May 6, 2025 • 29 mins
A high-adventure anthology series that transports listeners to exotic locales and thrilling situations. Each episode offers an escape into suspenseful and action-packed narratives.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Escape.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Escape Tonight to a rift in this South Pacific.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
The Columbia Broadcasting System and its affiliated stations presents Escape,
produced and directed by William N. Robeson this The last
of the summer series is The Fourth Man by John Russell.
New Maya and the South Pacific to a generation of
(00:38):
French criminals, a word to be uttered in the same
terrified breath with Devil's Island. The penal colony at New
Maya were the cutthroats, gatas and sadists, from the dregs
of French society were sent to a living death.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Tonight.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
We invite you to escape from now Maya. In John
Russell's The Fourth Man.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
The rafts stood to open sea. A mat of pandanas
sleeves served for its sail, and a paddle of wood
for its helm. It was woven of reeds and bamboo sticks,
lashed upon triple rows of bladders, and it carried four men,
three of them sad huddled together at the far end.
(01:27):
Their bodies were blackened with dried blood, and the hair
upon them was long and matted. They wore only the
rags of blue convict's uniforms on wrist and ankle. They
carried their mark, the dark and wrinkled stain of the manacles.
There was de boats doctor, man of the world, murderer.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
Friends, the thing is done.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
And fenerou forger ladies, man, weakling coward. Yes, we've escaped,
and the one known as the parrot, thief and cutthroat.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
So far, so good, and by the way of celebration, gentlemen,
may I offer you cigarettes? Cigarettes?
Speaker 5 (02:14):
Doctor, you're a marvel a magician. Look at them, quite
and fresh, as though they just came from the package.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
How did you do it? Oh?
Speaker 4 (02:22):
Every six months there are about seventy five escapes from
New Mayor, and not more than one succeeds. Ours would
be that one I knew, so three weeks ago I
bribed the nightguard for these very cigarettes, so that we
might sit here, my friends, as we are doing, and celebrate.
I want a light, a light for the pet.
Speaker 5 (02:46):
Our doctor's a wonder he thinks of everything. He gives
us cigarettes, matches and our freedom.
Speaker 6 (02:52):
Wait till you've got your two feet on a pavement again.
That'll be the time to sound off about freedom.
Speaker 7 (03:00):
Starched calls again the stroll.
Speaker 5 (03:02):
The girl, clean and fresh from her bath, down the
place La concorde.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Suppose we get a storm.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
It's not the season of storms, just the same.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Suppose we get a storm, arricay.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
My friend, you must not be so impatient. Remember we
were convicts back there, festering and oblivion. Now we are
men raised from the dead.
Speaker 6 (03:27):
Suppose we get a storm. You've got a gift of speech, doctor,
But where's the ship that was going to meet us here?
Speaker 4 (03:38):
This is the day, is agreed, it will meet us.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
The wind will blow us to China if we keep on.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
We can't lie any closer to shore. There's a government
launch at Toryen. And I doubt if the native trackers
have given us up.
Speaker 7 (03:52):
Careful, parrot, the natives leach you, yet.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
I've heard about that? Is it true, doctor, that they
people are runaway so that can capture to flatten On.
Oh they prefer the reward. Still, I doubt if they've
entirely lost the habit of cannibals.
Speaker 7 (04:11):
Peace by peace, Parrot.
Speaker 5 (04:12):
First they'll sample you, then they'll make a stew out
of your brains.
Speaker 7 (04:16):
Oh, they won't miss a thing.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Shut up, Phil a room. The filthy brutes.
Speaker 7 (04:22):
Oh, I almost forgot. We have one of them with us.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
The fourth man was steering the raft. He sat crouched
in the stern, his body glistening with spray. His huge,
dark hands held the steering paddle. He was motionless, like
an idol, his eyes fixed on the course ahead. The
fourth man on the raft.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
You are looking at a canarch, my friend. You will
see nothing superior, no line of to redeem the low
angle of the forehead, the knobby joints of the body.
Nature has stamped him with the mark of inferiority, and
he has set the final seal himself with that twist
of bark about his middle, that prong of pig ivory
(05:15):
through his nose.
Speaker 5 (05:16):
Yes, but none the less. He's a man, and there
is a price on our heads. He could be taking us.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
Worry alike, calm yourself and areou This is a very
simple animal and Infantryly does that mean he couldn't double
cross us? It does. He is bound by his duty.
I made my bargain with his chief up the river,
and this one is sent to deliver us on board
our ship. That's the only interest he has in us,
(05:43):
and he'll do it. He will. That is the nature
of the native.
Speaker 7 (05:47):
I don't trust him, not for a minute.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
The brute, the animal. You it's you. I'm talking about, you,
dirty brute.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
Save your breath, ferret. He speaks no language, only a
few noises, few signs.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
I don't feel right on the same wrath with that.
Speaker 5 (06:09):
Where burn yourselves up in the sun if you like,
But me, I'm going to crawl under a mat.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
Get asleep. Yes, we should all sleep a little, conserve ourselves, humph.
And when we awake, our ship will be here, a
saucy little topsail schooner, a mass standing out against the sky,
and will be on our way to France. Is sleep,
(06:35):
my friends.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
The two younger convicts dozed under the heat of the day,
but not the doctor. He stood once again to sweep
the sky line under his shaded hand. His plan had
been so careful, so precise. He had counted absobsolutely on
meeting the ship, a small schooner, one of those flitting,
half piratical traders of the Copra Islands that can be
(07:08):
hired like cabs in a dark street for any sinister enterprise.
