August 18, 2025 • 24 mins
Presents tales filled with suspense and intrigue, each episode unraveling mysteries that keep listeners engaged and guessing until the end.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quiet Please. The Mutual Broadcasting System presents Quiet Please, which
(00:31):
is written and directed by Willis Cooper and which features
Ernest Chappell. Quiet Please Fortnight is called The Thing on
the fur bal Board. Me I'm a roughneck. Well I
(00:52):
was a roughneck. I mean twenty years ago, a little
too old, too slow. Now besides, I got a dollar now,
I don't have to be a roughneck. You see, Mary
had got a nice home. Had to meet my wife. Hey, Mike,
her name's Maxine, but she likes to be called Mike. Mike.
I guess she's busy out in the kitchen someplace. Besides,
(01:13):
she doesn't hear very well. Shame too. She's so pretty
and everything. Well you'll meet her. Sit down. I am
saying that was a roughneck. Well, no, that doesn't mean
exactly what you think it means. A roughneck is an
oil field worker, specifically a guy in a drilling crew.
Call him roughnecks like you call a section hand on
(01:36):
the railroad, a gandy dancer, a garage hand, a grease monkey.
Same time you work around the drilling crew for a whig,
you're gonna be a roughneck in every sense of the word.
Boy A Derek floor or foble Board's no place for
a guy with a bow tie. Cause then when you
have to pool around with drilling holes to go farther
down on the ground that it is in the top
of Pike's Peak down the sea level, and sure they do. Time.
(02:00):
I was a rough neck. We got this one well
down to seventy three hundred and thirteen feet. That was
a record. But last May, pure oil brought one in
out in the Torona Valley in Wyoming at fourteen thousand,
three hundred and nine feet. That friend, is almost three
miles quite a hole. Laugh. Huh, yere, I don't think
(02:20):
there's an oil man in the world. I don't wonder
one time or another what's down there besides rock and
oil and gas. Oils made out of trees that died
twenty million years ago. Oil it's made out of dinosaur bones.
Oil that's maybe made out of the flesh and blood
and men maybe that beat each other. The death of
the stone acts a saber toothed tiger for lunch. Hey,
(02:45):
get to wondering. You look at the cores that come
up from way down there, and sometimes the little shells
trailer bites. Mostly there was a live wom Manhattan Island
where New York is was under half of my ice.
We found something once and Billy Gruenwald and something found us.
(03:07):
I'll tell you about it. We were down to around
fifty four hundred feet. We'd set casing. We began to
get water, so we hadn't stopped drilling in cement off.
We see when water begins to see from the hole,
you pull your drill pipe, then you let down the
cementing shoe inside the casing and you plug up the
bottom of the hole. Casing and all with quick hardening
waterproof cement. Then when it's hard, you drilled through the
(03:29):
cement go on down and the cement outside the casing
at the bottom keeps the water out. Well, we had
the drill pipe all pulled and cracked. The cement was
setting sea, so we was shut down waiting for it
to harden. We've been couring just before. You see a
core drill is hollow, and as the bit digs down,
(03:49):
it stuffs the drillings up inside it. So when you
pull it out, you got a sample of the kind
of stuff you're going through, and a geologist can tell
a lot from that. So there's nobody around the rig
exit at me. That night, the rest of the crew
is going into town. I was toasting some pork chops
it with a forge for myself. But I heard a
car full. Enough. Look out, it's Billy Greenwall, the geologist,
(04:09):
and I give him a hello. Hi, Billy Cow, I
have a pork chop.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
All right, porky.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Where's everybody? They all went to town. I have the whole crew.
I had three blowouts between here and Ox, and now
I wondered where it was. Ted said, you've been here
about three.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
I would have been except for my tough luck.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Oh I'm dead hungry, starve. Yeah, I got six seven
pork chops, bread bean, some coffee kind of wow. Yeah,
I got a bottle in the car if we're going
to have a banquet. And where's that core? That's what
I came up here to look at. Yeah, back there
on the bench, look at it. After stepper. Hey, what
(04:51):
didn't you say you were all alone here? Uh huh?
