Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Tired of the everyday grind, ever dream of a life
of romantic adventure. I want to get away from it all.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
We offer you.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Escape, Escape transcribe to free you from the four walls
of today for a half hour of high adventure.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
You are groping your way through the belly of a
sunken ship. A fortune and pearls secured the abolt, while
above on the ship that tends you, working the pump
that sends air to you is an adversary. Plans include
the taking of your pearls and your life.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Listen now as Escape brings you. John Russell's story The Adversary.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
It was at dusk and on an ebb tide, that
the pearling schooner of Fancy Free came smartly up into
the wind and dropped anchor in the harbor of Thursday Island.
And it was after dark when her master came ashore
and paid off his kanaka crew. He was a big man,
this captain, with a crop of black hair, a smooth,
long jaw, and gray eyes. As he went swinging along
(01:49):
the waterfront, the crowd parted right and left before him. Now,
news of any arrival travels fast on Thursday Island, and
with such a figure as this. The converse at the
Portuguese bar had been going on for some time.
Speaker 5 (02:03):
One thing I know for certain, he's got the trimmest
lugger in these parts. And where's he from? Smike? First
time I have a laid eye on him in his
boat was this evening.
Speaker 6 (02:14):
If he was from these parts, Portuguee, Captain Smike would
know him well.
Speaker 5 (02:19):
Wherever he from, he'd be like the rest of you,
up to no good. Oh you've no use for furlows,
have your Portuguese? You're all cut from the same claw, deeves, drunkards.
Brawl isn't worse, you fat devil. You're a better than
the worst of us. I know and can account for
my shortcomings. It is not so with you, who make
(02:41):
you living like so many sea gypsies. What's he saying,
Captain Smike, I'll drink you drink. I only wanted to
know the strangest Smike. He's another perl. Perhaps, yes he
could be. I'll find out more when he comes for
he's wrong. Want me a drink Portugue and one full
(03:04):
little out feed? Yeah, a toast to Thursday Island. There's
the island where the only honest man to grace its
shrs came by Land.
Speaker 7 (03:19):
You there as the bar cool. Look at the size
of that one.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
My name is Smike.
Speaker 5 (03:26):
If it's me you're talking to.
Speaker 7 (03:28):
My name is Weatherby, John Wetherby. I'm master of the
fancy Free.
Speaker 6 (03:34):
It's the lugger in the arbor, ain't it?
Speaker 7 (03:36):
And so, Captain Weatherby, I've come to spend some time
with you.
Speaker 5 (03:41):
Captain Weatherby, what is your pleasure?
Speaker 7 (03:45):
But first I'll have my say. That's your right moment back.
You drank a toast to which I take exception. That's
so you said.
Speaker 8 (03:54):
The only honest man on Thursday Island came by man
I did. Now, then, I don't mind what you call
yourselves to yourselves as long as i'm in your midst.
Anyone that says I'm not honest and can't prove it,
I'll knock the seven.
Speaker 7 (04:09):
Bells out of him.
Speaker 5 (04:10):
Since you're a stranger a whether it be, I'll tell
you something. I'm senior Captain on Thursday Island, and I
say what I wish when I wish. And it's like
I said before, the only honest man on Thursday Island
came far.
Speaker 9 (04:31):
O Nammy.
Speaker 7 (04:32):
He never even got it, said you, little fellow. Don't
give your friend a hand. You'll need help for a while.
Speaker 6 (04:40):
Yet my name is Elf, and I finish my drink. O.
Speaker 5 (04:45):
Yes, sir, now I'll have that rum right away, Captain Why.
Speaker 7 (05:02):
Now?
Speaker 4 (05:03):
On Thursday Island, there was no prying into a neighbor's
affairs unless one was prepared to push the inquiry with
a knife. And so it was that nobody questioned where
weather Be came from, or his pearling license, or the
motley crew he picked to replace the skilled Kanaka boys
he'd let go. His new cook was Chinese, his head
(05:24):
diver a Manilla man, and his mate a giant North
African who went by the name of Buttermilk.
Speaker 7 (05:31):
But questions or no.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
As the months passed, a legend was growing about Captain Weatherby.
Speaker 6 (05:36):
Or he'd chaser right across the Pacific to play your tops,
he might, Oh, yeah, that's his sort.
Speaker 9 (05:41):
You never had toptons in your life?
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Help him.
Speaker 5 (05:44):
Five nights ago he was in here and he drank
five hard cases under the table. And when they left
his square, the old bill himself honest.
Speaker 7 (05:55):
Witherbe?
Speaker 9 (05:56):
They call him honest?
Speaker 5 (05:57):
Weather Be's up to something, They say, nothing but good
about him.
Speaker 6 (06:02):
Your writer's reigned Portuguese. Last month he stayed in quarantine voluntary,
like just because of that island steamer and the cholera scare.
Speaker 5 (06:11):
Then page his crew their monthly wages. Anyways, crewe, our
good master wouldn't allow one of them to set foot
on deck.
Speaker 6 (06:19):
Well, they ain't been exactly trained, by the Queen's name.
Speaker 5 (06:22):
What I wanted I was this, Why has he got
the fastest lugger in these parts? Manned by that collection
of trash? You still hold that blow against weather Be's smiled,
But he's all right.
