Escape: 001- The Man Who Would Be King -Raymond Lawrence

It's time to escape into the world of adventure. Time to forget for the next half hour the four walls of today.

And escape beyond the horizons of the mind to yesterday and tomorrow. CBS and its affiliated stations present... Escape. Tonight we escape with Rudyard Kipling and the two gentle scoundrels he created in his immortal story.

The man who would be king. The time, sometime before yesterday, the place, the north of India, the man who tells the story, Rudyard Kipling. One Saturday night, it was my unpleasant duty to put the paper to bed alone.

It was a pitchy black night, as stifling as night can be in India in June. It was very still, save for the ticking of the clock above my desk, which seemed to to shatter the black heat of the night, as the hands crept toward 3 a.m.

And then from the passage outside my door, I heard voices. He is lightning, and he must be here. Open the door. Who's there? Only us. Who are you? He don't remember us, Dan. Heh, then he don't.

How could he forget, having us turned back at the John Paul border. told the authorities we was impersonating youth. Piper reported he did. Wait, that flaming red beard on that bald head. Why, were you Daniel Dravitt and Pichy Kahnahan?

The same. Well, what do you want? If it's money, I haven't any. If it's a fight, it's simply too beastly hot. You can rest yourself easily, sir, because we've come asking for naught, except some information.

We've been all over this country, and we've concluded that India isn't big enough for such a Daniel and me. So we are going away to be kings. Kings in our own divine right. What? I wish I'll be king.

We signed a solemn contract. Each day or the other, and neither of us will take a look at liquor or women until we become king. Why, I've never heard of such a fantastic idea. But what is it you want of me?

Not not to look at such maps of Kefiristan as you might have about. Maps of Kefiristan? That's where we've decided to go. But don't you realize that not one single Englishman has ever gone into the Kefiristan mountains and lived to come out again?

If you're really mad enough to go there, you're a good hound more likely to become deadmen than kings? We shall see. Anyway I don't believe you have the slightest intention of travelling a mile outside of Delhi.

Then you should come down to the Sarai Market place in the morning, down where the Caravans leave for the North. Yes, come down to the Sarai in the morning and see then if we be liars.

Oh, seems Robert Lige! Who will take the birthday? You should not laugh at him, Saib. The witless are under the protection of Allah. Quite so, boy. Who is the fellow anyway? A mad priest, Saib. Who has arrived only this morning from Ajmeer?

Yes, Saib. Come to look at my camels, loaded with toys to please the eye of an amir. Now go about your business. I haven't any use for toys. These are wondrous toys indeed, Sahib. Feet for a king of Kafiristan.

What? Good lord. Daniel Gravitz. I have come along. I have two camels just beyond the wall here. The blessings appear, Kan, on the gracious Sahib, who consents to look at the poor toys of a priest from Ajmya.

Over this way. Where's Kanahan? Here we are. Permit me to present my servant, Hazia, Mir, Khan. At your service, goodnight. Well, I'll be... You... Did you like our disguises? Do they pass? If they fool this crowd in the Sarai, they're probably good enough to get you across the border, and good enough to get you killed.

Get in killed? There's no part of the contract peach in me, drawn up. Although perhaps killing fits in with our plans in a different sense. Feel around underneath the toys there in the camel bags.

What? Go ahead. Good Lord, rifles! Twenty brand new martinis, with ammunition to match! And twenty good reasons to make your death certain. Any path under the hill tribes would kill his own mother to get a rifle.

Now who would harm a poor mad preside? Ella protects me! Mad is right. Then so was Lord Clive and Rhodes and Bonaparte. Drive out the camel's peachy, we've a long wait to go before we become kings.

