Speaker 1: of the world, murderer, friends, the thing is done, and
Speaker 1: feneru forger ladies, man, weakling coward. Yes, we've escaped, and
Speaker 1: the one known as the parrot, thief and cutthroat.
Speaker 4: So far, so good, and by the way of celebration, gentlemen,
Speaker 4: may I offer you cigarettes?
Speaker 5: Cigarettes? Doctor, you're a marvel a magician.
Speaker 6: Look at them, white and fresh as though they just
Speaker 6: came from the package.
Speaker 3: How did you do it?
Speaker 4: Oh? Every six months there are about seventy five escapes
Speaker 4: from New Maya, and not more than one succeeds. Ours
Speaker 4: would be that one I knew, so three weeks ago
Speaker 4: I bribed the nightguard for these very cigarettes, so that
Speaker 4: we might sit here, my friends, as we are doing,
Speaker 4: and celebrate. I want a light, a light for the pet.
Speaker 6: Our doctor is a wonder. He thinks of everything. He
Speaker 6: gives us cigarettes, matches and our freedom.
Speaker 7: Wait till you've got your two feet on a pavement again.
Speaker 7: That'll be the time to sound off about freedom.
Speaker 6: To wear starched car again. Stole the girl, clean and
Speaker 6: fresh from her bath. Down the place La concorde.
Speaker 3: Suppose we get a storm.
Speaker 4: It's not the season of storms.
Speaker 3: Just the same. Suppose we get a storm.
Speaker 4: Arrikay, my friend, you must not be so impatient. Remember
Speaker 4: we were convicts back they're festering and oblivion. Now we
Speaker 4: are men raised from the dead.
Speaker 3: Suppose we get a storm.
Speaker 7: You've got a gift of speech. Doctor, But where's the
Speaker 7: ship that was going to meet us here?
Speaker 4: This is the day, is agreed, it will meet us.
Speaker 3: The wind will blow us to China if we keep on.
Speaker 4: We can't lie any closer to the shore. There's a
Speaker 4: government launch at Toryen. And I doubt if the native
Speaker 4: trackers have given us.
Speaker 5: A careful parrot. The natives leach you, yet.
Speaker 3: I've heard about that. It's a true doctor, that they'll
Speaker 3: keep all oneaways that can capture to fatten on.
Speaker 4: Oh they prefer the reward. Still, I doubt if they've
Speaker 4: entirely lost the habit of cannibalis.
Speaker 5: Peace by peace.
Speaker 4: Parrot.
Speaker 6: First they'll sample you, then they'll make a stew out
Speaker 6: of your brains. Oh, they won't miss a thing.
Speaker 3: Shut up, philar room, the filthy brutes.
Speaker 5: Oh, I almost forgot.
Speaker 6: We have one of them with us.
Speaker 1: The fourth man was steering the raft.
Speaker 4: He sat crouched in the.
Speaker 1: Stern, his body glistening with spray. His huge, dark hands
Speaker 1: held the steering paddle.
Speaker 4: He was motionless, like.
Speaker 1: An idol, his eyes fixed on the course ahead.
Speaker 4: The fourth man on the raft. You are looking at
Speaker 4: a canarch, my friends. You will see nothing superior, no
Speaker 4: line of beauty to redeemed, the low angle of the forehead,
Speaker 4: the knobby joints of the body. Nature has stamped him
Speaker 4: with the mark of inferiority, and he has set the
Speaker 4: final seal himself with that twist of bark about his middle,
Speaker 4: that prong of pig ivory through his nose.
Speaker 6: Yes, but none the less, he is a man, and
Speaker 6: there is a price on our heads.
Speaker 4: He could be taking us. Worry alike, arm yourself and
Speaker 4: areou This is a very simple animal and Infantryly.
Speaker 3: Does that mean he couldn't double cross us?