Speaker 6 (06:34):
Oarbor authorities, pilots and other masters and the whole lot,
they all like.
Speaker 5 (06:39):
I don't listen. That will be the Brisbane's team try
to get our bloody passengers back aboard. She sails at
midnight or Australia.
Speaker 6 (06:52):
I wish I was going. I'd like to see Australia again.
Speaker 5 (06:57):
Yes, he'd probably like to see you too. Can like
as not at sir pilot. The fern shows blowing forth,
hilot of us. Since she put in here, Weatherby and
that ship's pilot been trying to drink the island dry.
Speaker 6 (07:11):
I wonder where he is now.
Speaker 5 (07:13):
The docks like as not, pouring his pilot friend aboard
the steamer. Another Ramporto game and another for little Alfie.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
And in truth Weatherby was down at the docks, his
coat turned up against the squalls that were blowing wet
from the ocean. He was standing in the shadows by
some packing crates, watching from a distance the yellow cargo
flares that showed the loading of the Fern Shower was
still in progress. Then, just as Captain Weatherby was turning away,
(07:47):
another figure slipped from the shadow and moved to confront him.
Speaker 8 (07:50):
At Captain Weatherby, h I'll take Harve's if you please.
Captain Weatherby what I said, Harvest Now, don't move, Captain.
I've got you well covered, and I'm not afraid to shoot.
Speaker 7 (08:01):
Deacon after all these years. The Deacon bless me.
Speaker 8 (08:06):
If I didn't think i'd done you in, I should
have died, but I didn't know.
Speaker 7 (08:10):
Thanks to you.
Speaker 8 (08:11):
And what are you doing on Thursday Island? I dropped
in from Samurai. Im me need to catch the Brisbane steamer.
Speaker 7 (08:16):
Ah.
Speaker 8 (08:17):
I've been doing some diving up the way, but I'm
only a fair diver and my luck's been poor until tonight.
Speaker 7 (08:23):
Until tonight and why the change, little beadle?
Speaker 8 (08:26):
Because I chanced to see you, my old friend, and
I was strolling along the front and I made inquiries,
and I heard what they call you in these parts,
honest weather people.
Speaker 7 (08:37):
Why you was?
Speaker 8 (08:39):
You haven't in mind a blow on me to tell
what I know of you and have you go to jail.
Not a chance I would do me no good? What then,
I just want half of your new speculation, your latest deviltry.
Speaker 7 (08:50):
What makes you think I've got a plan to kid me?
Speaker 4 (08:53):
Oh?
Speaker 8 (08:53):
Do you think I couldn't smell it out? I know
your methods too well. Fine public character, no suspicion, alibi,
all complete, Yes. And I also know you sneaked your
crew out of town tonight. Your lugger's ready to slip
cable this minute. And most important, I happen to know
what the fernch was carrying a border this trip?
Speaker 7 (09:14):
Or the devil you do?
Speaker 8 (09:16):
The season sweep of pearls twenty thousand pounds worth.
Speaker 7 (09:21):
Suppose I was after those pearls? How would I get them?
Speaker 9 (09:24):
That's for you to do and me to profit by.
Speaker 8 (09:27):
Oh, so you'll let me do the diddy and then
take arbon. That is right, Captain honest weatherby bless me.
Speaker 9 (09:35):
If it is not nowhody with me, you're against me.
Speaker 7 (09:38):
Deacon.
Speaker 9 (09:38):
Thus saith the Lord.
Speaker 8 (09:40):
An adversary there shall be, and he shall bring down
thy strength from thee. All right, all right, than Deacon,
I'll put up with your blackmail and piracy, and I'll
take you on as an adversary, and you'll be part
of the enterprise. Good good, And now, whether me tell
me this, how are you to get the that are
(10:00):
aboorde the steamer there? I shall have to dive for them, Deacon,
die for them. And like it or not, since you've
declared yourself in you'll be a party to it.
Speaker 9 (10:14):
You mean you're going to sink her.
Speaker 8 (10:16):
That's exactly what I mean, Deacon. Within two hours of
sailon the Fern shore, will be resting on the bottom
of the passage.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
You are listening to the adversary. Tonight's presentation of Escape.
It's back again. It's Saturday day times on CBS Radio.
It's Romance. Romance every Saturday on most of these same stations,
bringing you the world's great love stories, some new, some old,
all fascinating adventures in listening the story. This Saturday, Daphne
(10:59):
de Morier Celebrate novel Frenchman's Creek dramatizes the love of
a noble woman for a pirate and now escape and
the second act of the Adversary.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
Within half an hour, the little lugger fancy Free was
standing out to sea, the master Captain Weatherby, and a
small and shivering passenger sheltered in the lee of the
deck house. The deacon had wanted in on the prophet,
but he had hardly counted on mass murder as a
means to it. One man's death he might have countenanced,
(11:45):
But the murder a steamer was something else.
Speaker 9 (11:48):
Whether be you can't do it. You can't drown a
whole ship's company.
Speaker 8 (11:52):
Jevy hear the vulgar, the Kate or the Mecca, For
they all fell a trifle off the track. Their bottoms
were ripped out on tribulation show. And the same thing
might happen to the fern shore. But how there's a
light on tribulation shove, So there is.
Speaker 7 (12:07):
It's a fourth order fixed dioptric unattended. Now suppose that
light were moved.