And there was no ship, and there was no crossroads
where one might sit and wait, Good morning.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
Doctor, it's afternoon pheneru.
Speaker 7 (07:35):
Oh, yes so it is. I slept like a corpse.
Speaker 6 (07:40):
Hey, where's the ship, doctor? It was going to be
here when we woke up.
Speaker 7 (07:47):
It will be I'm thirsty. I'm dying with thirst.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
So well, where's the flask?
Speaker 7 (07:53):
I'm roasted in the sun.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
You just have to roast some more. This crew is
put on rations. You're talking about where's that water?
Speaker 1 (08:03):
I have it here?
Speaker 4 (08:04):
Show your hair? You think it's yours? No, it's ours, parrot.
I want a drink, doctor, think a little parrot. We
have to guard our supplies like reasonable men. We don't
know how long we may be floating here.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Oh so that's how you talk. Now.
Speaker 4 (08:24):
You don't know how long. But you were sure enough
when we started. I am still sure. The ship will come.
She cannot stay for us in one spot. She'll be
cruising to and fro until she intercepts us, and we
must wait. Er.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
That's good. Wait. And in the meantime, what fry here
in this heat?
Speaker 4 (08:46):
Our tongues hanging out?
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Why you deal us out water? Drop by drop?
Speaker 4 (08:51):
Perhaps?
Speaker 1 (08:51):
No, a man doesn't live.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
Who can feed me with a spoon unless you would
die very speedily. We must guard our water. We can
only do our best with what we have. All right, doctor,
do your best. Give me a drink. You you may
have your share, of course, but be warned when it's gone,
(09:14):
don't come to us to fenerone me.
Speaker 7 (09:15):
Yes, what's fair? Is fair?
Speaker 1 (09:17):
My drink?
Speaker 4 (09:20):
Very well? Oh, a thimbolful, one thimble. This way we
should have enough for three days, maybe more, with equal
shares among the three of us.
Speaker 7 (09:34):
Ha, that's right, there are only three of us.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
You were you were thinking of him, Feneral about Pilot.
He looks somewhat like us, doesn't he. But his body
has never known clothes, his feet shoes. His heart has
never known the swelling that comes with feelings of love
or beauty. His mind has never known a single thought.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Humph.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
Look at us, three gentlemen. You phellaoh a forger, you
parrot a thief, and I, doctor Dubouse of Paris and Marseilles,
a murderer. And yet we are civilized men, and this
is a savage animal. And our provisions are for civilized
(10:23):
men only.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
The three men awoke to the second day of the raft.
They looked and saw the far round horizon and the
empty desert of the sea, and their own long shadows
that slept slowly before them. Over its smooth, slow heaving.
The land had sunk away from them in the night.
The trap had been sprung as the savage sun kindled
(10:58):
upon them with the power of a earning glass. A
calm fell, an absolute calm. The air hung weighted, the
sea heaved and fell in polished undulations, and the sun shone,
driving in under their eyelids like white hot splinters. They
crawled to the shelter of the mats, gasping, shriveling. And
(11:24):
the water, the world of water was slack and thick
as oil.
Speaker 7 (11:31):
Oh, how longly it is?
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Doctor devoce? Yes, parrot, look around you? What do you mean, God?
Look around? What do you see?
Speaker 4 (11:44):
I see water, parrot, and the horizon, nothing else. Don't
you see a ship, a saucy little schooner, those.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Were your words.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
Well where is it?
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Why don't you see it?
Speaker 4 (11:59):
It will come? Will it comfort us to be dead
when it comes?
Speaker 5 (12:03):
You say that you count on your friends, But suppose
they leave you to rot here, leave Parrot and me
to rot here. That would be a joke, Hey, doctor,
to wait for a ship that will never come.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
It will come, My friends will not fail me.
Speaker 7 (12:18):
Why have you know? How can you be so sure.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
There's a safety vault in Paris full of papers to
be opened at my death. Those papers contain confession. No, gentlemen,
my friends will not fail me.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
That perrot. Eh.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
A moment ago you ask me what I saw? Well,
there was something I neglected.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
What's there?
Speaker 4 (12:47):
I see a canock and this raft with us. He
does not join us, He does not look at us.
He sits on his heels in the way of the Native,
with his arms hugging his knees. He sits at the stern, motionless,
under the shattering sun, gazing out into it, into vacancy.
Whenever I raise my eyes, I see nothing else, only
(13:11):
this cannock.
Speaker 5 (13:13):
He he seems to be enjoying himself quite well.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
I was thinking so myself.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
The cannibal, the savage.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
He does not seem to suffer.
Speaker 7 (13:24):
What's going on in his brain? What does he dream of?
Speaker 8 (13:28):
There?
Speaker 7 (13:30):
He looks as though he hates.
Speaker 8 (13:31):
Us, a dirty rat.
Speaker 7 (13:33):
Maybe maybe he's waiting for us to die. Maybe he's
waiting for the reward. Least he wouldn't starve on the
way home. He could deliver us, please by peace?
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Oh does he do? A doctor? Hasn't he any feeling?
Speaker 4 (13:49):
I've been wondering. It may be that his fibers are
tougher his nerves.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
But we've had water and he hasn't.
