Speaker 1: Tired out from spring house cleaning, find your life uninteresting,
Speaker 1: want to get away from it all?
Speaker 2: We offer you Escape.
Speaker 3: You are drifting on the burning glassy surface of a
Speaker 3: tropical sea, trapped on a flimsy raft with three murderous
Speaker 3: companions from whom 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. Right at
Speaker 1: your request, we bring back one of our most popular
Speaker 1: escape stories. We take you to Nomea in the South Pacific,
Speaker 1: a French penal colony as notorious as Devil's Island, and
Speaker 1: we invite you to escape from Noma. In John Russell's
Speaker 1: The Fourth Man, the.
Speaker 3: Raft stood to open sea. A mat of pandanus leaves
Speaker 3: served for its sail, and a paddle of wood for
Speaker 3: its helm. Its flooring was woven of reeds and bamboo sticks,
Speaker 3: and rested on triple rows of bladders. It was light, elastic,
Speaker 3: fit to ride any weather, and it carried four men.
Speaker 3: Three of them sat huddled together at the far end.
Speaker 3: Their bodies were blackened with dried blood. The hair upon
Speaker 3: them was long and matted. They wore only the rags
Speaker 3: of convict's blue canvas uniforms on wrists and anchor. They
Speaker 3: carried their mark, the dark and wrinkled stain of the manacles.
Speaker 4: There was the.
Speaker 3: Bolls doctor, leader, man of the world, murderer, friends, the
Speaker 3: thing is done, and feneral forger ladies, man weakling college.
Speaker 5: Yes we got away all.
Speaker 3: Right, and the one known as the parrot, thief and cutthroat.
Speaker 4: So far, so good, gentlemen. By way of celebration, may
Speaker 4: I offer you cigarettes?
Speaker 6: It's cigarettes, Oh, doctor, you're a marvel a magician.
Speaker 7: Look at them, quite and fresh, as though they just
Speaker 7: came from the package.
Speaker 4: How did you do it? Early?
Speaker 8: Six months there are about seventy five escapes from the Mia,
Speaker 8: and not more than one succeeds. Ours would be that
Speaker 8: one I knew, and so three weeks ago I bribed
Speaker 8: the nightguard for these very cigarettes, so that we might
Speaker 8: sit here, my friends, as we are doing.
Speaker 4: And sell it. I want to lie yes, light for
Speaker 4: the parent. Oh, our doctor is a wonder. He thinks
Speaker 4: of everything. He gives us.
Speaker 7: Cigarettes, matches and our READO.
Speaker 9: Wait, wait till you've got your two feet on a
Speaker 9: pavement again.
Speaker 10: That would be the time to talk about freedom.
Speaker 9: To wear starched colors again.
Speaker 7: To stroll with a girl, clean and fresh from her
Speaker 7: path down the place La Concorde, the rude of river.
Speaker 9: Suppose suppose we get a storm.
Speaker 4: It's not the season of storms.
Speaker 9: Just the same. Suppose we get a Stallkay, my.
Speaker 8: Friend, you must not be so impatient. We were convicts
Speaker 8: back there, frestering and obrivion, and now we stand on
Speaker 8: the rosy threshold of the big.
Speaker 4: Round world again. We are man raised from the dead.
Speaker 9: Suppose we get a storm. You have got a gift
Speaker 9: of speech. But but where's the ship that was going
Speaker 9: to meet us here?
Speaker 4: This is the day has agreed it will meet us.
Speaker 9: This wind will burst op China if we keep up.
Speaker 8: We can't line it closer to the shore. There's a
Speaker 8: government launch a toorion. And I doubt of the native
Speaker 8: trackers have given up.
Speaker 7: Oh, careful, parrot, they will eat you, yet I've heard
Speaker 7: about that?
Speaker 10: Is it true, doctor, that the natives keep all their
Speaker 10: runways they can capture to fatten on them.
Speaker 4: They prefer the reward.
Speaker 8: Still, I doubt if they've entirely lost the habit of cannibalism.
Speaker 6: Yes, peace by piece, parrot.
Speaker 7: First they would sample you, then they will make a
Speaker 7: stew of your brains.
Speaker 2: They won't miss a thing.
Speaker 11: Shut and.