Speaker 9 (12:15):
But like you say, it's fixed.
Speaker 8 (12:17):
And besides, the keeper lives only a mile away on
Horn Island.
Speaker 9 (12:21):
You couldn't move it.
Speaker 8 (12:22):
Suppose a man were to land on the lee of
tribulation shove and with a canvas blanket the light to westward. Now,
if that same man were to take a discarded lightship
lantern that he might have aboard his lugger, and after
anchoring some half mile away, show this lighted his mastead er?
Speaker 7 (12:43):
What then?
Speaker 9 (12:44):
What you're mad?
Speaker 5 (12:45):
Weather?
Speaker 7 (12:46):
Do you begin to see the possibility forever?
Speaker 2 (12:49):
You?
Speaker 9 (12:50):
You really are going to wrecker?
Speaker 7 (12:51):
I am deacon, wouldn't you dead?
Speaker 5 (12:55):
What is it?
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Pig head?
Speaker 5 (12:58):
And here?
Speaker 8 (12:59):
How far close close he can get below with a
tribulation shawl, And there's man's work to be done yet tonight.
Speaker 7 (13:06):
With a bit below? What a milk?
Speaker 10 (13:09):
Ye?
Speaker 9 (13:10):
How close? Now to the south.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
You'd three hundred yard?
Speaker 9 (13:14):
I've the helm put over, but a milk and drop
a hook.
Speaker 8 (13:17):
We're going ashore to have a look at tribulation light.
Speaker 5 (13:28):
Now.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
It is a fact that no one knows or is
ever likely to know the actual explanation for the record.
The Brisbane steamer which left Thursday Island and came to
Grief some two hours later on Tribulation shows, but the
records declare that she went clean off her course, and
a coral reef laid her open as neatly as a
butcher's knife lays open a carcass. She sank within five minutes.
(13:53):
The next morning, as the dawn spread in iridescence over
those waters, Captain Weatherby anchored his lugger between the tips
of the two sunken masts.
Speaker 7 (14:02):
All right, butter Milk, get my equipment.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Ready, I get diving suit.
Speaker 8 (14:08):
Well, Deacon, you'll not for yourself. There's not a trace
of evidence he's not be inspired. The lantern we used
is sunk, canvas destroyed, and tribulation light as it was before.
Your evil weather be pure evil, Deacon.
Speaker 7 (14:23):
Is there so much difference between a lot than a little?
Come now, Deacon, cheer up.
Speaker 8 (14:29):
Here we are and there are the pearls, twenty pounds.
Speaker 7 (14:33):
Worth of them just over side.
Speaker 9 (14:35):
I don't want any part of me.
Speaker 8 (14:36):
Within three hours, I'll be back out on the Pearling
Banks about my business, never having heard of the wreck.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Uscrap diving shoes.
Speaker 8 (14:45):
Next week, if anytime I choose, I'll be walking the
streets of Thursday near the news and will be as
surprised as Captain Weatherby, that hard working man, honest Weatherby,
with a fortune in his belt to dispose of leisure.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Already enough, good helmet captain.
Speaker 8 (15:07):
Here's Deacon. I have not a problem in the world
except you me.
Speaker 5 (15:16):
Why me?
Speaker 7 (15:17):
You are evidence?
Speaker 8 (15:19):
This thinking crew doesn't matter. I've kept them to be
fuddled to know what's happening.
Speaker 9 (15:23):
But you, you could.
Speaker 7 (15:25):
Be Queen's evidence. I'm not forgetting you.
Speaker 8 (15:30):
Now listen to me whetherby I want no parton What
kind of an adversary do you call yourself?
Speaker 7 (15:35):
Deacon. I don't present a sport from you, not cumberlaw, Deacon.
Speaker 9 (15:40):
Now is the time to change your la cumberlow once
and for all. No, No, I won't.
Speaker 8 (15:46):
Go down with you, not down there, for you're a diver,
aren't you, Deacon. I can't nothing that that ship my
cow blasted Deacon.
Speaker 7 (15:54):
I thought at least you'd be amusing hey very well.
When I come back, I'll knock your assiliade in.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
You want helmet one thing butter milk?
Speaker 7 (16:06):
Yes, Kevin, you see that fellow white man.
Speaker 8 (16:09):
Maybe he wants to go below good, you'll give him
mother soup, Yes, Kevin, maybe he touched pump or raised
plus you knock seven bells out of him.
Speaker 7 (16:22):
Otherwise, no order heavy.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Sav kept good.
Speaker 7 (16:26):
Now help me with the helmer. Yes, put on now.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
You're gain of cap'n. You murder.
Speaker 7 (16:40):
You built the murderer with me.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Keptn No hear that didn't helpt you, white fella. Move away,
cap'n for water side now, you fella, I plenty good,
(17:04):
keaven need my hair.
Speaker 7 (17:05):
Listen to you. I've got to talk to.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
You, cap and see you not good.
Speaker 9 (17:09):
Look, I'll give you money anything. Just cut those lines.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Cap'n die, We got line no plea done there?
Speaker 9 (17:15):
Yes, that's right, you'll die. I'll pay you more than
he will.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
I don't stop moving, cap'm on ship. Now what about it?
Speaker 9 (17:24):
You want money?