Speaker 7 (13:57):
Yet see his skin moist and fresh, and.
Speaker 8 (14:01):
His belly that is a football. Don't tell me this
savage is thirsty? Is there any way he could steal
our supplies?
Speaker 4 (14:10):
Certainly? Not?
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Suppose he has his own supplies hidden? Why who will see?
Search the wrath?
Speaker 4 (14:18):
Come on, we lete there and look into the match
sad push him aside. No, gentlemen, gentlemen, you were mistaken.
Here is nothing hidden. You're wrong about him.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Doctor, Can you say he has no understanding?
Speaker 4 (14:34):
There's one thing you can understand? Hey, how much.
Speaker 8 (14:47):
Her?
Speaker 4 (14:48):
That will teach you? Not so chippid?
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Now are you not so happy with your luck?
Speaker 4 (14:54):
That'll make you feel well?
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Perrot?
Speaker 4 (15:00):
If you're better now, don't you superior? Come back, my friends,
come back under the mats. The glare of the sun
is not so bad.
Speaker 5 (15:10):
There, Oh, idiots, what's the matter with our parrot?
Speaker 4 (15:15):
Now?
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Idiots? Why do we look and look?
Speaker 4 (15:21):
The schooner can't help us.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Now.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
If we're becomed, then they are too, doctor?
Speaker 7 (15:28):
Is that true?
Speaker 4 (15:30):
Yes? We must hook for a breeze. First, then, why
didn't you tell us we trust you?
Speaker 7 (15:36):
Why do you keep on playing out the farce?
Speaker 4 (15:38):
You are wise, doctor, you are very wise. Put down
the knife, parrot. You know things we don't, and you
keep them to yourself.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
All right, but.
Speaker 8 (15:52):
Be careful if you think you'll use your wisdom to
get the best of us. Be careful, full, doctor, because
I still have the knife.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
And so the days dragged by, the second, the third,
and now it was the fourth day, and still.
Speaker 8 (16:18):
There was no breeze, and still there was no ship.
Speaker 5 (16:24):
A doctor, yes, what do you what do you stare
at at him?
Speaker 4 (16:32):
At him, the native of the canark? Why look at him,
and look at us. We are dying, our powers are ebbing,
and him naked, wild, brutish, he has yet to give
the slightest sign of complaint weakness?
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Doctor? Is this a man or a fiend? A man?
Speaker 7 (17:02):
It is a man, a miracle.
Speaker 4 (17:05):
It is a man, and a very poor and wretched
example of a man. You'll find no lower type anywhere.
Look at his cranial ankle, the high years, the heavy
bones of his skull. I he he is scarcely above
an ape.
Speaker 8 (17:21):
And what.
Speaker 4 (17:24):
He has a secret er secret?
Speaker 7 (17:28):
I we see him every movie makes every minute. What
chance has he for a secret?
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Absurd?
Speaker 4 (17:37):
Here are we three children of the century, products of civilization,
and here is this savage who belongs before the stone age?
Is he to win this struggle? Absurd?
Speaker 1 (17:52):
What kind of secret?
Speaker 4 (17:55):
I can't say. Perhaps some method of breathing, some strange
posture he uses to cheat the sensations of the body.
Such things are known among primitive peoples, known and jealously guarded,
like the properties of certain drugs, the uses of hypnotism.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Who knows? We can know?
Speaker 4 (18:19):
We can find out? Would you ask him useless? He
would not tell. Why should he We who scorn him,
We give him no share with us, We abuse him,
and so he falls back upon his own expedients. They
are the means by which he has survived, from the
depth of time, by which he may yet survive when
(18:42):
all our wisdom is dust.
Speaker 8 (18:44):
There are a number of ways of learning secrets.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
I know them all. It would be useless. How could
he stand any torture you might invent? You saw how
he behaved before. No, No, that's not the way, or
listen to my way.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
I'm tired of all this talk.
Speaker 8 (19:07):
You say, he's a man all right, then, he.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
Has blood in his veins. At least we could drink.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
Now it would be too hot, it would be salt.
Well kill him then and throw him over the side.
Let's be rid of the thing. We gain nothing.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Then, what do you want?
Speaker 4 (19:27):
I want to beat him, That's what I want to
beat him at the game. For our own sakes, for
our racial pride, we must to have blest him, to
prove ourselves his masters. Watch him, Watch him closely, my friends, watch.
Speaker 8 (19:48):
I'll watch all right, my good doctor, I'm not sleeping
any more.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
And leave you alone with that bottle.
Speaker 7 (19:57):
The bottle, the bottle.
Speaker 4 (19:59):
I've been meaning to discuss our rations with you. Have
you running very short. I'm afraid we must cut down again.
And what I will cut to half a thimblefulll we
must keep our wit, I shay no, all right, then
we'll put it to a boat. You say no, I
(20:21):
say yes, Phenerou, yes.
Speaker 7 (20:25):
Yes, anything, but give me mine now.
Speaker 4 (20:29):
Then it's half a thimbleful for monsieur Feneroux, your share, Phenerou.
Speaker 7 (20:38):
More more, I'll die, Give me more.
Speaker 4 (20:41):
No more to day you must, you must doctor no
more to day? Look a ship, a ship at last, way,
where is it. I don't see any ship.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
It shut trick.
Speaker 4 (20:53):
Look, Feneral, he has the bottle.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
You don't anything.