Speaker 5: Filthy brutes, you know I forgot we have one of
Speaker 5: them with us.
Speaker 3: The fourth man was steering the raft. He sat crouched
Speaker 3: in the stern, his body glistening with spray. His huge,
Speaker 3: dark hands held the steering paddle. He was motionless, like
Speaker 3: an idol, his eyes fix on the course ahead.
Speaker 4: The fourth man on the raft.
Speaker 8: My friends, you are looking at a canaka. You will
Speaker 8: see nothing superior, no line of beauty to redeem. The
Speaker 8: low angle of the forehead did not be joints of
Speaker 8: the body. Nature has stamped him with the mark of inferiority,
Speaker 8: and he has set the final seal himself with that
Speaker 8: twist of bark about his middle, that prong of pig
Speaker 8: ivory through his nose.
Speaker 7: Nonetheless, he is a man, and there is a price
Speaker 7: on our heads.
Speaker 9: He could be taking.
Speaker 4: Us where he lies.
Speaker 8: Calm yourself in a row. There is a very simple animal,
Speaker 8: an infantry.
Speaker 9: Does that mean he could not double cross us?
Speaker 4: He does. He's bound by his duty.
Speaker 8: I made my bargain with his chief up the river,
Speaker 8: and this one is sent to deliver us on board
Speaker 8: our ship.
Speaker 4: As the only interest he has in us, and.
Speaker 11: He will do it.
Speaker 8: He will. But there's the nature of the native ah.
Speaker 4: I don't trust him, not.
Speaker 12: For a minute.
Speaker 9: Him brute the animals. You if you ain't talking about
Speaker 9: your filthy.
Speaker 4: Brot parrot, save your breath, parrot. He speaks no language,
Speaker 4: only a few noises, a few signs.
Speaker 9: Hey don't feel right on the same raft. We'll be there.
Speaker 7: Go and burn yourself up in the sun. Me me,
Speaker 7: I will just stretch out a little underlease mats.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we should all sleep a little. We can serve
Speaker 4: ourselves when we awake.
Speaker 8: She'll be there, the ship, a pretty little topsil schooner.
Speaker 8: I must standing out against the sky, and we'll be
Speaker 8: on our way to frayn.
Speaker 4: Sleep by prayer.
Speaker 3: The two younger convicts dozed down to the heat of
Speaker 3: the day, but not doctor de Beau's. He stood once
Speaker 3: again to sweep the sky line under his shaded hand.
Speaker 3: His plan had been so careful, so precise. He had
Speaker 3: counted absolutely on meeting the ship, the small schooner, one
Speaker 3: of those flitting, half piratical traders of the Copra Islands
Speaker 3: that can be hired like cabs in a dark street
Speaker 3: for any sinister enterprise. But there was no ship, and
Speaker 3: there was no cross roads where one might sit.
Speaker 4: And wait er, er er, Good morning, doctor, it's afternoon.
Speaker 9: Oh yes it is, sir.
Speaker 2: I slept like a coff.
Speaker 9: And where's the ship?
Speaker 6: Doctor?
Speaker 9: It was going to be there when we awoke.
Speaker 13: Ah, I'm thirsty, I'm dying.
Speaker 9: Where is the flask?
Speaker 4: You have roasted in the sun.
Speaker 8: You have to roast some more. This crew is put
Speaker 8: on rations. What are you talking about? Where is that water?
Speaker 8: I have a deer, so you do you think it's yours?
Speaker 8: It's ours?
Speaker 4: Parrot?
Speaker 9: I want a dream, think a little parrot.
Speaker 8: We have to guard that supplies the reasonable men. We
Speaker 8: don't know how long we may be flooding here, so
Speaker 8: that's how you talk.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 9: You don't know how long. But you were sure enough
Speaker 9: when we start.
Speaker 4: I'm still sure the ship will come.
Speaker 14: She can't stay for us in one spot.
Speaker 4: She will be cruising to and front until she intercepts us.
Speaker 4: We must wait, Ah.
Speaker 6: That good, good way. Wait.
Speaker 10: And in the meantime, what fry hear in this heat?
Speaker 10: Our tongues hanging out while you did us out? Broke
Speaker 10: by bro Perhaps the man does not leave? Who can
Speaker 10: feed me with a spool.