Speaker 5 (17:25):
No?
Speaker 9 (17:26):
What do you want? And I give you anything you say?
Just cut those lines and leave.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Me white fella.
Speaker 8 (17:30):
No good, But don't you understand he'll kill me after
he gets those pearls and comes up.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Cap'n say, no order, you've got to listen to it.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Look, put me.
Speaker 8 (17:41):
In the long boat, turn me loose. I'll take me
chance to the open sea rather than with him. I
can't stay here, you stay, No, I won't.
Speaker 9 (17:49):
I won't just wait here like a fool, room to
come up and kill me when he pleases.
Speaker 8 (17:53):
I'll go down below there with him first and fight
it out.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
You want other dives go waterside?
Speaker 7 (18:01):
I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 9 (18:05):
I've got to think you know nothing.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Right, Well, a boy, I'm good. Captain need plenty are down.
Speaker 4 (18:13):
There and down below everything went exceeding fine for Captain Weatherby.
In a matter of twenty minutes or less, he had
found the strong box, broken it open with an iron bar,
filled his canvas sack with pearls, and was making his
(18:35):
way back towards the companionway through which he had entered
the ship. The light was getting stronger as he came back.
Then suddenly he stopped. A dim form was facing him,
a man as tall as himself, clad in a diving rig,
and Weatherby was smiling as he thought.
Speaker 10 (18:54):
Same type helmet as mine, same shape on the other
light that is on fancy free Why all that's solly?
Speaker 7 (19:06):
Oh it's the deacon.
Speaker 10 (19:09):
So you come down, deacon after all? So you're going
to dispute the prize with mayor claim your ventrance?
Speaker 9 (19:18):
All right?
Speaker 10 (19:19):
I was going to kill you one way or the
other one. Crack on your helmet with this bar, Deacon,
and your ear drums are gone you'll be just an
unfortunate dive old drowned while working. But at least you've
proved an adversary worth his suit. Now I'm moving at
(19:40):
your deacon.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Good, you move to her.
Speaker 10 (19:45):
We're going to fight it out.
Speaker 7 (19:47):
Good, a little closer. That's it.
Speaker 10 (19:54):
Now, Now I'll split your skull.
Speaker 5 (20:15):
Oh, set out another bottom of rum Portugy. I'm cold
clean through.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
To the mirror.
Speaker 6 (20:20):
Five days out there at the wreck, and no thanks
from anybody.
Speaker 5 (20:24):
Not even from the man you brought back him.
Speaker 6 (20:27):
He's crazy as a tick, calls himself a deacon, a
man of the cloth. Look at him over there, sitting
alone at the table, talking to hisself scripture.
Speaker 5 (20:36):
But he was of Captain Weatherby. They said, you found
his lugger anchored over the wreck.
Speaker 7 (20:42):
There was two.
Speaker 5 (20:43):
People could have told us that story. One was a deacon,
as he calls hisself, and the other a great Alkohma
West African. And he went down after weather being never
come up.
Speaker 9 (20:53):
You need gear to go that deep.
Speaker 6 (20:55):
The bleeding crew couldn't manage a word between the lot
and old God.
Speaker 8 (21:00):
If I take it is wrong in his heart, let
him be snared in his own pit, in the net
which he d is his own foot taken lord, break
down the arm of the witted and the evil man.
Speaker 5 (21:17):
Oh, poor fool, he don't know what he's about, Smaye,
tell me what a weather be. He found him down
the wreck the pearls all in a great sack, tight
was diving.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Belt, and he was drowned, drowned.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
His suit had been cut to ribbons by shods of
broken glass. He was drowned for fair right inside of
his suit. But the glass, Smay, what was the glass
or a broken mirror? A mirror?
Speaker 9 (21:48):
It served as a facing for the saloon door.
Speaker 5 (21:51):
Leading out of the companionway.
Speaker 6 (21:53):
It's like he stopped to take a look at himself,
just that one last time.
Speaker 5 (22:00):
A toast to Captain weatherby d rest his soul, the
only honest man who came by sea two Kursdy Island.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Under the direction of Norman McDonald, Escape has brought You
the Adversary by John Russell, especially transcribed for radio by
mister McDonald. Featured in the cast were Lawrence Dobkin, John
Dayner and Ben Wright, with Alec Harford, Charlie Lung and
Barney Phillips. The narrator was Vic Perrin. You're announcer George Walsh.
The special music for Escape is composed and conducted by
(22:48):
Leith Stephens. Next week, you.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Are running through the alleys of a Mediterranean village, the
blackness of the Italian night confusing you. While somewhere in
the dark behind you, coming closer as they search for you,
are a man and a beautiful woman who mean to
take your life.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
So listen next week when Escape brings you Kathleen Heights
Story an Ordinary Man. This Sunday Night, Lionel Barrymore opens
(23:47):
the doors to the Hall of Fame, turning the spotlight
on another little known drama of American history whose workings
were instrumental in shaping the nation's destiny. Empire builders, dreamers
with high ideals, men and women whose pioneering may history.