I thought I heard somebody talking. M anybody. I'll keep
an eye on that pork chopp. You won't have any supper. Yeah,
I'm watching it. Yeah, he put the coffee on, Like, so,
when'd you finish cemending this morning. Last tower only made
(05:14):
about ten feet of holes, so ted shut down before
we get flooded out of house and home.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Funny about that water, Oh ought to be any at
that level, according to my figuring.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Well there is? Is it salt? Sure? Right out of
the bottom of the ocean. Hmm, that's funny. Well maybe
I'll be able to tell something from the core.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Yeah, I hope so the last core I looked at it.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
I sworn we were getting into shale. I ain't seen
none yet from the cuttings. It's funny. Here a your porch,
chok's time? Yeah? Take some bread? Yeah? Thanks? Oh man,
good time? Ye put on another right at two already
(06:00):
before you come? Yea? How much you're black?
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (06:05):
You know, you never can tell what's down there.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
You get it all mapped and plotted out, all the
straight and all you know is what.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Comes out of the hole. I'd like to go down
there sometimes if I was little enough. Never get you
done a hole? Yeah, you'd fit. You're skinny. I'll stay
up here and look at the Coors bud. Where is
that one behind you over there? Well, I'll have a
(06:33):
look at it. I want you ways to finish your suffer.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
I'm just gonna look at it. Put on another pork
shop for him. Okay, well, I wish those screech ogs
this year. What's the matter you wait a minute, a
four g Well what did listen?
Speaker 1 (06:56):
What's eating you? If you know how to sworn or
somebody up there in that four war? Yeah, you're crazy.
There's nobody up there. Do you to get those stands
of drill fight? Ah? They're just rack crooking one of
them slid. Come on back and eat your pork job. Yeah. Uh,
I guess so. I mean, I what's just so gitry about, Billy?
(07:16):
Come on eat your sandwich here? Yeah, well, thanks, Porky.
I don't know. I I'm just naturally that way. I guess.
I'm always scared of the dark.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
I hate to be a baby, but I can't help it.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Scared of the dark, honest, don't put in it. Oh,
I don't know. Everybody's scared of something. Me spiders scared
the tar out of me, black widows. Now I know
how you feel. Billy. There are another light over here?
(07:53):
Yeah here? Yeah, huh, that's better.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Hey listen, then, Porty go out to the car and
look in the left hand door, park and.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
Bring back that bottle, will you? That's what I need? Okay, kid, okay.
So I picked up a flashlight. I turned around when
outside I found the car. Then I got the bottle,
and the floor of the derek was all lit up.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
And when I saw a beam of light suddenly flash
up toward the four bole board, and I laughed. Billy
greenwalden his ideas. Sure, I looked up. It wasn't a
darned thing up there except the drill pipe racked against
the fingerboard. Oh this uh fourble board. Well you've seen
(08:42):
oil Derek, Sir pictures up him. You know that little
platform that runs around the outside of the derek about
half way up, Well that's the four bole board. When
you see drill pipe comes in lengths and you handle
him with several lengths screwed together so as to say
a time getting them in the hole. Two lengths is
a double, three is a thribble. Four is a forble.
(09:02):
When you pull a pipe, you hoist it up inside
the derek of the traveling block, which moves up and
down from the crown block at the top of the deck.
Then when a fourble of pipe is pulled out it's
held in the rotary table. You break the joint with
tongues like a great big stilts and range you see,
snub a cable. It's fastened to the handle over the
cathead and the drawworks, and that breaks the joint. Then
(09:23):
you hold the tongues on the pipe, give the rodary
table a few turns, unscrew it. You heist away with
the traveling block and swing it over against the fingerboard,
lean it against the derck. The guy up on the
four ble board takes off the traveling block. You do
it all over again. You got all the pipe out.
You see. Well, there wasn't anybody up on the four
boot board except the screech owl, and it flew away.
(09:45):
So Billy turned his light off and I come on inside.
And just as I come up the steps, he let
out it, yell, what's the matter. What's the matter, Billy? Hey,
come here, look here? But what's it? Look? Porky, my,
(10:06):
where did you find that? I lessened? Porky?