Speaker 15: Spoon loves come during this too, With this, this captain
Speaker 15: who thinks of everything and still put to sea without provisions,
Speaker 15: go on laugh again, laugh, I wasn't laughing.
Speaker 12: Part.
Speaker 7: It's true, a bad piece of work for a captain
Speaker 7: of Renoise.
Speaker 4: Unless you would die very speedily. We must got our work.
Speaker 9: And whose fault is eat mine?
Speaker 2: I did it?
Speaker 14: What?
Speaker 8: Then here we are, and here we must stay. We
Speaker 8: can only do our best with what we have.
Speaker 11: Oh head doctor, do your best.
Speaker 4: Give me a drink. You may have your share. Of course,
Speaker 4: we warned.
Speaker 8: When it is gone, don't come to us to Pheneral
Speaker 8: and men.
Speaker 4: Drink m.
Speaker 9: A thimble food, one thimble.
Speaker 8: This way we should have enough for three days, perhaps more,
Speaker 8: with equal shares among the three of us.
Speaker 5: That's right, there are only three of us.
Speaker 8: Who are you thinking of him? Pheneral of a pilot.
Speaker 8: He looks somewhat like us, doesn't he? But his body
Speaker 8: has never known clothing, his feet shoes. His heart has
Speaker 8: never known the swelling that comes with feelings of love
Speaker 8: or beauty. His mind has never known a single thought.
Speaker 8: Look at us, three gentlemen. You Gheneral a forger, you
Speaker 8: parrot a thief. Aye, But the devons are Paris and
Speaker 8: Marse a murderer, And yet we are.
Speaker 4: Civilized men, and this is a savage animal.
Speaker 8: Our provisions are for men only.
Speaker 3: The three men awoke to their second day on the raft.
Speaker 3: They looked and saw the far round horizon, and the
Speaker 3: empty desert of the sea, and their own long shadows
Speaker 3: that slipped slowly before them over its smooth, slow heaving.
Speaker 3: The land had sunk away from them in the night.
Speaker 3: The trap had been sprung. As the savage sun kindled
Speaker 3: upon them with the power of a burning glass. A
Speaker 3: calm fell, an absolute calm. The air hung weighted, the
Speaker 3: sea heaved and fell in polished undulations, and the sun shone,
Speaker 3: driving in under their eyelids like white hot splinters.
Speaker 12: They crawled to the shelter of their mats.
Speaker 11: Gasping, shriveling.
Speaker 3: And the water, the world of water, was slack.
Speaker 4: And thick as oil.
Speaker 11: Harm Mordieu, how longly.
Speaker 14: That the bird?
Speaker 11: Yes, parrots?
Speaker 9: Look around you?
Speaker 4: What do you mean?
Speaker 9: Look around? What do you see?
Speaker 4: I see water, parrots, the horizon, nothing else.
Speaker 9: What don't you see?
Speaker 4: A sheep?
Speaker 6: A pretty little schooler? Those were your words?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 6: When is it?
Speaker 9: Why do you see it?
Speaker 4: Will come.
Speaker 6: Will it come?
Speaker 4: For that will be dead when it comes.
Speaker 7: Doctor, you say that you count on your friends, But
Speaker 7: suppose they leave you to rot here, leave Parrot and
Speaker 7: me to rot here.
Speaker 9: That could be a joke, hey.
Speaker 4: Doctor, to wait for a ship that will never come.
Speaker 4: It will come. My friends will not fail me. But
Speaker 4: why how do you know?
Speaker 5: How can you be so sure?
Speaker 8: There is a safety vault in Paris full of papers
Speaker 8: to be opened at my death. Those papers contain confessions. No, gentlemen,
Speaker 8: my friends will not fail me. Parrot, Eh, A moment
Speaker 8: ago you asked what I saw?
Speaker 4: Well, there was something I neglected. What was that?
Speaker 8: I see a knack on this raft with us. He
Speaker 8: doesn't join us, he doesn't look at us. He sits
Speaker 8: on his heels in the way of the Native, with
Speaker 8: his arms hugging his knees. He sits at the stern, motionless,
Speaker 8: under the shuttering sun, gazing out into vacancy. Whenever I
Speaker 8: raise my eyes, I see nothing else, only this kannacker.