These are the heroes and heroines of the Hall of Fame,
Starring Lionel Barrymore. This Sunday Night on most of these
same stations, the top dramatic show of them all, the
(24:10):
lux Radio Theater has heard Monday night on the CBS
Radio Network
Tired of the everyday grind, ever dream of a life
of romantic adventure. I want to get away from it all.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
We offer you.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Escape, Escape transcribe to free you from the four walls
of today for a half hour of high adventure.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
You are groping your way through the belly of a
sunken ship. A fortune and pearls secured the abolt, while
above on the ship that tends you, working the pump
that sends air to you is an adversary. Plans include
the taking of your pearls and your life.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Listen now as Escape brings you. John Russell's story The Adversary.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
It was at dusk and on an ebb tide, that
the pearling schooner of Fancy Free came smartly up into
the wind and dropped anchor in the harbor of Thursday Island.
And it was after dark when her master came ashore
and paid off his kanaka crew. He was a big man,
this captain, with a crop of black hair, a smooth,
long jaw, and gray eyes. As he went swinging along
(01:49):
the waterfront, the crowd parted right and left before him. Now,
news of any arrival travels fast on Thursday Island, and
with such a figure as this. The converse at the
Portuguese bar had been going on for some time.
Speaker 5 (02:03):
One thing I know for certain, he's got the trimmest
lugger in these parts. And where's he from? Smike? First
time I have a laid eye on him in his
boat was this evening.
Speaker 6 (02:14):
If he was from these parts, Portuguee, Captain Smike would
know him well.
Speaker 5 (02:19):
Wherever he from, he'd be like the rest of you,
up to no good. Oh you've no use for furlows,
have your Portuguese? You're all cut from the same claw, deeves, drunkards.
Brawl isn't worse, you fat devil. You're a better than
the worst of us. I know and can account for
my shortcomings. It is not so with you, who make
(02:41):
you living like so many sea gypsies. What's he saying,
Captain Smike, I'll drink you drink. I only wanted to
know the strangest Smike. He's another perl. Perhaps, yes he
could be. I'll find out more when he comes for
he's wrong. Want me a drink Portugue and one full
(03:04):
little out feed? Yeah, a toast to Thursday Island. There's
the island where the only honest man to grace its
shrs came by Land.
Speaker 7 (03:19):
You there as the bar cool. Look at the size
of that one.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
My name is Smike.
Speaker 5 (03:26):
If it's me you're talking to.
Speaker 7 (03:28):
My name is Weatherby, John Wetherby. I'm master of the
fancy Free.
Speaker 6 (03:34):
It's the lugger in the arbor, ain't it?
Speaker 7 (03:36):
And so, Captain Weatherby, I've come to spend some time
with you.
Speaker 5 (03:41):
Captain Weatherby, what is your pleasure?
Speaker 7 (03:45):
But first I'll have my say. That's your right moment back.
You drank a toast to which I take exception. That's
so you said.
Speaker 8 (03:54):
The only honest man on Thursday Island came by man
I did. Now, then, I don't mind what you call
yourselves to yourselves as long as i'm in your midst.
Anyone that says I'm not honest and can't prove it,
I'll knock the seven.
Speaker 7 (04:09):
Bells out of him.
Speaker 5 (04:10):
Since you're a stranger a whether it be, I'll tell
you something. I'm senior Captain on Thursday Island, and I
say what I wish when I wish. And it's like
I said before, the only honest man on Thursday Island
came far.
Speaker 9 (04:31):
O Nammy.
Speaker 7 (04:32):
He never even got it, said you, little fellow. Don't
give your friend a hand. You'll need help for a while.
Speaker 6 (04:40):
Yet my name is Elf, and I finish my drink. O.
Speaker 5 (04:45):
Yes, sir, now I'll have that rum right away, Captain Why.
Speaker 7 (05:02):
Now?
Speaker 4 (05:03):
On Thursday Island, there was no prying into a neighbor's
affairs unless one was prepared to push the inquiry with
a knife. And so it was that nobody questioned where
weather Be came from, or his pearling license, or the
motley crew he picked to replace the skilled Kanaka boys
he'd let go. His new cook was Chinese, his head
(05:24):
diver a Manilla man, and his mate a giant North
African who went by the name of Buttermilk.
Speaker 7 (05:31):
But questions or no.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
As the months passed, a legend was growing about Captain Weatherby.
Speaker 6 (05:36):
Or he'd chaser right across the Pacific to play your tops,
he might, Oh, yeah, that's his sort.
Speaker 9 (05:41):
You never had toptons in your life?
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Help him.
Speaker 5 (05:44):
Five nights ago he was in here and he drank
five hard cases under the table. And when they left
his square, the old bill himself honest.
Speaker 7 (05:55):
Witherbe?
Speaker 9 (05:56):
They call him honest?
Speaker 5 (05:57):
Weather Be's up to something, They say, nothing but good
about him.
Speaker 6 (06:02):
Your writer's reigned Portuguese. Last month he stayed in quarantine voluntary,
like just because of that island steamer and the cholera scare.
Speaker 5 (06:11):
Then page his crew their monthly wages. Anyways, crewe, our
good master wouldn't allow one of them to set foot
on deck.
Speaker 6 (06:19):
Well, they ain't been exactly trained, by the Queen's name.
Speaker 5 (06:22):
What I wanted I was this, Why has he got
the fastest lugger in these parts? Manned by that collection
of trash? You still hold that blow against weather Be's smiled,
But he's all right.