Speaker 2 (10:08):
I gave you my word that was embedded in the core.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Oh it couldn't be, I tell you it was. Look
where I dug it out.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
You know what that rock there comes from a mile underground,
and it's been a mile underground for a million years.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
And look at this, and I did look, and what
he was holding was a gold ring and it was
all carved in filigreed, just like jewelry. And there wasn't
any kidding about it. It was real. Noah, no, no,
(10:56):
wait a minute, hang on, I ain't done. I poked
at the cora rock that looked like a kind of
petrified salami or something. And then it was my turn
to putting air jump out of my pants because right
alongside the place where Billy dug out the ring there
was a mud covered but very unmistakable finger. I picked
(11:21):
it up and it was cold, and it was heavy,
and it was solid rock, at least it felt like
solid rock. And I looked at Billy, and Billy looked
at me. He started to rub the mud off his
ere stone finger, and as he rubbed it, it begun
(11:45):
to disappear. No, he could be to still feel it,
he said. But when the mud was gone, either one
of us could see it. And he dropped it to
the derek floor and went clunking. We couldn't find it
any place. So you know what we've done, Well, we
took that bottle and we took and finished it brilliant me.
(12:06):
We finished it in one slug a piece, and it
was a full pint of bathtub. Janet tasted just like
so much well water to me. And then we sat
down on the derek floor and we looked at each other.
We didn't say a word. My eyes got heavier and heavier.
(12:31):
The last thing I remember was I heard some kind
of noise. The scene had to be coming up from
fourboboard eighty feet above us. I shut my eyes a minute.
Speaker 5 (12:41):
I guess I wanted to sleep, and I had awful dreams.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
The black widow spiders crawling off me with gold rings
on their legs. Things I could hear, but I couldn't see.
Up on the flobal board, really green wall, climbing up
the ladder outside the derek in the moonlight, the faces
looking at me, and I couldn't figure out who they were.
(13:18):
And I was waked up by a horrible scream and
crashed outside me. That shook the whole derek. I opened
my eyes to see the bullet Groen Roll lying on
the floor two feet away with a broken neck, with
a broken neck and his left hand when he put
(13:43):
the gold ring on the little finger of his left hand,
and the way his arms were spread out. His left
little finger and the ring were gone. Friend, I got
out of there. I run down to where Billy left
his car and I got in. I stepped on the
(14:03):
starter and I couldn't get it to go, And then
I remember that I'm pretty near run down the battery,
that Billy had taken a key. I wasn't going up
there and go through a dead man's clothes to get it.
So I sat there in the car and shivered all
by myself till daylight. And then Ted and the crew
(14:27):
came afterwards, a state cop, and everybody in the world
was asking me questions. Did you and Billy have a fight? Buggy?
I told you we didn't. Ted, if you had been drinking,
we only had that little pipe. Ted, what was he
doing up in a portable? Boy? Did you threaten them?
Untid he run up there to get away from the cop?
Don't be a shot. Billy Grewell and I were good friends.
And why'd you push him off the fordible? Boy? Didn't
I tell you? I wasn't up there. What did he
(14:50):
go up there for? I don't know. I was asleep
how do you know he was up there? I didn't
say why you said so? Besides, how would he break
his neck if you fall from way up there? Well? Look,
obviously I think it was just another accident. I mean,
we haven't got anything on porky, and personally, I don't
believe he did it.
Speaker 6 (15:09):
Well, it's mighty mysterious, and so it is, but we
got work to do, now, how about it? That's immens
hard down there. I want to start drulling again, and
I'm shorthanded. Will you like, Poky, stay here till I
run in my pipe again? And oh, then you can
take him and ask him question until you're blue in
the face.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Well, okay, let's get rolling.
Speaker 6 (15:27):
They got steam up, hobby, all right, Packy, you go
from the fower board?
Speaker 1 (15:33):
What not? Me dead?
Speaker 6 (15:36):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (15:36):
It over such a boob.
Speaker 6 (15:38):
There's nobody there to show you overboard, and you can
put a safety line around you if you want to.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
And besides, you're getting painted and what you're told. I
let so, Okay, I go up on the board, and
you can bet I took a good gander around before
(16:03):
I did anything else. Now, I couldn't see a thing,
so I signaled to the driller to let down the
traveling block, and he did, came sailing down from up above.
I was just reaching for it to pick up the
first four bul a drill pipe gave a big jerk
and the cable broke and dropped and nearly pulled me
off the four board handed landed I on top of Ted.
(16:27):
And if you have any idea what a guy looks
like if there're two tons of metal land on him
from eighty feet up, hey, keep your ideas to yourself.
Speaker 5 (16:44):
Yeah, there was.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Enough two accidents in a row. The whole crew quit.
It wasn't gonna wait for a third. And it was
Ted's money that was paying off. There wasn't anymore And
as far as I know, the abandoned Derek is still there.