As I stood and listened to the camel bells fade away in the distance, I wondered. Wondered if it might not be a glorious thing to go to Kafiristan and be a king. Three years pass in India, much as they pass in any other land, it grows hot, then the rains come and then the heat again. Some Colonel at a hill station puts down an uprising, a

new viceroy comes out from London and the paper duly records the death of a Sultan in Rajputana and the trees in the courtyard grow a few feet taller. Finally, time in its circle turned up another night, much like the one three years before. Once again I sat alone in the office, listening to the clock and waiting for some unimportant item to come over the

wire from Europe. It was long after midnight when my office door slowly opened. I say, look here, you might knock first, you know. Good Lord Man. What's wrong? You don't know who I am, do you? No. No, I haven't the faintest idea. But here, you'd better sit down or fellow you're in a bad way. Yes thank you. It's all year I've been walking right

here in this very office where settled it. You sat in right there and given us the maps. You sit in there ever since. Three years? No. Oh no. Well a man couldn't change that much in three years. You're not Pichy Khan, a hen? Yes. I was king of Kefiristan.

Me and Daniel drive it. Real crown kings we was, just as true as gospel. What in the name of heaven had they done to you, Pichy? Pichy? I knew Pichy Khan and once. He's a king, where's a real golden crown and he says, what's up?

He does. He's dead now, though. No, no, no. You're a peachy, Connor, and you must pull yourself together, man. Pull myself. You could keep looking into my eyes. Then maybe everything will go to pieces.

All right. Now, tell me what happened, peachy. We left the caravan of Jagdila. We struck off into the hills alone. Go on. Weeks it was, we traveled, Daniel and me. First there wasn't no roads.

After a while, no food. But there was always the drums. Sometimes there was close. And sometimes farther off. But most of the time we could hear them somewhere. Well, up! Move along, little... Here now, there's no place to be stopping up with you.

I'm fearing it's no use, Daniel. What's got into them? The poor beasts are done in and starved, same as ourselves. They'll go no further. Then we'll go on without them. I've not come this far to die on the side of a mountain.

Wait! Look, Daniel! over the edge of the rocks. What? Men, they are. There'll be a score of more of them. One goes ahead of the rest. And naught but those and arrows. Break out a pair of the rifles, Peche.

Right you are done, you. It's now that we start to become kings. Yeah, yeah. And some cartridges too. Easy now, Peche. I'll drop the straggler at the rear first, and then we'll lay a few at their feet.

No arm to the one in front. We may need him. Now. Come on in by the old neck, play on the peachy! Look at them! Flat on their blooming faces. A leader is come out alone!

Well and good, and we'll go part way to meet him, peachy, but keep your rifle by. Look at him, Daniel! He be as fair as us, with yellow hair! So he does. Part of the lost tribes these people are.

He's stopped. Oh, the Lord Harry, peachy we're in luck. It's the old Afghan tongue he speaks. Speak up! Who are you and when do you come? I am High Priest and the chief of the villager Fushkai, the journey of only a few hotbeats.

This bashkai, how many people? They are numbered in the thousand. There are more villages in the hills. More than a man has fingers and clothes. Here that peachy is our kingdom made to order. And you? You're going to take us to bashkai.

Do you understand? I understand the voice of thunder that you speak to. Oh, he's a smooth one, Peche. He knows the thing or two. He knows the thing or two. What's your name? Mazur Khan Chakalur.

That's too long. What shall we call him, Peche? He has a look about him of an old soldier and friend of ours. Billy Fish, so he does. We bestow a new name on you. From now on you will be Billy Fish.

As you come out, I obey. Alright, put this on your drums. Tell them two kings have come out from the mountaintops. Two kings that speak in words of thunder so the earth trembles. Tell them two kings have come to Kafiristan.

That you, preachy? Daniel. Why be you sitting here in the dark? I've been thinking. A man has to stop and think sometimes. Out anything special, Daniel? Look at him, preachy. Look at their blinking campfires are gleaming in the dark like the jewels in a crown.

Hi, Daniel. You're done a fine job for sure. All 23 villages you joined together as one. It is the army you trained to be thanked for it. Two thousand men with a fair knowledge of bearing arms.

Some's a bit green at it yet. The realm is now every man, Jack, woman and child. We own a body and soul. Hi, we're kings now, Daniel. Not proper things yet, but we will be.

Sooner than you think, Peachy. How's that? Billy Fish told me something today that fear amaze me. These people know the craft. You mean they're Freemasons, don't you? I don't know why it's possible. So help me, it's gospel true.

He give me the grip and everything. It's old, the craft is older than the memory of man. And up here in the hills they've been preserving it all these years. Why, some of the high priests know up through the fellow craft, but they don't know the third degree.