Speaker 13: And he seems to be enjoying himself quite well, I
Speaker 13: was thinking, so myself canible the savage.
Speaker 11: He does not seem to suffer.
Speaker 12: What's going on in his brain?
Speaker 9: What does he dream there. He looks out as your snowy.
Speaker 11: He's just the dirty rat.
Speaker 4: Maybe he's waiting for us to die.
Speaker 7: Maybe he's waiting for the reward. At least he wouldn't
Speaker 7: starve on the way home, and he could deliver us
Speaker 7: peace by peace.
Speaker 11: How does he do it?
Speaker 9: Has he not any feelings?
Speaker 4: I'd be wondering about that. It may be that his
Speaker 4: fibers are tougher his nerves, But to have.
Speaker 9: Had water and he is not. And yet see his skin,
Speaker 9: it's fresh and moist, and his belly around as a melon.
Speaker 9: Don't tell me the savage is thirsty. Is there any
Speaker 9: way he could steal our supplies?
Speaker 4: Certainly? Not?
Speaker 9: Suppose he has his own supplies. He don't.
Speaker 4: I've did you know the.
Speaker 11: No, No, you are mistaken.
Speaker 4: Here is nothing hidden.
Speaker 9: You're wrong about him, doctor, when you say he had
Speaker 9: no understanding. There is one thing he knows.
Speaker 4: And knows well.
Speaker 14: Pain.
Speaker 6: Hell come that will kiss you? Not so tathful? Are
Speaker 6: you not so happy with your luck?
Speaker 9: That will make you feel.
Speaker 8: The higher race tramples the savage whi or without cause,
Speaker 8: And that is natural.
Speaker 4: And the savage creeps away into his place with his
Speaker 4: hurts and his wrongs. It makes no sign and strikes
Speaker 4: no blow.
Speaker 11: And that is natural too.
Speaker 7: Yes, that is all very well, doctor, But we still
Speaker 7: must have our pilot.
Speaker 11: Come back, my friends, back under the mets.
Speaker 4: The glare of the side is not.
Speaker 11: So bad there.
Speaker 3: So the day is dragged by the second and the third.
Speaker 3: And now it was the fourth day, and still there
Speaker 3: was no breeze, and still there was no ship, a doc.
Speaker 11: Yes, what do you stare at at him? Savage? You
Speaker 11: look at him and look at us. We are dying.
Speaker 8: Our hours are ebbing him, snaked, wild, brutish, yet.
Speaker 11: To give the slightest sign of complaint or weakness.
Speaker 12: Yes, it's true.
Speaker 11: Nighte he stretches out and sleeps.
Speaker 8: Those long hours when we wrestle and fight with despair,
Speaker 8: he sleeps like a child man. In the morning he
Speaker 8: resumes his place, aft, unchanged fixed, A growing wonder doctor.
Speaker 9: Is this a man or a field?
Speaker 14: Man?
Speaker 11: Is a man? A r cous a man in a
Speaker 11: very poor and wretched example.
Speaker 4: Of a man. You will find no lower type anywhere.
Speaker 11: Look at this cranial angle.
Speaker 8: The high he is, the heavy bones of his skull
Speaker 8: is scarcely above an ape.
Speaker 11: Than what he has a secret.
Speaker 12: Secret.
Speaker 7: But we see him every movie he makes, every minute.
Speaker 11: What what chance has he for a secret?
Speaker 4: Arab served?
Speaker 16: Here are we three children of the century, products of civilization,
Speaker 16: and here is these men who belongs before the Stone age.
Speaker 16: In a set trial of fitness, of wits, of resources?
Speaker 11: Is he to win?
Speaker 12: Absurd?
Speaker 4: What kind of secret? I can't say.
Speaker 17: Perhaps some method of breathing, some strange posture he uses
Speaker 17: to cheat the sensations of the body. Things are known
Speaker 17: among primitive people's known and jealously guarded, like the properties
Speaker 17: of certain drugs, the uses of hypnotism.
Speaker 4: Who knows we can we can find out to ask
Speaker 4: him useless even not tell? Why should he?