And that was twenty years ago. Oh. I forgot to
(17:05):
tell you something. That traveling block was right in front
of my face when it broke loose. It was hanging
by steel cable, three quarter in steel cable, and I
saw that cable break right before my eyes. Looked just
like a piece of string when you snap it putting
your fingers. I can almost see the fingers, you know what.
(17:32):
There was something up there on the foreboll board with me,
and so a couple of days later I came back.
I don't know if there's anything in the world as
desolate as dismal, as dead looking as an abandoned oil
well rig. There it stands like a skeleton off on
(17:52):
a deserted side road, and the bare yellow hills surrounding it.
And yeah, it's the deadest thing you ever saw. I
sat in my car for a long time looking at it.
Everything was just the way we left it. Eye I
looked in at the floor. The smashed traveling block was
there alongside the rotary table. There was a little muderous
steam from the boiler. That was all. Then I heard
(18:15):
a tinkle of something as I hit the ground alongside me.
I looked around. There wasn't a soul in sight. But
at my feet it was a gold ring that Billy
greenwalled and I had found in a core of rock
that came from a mile underground and from a million
years ago in time. And I heard a little sound,
(18:41):
the sound of a kid crying. Wasn't the kid up there?
I heard it again, and it came from above my head,
and and I took out my revolver. I loaded it carefully.
I started up the ladder to the forbellboard. Oh there
wasn't anything up there, nothing I could see. There was
(19:04):
a voice pie the voice of a little king. And
then there was a movement behind the rack of drill pipes,
and I saw the pipe move and I yelled, come
out of there, whoever you are, come out, or I'll
start shooting. And the stand up pipe shivered, and I thought,
what can it be? They can handle a heavy pipel
(19:25):
like like Jack Straws. Then there was a crash. The
whole stand up pipe fell over and I just got
out the way in time. And I was alone on
the foble board with the thing, but I couldn't see it.
(19:50):
I felt the platform temple under my feet again as
something moved toward me. I fired two or three shots
and nothing happened. I started backwards. I knew it was
following me because I could hear it me owling like
a cat. My feet tripped over something. I thought it
was a big can of red lead that somebody had
left up there. Without thinking, I've picked it up, and
(20:13):
I threw it at the sound and it splashed and
where it was and I wish, I wish the face
of the little girl, frightened, crying with hunger and terror,
(20:35):
hands like a human being, and a finger missing from
the left hand, and a body. And I'll tell you
about that. I told you how I'm scared of spiders,
but I knew where it came from. It had come
from the poles of the earth, come riding up on
the drill pipe as we yanked it out of the well,
(20:56):
come to an alien world, and was lost. It stood there,
dripping with red paint, blood red from head to foot,
like some horrible dream. And it put its hand on
my arm. Its hand was stone, living, moving stone, and
(21:21):
it looked in my eyes and mewed like a lost kitten.
Twenty years ago, I discovered many things about it. What
(21:43):
it used for food, that it was deaf, that it
was invisible and couldn't see people when it was invisible.
That if you sprayed it with mud or paint or
breast paint make up, then it could see people. And
believe me, I didn't want to see its body. I
can see that in my nightmares. But it's face. I
(22:06):
can't help wanting to see that pathetic little girl face.
I'm afraid maybe I've fallen. Ah, But it's very beautiful,
and when it's well made up, it's but making it
up rubbing grease paint on a stone face that looks
(22:27):
at you and smiles, and it makes sounds like a
lost kitten. Yet I can disguise the body in long dresses.
She can't hear very well, and when she's hungry, I
have to stay out of her way. I found out
what she likes to eat. Remember, no, no, sit still,
sit still? Do said still? I'll have to shoot you.
(22:54):
I want you to meet my wife, or rather, my
wife wants to meet you, Mike, Mike, there she is,
Come on in dear. The title of tonight's Quiet Please
(23:32):
story is the Thing on the fobal Board. It was
written and directed by Willis Cooper and featured Ernest Chappell
and Dan Setter played Billy Greenwald, Pallamelly was Ted and
Cecil Roy was also a member of the cast. As usual,
music for Quiet Please is played by Albert Burmant sound
(23:55):
sound by our good friend Albert April. Now I'm for
a word about next week here, as our writer, director
Willis Cooper.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Well, I'm reasonably sure that all the characters in Tonight's
stories were completely fictional at least, I for one hope.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
So next week the story is called Presto Chango. I'm sure,
And so until next week at the same time, I
am quietly your's Ernest Chapel. This program was heard in
(24:31):
Canada through the facilities of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. This
is a mutual broadcasting system.