See it, Peachy? They don't know the third degree, but we do. Daniel, what is it you're fixing to do? Do. We're going to be proper kings. We're going to get them going and coming now.

I'm going to turn the whole country into one grand lodge, raise some of the priests a third degree, and for me, I'll be the grandmaster of Kefiristan. Ophichu ain't got the right door. We never been officers in no lodge, right?

What's a king got to do with asking for a right? Oh, I'm against it, Daniel. It's no good to go fooling around with the craft. Ah, you talk like an old woman. The thing will work.

I know it will. We'll make it a blooming ceremony. Regular aprons with a symbol and the marks. All of us, Peachy. The kings of Caffiristan. Everything is prepared, Master. And the priests and the people wait. Well, they don't have to wait much longer a billy here now peachy how do you like my apron it's our wondrous cypher pare

daniel made a white hermin skin it is and the masters mark with emerald studied the mark you know the meaning of the mark that I do what's going to you Billy not but there's a thing that's passing strange master train and Robbie come along now ready peachy right with you Daniel then out we go on to the temple steps

We'll give them what for, not about blinking either. That's what we'll do. Look at them, PG! Right down on them to be actually natural. You know. What's wrong with the priest, Billy? It looks like trouble, Daniel.

No. Stand where you are, master. They recognize the mark. That great stone in the floor. Why do they turn it over? Wait. It's the same! Speak up, Billy Fish. What's the meaning of it? See for yourself.

Look Daniel! Carved on the back of the stone! It is the master's mark, all right. And the same as the sign you wear. Only a few of the priests have known of the hidden mark on the stone.

What does it mean? The many who have doubted you were a god. Doubt no longer. And you, Billy, what do you think? I, master. I think that now it is the time for these. These.

Tangle! Golden crowns! I, how they glitter! Bit for the brow of a king. Tis what we came for. Here now, put them on. We'll crown ourselves in our own right. Something peachy. We come here to be kings, and that we are all right.

But blamed if we ain't a couple of blooming gods to boot, with a million people bowing on their knees before us. But blamed if we ain't a couple of blooming gods to boot with a million people bowing on their knees before us Well enough, peachy so it was gods who became as well as kings, but then what happened?

What became of Daniel's breath? Charlotte I knew Daniel's Robert Watts He's a king now who Daniel is Where's our golden crown? Conan was with him. Peegee, try to pull yourself together. I'll try. Now, you became kings, you and Daniel.

Kings of all Kefiristan. He was a fine figure, Daniel was, with his red head wearing that golden crown. Kept himself aloof from the people, so to speak. And when he walked up all the temple, They fell a-crawled on their stomachs to worship them.

But what happened, man? Happen? Well, I figure mostly it was winter coming on. The winds were starting up, and the clouds was blowing down from the north. Oh, it could blow beastly cold. That winter wind.

Hey, who's out there? At you, Billy? Come, found it anyway. Here now. What's this? Rott you first, Ma. What's the wife's she? With curry and rice? Up off your knees, girl. Bring it inside. Place it there.

Now, you're a well-favored wench. I do not understand. Why were you crawling on your knees? It is a fitting way to approach the God of Kafiristan. What's your name girl? Maruma Fengia. Maruma, you married?

He...he does not yet been my happy fortune master. You're afraid of me? You are a girl? I mean, how do I seem to you? Do you find me freezing or what? Your face is more wondrous than the Nunde's son.

And your look. I look a beaker. Very well, you may leave now. Thank you, Master. Hmm. Marame. Peachy. Peachy. You calling me, Daniel? Oh, the food's here, eh? Good. Not that window outside. Winter's about due to strike and fill the trail with snow.

There'll be little moving about a force frame. Right you are. Peachy? I've decided to take a wife. But you can't do it, Daniel. We made a contract. That was till we was kings. Well kings we've been many months now.

Oh, but it's no good. I'll tell you now. I'm against you. Against it. You was against using the craft too. But look what it done for us. Oh, but this is different. But if this will tell you no too, the same as I do.

Billy Fish, huh? Who's the king here? You're in on me. My mind's made up. Three days from now I shall have me a wife. And you can put it on the drums and tell every blighter out there in the hills.