Speaker 6 (06:34):
Oarbor authorities, pilots and other masters and the whole lot,
they all like.
Speaker 5 (06:39):
I don't listen. That will be the Brisbane's team try
to get our bloody passengers back aboard. She sails at
midnight or Australia.
Speaker 6 (06:52):
I wish I was going. I'd like to see Australia again.
Speaker 5 (06:57):
Yes, he'd probably like to see you too. Can like
as not at sir pilot. The fern shows blowing forth,
hilot of us. Since she put in here, Weatherby and
that ship's pilot been trying to drink the island dry.
Speaker 6 (07:11):
I wonder where he is now.
Speaker 5 (07:13):
The docks like as not, pouring his pilot friend aboard
the steamer. Another Ramporto game and another for little Alfie.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
And in truth Weatherby was down at the docks, his
coat turned up against the squalls that were blowing wet
from the ocean. He was standing in the shadows by
some packing crates, watching from a distance the yellow cargo
flares that showed the loading of the Fern Shower was
still in progress. Then, just as Captain Weatherby was turning away,
(07:47):
another figure slipped from the shadow and moved to confront him.
Speaker 8 (07:50):
At Captain Weatherby, h I'll take Harve's if you please.
Captain Weatherby what I said, Harvest Now, don't move, Captain.
I've got you well covered, and I'm not afraid to shoot.
Speaker 7 (08:01):
Deacon after all these years. The Deacon bless me.
Speaker 8 (08:06):
If I didn't think i'd done you in, I should
have died, but I didn't know.
Speaker 7 (08:10):
Thanks to you.
Speaker 8 (08:11):
And what are you doing on Thursday Island? I dropped
in from Samurai. Im me need to catch the Brisbane steamer.
Speaker 7 (08:16):
Ah.
Speaker 8 (08:17):
I've been doing some diving up the way, but I'm
only a fair diver and my luck's been poor until tonight.
Speaker 7 (08:23):
Until tonight and why the change, little beadle?
Speaker 8 (08:26):
Because I chanced to see you, my old friend, and
I was strolling along the front and I made inquiries,
and I heard what they call you in these parts,
honest weather people.
Speaker 7 (08:37):
Why you was?
Speaker 8 (08:39):
You haven't in mind a blow on me to tell
what I know of you and have you go to jail.
Not a chance I would do me no good? What then,
I just want half of your new speculation, your latest deviltry.
Speaker 7 (08:50):
What makes you think I've got a plan to kid me?
Speaker 4 (08:53):
Oh?
Speaker 8 (08:53):
Do you think I couldn't smell it out? I know
your methods too well. Fine public character, no suspicion, alibi,
all complete, Yes. And I also know you sneaked your
crew out of town tonight. Your lugger's ready to slip
cable this minute. And most important, I happen to know
what the fernch was carrying a border this trip?
Speaker 7 (09:14):
Or the devil you do?
Speaker 8 (09:16):
The season sweep of pearls twenty thousand pounds worth.
Speaker 7 (09:21):
Suppose I was after those pearls? How would I get them?
Speaker 9 (09:24):
That's for you to do and me to profit by.
Speaker 8 (09:27):
Oh, so you'll let me do the diddy and then
take arbon. That is right, Captain honest weatherby bless me.
Speaker 9 (09:35):
If it is not nowhody with me, you're against me.
Speaker 7 (09:38):
Deacon.
Speaker 9 (09:38):
Thus saith the Lord.
Speaker 8 (09:40):
An adversary there shall be, and he shall bring down
thy strength from thee. All right, all right, than Deacon,
I'll put up with your blackmail and piracy, and I'll
take you on as an adversary, and you'll be part
of the enterprise. Good good, And now, whether me tell
me this, how are you to get the that are
(10:00):
aboorde the steamer there? I shall have to dive for them, Deacon,
die for them. And like it or not, since you've
declared yourself in you'll be a party to it.
Speaker 9 (10:14):
You mean you're going to sink her.
Speaker 8 (10:16):
That's exactly what I mean, Deacon. Within two hours of
sailon the Fern shore, will be resting on the bottom
of the passage.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
You are listening to the adversary. Tonight's presentation of Escape.
It's back again. It's Saturday day times on CBS Radio.
It's Romance. Romance every Saturday on most of these same stations,
bringing you the world's great love stories, some new, some old,
all fascinating adventures in listening the story. This Saturday, Daphne
(10:59):
de Morier Celebrate novel Frenchman's Creek dramatizes the love of
a noble woman for a pirate and now escape and
the second act of the Adversary.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
Within half an hour, the little lugger fancy Free was
standing out to sea, the master Captain Weatherby, and a
small and shivering passenger sheltered in the lee of the
deck house. The deacon had wanted in on the prophet,
but he had hardly counted on mass murder as a
means to it. One man's death he might have countenanced,
(11:45):
But the murder a steamer was something else.
Speaker 9 (11:48):
Whether be you can't do it. You can't drown a
whole ship's company.
Speaker 8 (11:52):
Jevy hear the vulgar, the Kate or the Mecca, For
they all fell a trifle off the track. Their bottoms
were ripped out on tribulation show. And the same thing
might happen to the fern shore. But how there's a
light on tribulation shove, So there is.
Speaker 7 (12:07):
It's a fourth order fixed dioptric unattended. Now suppose that
light were moved.