Quiet Please. The Mutual Broadcasting System presents Quiet Please, which
(00:31):
is written and directed by Willis Cooper and which features
Ernest Chappell. Quiet Please Fortnight is called The Thing on
the fur bal Board. Me I'm a roughneck. Well I
(00:52):
was a roughneck. I mean twenty years ago, a little
too old, too slow. Now besides, I got a dollar now,
I don't have to be a roughneck. You see, Mary
had got a nice home. Had to meet my wife. Hey, Mike,
her name's Maxine, but she likes to be called Mike. Mike.
I guess she's busy out in the kitchen someplace. Besides,
(01:13):
she doesn't hear very well. Shame too. She's so pretty
and everything. Well you'll meet her. Sit down. I am
saying that was a roughneck. Well, no, that doesn't mean
exactly what you think it means. A roughneck is an
oil field worker, specifically a guy in a drilling crew.
Call him roughnecks like you call a section hand on
(01:36):
the railroad, a gandy dancer, a garage hand, a grease monkey.
Same time you work around the drilling crew for a whig,
you're gonna be a roughneck in every sense of the word.
Boy A Derek floor or foble Board's no place for
a guy with a bow tie. Cause then when you
have to pool around with drilling holes to go farther
down on the ground that it is in the top
of Pike's Peak down the sea level, and sure they do. Time.
(02:00):
I was a rough neck. We got this one well
down to seventy three hundred and thirteen feet. That was
a record. But last May, pure oil brought one in
out in the Torona Valley in Wyoming at fourteen thousand,
three hundred and nine feet. That friend, is almost three
miles quite a hole. Laugh. Huh, yere, I don't think
(02:20):
there's an oil man in the world. I don't wonder
one time or another what's down there besides rock and
oil and gas. Oils made out of trees that died
twenty million years ago. Oil it's made out of dinosaur bones.
Oil that's maybe made out of the flesh and blood
and men maybe that beat each other. The death of
the stone acts a saber toothed tiger for lunch. Hey,
(02:45):
get to wondering. You look at the cores that come
up from way down there, and sometimes the little shells
trailer bites. Mostly there was a live wom Manhattan Island
where New York is was under half of my ice.
We found something once and Billy Gruenwald and something found us.
(03:07):
I'll tell you about it. We were down to around
fifty four hundred feet. We'd set casing. We began to
get water, so we hadn't stopped drilling in cement off.
We see when water begins to see from the hole,
you pull your drill pipe, then you let down the
cementing shoe inside the casing and you plug up the
bottom of the hole. Casing and all with quick hardening
waterproof cement. Then when it's hard, you drilled through the
(03:29):
cement go on down and the cement outside the casing
at the bottom keeps the water out. Well, we had
the drill pipe all pulled and cracked. The cement was
setting sea, so we was shut down waiting for it
to harden. We've been couring just before. You see a
core drill is hollow, and as the bit digs down,
(03:49):
it stuffs the drillings up inside it. So when you
pull it out, you got a sample of the kind
of stuff you're going through, and a geologist can tell
a lot from that. So there's nobody around the rig
exit at me. That night, the rest of the crew
is going into town. I was toasting some pork chops
it with a forge for myself. But I heard a
car full. Enough. Look out, it's Billy Greenwall, the geologist,
(04:09):
and I give him a hello. Hi, Billy Cow, I
have a pork chop.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
All right, porky.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Where's everybody? They all went to town. I have the whole crew.
I had three blowouts between here and Ox, and now
I wondered where it was. Ted said, you've been here
about three.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
I would have been except for my tough luck.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Oh I'm dead hungry, starve. Yeah, I got six seven
pork chops, bread bean, some coffee kind of wow. Yeah,
I got a bottle in the car if we're going
to have a banquet. And where's that core? That's what
I came up here to look at. Yeah, back there
on the bench, look at it. After stepper. Hey, what
(04:51):
didn't you say you were all alone here? Uh huh?