Speaker 4 (21:00):
Look at him. You killed him with that oor e.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
What about the bottle? Eh?
Speaker 4 (21:06):
Yes, there's some left. You caught him just in time,
and you caught the bottle just in time, it seems
I did.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
And there is no ship. There will be no ship.
Speaker 8 (21:20):
We are done because of you and your dirty promises
that brought us here.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
Doctor hell, lie are fool. Don't come any closer. Must
you want this flask broken over your head? No?
Speaker 1 (21:37):
I wouldn't want that.
Speaker 4 (21:40):
Just think, perrot. Why should you and I fight? We
can see this trouble through and win. Yet this calm
can't last forever. Besides, there will be only two of
us to divide the water.
Speaker 8 (21:54):
Now, yeah, that's true, isn't it lead us?
Speaker 1 (22:00):
His share an inheritance?
Speaker 4 (22:04):
All right? I don't take mine now, my share right now?
Speaker 1 (22:12):
If you please, later.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
We'll see so be it.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Your share?
Speaker 4 (22:24):
Uh many things, And now Venerule's share to me. Please
as you say?
Speaker 1 (22:39):
And now another another good doctor?
Speaker 4 (22:46):
Three, that's enough, parent, No doctor.
Speaker 8 (22:52):
It's not enough.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Now I'll take the rest. Pay it stop my arm.
I will kill you if you don't let go. Thank you.
Speaker 8 (23:08):
You see I have manners, haven't I? And I have
wisdom too, And because I fooled a very wise man.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
I toast you.
Speaker 4 (23:21):
Doctor.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
The best man wins, And that was.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
A bright idea of yours, the best So the best
man wins.
Speaker 8 (23:44):
It that.
Speaker 4 (23:46):
You forgot? I'm aductedn't you?
Speaker 1 (23:49):
You?
Speaker 4 (23:49):
You forgot that a man cannot go without water for days?
Then drink his fill and live through it. Go on, parrot,
get spout your worthless life while I laught. The best
man always wins, parrot the best man. So best man wins.
Speaker 5 (24:18):
Yes, doctor, you forgot my knife, didn't you? Forgot me
lying at your feet? Give me up? Forget, didn't you?
But now it is I phener who will outlast the
two you. Here's my good doctor, the best man always.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
I mean, you fool the water it's running out.
Speaker 9 (24:54):
Oh oh oh, come in, come in, happen longboats, Batcher,
(25:35):
all right, send Martin.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
He's right here, sir.
Speaker 4 (25:38):
Bad luck, sir. The raft was here all.
Speaker 10 (25:40):
The time, not ten miles away from it.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Yeah that come, well? Where are they the passengers?
Speaker 4 (25:47):
We're too late. They're all dead, all dead.
Speaker 10 (25:50):
Yes, one stabbed to death, another skull crushed, the other
fried by the sun.
Speaker 4 (25:55):
All dead.
Speaker 10 (25:56):
Well, all the better because there's nothing.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Yeah, but how are you going?
Speaker 10 (26:01):
Hogs hits? My friend? The hogs hits in the afterhold.
Fill them nicely with Brian and there.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
Were I don't understand.
Speaker 10 (26:10):
Are you dull? Much so very dull? The gentleman's passage
is all paid. Before we left Sydney, I contracted to
bring back free escaped convicts.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
I'll bring them back pickled.
Speaker 10 (26:23):
So if you go back much and bring them aboard
with a trip, I'll be much so black.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
A right welter.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Oh, there's a fourth man on the raft, captain a Kannak,
still alive.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
What do we do with him?
Speaker 1 (26:34):
A Kannak?
Speaker 10 (26:36):
No word in my contract of Adney Cannack.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Leave him here. He's only a savage.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
And so doctor Debous and Fenerou and the parrot went
aboard for the long trip to their beloved parrots, their
bodies pitching and rolling gently in the huge vats.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Of brine.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
On the raft.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
The fourth man raised his head slightly as a wind
freshing from the west. He watched until the schooner turned,
shaping away for Australia. And disappeared over the rim of
the horizon. Then he spread his sail of pandanas leeves
and headed his raft eastward, back toward New Caledonia, back
(27:23):
toward home. Feeling somewhat dry after his exertion, the native
plucked a hollow reed at random from the rushes.
Speaker 4 (27:31):
On his raft.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Slowly, lazily, he stretched himself at full length in his
accustomed place at the stern. He thrust the reed down
deep into one of the bladders underneath the raft, and
slowly drank his fill of sweet water. He had a
dozen such storage bladders remaining built into the floats at
(27:55):
intervals above the water line, quite enough to last him, say,
plea home again.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
Escape is produced and directed by William N. Robson The
Fourth Man by John Russell. Was adapted for radio by
Irving Rabbitch, with Paul Freeze as Doctor Dubos, Joe Kerns Espeneru,
and Nestor Piva as Perrot. Bill Johnstone narrated. The special
musical score was conceived and conducted by Cypewer. Escape has
been presented by the Columbia Broadcasting System and it's affiliated station.
(28:48):
Be sure to be with us next Monday. Night, when
the radio theater returns to the air with Benny Davis
and Glenn Ford starring in A Stolen Light. Remember next
Monday evening, from nine to ten pm Eastern day light time,
the Lux Radio Theater starts its fourteenth year over CBS.