Speaker 4: It does. He is bound by his duty. I made
Speaker 4: my bargain with his chief up the river, and this
Speaker 4: one is sent to deliver us on board our ship.
Speaker 4: That's the only interest he has in us, and he'll
Speaker 4: do it. He will. That is the nature of the native.
Speaker 6: Now I don't trust him, not for a minute, the.
Speaker 3: Brute, the animal. You it's you. I'm talking about, you,
Speaker 3: dirty brute.
Speaker 4: Save your breath, ferret. He speaks no language, only a
Speaker 4: few noises, few signs.
Speaker 3: I don't feel right on the same wrath with that.
Speaker 6: Where burn yourselves up in the sun if you like,
Speaker 6: But me, I'm going to crawl under a mat.
Speaker 4: Get asleep. Yes, we should all sleep a little, conserve ourselves,
Speaker 4: and when we awake, our ship will be here, a
Speaker 4: saucy little topsail schooner, a mass standing out against the sky,
Speaker 4: and will be on our way to France. Y is sleep,
Speaker 4: my friends.
Speaker 1: The two younger convicts dozed under the heat of the day,
Speaker 1: but not the doctor. He stood once again to sweep
Speaker 1: the skyline under his sheted hand. His plan had been
Speaker 1: so careful, so precise. He had counted absolutely on meeting
Speaker 1: the ship, a small schooner, one of those flitting, half
Speaker 1: piratical traders of the Copra Islands that can be hired
Speaker 1: like cabs in a dark street for any sinister enterprise.
Speaker 1: And there was no ship, and there was no crossroads
Speaker 1: where one might sit and wait.
Speaker 5: Eh, good morning, doctor.
Speaker 4: It's afternoon phenero.
Speaker 5: Oh, yes, so it is I slept like a corpse.
Speaker 3: Hey, where's the ship? Doctor? It was going to be
Speaker 3: here when we woke up.
Speaker 4: It will be I'm thirsty. I'm dying with thirst. So well,
Speaker 4: where's the flask?
Speaker 5: I'm roasted in the sun.
Speaker 4: It was just have to roast some more. This crew
Speaker 4: is put on rations.
Speaker 3: What are you talking about? Where's that water?
Speaker 4: I have it here?
Speaker 3: Show your hair? Do you think it's yours?
Speaker 4: No, it's ours, parrot. I want a drink, doctor, think
Speaker 4: a little parrot. We have to guard our supplies like
Speaker 4: reasonable men. We don't know how long we may be
Speaker 4: floating here.
Speaker 3: Oh so that's how you talk.
Speaker 7: Now.
Speaker 3: You don't know how long. But you were sure enough
Speaker 3: when we started.
Speaker 4: I am still sure. The ship will come. She cannot
Speaker 4: stay for us in one spot. She'll be cruising to
Speaker 4: and fro until she intercepts us, and we must wait.
Speaker 7: Er.
Speaker 3: That's good. Wait.
Speaker 7: And in the meantime, what fry here in this heat?
Speaker 7: Our tongues hanging out? Why you deal us out water
Speaker 7: drop by drop?
Speaker 4: Perhaps?
Speaker 3: No, a man doesn't live. Who can feed me with
Speaker 3: a spoon?
Speaker 4: Unless you would die very speedily? We mist guard our
Speaker 4: We can only do our best with what we.
Speaker 7: Have all right, doctor, do your best. Give me a drink.
Speaker 4: You you may have your share, of course, but be
Speaker 4: warned when it's gone, don't come to us to fenerone me.
Speaker 1: Yes, what's fair?
Speaker 3: Is fair? My drink? Very well? Oh, a symbol for
Speaker 3: one symbol.
Speaker 4: This way we should have enough for three days, maybe more,
Speaker 4: with equal shares among the three of us.
Speaker 6: Ah, that's right, there are only three of us.
Speaker 4: You were you were thinking of him, Feneral about Pilot.