I thought I heard somebody talking. M anybody. I'll keep
an eye on that pork chopp. You won't have any supper. Yeah,
I'm watching it. Yeah, he put the coffee on, Like, so,
when'd you finish cemending this morning. Last tower only made
(05:14):
about ten feet of holes, so ted shut down before
we get flooded out of house and home.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Funny about that water, Oh ought to be any at
that level, according to my figuring.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Well there is? Is it salt? Sure? Right out of
the bottom of the ocean. Hmm, that's funny. Well maybe
I'll be able to tell something from the core.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Yeah, I hope so the last core I looked at it.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
I sworn we were getting into shale. I ain't seen
none yet from the cuttings. It's funny. Here a your porch,
chok's time? Yeah? Take some bread? Yeah? Thanks? Oh man,
good time? Ye put on another right at two already
(06:00):
before you come? Yea? How much you're black?
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (06:05):
You know, you never can tell what's down there.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
You get it all mapped and plotted out, all the
straight and all you know is what.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Comes out of the hole. I'd like to go down
there sometimes if I was little enough. Never get you
done a hole? Yeah, you'd fit. You're skinny. I'll stay
up here and look at the Coors bud. Where is
that one behind you over there? Well, I'll have a
(06:33):
look at it. I want you ways to finish your suffer.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
I'm just gonna look at it. Put on another pork
shop for him. Okay, well, I wish those screech ogs
this year. What's the matter you wait a minute, a
four g Well what did listen?
Speaker 1 (06:56):
What's eating you? If you know how to sworn or
somebody up there in that four war? Yeah, you're crazy.
There's nobody up there. Do you to get those stands
of drill fight? Ah? They're just rack crooking one of
them slid. Come on back and eat your pork job. Yeah. Uh,
I guess so. I mean, I what's just so gitry about, Billy?
(07:16):
Come on eat your sandwich here? Yeah, well, thanks, Porky.
I don't know. I I'm just naturally that way. I guess.
I'm always scared of the dark.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
I hate to be a baby, but I can't help it.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Scared of the dark, honest, don't put in it. Oh,
I don't know. Everybody's scared of something. Me spiders scared
the tar out of me, black widows. Now I know
how you feel. Billy. There are another light over here?
(07:53):
Yeah here? Yeah, huh, that's better.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Hey listen, then, Porty go out to the car and
look in the left hand door, park and.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
Bring back that bottle, will you? That's what I need? Okay, kid, okay.
So I picked up a flashlight. I turned around when
outside I found the car. Then I got the bottle,
and the floor of the derek was all lit up.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
And when I saw a beam of light suddenly flash
up toward the four bole board, and I laughed. Billy
greenwalden his ideas. Sure, I looked up. It wasn't a
darned thing up there except the drill pipe racked against
the fingerboard. Oh this uh fourble board. Well you've seen
(08:42):
oil Derek, Sir pictures up him. You know that little
platform that runs around the outside of the derek about
half way up, Well that's the four bole board. When
you see drill pipe comes in lengths and you handle
him with several lengths screwed together so as to say
a time getting them in the hole. Two lengths is
a double, three is a thribble. Four is a forble.
(09:02):
When you pull a pipe, you hoist it up inside
the derek of the traveling block, which moves up and
down from the crown block at the top of the deck.
Then when a fourble of pipe is pulled out it's
held in the rotary table. You break the joint with
tongues like a great big stilts and range you see,
snub a cable. It's fastened to the handle over the
cathead and the drawworks, and that breaks the joint. Then
(09:23):
you hold the tongues on the pipe, give the rodary
table a few turns, unscrew it. You heist away with
the traveling block and swing it over against the fingerboard,
lean it against the derck. The guy up on the
four ble board takes off the traveling block. You do
it all over again. You got all the pipe out.
You see. Well, there wasn't anybody up on the four
boot board except the screech owl, and it flew away.
(09:45):
So Billy turned his light off and I come on inside.
And just as I come up the steps, he let
out it, yell, what's the matter. What's the matter, Billy? Hey,
come here, look here? But what's it? Look? Porky, my,
(10:06):
where did you find that? I lessened? Porky?
Speaker 2 (10:08):
I gave you my word that was embedded in the core.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Oh it couldn't be, I tell you it was. Look
where I dug it out.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
You know what that rock there comes from a mile underground,
and it's been a mile underground for a million years.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
And look at this, and I did look, and what
he was holding was a gold ring and it was
all carved in filigreed, just like jewelry. And there wasn't
any kidding about it. It was real. Noah, no, no,
(10:56):
wait a minute, hang on, I ain't done. I poked
at the cora rock that looked like a kind of
petrified salami or something. And then it was my turn
to putting air jump out of my pants because right
alongside the place where Billy dug out the ring there
was a mud covered but very unmistakable finger. I picked
(11:21):
it up and it was cold, and it was heavy,
and it was solid rock, at least it felt like
solid rock. And I looked at Billy, and Billy looked
at me. He started to rub the mud off his
ere stone finger, and as he rubbed it, it begun
(11:45):
to disappear. No, he could be to still feel it,
he said. But when the mud was gone, either one
of us could see it. And he dropped it to
the derek floor and went clunking. We couldn't find it
any place. So you know what we've done, Well, we
took that bottle and we took and finished it brilliant me.
