What happens
Captain English commands a freighter carrying cargo up the Yangtze and out of Shanghai, with a mate named Mr. Stagg and a crew of Kanaka boys. A mysterious passenger, the Reverend Dr. Walks, comes aboard at the last moment with two heavy packing cases, and his presence soon unsettles the ship. Walks gains a strange hold over the native crew, the officers grow resentful, and the captain finds himself unable to shake the man from his vessel. The episode presents Ellis St. Joseph's short novel as adapted for Orson Welles's Mercury Theatre on the Air, first broadcast on November 13, 1938. Orson Welles plays Dr. Walks in the production.
A freighter sailing from Shanghai through the Yangtze River and the Pacific islands toward Bali, and later the ports of the East Indies and Shanghai.
Characters: Captain English, Mr. Stagg, Mr. Angle, Dr. Walks, Mr. Tech, Mr. Chisholm
Listen for: Listen for the growing tension among the crew as Dr. Walks's influence over the native sailors deepens, and for the captain's increasingly desperate attempts to be rid of his passenger at each port.
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.