Speaker 9 (12:15):
But like you say, it's fixed.
Speaker 8 (12:17):
And besides, the keeper lives only a mile away on
Horn Island.
Speaker 9 (12:21):
You couldn't move it.
Speaker 8 (12:22):
Suppose a man were to land on the lee of
tribulation shove and with a canvas blanket the light to westward. Now,
if that same man were to take a discarded lightship
lantern that he might have aboard his lugger, and after
anchoring some half mile away, show this lighted his mastead er?
Speaker 7 (12:43):
What then?
Speaker 9 (12:44):
What you're mad?
Speaker 5 (12:45):
Weather?
Speaker 7 (12:46):
Do you begin to see the possibility forever?
Speaker 2 (12:49):
You?
Speaker 9 (12:50):
You really are going to wrecker?
Speaker 7 (12:51):
I am deacon, wouldn't you dead?
Speaker 5 (12:55):
What is it?
Speaker 1 (12:56):
Pig head?
Speaker 5 (12:58):
And here?
Speaker 8 (12:59):
How far close close he can get below with a
tribulation shawl, And there's man's work to be done yet tonight.
Speaker 7 (13:06):
With a bit below? What a milk?
Speaker 10 (13:09):
Ye?
Speaker 9 (13:10):
How close? Now to the south.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
You'd three hundred yard?
Speaker 9 (13:14):
I've the helm put over, but a milk and drop
a hook.
Speaker 8 (13:17):
We're going ashore to have a look at tribulation light.
Speaker 5 (13:28):
Now.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
It is a fact that no one knows or is
ever likely to know the actual explanation for the record.
The Brisbane steamer which left Thursday Island and came to
Grief some two hours later on Tribulation shows, but the
records declare that she went clean off her course, and
a coral reef laid her open as neatly as a
butcher's knife lays open a carcass. She sank within five minutes.
(13:53):
The next morning, as the dawn spread in iridescence over
those waters, Captain Weatherby anchored his lugger between the tips
of the two sunken masts.
Speaker 7 (14:02):
All right, butter Milk, get my equipment.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Ready, I get diving suit.
Speaker 8 (14:08):
Well, Deacon, you'll not for yourself. There's not a trace
of evidence he's not be inspired. The lantern we used
is sunk, canvas destroyed, and tribulation light as it was before.
Your evil weather be pure evil, Deacon.
Speaker 7 (14:23):
Is there so much difference between a lot than a little?
Come now, Deacon, cheer up.
Speaker 8 (14:29):
Here we are and there are the pearls, twenty pounds.
Speaker 7 (14:33):
Worth of them just over side.
Speaker 9 (14:35):
I don't want any part of me.
Speaker 8 (14:36):
Within three hours, I'll be back out on the Pearling
Banks about my business, never having heard of the wreck.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Uscrap diving shoes.
Speaker 8 (14:45):
Next week, if anytime I choose, I'll be walking the
streets of Thursday near the news and will be as
surprised as Captain Weatherby, that hard working man, honest Weatherby,
with a fortune in his belt to dispose of leisure.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Already enough, good helmet captain.
Speaker 8 (15:07):
Here's Deacon. I have not a problem in the world
except you me.
Speaker 5 (15:16):
Why me?
Speaker 7 (15:17):
You are evidence?
Speaker 8 (15:19):
This thinking crew doesn't matter. I've kept them to be
fuddled to know what's happening.
Speaker 9 (15:23):
But you, you could.
Speaker 7 (15:25):
Be Queen's evidence. I'm not forgetting you.
Speaker 8 (15:30):
Now listen to me whetherby I want no parton What
kind of an adversary do you call yourself?
Speaker 7 (15:35):
Deacon. I don't present a sport from you, not cumberlaw, Deacon.
Speaker 9 (15:40):
Now is the time to change your la cumberlow once
and for all. No, No, I won't.
Speaker 8 (15:46):
Go down with you, not down there, for you're a diver,
aren't you, Deacon. I can't nothing that that ship my
cow blasted Deacon.
Speaker 7 (15:54):
I thought at least you'd be amusing hey very well.
When I come back, I'll knock your assiliade in.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
You want helmet one thing butter milk?
Speaker 7 (16:06):
Yes, Kevin, you see that fellow white man.
Speaker 8 (16:09):
Maybe he wants to go below good, you'll give him
mother soup, Yes, Kevin, maybe he touched pump or raised
plus you knock seven bells out of him.
Speaker 7 (16:22):
Otherwise, no order heavy.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Sav kept good.
Speaker 7 (16:26):
Now help me with the helmer. Yes, put on now.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
You're gain of cap'n. You murder.
Speaker 7 (16:40):
You built the murderer with me.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Keptn No hear that didn't helpt you, white fella. Move away,
cap'n for water side now, you fella, I plenty good,
(17:04):
keaven need my hair.
Speaker 7 (17:05):
Listen to you. I've got to talk to.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
You, cap and see you not good.
Speaker 9 (17:09):
Look, I'll give you money anything. Just cut those lines.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Cap'n die, We got line no plea done there?
Speaker 9 (17:15):
Yes, that's right, you'll die. I'll pay you more than
he will.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
I don't stop moving, cap'm on ship. Now what about it?
Speaker 9 (17:24):
You want money?