Speaker 8: We scorn him, give him no share with us, We
Speaker 8: abuse him, and so he falls back on his own experience.
Speaker 8: He remained silent, as he always has been, as he
Speaker 8: always will be.
Speaker 4: He never tells the secrets. They're the means by which
Speaker 4: he has survived, from the depth of time by which
Speaker 4: he may yes, sur I re all our wisdom is
Speaker 4: dust in.
Speaker 9: Our number of ways of learning secrets.
Speaker 11: I never know how power it would be.
Speaker 16: Useless he could stand any torture you might invent.
Speaker 4: You saw how he behaved before.
Speaker 6: That's not the way talk talk.
Speaker 4: I'm tired of all the talk.
Speaker 6: Do time over, let me read anything.
Speaker 4: We gain nothing.
Speaker 11: What do you want to beat him?
Speaker 4: That's what I want to beat him at the game.
Speaker 4: For our own sakes, for our own racial pride, we
Speaker 4: must do outlast him, to prove ourselves his masters by
Speaker 4: better braid, by better organization control.
Speaker 8: Watch him, Watch him, my friends, so that we may
Speaker 8: trap him, so that we may find.
Speaker 11: Him out and to feed him in the end.
Speaker 9: Watch I will watch all right, you old wing bag.
Speaker 9: I am not sleeping anymore to leave you alone with
Speaker 9: that bottle. The bottle, oh, the bottle.
Speaker 17: I've been meaning to discuss our rations with you.
Speaker 8: Have you?
Speaker 4: We are running a shot.
Speaker 11: I'm afraid we must all take a cut again.
Speaker 9: And write away down to now doctor half a thimble fool.
Speaker 4: No, we must keep up with say no, then we'll
Speaker 4: put it to a vote.
Speaker 11: You say no, I say yes, Then all.
Speaker 9: Yes, yes, yes, anything, but give me mine now.
Speaker 11: Then it's half a thimble fool, monsieur, your.
Speaker 4: Chef and.
Speaker 14: More or will I more?
Speaker 4: No more today, your mascumus, your doctor no more today?
Speaker 6: Look I shall laugh what doctor, doctor here.
Speaker 18: Has the bottle eat right, okay you killed with that?
Speaker 18: Or what about the bottle that's sudd left? You caught
Speaker 18: him just in time, and you.
Speaker 9: Got the bottle just in time, seems I did. And
Speaker 9: there's no sheep.
Speaker 6: There will be no sheep.
Speaker 15: We are done because of you and your dirty promises
Speaker 15: that brought us here.
Speaker 4: Doctor, lie, food.
Speaker 11: Don't come any closer.
Speaker 4: Now do you want this flask broken over your head?
Speaker 11: I would not want that, all right. I just think,
Speaker 11: why should you in that fight? We can see these
Speaker 11: trouble through and win.
Speaker 4: Yet this weather can't last forever.
Speaker 8: Besides, now here would be only two of us to
Speaker 8: divide the water.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, that is true.
Speaker 2: Is it not.
Speaker 4: Finna who kindly leaves us his share an inheritance?
Speaker 11: All right? I'll take mine now, my share now.
Speaker 19: If you please, Later we shall see so be it.
Speaker 12: Hm your share? Many thanks.
Speaker 11: Now, fenowl shall to me please.
Speaker 4: As you say?
Speaker 11: And now another.
Speaker 4: And now they're a good doctor. Three that's enough, parent.
Speaker 11: Doctor, it is not enough.
Speaker 12: Now I will take you.
Speaker 11: Stop back around.
Speaker 4: I will give you if you do.
Speaker 12: Thank you.
Speaker 13: You see I have manners, haven't I?
Speaker 19: And I have wisdom too, But because I have food,
Speaker 19: a very wise man, I toast you doctor.
Speaker 11: The best man wins.
Speaker 4: This was a very bright idea of yours, the best
Speaker 4: So the best man wins that you forgot time a doctor?
Speaker 11: Didn't you the water you would kill for? Ha's killed
Speaker 11: you am. I'm gonna go with that.
Speaker 4: Water for four days.
Speaker 11: Then drink is feeling still live?
Speaker 20: Come on, parrot, gasp about your worstless life while I laugh.
Speaker 20: The best man always wins.