Speaker 4: He looks somewhat like us, doesn't he. But his body
Speaker 4: has never known clothes, his feet shoes. His heart has
Speaker 4: never known the swelling that comes with feelings of love
Speaker 4: or beauty. His mind has never known a single thought.
Speaker 4: Look at us, three gentlemen. You pheneraoh, a forger, you
Speaker 4: parrot a thief, and I, doctor Dubos of Paris and Marseilles,
Speaker 4: a murderer. And yet we are civilized men, and this
Speaker 4: is a savage general, and our provisions are for civilized
Speaker 4: men only.
Speaker 1: And the three men awoke to the second day on
Speaker 1: the raft. They looked and saw the far round horizon
Speaker 1: and the empty desert of the sea, and their own
Speaker 1: long shadows that slept slowly before them over its smooth,
Speaker 1: slow heaving. The land had sunk away from them in
Speaker 1: the night. The trap had been sprung as the savage
Speaker 1: sun kindled upon with the power of a burning glass.
Speaker 1: A calm fell, an absolute calm. The air hung weighted,
Speaker 1: the sea heaved and fell in polished undulations, and the
Speaker 1: sun shone, driving in under their eyelids like white hot splinters.
Speaker 1: They crawled to the shelter of the mats, gasping, shriveling.
Speaker 1: And the water, the world of water was slack and
Speaker 1: thick as oil.
Speaker 7: Oh, how long it is, doctor devous?
Speaker 3: Yes, parrot, look around you? What do you mean gone?
Speaker 3: Look around?
Speaker 7: What do you see?
Speaker 4: I see water, parrot, and the horizon, nothing else.
Speaker 7: Oh don't you see a ship? A saucy little schooner?
Speaker 7: Those were your words. Well where is it? Why don't
Speaker 7: don't you see it?
Speaker 4: It will come?
Speaker 7: Will it comfort us to be dead when it comes?
Speaker 5: You say that you count on your friends, But suppose.
Speaker 3: They leave you to rot here, ve parrot, and me
Speaker 3: to rot here.
Speaker 6: That would be a joke, hey, doctor, to wait for
Speaker 6: a ship that will never come.
Speaker 4: It will come. My friends will not fail me.
Speaker 6: Why how do you know? How can you be so sure.
Speaker 4: There's a safety vault in Paris full of papers to
Speaker 4: be opened at my death. Those papers contain confessions. No, gentlemen,
Speaker 4: my friends will not fail me.
Speaker 3: But perrot eh.
Speaker 4: A moment ago you asked me what I saw, Well,
Speaker 4: there was something I neglected.
Speaker 3: What's there?
Speaker 4: I see a canack and this raft with us. He
Speaker 4: does not join us, He does not look at us.
Speaker 4: He sits on his heels in the way of the Native,
Speaker 4: with his arms hut his knees. He sits at the stern, motionless,
Speaker 4: under the shattering sun, gazing out into it, into vacancy.
Speaker 4: Whenever I raise my eyes, I see nothing else, only
Speaker 4: this cannock.
Speaker 6: He seems to be enjoying himself quite well.
Speaker 4: I was thinking so myself. The cannibal, the savage. He
Speaker 4: does not seem to suffer. What's going on in his brain?
Speaker 4: What does he dream of?
Speaker 3: There?
Speaker 6: He looks as though he hates us, a dirty rat.
Speaker 6: Maybe he's waiting for us to die. Maybe he's waiting
Speaker 6: for the reward. At least he wouldn't starve on the
Speaker 6: way home. He could deliver us, please my peace?
Speaker 3: Oh does he do a doctor? Hasn't he any feeling?
Speaker 4: I've been wondering. It may be that his fibers are
Speaker 4: tougher his nerves.
Speaker 3: But we've had water and he hasn't yet.
Speaker 6: See his skin it's moist and fresh.
Speaker 7: And his belly that is a football. Don't tell me
Speaker 7: this savage is thirsty. Is there any way he could
Speaker 7: steal our supplies?