Speaker 5 (17:25):
No?
Speaker 9 (17:26):
What do you want? And I give you anything you say?
Just cut those lines and leave.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Me white fella.
Speaker 8 (17:30):
No good, But don't you understand he'll kill me after
he gets those pearls and comes up.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Cap'n say, no order, you've got to listen to it.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Look, put me.
Speaker 8 (17:41):
In the long boat, turn me loose. I'll take me
chance to the open sea rather than with him. I
can't stay here, you stay, No, I won't.
Speaker 9 (17:49):
I won't just wait here like a fool, room to
come up and kill me when he pleases.
Speaker 8 (17:53):
I'll go down below there with him first and fight
it out.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
You want other dives go waterside?
Speaker 7 (18:01):
I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 9 (18:05):
I've got to think you know nothing.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Right, Well, a boy, I'm good. Captain need plenty are down.
Speaker 4 (18:13):
There and down below everything went exceeding fine for Captain Weatherby.
In a matter of twenty minutes or less, he had
found the strong box, broken it open with an iron bar,
filled his canvas sack with pearls, and was making his
(18:35):
way back towards the companionway through which he had entered
the ship. The light was getting stronger as he came back.
Then suddenly he stopped. A dim form was facing him,
a man as tall as himself, clad in a diving rig,
and Weatherby was smiling as he thought.
Speaker 10 (18:54):
Same type helmet as mine, same shape on the other
light that is on fancy free Why all that's solly?
Speaker 7 (19:06):
Oh it's the deacon.
Speaker 10 (19:09):
So you come down, deacon after all? So you're going
to dispute the prize with mayor claim your ventrance?
Speaker 9 (19:18):
All right?
Speaker 10 (19:19):
I was going to kill you one way or the
other one. Crack on your helmet with this bar, Deacon,
and your ear drums are gone you'll be just an
unfortunate dive old drowned while working. But at least you've
proved an adversary worth his suit. Now I'm moving at
(19:40):
your deacon.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Good, you move to her.
Speaker 10 (19:45):
We're going to fight it out.
Speaker 7 (19:47):
Good, a little closer. That's it.
Speaker 10 (19:54):
Now, Now I'll split your skull.
Speaker 5 (20:15):
Oh, set out another bottom of rum Portugy. I'm cold
clean through.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
To the mirror.
Speaker 6 (20:20):
Five days out there at the wreck, and no thanks
from anybody.
Speaker 5 (20:24):
Not even from the man you brought back him.
Speaker 6 (20:27):
He's crazy as a tick, calls himself a deacon, a
man of the cloth. Look at him over there, sitting
alone at the table, talking to hisself scripture.
Speaker 5 (20:36):
But he was of Captain Weatherby. They said, you found
his lugger anchored over the wreck.
Speaker 7 (20:42):
There was two.
Speaker 5 (20:43):
People could have told us that story. One was a deacon,
as he calls hisself, and the other a great Alkohma
West African. And he went down after weather being never
come up.
Speaker 9 (20:53):
You need gear to go that deep.
Speaker 6 (20:55):
The bleeding crew couldn't manage a word between the lot
and old God.
Speaker 8 (21:00):
If I take it is wrong in his heart, let
him be snared in his own pit, in the net
which he d is his own foot taken lord, break
down the arm of the witted and the evil man.
Speaker 5 (21:17):
Oh, poor fool, he don't know what he's about, Smaye,
tell me what a weather be. He found him down
the wreck the pearls all in a great sack, tight
was diving.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Belt, and he was drowned, drowned.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
His suit had been cut to ribbons by shods of
broken glass. He was drowned for fair right inside of
his suit. But the glass, Smay, what was the glass
or a broken mirror? A mirror?
Speaker 9 (21:48):
It served as a facing for the saloon door.
Speaker 5 (21:51):
Leading out of the companionway.
Speaker 6 (21:53):
It's like he stopped to take a look at himself,
just that one last time.
Speaker 5 (22:00):
A toast to Captain weatherby d rest his soul, the
only honest man who came by sea two Kursdy Island.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Under the direction of Norman McDonald, Escape has brought You
the Adversary by John Russell, especially transcribed for radio by
mister McDonald. Featured in the cast were Lawrence Dobkin, John
Dayner and Ben Wright, with Alec Harford, Charlie Lung and
Barney Phillips. The narrator was Vic Perrin. You're announcer George Walsh.
The special music for Escape is composed and conducted by
(22:48):
Leith Stephens. Next week, you.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Are running through the alleys of a Mediterranean village, the
blackness of the Italian night confusing you. While somewhere in
the dark behind you, coming closer as they search for you,
are a man and a beautiful woman who mean to
take your life.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
So listen next week when Escape brings you Kathleen Heights
Story an Ordinary Man. This Sunday Night, Lionel Barrymore opens
(23:47):
the doors to the Hall of Fame, turning the spotlight
on another little known drama of American history whose workings
were instrumental in shaping the nation's destiny. Empire builders, dreamers
with high ideals, men and women whose pioneering may history.
These are the heroes and heroines of the Hall of Fame,
Starring Lionel Barrymore. This Sunday Night on most of these
same stations, the top dramatic show of them all, the
(24:10):
lux Radio Theater has heard Monday night on the CBS
Radio Network
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