The play A Stolen Light. The stars Betty Davis and
(29:08):
Glenn Ford. This is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System.
Escape.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Escape Tonight to a rift in this South Pacific.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
The Columbia Broadcasting System and its affiliated stations presents Escape,
produced and directed by William N. Robeson this The last
of the summer series is The Fourth Man by John Russell.
New Maya and the South Pacific to a generation of
(00:38):
French criminals, a word to be uttered in the same
terrified breath with Devil's Island. The penal colony at New
Maya were the cutthroats, gatas and sadists, from the dregs
of French society were sent to a living death.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Tonight.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
We invite you to escape from now Maya. In John
Russell's The Fourth Man.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
The rafts stood to open sea. A mat of pandanas
sleeves served for its sail, and a paddle of wood
for its helm. It was woven of reeds and bamboo sticks,
lashed upon triple rows of bladders, and it carried four men,
three of them sad huddled together at the far end.
(01:27):
Their bodies were blackened with dried blood, and the hair
upon them was long and matted. They wore only the
rags of blue convict's uniforms on wrist and ankle. They
carried their mark, the dark and wrinkled stain of the manacles.
There was de boats doctor, man of the world, murderer.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
Friends, the thing is done.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
And fenerou forger ladies, man, weakling coward. Yes, we've escaped,
and the one known as the parrot, thief and cutthroat.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
So far, so good, and by the way of celebration, gentlemen,
may I offer you cigarettes? Cigarettes?
Speaker 5 (02:14):
Doctor, you're a marvel a magician. Look at them, quite
and fresh, as though they just came from the package.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
How did you do it? Oh?
Speaker 4 (02:22):
Every six months there are about seventy five escapes from
New Mayor, and not more than one succeeds. Ours would
be that one I knew, so three weeks ago I
bribed the nightguard for these very cigarettes, so that we
might sit here, my friends, as we are doing, and celebrate.
I want a light, a light for the pet.
Speaker 5 (02:46):
Our doctor's a wonder he thinks of everything. He gives
us cigarettes, matches and our freedom.
Speaker 6 (02:52):
Wait till you've got your two feet on a pavement again.
That'll be the time to sound off about freedom.
Speaker 7 (03:00):
Starched calls again the stroll.
Speaker 5 (03:02):
The girl, clean and fresh from her bath, down the
place La concorde.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Suppose we get a storm.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
It's not the season of storms, just the same.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Suppose we get a storm, arricay.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
My friend, you must not be so impatient. Remember we
were convicts back there, festering and oblivion. Now we are
men raised from the dead.
Speaker 6 (03:27):
Suppose we get a storm. You've got a gift of speech, doctor,
But where's the ship that was going to meet us here?
Speaker 4 (03:38):
This is the day, is agreed, it will meet us.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
The wind will blow us to China if we keep on.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
We can't lie any closer to shore. There's a government
launch at Toryen. And I doubt if the native trackers
have given us up.
Speaker 7 (03:52):
Careful, parrot, the natives leach you, yet.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
I've heard about that? Is it true, doctor, that they
people are runaway so that can capture to flatten On.
Oh they prefer the reward. Still, I doubt if they've
entirely lost the habit of cannibals.
Speaker 7 (04:11):
Peace by peace, Parrot.
Speaker 5 (04:12):
First they'll sample you, then they'll make a stew out
of your brains.
Speaker 7 (04:16):
Oh, they won't miss a thing.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Shut up, Phil a room. The filthy brutes.
Speaker 7 (04:22):
Oh, I almost forgot. We have one of them with us.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
The fourth man was steering the raft. He sat crouched
in the stern, his body glistening with spray. His huge,
dark hands held the steering paddle. He was motionless, like
an idol, his eyes fixed on the course ahead. The
fourth man on the raft.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
You are looking at a canarch, my friend. You will
see nothing superior, no line of to redeem the low
angle of the forehead, the knobby joints of the body.
Nature has stamped him with the mark of inferiority, and
he has set the final seal himself with that twist
of bark about his middle, that prong of pig ivory
(05:15):
through his nose.
Speaker 5 (05:16):
Yes, but none the less. He's a man, and there
is a price on our heads. He could be taking us.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
Worry alike, calm yourself and areou This is a very
simple animal and Infantryly does that mean he couldn't double
cross us? It does. He is bound by his duty.
I made my bargain with his chief up the river,
and this one is sent to deliver us on board
our ship. That's the only interest he has in us,
(05:43):
and he'll do it. He will. That is the nature
of the native.
Speaker 7 (05:47):
I don't trust him, not for a minute.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
The brute, the animal. You it's you. I'm talking about, you,
dirty brute.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
Save your breath, ferret. He speaks no language, only a
few noises, few signs.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
I don't feel right on the same wrath with that.
Speaker 5 (06:09):
Where burn yourselves up in the sun if you like,
But me, I'm going to crawl under a mat.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
Get asleep. Yes, we should all sleep a little, conserve ourselves, humph.
And when we awake, our ship will be here, a
saucy little topsail schooner, a mass standing out against the sky,
and will be on our way to France. Is sleep,
(06:35):
my friends.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
The two younger convicts dozed under the heat of the day,
but not the doctor. He stood once again to sweep
the sky line under his shaded hand. His plan had
been so careful, so precise. He had counted absobsolutely on
meeting the ship, a small schooner, one of those flitting,
half piratical traders of the Copra Islands that can be
(07:08):
hired like cabs in a dark street for any sinister enterprise.