Speaker 3: Certainly?
Speaker 8: Not?
Speaker 3: Suppose he has his own supplies hidden? What who will see?
Speaker 3: Search the red?
Speaker 7: Come on, we let care and look into the match
Speaker 7: head push him aside anything, No, gentlemen, gentlemen, you were mistaken.
Speaker 4: Here is nothing hidden.
Speaker 3: You're wrong about him? Doctor, he can you say he
Speaker 3: has no understanding? There's one thing he can understand.
Speaker 7: Hey, not too much.
Speaker 4: Her?
Speaker 3: That will teach you? Not so, chipper. Now are you
Speaker 3: not so happy with your luck? That'll make you feel?
Speaker 3: You feel better?
Speaker 4: Now, don't you superior? Come back, my friends, come back
Speaker 4: under the mats. The glare of the sun is not
Speaker 4: so bad there.
Speaker 5: Idiots, what's the matter with our parrot?
Speaker 7: Now?
Speaker 3: Idiots? Why do we look and look? The schooner can't
Speaker 3: help us. Now. If we're becolmed, then they are too.
Speaker 4: Doctor, Is that true?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 4: We must talk for a breeze first.
Speaker 6: Then Why didn't you tell us we trust you? Why
Speaker 6: do you keep on playing out the farce?
Speaker 7: You are wise, doctor, you are very wise.
Speaker 4: Put down the knife, parrot.
Speaker 7: You know things we don't, and you keep them to yourself.
Speaker 7: All right, But be careful if you think you use
Speaker 7: your wisdom to get the best of us. Be careful, doctor,
Speaker 7: because I still have the knife.
Speaker 1: And so the days dragged by, the second, the third,
Speaker 1: and now it was the fourth day, and still there
Speaker 1: was no breeze, and still there was no ship. A doctor,
Speaker 1: as what do you what do you stare at him?
Speaker 4: At him, at him the native, the canark? Why look
Speaker 4: at him and look at us? We are dying, Our
Speaker 4: powers are ebbing, and him naked, wild, brutish, he has
Speaker 4: yet to give the slightest sign of complaint weakness?
Speaker 3: Doctor, Is this a man or a fiend?
Speaker 4: A man? It is a man, a miracle. It is
Speaker 4: a man, and a very poor and wretched example of
Speaker 4: a man. You'll find no lower type anywhere. Look at
Speaker 4: his cranial ankle, the high years, the heavy bones of
Speaker 4: his skull. He's scarcely above an ape.
Speaker 3: And what.
Speaker 4: He has a secret?
Speaker 7: Uh secret that.
Speaker 6: We see him every movie makes every minute What chance
Speaker 6: has he for a secret?
Speaker 4: Absurd? Here are we three children of the century, products
Speaker 4: of civilization, and here is this savage who belongs before
Speaker 4: the stone age? Is he to win this struggle? Absurd?
Speaker 3: What kind of secret?
Speaker 4: I can't say. Perhaps some method of breathing, strange posture
Speaker 4: he uses to cheat the sensations of the body. Such
Speaker 4: things are known among primitive peoples, known and jealously guarded,
Speaker 4: like the properties of certain drugs, the uses of hypnotism.
Speaker 3: Who knows?
Speaker 7: We can know? We can find out?
Speaker 4: Would you ask him useless? He would not tell? Why
Speaker 4: should he? We who scorn him, We give him no.
Speaker 3: Share with us.
Speaker 4: We abuse him, so he falls back upon his own expedients.
Speaker 4: They are the means by which he has survived, from
Speaker 4: the depth of time, by which he may yet survive
Speaker 4: when all our wisdom is dust.
Speaker 7: There are a number of ways of learning secrets.
Speaker 3: I know them all.
Speaker 4: It would be useless. How could he stand any torture
Speaker 4: you might invent? You saw how he behaved before. No, No,
Speaker 4: that's not the.