(12:06):
We finished it in one slug a piece, and it
was a full pint of bathtub. Janet tasted just like
so much well water to me. And then we sat
down on the derek floor and we looked at each other.
We didn't say a word. My eyes got heavier and heavier.
(12:31):
The last thing I remember was I heard some kind
of noise. The scene had to be coming up from
fourboboard eighty feet above us. I shut my eyes a minute.
Speaker 5 (12:41):
I guess I wanted to sleep, and I had awful dreams.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
The black widow spiders crawling off me with gold rings
on their legs. Things I could hear, but I couldn't see.
Up on the flobal board, really green wall, climbing up
the ladder outside the derek in the moonlight, the faces
looking at me, and I couldn't figure out who they were.
(13:18):
And I was waked up by a horrible scream and
crashed outside me. That shook the whole derek. I opened
my eyes to see the bullet Groen Roll lying on
the floor two feet away with a broken neck, with
a broken neck and his left hand when he put
(13:43):
the gold ring on the little finger of his left hand,
and the way his arms were spread out. His left
little finger and the ring were gone. Friend, I got
out of there. I run down to where Billy left
his car and I got in. I stepped on the
(14:03):
starter and I couldn't get it to go, And then
I remember that I'm pretty near run down the battery,
that Billy had taken a key. I wasn't going up
there and go through a dead man's clothes to get it.
So I sat there in the car and shivered all
by myself till daylight. And then Ted and the crew
(14:27):
came afterwards, a state cop, and everybody in the world
was asking me questions. Did you and Billy have a fight? Buggy?
I told you we didn't. Ted, if you had been drinking,
we only had that little pipe. Ted, what was he
doing up in a portable? Boy? Did you threaten them?
Untid he run up there to get away from the cop?
Don't be a shot. Billy Grewell and I were good friends.
And why'd you push him off the fordible? Boy? Didn't
I tell you? I wasn't up there. What did he
(14:50):
go up there for? I don't know. I was asleep
how do you know he was up there? I didn't
say why you said so? Besides, how would he break
his neck if you fall from way up there? Well? Look,
obviously I think it was just another accident. I mean,
we haven't got anything on porky, and personally, I don't
believe he did it.
Speaker 6 (15:09):
Well, it's mighty mysterious, and so it is, but we
got work to do, now, how about it? That's immens
hard down there. I want to start drulling again, and
I'm shorthanded. Will you like, Poky, stay here till I
run in my pipe again? And oh, then you can
take him and ask him question until you're blue in
the face.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Well, okay, let's get rolling.
Speaker 6 (15:27):
They got steam up, hobby, all right, Packy, you go
from the fower board?
Speaker 1 (15:33):
What not? Me dead?
Speaker 6 (15:36):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (15:36):
It over such a boob.
Speaker 6 (15:38):
There's nobody there to show you overboard, and you can
put a safety line around you if you want to.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
And besides, you're getting painted and what you're told. I
let so, Okay, I go up on the board, and
you can bet I took a good gander around before
(16:03):
I did anything else. Now, I couldn't see a thing,
so I signaled to the driller to let down the
traveling block, and he did, came sailing down from up above.
I was just reaching for it to pick up the
first four bul a drill pipe gave a big jerk
and the cable broke and dropped and nearly pulled me
off the four board handed landed I on top of Ted.
(16:27):
And if you have any idea what a guy looks
like if there're two tons of metal land on him
from eighty feet up, hey, keep your ideas to yourself.
Speaker 5 (16:44):
Yeah, there was.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Enough two accidents in a row. The whole crew quit.
It wasn't gonna wait for a third. And it was
Ted's money that was paying off. There wasn't anymore And
as far as I know, the abandoned Derek is still there.
And that was twenty years ago. Oh. I forgot to
(17:05):
tell you something. That traveling block was right in front
of my face when it broke loose. It was hanging
by steel cable, three quarter in steel cable, and I
saw that cable break right before my eyes. Looked just
like a piece of string when you snap it putting
your fingers. I can almost see the fingers, you know what.