And there was no ship, and there was no crossroads
where one might sit and wait, Good morning.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
Doctor, it's afternoon pheneru.
Speaker 7 (07:35):
Oh, yes so it is. I slept like a corpse.
Speaker 6 (07:40):
Hey, where's the ship, doctor? It was going to be
here when we woke up.
Speaker 7 (07:47):
It will be I'm thirsty. I'm dying with thirst.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
So well, where's the flask?
Speaker 7 (07:53):
I'm roasted in the sun.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
You just have to roast some more. This crew is
put on rations. You're talking about where's that water?
Speaker 1 (08:03):
I have it here?
Speaker 4 (08:04):
Show your hair? You think it's yours? No, it's ours, parrot.
I want a drink, doctor, think a little parrot. We
have to guard our supplies like reasonable men. We don't
know how long we may be floating here.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Oh so that's how you talk. Now.
Speaker 4 (08:24):
You don't know how long. But you were sure enough
when we started. I am still sure. The ship will come.
She cannot stay for us in one spot. She'll be
cruising to and fro until she intercepts us, and we
must wait. Er.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
That's good. Wait. And in the meantime, what fry here
in this heat?
Speaker 4 (08:46):
Our tongues hanging out?
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Why you deal us out water? Drop by drop?
Speaker 4 (08:51):
Perhaps?
Speaker 1 (08:51):
No, a man doesn't live.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
Who can feed me with a spoon unless you would
die very speedily. We must guard our water. We can
only do our best with what we have. All right, doctor,
do your best. Give me a drink. You you may
have your share, of course, but be warned when it's gone,
(09:14):
don't come to us to fenerone me.
Speaker 7 (09:15):
Yes, what's fair? Is fair?
Speaker 1 (09:17):
My drink?
Speaker 4 (09:20):
Very well? Oh, a thimbolful, one thimble. This way we
should have enough for three days, maybe more, with equal
shares among the three of us.
Speaker 7 (09:34):
Ha, that's right, there are only three of us.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
You were you were thinking of him, Feneral about Pilot.
He looks somewhat like us, doesn't he. But his body
has never known clothes, his feet shoes. His heart has
never known the swelling that comes with feelings of love
or beauty. His mind has never known a single thought.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Humph.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
Look at us, three gentlemen. You phellaoh a forger, you
parrot a thief, and I, doctor Dubouse of Paris and Marseilles,
a murderer. And yet we are civilized men, and this
is a savage animal. And our provisions are for civilized
(10:23):
men only.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
The three men awoke to the second day of the raft.
They looked and saw the far round horizon and the
empty desert of the sea, and their own long shadows
that slept slowly before them. Over its smooth, slow heaving.
The land had sunk away from them in the night.
The trap had been sprung as the savage sun kindled
(10:58):
upon them with the power of a earning glass. A
calm fell, an absolute calm. The air hung weighted, the
sea heaved and fell in polished undulations, and the sun shone,
driving in under their eyelids like white hot splinters. They
crawled to the shelter of the mats, gasping, shriveling. And
(11:24):
the water, the world of water was slack and thick
as oil.
Speaker 7 (11:31):
Oh, how longly it is?
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Doctor devoce? Yes, parrot, look around you? What do you mean, God?
Look around? What do you see?
Speaker 4 (11:44):
I see water, parrot, and the horizon, nothing else. Don't
you see a ship, a saucy little schooner, those.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Were your words.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
Well where is it?
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Why don't you see it?
Speaker 4 (11:59):
It will come? Will it comfort us to be dead
when it comes?
Speaker 5 (12:03):
You say that you count on your friends, But suppose
they leave you to rot here, leave Parrot and me
to rot here. That would be a joke, Hey, doctor,
to wait for a ship that will never come.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
It will come, My friends will not fail me.
Speaker 7 (12:18):
Why have you know? How can you be so sure.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
There's a safety vault in Paris full of papers to
be opened at my death. Those papers contain confession. No, gentlemen,
my friends will not fail me.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
That perrot. Eh.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
A moment ago you ask me what I saw? Well,
there was something I neglected.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
What's there?
Speaker 4 (12:47):
I see a canock and this raft with us. He
does not join us, He does not look at us.
He sits on his heels in the way of the Native,
with his arms hugging his knees. He sits at the stern, motionless,
under the shattering sun, gazing out into it, into vacancy.
Whenever I raise my eyes, I see nothing else, only
(13:11):
this cannock.
Speaker 5 (13:13):
He he seems to be enjoying himself quite well.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
I was thinking so myself.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
The cannibal, the savage.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
He does not seem to suffer.
Speaker 7 (13:24):
What's going on in his brain? What does he dream of?
Speaker 8 (13:28):
There?
Speaker 7 (13:30):
He looks as though he hates.
Speaker 8 (13:31):
Us, a dirty rat.
Speaker 7 (13:33):
Maybe maybe he's waiting for us to die. Maybe he's
waiting for the reward. Least he wouldn't starve on the
way home. He could deliver us, please by peace?
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Oh does he do? A doctor? Hasn't he any feeling?
Speaker 4 (13:49):
I've been wondering. It may be that his fibers are
tougher his nerves.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
But we've had water and he hasn't.
Speaker 7 (13:57):
Yet see his skin moist and fresh, and.
