067- The General Died at Dawn

Tired of the everyday routine? Ever dream of a life of romantic adventure? Want to get away from it all? We offer you... escape! Escape! Transcribe to free you from the four walls of today for a half hour of high adventure!

You are standing on the rolling deck of a pirate junk in the China Seas and facing you as the sinister figure of the most feared man in the Orient, a general who has just doomed you to death.

Today, with Bill Conrad starred as O'Hara, we escape to China and the gripping story of pirate treasure. As Charles Booth told it in his fascinating novel, the general died at dawn. China was spitting me out like a cherry pit.

I was sitting that afternoon on a bench in the strip of park that fronts the harbor of Shanghai, and all I had in my pocket was an English shilling, and it was counterfeit. Now I sat there and stared at a ship on her birth at the Asia Pacific docks.

She was a crackliner named Pearl of the Orient due to sale at eleven the following morning, Europe bound, by way of sues. Hell bitterness, a counterfeit English shilling, a need for physical action. All of a sudden they melted into each other and bubbled into an idea.

I left the harbour and made my way to French town, to a narrow street of two and three storey buildings and into one of them, and up a shabby stair and along a dim corridor to a door with Mark Ramsgate printed on it in gold letters.

Ramsgate, I've come for the 1500 you owe me. Would you mind shutting the D.O.R.? There's a simply killing draft. The 1500 Ramsgate I wanted. Now... Aren't you the persistent one though? Now where was it you say you advanced me this you some of money?