(17:32):
There was something up there on the foreboll board with me,
and so a couple of days later I came back.
I don't know if there's anything in the world as
desolate as dismal, as dead looking as an abandoned oil
well rig. There it stands like a skeleton off on
(17:52):
a deserted side road, and the bare yellow hills surrounding it.
And yeah, it's the deadest thing you ever saw. I
sat in my car for a long time looking at it.
Everything was just the way we left it. Eye I
looked in at the floor. The smashed traveling block was
there alongside the rotary table. There was a little muderous
steam from the boiler. That was all. Then I heard
(18:15):
a tinkle of something as I hit the ground alongside me.
I looked around. There wasn't a soul in sight. But
at my feet it was a gold ring that Billy
greenwalled and I had found in a core of rock
that came from a mile underground and from a million
years ago in time. And I heard a little sound,
(18:41):
the sound of a kid crying. Wasn't the kid up there?
I heard it again, and it came from above my head,
and and I took out my revolver. I loaded it carefully.
I started up the ladder to the forbellboard. Oh there
wasn't anything up there, nothing I could see. There was
(19:04):
a voice pie the voice of a little king. And
then there was a movement behind the rack of drill pipes,
and I saw the pipe move and I yelled, come
out of there, whoever you are, come out, or I'll
start shooting. And the stand up pipe shivered, and I thought,
what can it be? They can handle a heavy pipel
(19:25):
like like Jack Straws. Then there was a crash. The
whole stand up pipe fell over and I just got
out the way in time. And I was alone on
the foble board with the thing, but I couldn't see it.
(19:50):
I felt the platform temple under my feet again as
something moved toward me. I fired two or three shots
and nothing happened. I started backwards. I knew it was
following me because I could hear it me owling like
a cat. My feet tripped over something. I thought it
was a big can of red lead that somebody had
left up there. Without thinking, I've picked it up, and
(20:13):
I threw it at the sound and it splashed and
where it was and I wish, I wish the face
of the little girl, frightened, crying with hunger and terror,
(20:35):
hands like a human being, and a finger missing from
the left hand, and a body. And I'll tell you
about that. I told you how I'm scared of spiders,
but I knew where it came from. It had come
from the poles of the earth, come riding up on
the drill pipe as we yanked it out of the well,
(20:56):
come to an alien world, and was lost. It stood there,
dripping with red paint, blood red from head to foot,
like some horrible dream. And it put its hand on
my arm. Its hand was stone, living, moving stone, and
(21:21):
it looked in my eyes and mewed like a lost kitten.
Twenty years ago, I discovered many things about it. What
(21:43):
it used for food, that it was deaf, that it
was invisible and couldn't see people when it was invisible.
That if you sprayed it with mud or paint or
breast paint make up, then it could see people. And
believe me, I didn't want to see its body. I
can see that in my nightmares. But it's face. I
(22:06):
can't help wanting to see that pathetic little girl face.
I'm afraid maybe I've fallen. Ah, But it's very beautiful,
and when it's well made up, it's but making it
up rubbing grease paint on a stone face that looks
(22:27):
at you and smiles, and it makes sounds like a
lost kitten. Yet I can disguise the body in long dresses.
She can't hear very well, and when she's hungry, I
have to stay out of her way. I found out
what she likes to eat. Remember, no, no, sit still,
sit still? Do said still? I'll have to shoot you.
(22:54):
I want you to meet my wife, or rather, my
wife wants to meet you, Mike, Mike, there she is,
Come on in dear. The title of tonight's Quiet Please
(23:32):
story is the Thing on the fobal Board. It was
written and directed by Willis Cooper and featured Ernest Chappell
and Dan Setter played Billy Greenwald, Pallamelly was Ted and
Cecil Roy was also a member of the cast. As usual,
music for Quiet Please is played by Albert Burmant sound
(23:55):
sound by our good friend Albert April. Now I'm for
a word about next week here, as our writer, director
Willis Cooper.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Well, I'm reasonably sure that all the characters in Tonight's
stories were completely fictional at least, I for one hope.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
So next week the story is called Presto Chango. I'm sure,
And so until next week at the same time, I
am quietly your's Ernest Chapel. This program was heard in
(24:31):
Canada through the facilities of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. This
is a mutual broadcasting system.
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