Speaker 8 (14:01):
His belly that is a football. Don't tell me this
savage is thirsty? Is there any way he could steal
our supplies?
Speaker 4 (14:10):
Certainly? Not?
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Suppose he has his own supplies hidden? Why who will see?
Search the wrath?
Speaker 4 (14:18):
Come on, we lete there and look into the match
sad push him aside. No, gentlemen, gentlemen, you were mistaken.
Here is nothing hidden. You're wrong about him.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Doctor, Can you say he has no understanding?
Speaker 4 (14:34):
There's one thing you can understand? Hey, how much.
Speaker 8 (14:47):
Her?
Speaker 4 (14:48):
That will teach you? Not so chippid?
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Now are you not so happy with your luck?
Speaker 4 (14:54):
That'll make you feel well?
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Perrot?
Speaker 4 (15:00):
If you're better now, don't you superior? Come back, my friends,
come back under the mats. The glare of the sun
is not so bad.
Speaker 5 (15:10):
There, Oh, idiots, what's the matter with our parrot?
Speaker 4 (15:15):
Now?
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Idiots? Why do we look and look?
Speaker 4 (15:21):
The schooner can't help us.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Now.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
If we're becomed, then they are too, doctor?
Speaker 7 (15:28):
Is that true?
Speaker 4 (15:30):
Yes? We must hook for a breeze. First, then, why
didn't you tell us we trust you?
Speaker 7 (15:36):
Why do you keep on playing out the farce?
Speaker 4 (15:38):
You are wise, doctor, you are very wise. Put down
the knife, parrot. You know things we don't, and you
keep them to yourself.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
All right, but.
Speaker 8 (15:52):
Be careful if you think you'll use your wisdom to
get the best of us. Be careful, full, doctor, because
I still have the knife.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
And so the days dragged by, the second, the third,
and now it was the fourth day, and still.
Speaker 8 (16:18):
There was no breeze, and still there was no ship.
Speaker 5 (16:24):
A doctor, yes, what do you what do you stare
at at him?
Speaker 4 (16:32):
At him, the native of the canark? Why look at him,
and look at us. We are dying, our powers are ebbing,
and him naked, wild, brutish, he has yet to give
the slightest sign of complaint weakness?
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Doctor? Is this a man or a fiend? A man?
Speaker 7 (17:02):
It is a man, a miracle.
Speaker 4 (17:05):
It is a man, and a very poor and wretched
example of a man. You'll find no lower type anywhere.
Look at his cranial ankle, the high years, the heavy
bones of his skull. I he he is scarcely above
an ape.
Speaker 8 (17:21):
And what.
Speaker 4 (17:24):
He has a secret er secret?
Speaker 7 (17:28):
I we see him every movie makes every minute. What
chance has he for a secret?
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Absurd?
Speaker 4 (17:37):
Here are we three children of the century, products of civilization,
and here is this savage who belongs before the stone age?
Is he to win this struggle? Absurd?
Speaker 1 (17:52):
What kind of secret?
Speaker 4 (17:55):
I can't say. Perhaps some method of breathing, some strange
posture he uses to cheat the sensations of the body.
Such things are known among primitive peoples, known and jealously guarded,
like the properties of certain drugs, the uses of hypnotism.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Who knows? We can know?
Speaker 4 (18:19):
We can find out? Would you ask him useless? He
would not tell. Why should he We who scorn him,
We give him no share with us, We abuse him,
and so he falls back upon his own expedients. They
are the means by which he has survived, from the
depth of time, by which he may yet survive when
(18:42):
all our wisdom is dust.
Speaker 8 (18:44):
There are a number of ways of learning secrets.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
I know them all. It would be useless. How could
he stand any torture you might invent? You saw how
he behaved before. No, No, that's not the way, or
listen to my way.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
I'm tired of all this talk.
Speaker 8 (19:07):
You say, he's a man all right, then, he.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
Has blood in his veins. At least we could drink.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
Now it would be too hot, it would be salt.
Well kill him then and throw him over the side.
Let's be rid of the thing. We gain nothing.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Then, what do you want?
Speaker 4 (19:27):
I want to beat him, That's what I want to
beat him at the game. For our own sakes, for
our racial pride, we must to have blest him, to
prove ourselves his masters. Watch him, Watch him closely, my friends, watch.
Speaker 8 (19:48):
I'll watch all right, my good doctor, I'm not sleeping
any more.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
And leave you alone with that bottle.
Speaker 7 (19:57):
The bottle, the bottle.
Speaker 4 (19:59):
I've been meaning to discuss our rations with you. Have
you running very short. I'm afraid we must cut down again.
And what I will cut to half a thimblefulll we
must keep our wit, I shay no, all right, then
we'll put it to a boat. You say no, I
(20:21):
say yes, Phenerou, yes.
Speaker 7 (20:25):
Yes, anything, but give me mine now.
Speaker 4 (20:29):
Then it's half a thimbleful for monsieur Feneroux, your share, Phenerou.
Speaker 7 (20:38):
More more, I'll die, Give me more.
Speaker 4 (20:41):
No more to day you must, you must doctor no
more to day? Look a ship, a ship at last, way,
where is it. I don't see any ship.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
It shut trick.
Speaker 4 (20:53):
Look, Feneral, he has the bottle.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
You don't anything.
Speaker 4 (21:00):
Look at him. You killed him with that oor e.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
What about the bottle? Eh?