Speaker 3: Way, or listen to my way.
Speaker 7: I'm tired of all this talk.
Speaker 3: You shay.
Speaker 7: He's a man, all right? Then he has blood in
Speaker 7: his veins. At least we could drink.
Speaker 4: No, it would be too hot, it would be salt.
Speaker 3: Well kill him then and throw him over the side.
Speaker 3: Let's be rid of the thing.
Speaker 4: We gain nothing.
Speaker 3: Then, what do you want?
Speaker 4: I want to beat him, That's what I want to
Speaker 4: beat him at the game. For our own sakes, for
Speaker 4: our racial pride. We must to have blessed him, to
Speaker 4: prove ourselves his masters. Watch him, Watch him closely, my friends.
Speaker 6: Watch.
Speaker 7: I'll watch all right, my good doctor, I'm not sleeping
Speaker 7: any more, and leave you alone with that bottle.
Speaker 5: The bottle, the bottle.
Speaker 4: I've been meaning to discuss our rations with you. Have
Speaker 4: you running very short. I'm afraid we must cut down again.
Speaker 7: And what I will cut to.
Speaker 4: Have a thimbleful? We must keep our wit. I say,
Speaker 4: all right, then we'll put it to a boat. You
Speaker 4: say no. I say yes, er.
Speaker 5: Yes, yes, anything, but give me mind now.
Speaker 4: Then let's half a thimbleful for monsieur m hm, your share.
Speaker 6: More more, I'll die.
Speaker 4: Give me more no more today, you must, you must doctor,
Speaker 4: no more today.
Speaker 3: Look a ship?
Speaker 4: A ship? Where is it? I don't see any ship?
Speaker 3: It shut rick, Look federal, he has the bottle. You don't.
Speaker 4: Look him. You killed him with that?
Speaker 3: Or what about the bottle?
Speaker 4: Eh? Yes, there's some left. You caught him just in time,
Speaker 4: and you caught the bottle just in time, it seems
Speaker 4: I did.
Speaker 3: And there is no ship. There will be no ship.
Speaker 7: We are done because of you and your dirty promises
Speaker 7: that brought us here. Doctor liear four.
Speaker 4: Don't come any closer. Must you want this flask broken
Speaker 4: over your head?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 3: I wouldn't want that.
Speaker 4: Just think, perrot. Why should you and I fight? We
Speaker 4: can see this trouble through and win. Yet this calm
Speaker 4: can't last forever. Besides, there will be only two of
Speaker 4: us to divide the water.
Speaker 7: Now that's true, isn't it a canny lesion?
Speaker 3: His share an inheritance?
Speaker 7: All right? I'll take mine now, my share right now,
Speaker 7: if you please. Later we'll see so.
Speaker 4: Be it your share?
Speaker 7: Uh many things, and now venerals.
Speaker 4: Share to me, please as you say?
Speaker 7: And now another another good doctor?
Speaker 4: Three, that's enough, parrot, No doctor.
Speaker 3: It's not enough. Now I'll take the rest.
Speaker 4: Stop my arm.
Speaker 7: I'll kill you if you don't let go. Thank you.
Speaker 7: You see I have manners, haven't I?
Speaker 3: And I have wisdom.
Speaker 7: Too, And because I fooled a very wise man.
Speaker 3: I toast you, doctor. The best man wins.
Speaker 7: That was a bright idea of yours, and the best.
Speaker 4: So the best man wins it that you forgot I'm
Speaker 4: a doctor, didn't you?
Speaker 6: You?
Speaker 4: You forgot that a man cannot go without water for
Speaker 4: four days? Then drink his fill and live through it.
Speaker 4: Go on, parrot, spout your worthless life while I laugh.
Speaker 4: The best man always wins, Parrot the best man. H
Speaker 4: m hmm.
Speaker 6: So best man wins.
Speaker 9: Yes, doctor, you forgot my knife, didn't you forgot me
Speaker 9: lying at your feet?