Speaker 4: The best man. The best man wins.
Speaker 7: Yes, doctor forgot my knife?
Speaker 2: Didn't you forgot me?
Speaker 6: Lying at your feet? Who held you?
Speaker 4: Divided?
Speaker 11: My shall?
Speaker 7: The water came here for?
Speaker 6: Did did you?
Speaker 4: But I?
Speaker 14: Phener rooh?
Speaker 4: Will I last two of you? Faner room the best man?
Speaker 4: Oh when.
Speaker 11: M oh h.
Speaker 4: Your food? H the what running up?
Speaker 12: Bu u.
Speaker 11: Uh u?
Speaker 7: Bird? Bird?
Speaker 21: By amen, come in alongboat's back, captain.
Speaker 14: The raft was here all the time, not ten miles
Speaker 14: away from us.
Speaker 22: That come such a misfortune? Well where are they the passengers?
Speaker 14: We're too late?
Speaker 22: All did you mind your business?
Speaker 14: But one is stabbed to death. Now there is skull crushed.
Speaker 14: Now they're fried by the sun.
Speaker 22: All dead well and all the better of course, nothing
Speaker 22: to feed but how logs heads? My friend the hugs
Speaker 22: heads in the afterhold, filled them nicely.
Speaker 14: With Brian, and there we are.
Speaker 22: I don't understand, yeah, dull, until very dull. The gentleman's
Speaker 22: passage is all paid. Before we left Sydney, I contracted
Speaker 22: the bring back three escaped convicts. Well, I'll bring them
Speaker 22: back and pickle, so he'll go back my tone, bring
Speaker 22: them aboard for the trip.
Speaker 4: I'll be much obliged.
Speaker 14: Very well. Well, there's a fourth man in the raft,
Speaker 14: Captain h a Kanaka still alive. What do we do
Speaker 14: with him?
Speaker 22: A Kanaka? No word in my contract, but any kanakas
Speaker 22: leave him there. After all, he's only a savage.
Speaker 3: And so doctor DuBose and Fennero and the parrot went
Speaker 3: aboard for the wrong trip to their beloved Paris, their
Speaker 3: bodies pitching and rolling gently in the huge bats of brine.
Speaker 4: On the raft.
Speaker 3: The fourth man raised his head slightly as a wind
Speaker 3: freshened from the west. He watched until the schooner turned,
Speaker 3: shaping away for Australia and disappeared over.
Speaker 12: The rim with the rising.
Speaker 3: Then he turned his raft, spread his sail of pandanus leaves,
Speaker 3: and headed the raft eastward, back toward New Caledonia back
Speaker 3: toward home. Feeling somewhat dry after his exertion, the native
Speaker 3: plucked a hollow reed at random from the rushes on
Speaker 3: his raft. Slowly, lazily, he stretched himself at full length
Speaker 3: in his accustomed place of the stern. He thrust the
Speaker 3: reed down into one of the bladders underneath the raft
Speaker 3: and drank his fill of sweet water. He had a
Speaker 3: dozen such storage bladders remaining built into the floats, at
Speaker 3: intervals above the water line, quite enough to last him
Speaker 3: safely home again.
Speaker 2: Over over.
Speaker 1: Escape is produced and directed by Norman MacDonald and Tonight
Speaker 1: Brought You The Fourth Man by John Russell, adapted for
Speaker 1: radio by Irving Ravitch and featuring Barry Kroger as the Doctor,
Speaker 1: Joseph Kerns as fenne Rue, Janeavello as Perrot, Lou Merrill
Speaker 1: as the Captain, Byron Kane as Morteaux, and Eric Roff
Speaker 1: as the narrator. Music is conceived by Cy Fure and
Speaker 1: conducted by Wilbur Hatch.
Speaker 3: Next week, you are groping in the dark of an
Speaker 3: African knight, trapped on a dock above a crocodile infested river,
Speaker 3: fighting for your life against the ruthless giant from whom
Speaker 3: you must escape.
Speaker 1: Next week we escape with Robert Simpson's tenth story, John
Speaker 1: Jock Todd.
Speaker 2: Good Night.
Speaker 1: Then until the same time next week, when once again
Speaker 1: we offer you escape. This is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting
Speaker 1: systerm