Speaker 4 (21:06):
Yes, there's some left. You caught him just in time,
and you caught the bottle just in time, it seems
I did.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
And there is no ship. There will be no ship.
Speaker 8 (21:20):
We are done because of you and your dirty promises
that brought us here.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
Doctor hell, lie are fool. Don't come any closer. Must
you want this flask broken over your head? No?
Speaker 1 (21:37):
I wouldn't want that.
Speaker 4 (21:40):
Just think, perrot. Why should you and I fight? We
can see this trouble through and win. Yet this calm
can't last forever. Besides, there will be only two of
us to divide the water.
Speaker 8 (21:54):
Now, yeah, that's true, isn't it lead us?
Speaker 1 (22:00):
His share an inheritance?
Speaker 4 (22:04):
All right? I don't take mine now, my share right now?
Speaker 1 (22:12):
If you please, later.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
We'll see so be it.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Your share?
Speaker 4 (22:24):
Uh many things, And now Venerule's share to me. Please
as you say?
Speaker 1 (22:39):
And now another another good doctor?
Speaker 4 (22:46):
Three, that's enough, parent, No doctor.
Speaker 8 (22:52):
It's not enough.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Now I'll take the rest. Pay it stop my arm.
I will kill you if you don't let go. Thank you.
Speaker 8 (23:08):
You see I have manners, haven't I? And I have
wisdom too, And because I fooled a very wise man.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
I toast you.
Speaker 4 (23:21):
Doctor.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
The best man wins, And that was.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
A bright idea of yours, the best So the best
man wins.
Speaker 8 (23:44):
It that.
Speaker 4 (23:46):
You forgot? I'm aductedn't you?
Speaker 1 (23:49):
You?
Speaker 4 (23:49):
You forgot that a man cannot go without water for days?
Then drink his fill and live through it. Go on, parrot,
get spout your worthless life while I laught. The best
man always wins, parrot the best man. So best man wins.
Speaker 5 (24:18):
Yes, doctor, you forgot my knife, didn't you? Forgot me
lying at your feet? Give me up? Forget, didn't you?
But now it is I phener who will outlast the
two you. Here's my good doctor, the best man always.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
I mean, you fool the water it's running out.
Speaker 9 (24:54):
Oh oh oh, come in, come in, happen longboats, Batcher,
(25:35):
all right, send Martin.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
He's right here, sir.
Speaker 4 (25:38):
Bad luck, sir. The raft was here all.
Speaker 10 (25:40):
The time, not ten miles away from it.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Yeah that come, well? Where are they the passengers?
Speaker 4 (25:47):
We're too late. They're all dead, all dead.
Speaker 10 (25:50):
Yes, one stabbed to death, another skull crushed, the other
fried by the sun.
Speaker 4 (25:55):
All dead.
Speaker 10 (25:56):
Well, all the better because there's nothing.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Yeah, but how are you going?
Speaker 10 (26:01):
Hogs hits? My friend? The hogs hits in the afterhold.
Fill them nicely with Brian and there.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
Were I don't understand.
Speaker 10 (26:10):
Are you dull? Much so very dull? The gentleman's passage
is all paid. Before we left Sydney, I contracted to
bring back free escaped convicts.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
I'll bring them back pickled.
Speaker 10 (26:23):
So if you go back much and bring them aboard
with a trip, I'll be much so black.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
A right welter.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Oh, there's a fourth man on the raft, captain a Kannak,
still alive.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
What do we do with him?
Speaker 1 (26:34):
A Kannak?
Speaker 10 (26:36):
No word in my contract of Adney Cannack.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Leave him here. He's only a savage.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
And so doctor Debous and Fenerou and the parrot went
aboard for the long trip to their beloved parrots, their
bodies pitching and rolling gently in the huge vats.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Of brine.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
On the raft.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
The fourth man raised his head slightly as a wind
freshing from the west. He watched until the schooner turned,
shaping away for Australia. And disappeared over the rim of
the horizon. Then he spread his sail of pandanas leeves
and headed his raft eastward, back toward New Caledonia, back
(27:23):
toward home. Feeling somewhat dry after his exertion, the native
plucked a hollow reed at random from the rushes.
Speaker 4 (27:31):
On his raft.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Slowly, lazily, he stretched himself at full length in his
accustomed place at the stern. He thrust the reed down
deep into one of the bladders underneath the raft, and
slowly drank his fill of sweet water. He had a
dozen such storage bladders remaining built into the floats at
(27:55):
intervals above the water line, quite enough to last him, say,
plea home again.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
Escape is produced and directed by William N. Robson The
Fourth Man by John Russell. Was adapted for radio by
Irving Rabbitch, with Paul Freeze as Doctor Dubos, Joe Kerns Espeneru,
and Nestor Piva as Perrot. Bill Johnstone narrated. The special
musical score was conceived and conducted by Cypewer. Escape has
been presented by the Columbia Broadcasting System and it's affiliated station.
(28:48):
Be sure to be with us next Monday. Night, when
the radio theater returns to the air with Benny Davis
and Glenn Ford starring in A Stolen Light. Remember next
Monday evening, from nine to ten pm Eastern day light time,
the Lux Radio Theater starts its fourteenth year over CBS.
The play A Stolen Light. The stars Betty Davis and
(29:08):
Glenn Ford. This is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System.
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