The kingdom of Kafiristan is going to have a queen. What's keeping her peachy? They should have brought her near half an hour ago. I don't know, Daniel.

How about you, Billy Fish? You put them up to stall in off deliberate like? Certain preparations must be made, master. She's across the court with some of the priests. Maybe they're trying to harden her up a bit, Daniel.

She thinks she's going to die, you know. Die, indeed. Why, I'm a muster. It is against the laws of heaven for a woman to marry a god. I'm not a god. I'm a man. You know that by now, Billy?

No. And I should not want to think so, muster. But in her way, this can mean only trouble. I beg you to reconsider. And I beg you to shut up, Billy. I'm through waiting. I'm going over there.

Master, please! We've got to go with him, Billy. And I'm thinking it's going to mean trouble. How many men can you defend, depend on? No more than 20 with rifles. Most of my men are in bush kai.

Then what should we do? We shall have to make a run for it, I fear. We might be safe in bush kai. Come on now, you buckling fool. Bring out the girl. Well, now, that's better.

Here, girl, this is no way for a bride to behave. Smile now. Give us a kiss. Oh! The wench is beating me. Blackbuster, don't let them see the blood. Blackbuster! Yeah, plus, what is this?

Rock, stand in the straight. Mark Daniel, you're coming with knives. I can't do this. I'm the king. You've got to run for a bus. Oh, come on, Daniel, come on. Come back.

I'll come back on feet. They're blasted heads in. That's what I'll do. Oh, Daniel. We'll be back all right. How much further, Billy? Only short wait. Beyond this bridge, Master. Well, so far, so good.

Ah, last then blooming drums are stopped. We're at the top, Daniel. Right, good climate's been. Oh, wait. Look, since the drums have come before us, Master. Cut off. No less than a thousand of them standing the acquired like.

With them wicked long knives in their hands. There have been no getting past them, Daniel. Now, we are done for her. Go back, Billy Fish and take your men away with you. Go with him, Peachy.

It's me they want. I did it. Me the king. No, all done. I'm sticking with you. Billy Fish, you clear out. I am your friend. I stay with you. You're a good man, Billy. Maybe coming now, Daniel.

Peachy, don't let it down your life or give you freely and fully. Then let them come. There'll be one thing they can't change, Peachy. We've been kings. Kings in our right. Kings of old capitalist.

This dopant poor fella fish like a blooming head in they dead. There in the snow and the rocks.

Good lord, man. But you, Peachy, you got away from them. Like nowhere did I get away from them. They had us to fit all right. struck me out on a tree, drove nails right through my hands. They didn't see it. But I've poohled them all right. Chris morning came. I wasn't no wise dead. Then I made them think I'd

lost my senses. I was afraid to harm me because I was protected by all. They cut me down and and after a while they let me go. You poor devil. But what a dravit. What happened to Daniel?

Daniel is a king. He wears a golden crown. But now what happened to him? He's never left me. All them long months walking on the road back, it kept me sane. The mountains they danced at night, but Daniel held a peace hand and Pichy came along bent double.

I never let go of Daniel's hand. Not Daniel said that they gave me in the temple as a present here in this bunch. You, you old Daniel's, him that was among us once. Look at him now.

Now we have seen that we was really kings at the Onewe. You, you, pardon me sir? I let him go. There was little else to do. It was only hours away from his death. I sat there and stared at the bundle he had left lying on my desk, stared as the pale shafts

of dawn struck fire in the red beard, stared at the golden crown, sitting too large and heavy upon the wrinkled mummified head of Daniel Dravitt, the man who would be king. Escape is produced and directed by William N. Robeson.

Tonight's story, Rudyard Kipling, is the man who would be king, was adapted for radio by Les Crutchfield and featured Raymond Lawrence's peachy, Eric Snowden as Daniel Dravitt and Herbert Rawlinson as Kipling. effects were created and conducted by CyFewer. Next week CBS at its affiliate stations invite you to escape in Operation Florida League an episode from

the files of the OSS and so good night until a week from tonight when again we invite you to escape. This is CBS the Columbia Broadcasting System.