Speaker 5: Give me a forget, didn't you?
Speaker 9: But now it is I any row who will outlast
Speaker 9: the two of you. He's my good doctor, the best
Speaker 9: man always, I mean.
Speaker 3: A role.
Speaker 4: You fool the water it's running out.
Speaker 8: Oh oh, come in, Come in, captain long boats Batcher,
Speaker 8: all right, send Martin.
Speaker 3: He's right here, sir. Bad luck, sir.
Speaker 1: The raft was here all the time, not ten miles
Speaker 1: away from us.
Speaker 3: Yeah that calm well, they're right.
Speaker 7: The passengers, we're too late.
Speaker 1: They're all dead, all dead.
Speaker 6: Yes, one stabbed to death, another skull crushed, the other
Speaker 6: fried by the sun.
Speaker 7: All dead.
Speaker 3: Well, all the better because there's nothing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but how are you going?
Speaker 10: Yeah, hogs hits, my friend, the hogs hits an after all,
Speaker 10: fill them nicely with Brian, and there we are.
Speaker 5: I don't understand.
Speaker 10: Oh you're dull, much so, very dull. The gentleman's passage
Speaker 10: is all paid. Before we left Sydney, I contracted to
Speaker 10: bring back three escaped convicts.
Speaker 3: I'll bring them back pickled.
Speaker 10: So if you'll go back Muche and bring them aboard
Speaker 10: with a trip, I'll be much obliged.
Speaker 2: Right well, sir, Oh, there's a fourth man on the raft,
Speaker 2: Captain Kannak, still alive.
Speaker 3: What do we do with him? Kannak?
Speaker 10: No word in my contract, a Adney Cannack.
Speaker 3: Leave him here. He's only a savage.
Speaker 1: And so doctor DuBose and Fenerou and the parrot went
Speaker 1: aboard for the long trip to their beloved Paris, their
Speaker 1: bodies pitching and rolling gently in the huge backs of
Speaker 1: Brian on the rack. The fourth man raised his head
Speaker 1: slightly as a wind freshened from the west. He watched
Speaker 1: until the schooner turned, shaping away for Australia and disappeared
Speaker 1: over the rim of the horizon. Then he spread his
Speaker 1: sailor pandanas leaves and headed his raft eastward back toward
Speaker 1: New Caledonia, back toward home. Peeling somewhat dry after his exertion,
Speaker 1: the native plucked a hollow reed at random from the
Speaker 1: rushes on his raft. Slowly, lazily, he stretched himself at
Speaker 1: full length in his accustomed place at the stern. He
Speaker 1: thrust the reed down deep into one of the bladders
Speaker 1: underneath the raft, and slowly drank his fill of sweet water.
Speaker 1: He had a dozen such storage bladders remaining built into
Speaker 1: the floats at intervals above the water line, quite enough
Speaker 1: to last him safely home again.
Speaker 2: Escape is produced and directed by William N. Robson The
Speaker 2: Fourth Man by John Russell. Was adapted for radio by
Speaker 2: Irving Rabbitch, with Paul Freeze as Doctor Dubos, Joe Kerns
Speaker 2: as Fenerou, and Nestor Piva as Parrot. Bill Johnstone narrated.
Speaker 2: The special musical score was conceived and conducted by Cy Fewer.
Speaker 2: Escape has been presented by the Columbia Broadcasting System and
Speaker 2: its affiliated stations. Be sure to be with us next
Speaker 2: Monday night when the radio theater returns to the air
Speaker 2: with Benny Davis and Glenn Ford starring in A Stolen Life. Remember.
Speaker 2: Next Monday evening, from nine to ten pm Eastern daylight time,
Speaker 2: the Lux Radio Theater starts its fourteenth year over CBS.
Speaker 2: The play A Stolen Life. The stars Betty Davis and
Speaker 2: Glenn Ford. This is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System.