Suspense.
And the producer of radio's outstanding theater of thrills, the master of mystery and adventure,
William N. Robeson.
Talent is an elusive and mystifying phenomenon, and one of the most curious things about it
is that it manifests itself in the most unexpected places.
One of the most talented sound men in radio broadcasting is Tom Hanley.
We did not know until recently that he possesses another talent.
He is an extraordinarily fine writer.
It is his radio play you are about to hear.
Another talent with whom you have been familiar for years is Jack Carson, one of our great
comedians and also a fine dramatic actor.
In a moment he exposes another facet of his quite extensive talents as our storyteller.
Listen then as Jack Carson stars in Tom Hanley's terrifying story, Miss Fire, which begins
in exactly one minute.
Now how many of you have heard a doctor lecture on the lining of the stomach and what you're
doing to it?
Well you may think this line of gab is only for you.
Why son, doctors have been telling Americans this ever since we became a nation.
Like a fella come up to me the other day and asked about that great American Mike Fink.
Say is it true that Mike once ate a buffalo robe?
Certainly, and with the hair on it.
Well why did he do that?
Well you see Mike drank so much whiskey that he destroyed the coating of his stomach and
the doctor told him that before he could get well he'd need a new coat for it.
Mike thought that over and made up his mind that a buffalo robe with hair on it was just
the thing.
So he sat down and swallowed one.
He could drink any amount of whiskey after that and that's a fact.
Folklore belongs to every nation's legendary past and I guess we Americans have our share
of some tall ones.
And now.
Miss Fire starring Mr. Jack Carson.
A tale well calculated to keep you in suspense.
Ground zero somewhere on the desert.
We are inside the cab with a bomb, this one called Jack Hammer, awaits the impulse from
control points 14 miles to the south.
The gossip hums and throngs their chatter about the health of the patient suspended
500 feet above the desert floor.
But the unfeeling machines neglect to mention a human factor this morning.
An imprint of carelessness.
A small metal wrench jammed in the track of the electronically controlled door.
The shift of sand occurs against one of the great steel legs anchored to the desert floor.
And a brownbacked desert tortoise trundles out for a look at his world.
A world of sage and sand and space stretching endlessly off into the darkness.
No man is in sight that is good.
There have been days of hiding from men.
Now they have gone and the tortoise tries his morning legs and plans his new day.
H minus one.
Place eye protectors in position and turn back to fireball.
55, 54, 53, 52, 51.
From a hundred loudspeakers miles removed from ground zero, the tape recorded voice
begins its countdown.
No margin for error now.
No turning back.
Test shot jackhammer is underway.
A mile and a half from ground zero, a 22 year old Marine corporal crouches in a trench,
his head rammed into his arms.
He and 19 hundred and 99 other Marines are there to prove that man is not afraid.
Not really.
A little over a mile from ground zero, in a concrete bunker with its air conditioning
secured sent these civil defense men.
They want to know what chance their cities will have against a day that must never come.
At control point, men sit silently watching instruments designed to tell them how efficiently
jackhammer does its job.
And the tortoise slumbers across his front yard in search of breakfast.
Three, two, one.
What happened?
It's a misfire.
Attention all personnel.
This is Dr. Durstin.
Test shot jackhammer is incomplete due to undetermined failure.
Maintain positions till further notice.
You are still on detonation alert.
Now gentlemen, I will ask for reports from each of you.
Be so good as to prepare your...
Lee Thurston, PhD, physicist and test director for test shot jackhammer.
It is now his responsibility to consolidate all the data from countless machines and scientists
and control point into a calculation that will reveal the cause for misfire.
Dr. Thurston?
What is it, Butler?
Everything was normal on my face until H minus four nine.
Grant, that would coincide with your variance, wouldn't it?
Yeah, but Frank, you shouldn't have had any reading at all at that time.
On the sub relay meter, I didn't.
It showed normal and then there was a complete negative to zero response.
Then there it is, Dr. Thurston.
It's an on-site rejection of voltage.
In other words, the fault lies at ground zero.
According to these data, yeah.
Well, can correction be made from here?
We can't have anybody going out there.
We'll know after we check the monitor lists.
There's one consolation, Dr. Thurston.
What's that?
We put it together.
We ought to be able to take it apart.
Yes.
Yes, we ought to.
But can we?
The second act of suspense continues in one minute.
Sometimes a man can have too high an opinion of himself.
Sometimes that opinion can drive him to great deeds.
Here now is one of America's legendary heroes to tell you of some of his unique characteristics.
If his adjectives seem a bit outlandish, remember that his image was an inspiration to a pioneering
people and he still affects a nation addicted to TV.
I'm that same David Crockett, fresh from the backwoods, half horse, half alligator, a lethal
tetched with a snapping turtle.
Can wade the Mississippi, leap the Ohio, ride upon a streak of lightning and slip without
a scratch down a honey locust.
Can whip my way in wildcats and if a gentleman pleases for a $10 bill, he may throw in a
panther.
I can hug a bear too close for comfort and beat any man opposed to Jackson.
Folklore belongs to every nation's legendary past and I guess we Americans have our share
of some tall ones.
And now we continue with act two of Misfire, starring Mr. Jack Carson.
A tale well calculated to keep you in suspense.
There's no walking away from an atom bomb, no asking who left it there, so it becomes
a story of people, the disarming.
Lee Thurston, MIT graduate, 1932, old enough to have been appalled at the thought of an
atom bomb, scientific enough to accept it, human enough to demand influence in its use.
John Grant, 36, a redheaded giant who daily deals in miracles, believes in them, makes
them work.
Frank Butler, former child prodigy, grown bald at 28, bachelor, attendant now at the
bigamous wedding of electronics, nuclear fission and power politics.
An on-site test is the only way to check it out.
No Butler, that would mean two men at ground zero.
But there's no explanation for what we're finding here.
You're right, Doctor, if we accept our data, we have a power failure originating at the
cab itself.
With the risk of delayed detonation, Grant, you can't forget that.
I'm not.
There are 2,000 Marines and 12 C.D. men out there.
How long can they wait?
Dr. Thurston.
Yes, what is it?
General Matting on the phone, sir, wants to know if he can evacuate yet.
No, not until we know more about the cause of the Misfire.
I'll let him know.
Yes, sir.
Oh, uh, Winship.
Yes?
Tell the photo lab I can't wait any longer for those final pictures of the patch bay
under the bomb.
I will, sir.
For now, we'll go over those monitor checklists again, gentlemen.
We mustn't have any errors.
News knob has a mathematics of its own.
The bomb plus the names of the men in control point plus the little background data equals
a story.
Mention that these men were in high school when the first atomic pile was activated.
Mention that it would have taken that first pile 150,000 years to make enough plutonium
to satisfy this bomb.
Point out how the Cold War overcame all that.
But tell mostly of the struggle to stop Jack Amber this morning.
Hello, New York?
Get me Barney, will you, honey?
Tell him it's Pierce.
Yeah, we'll then call him at home.
It's important.
Hey, hey, where'd you get the coffee?
I need some.
I'm freezing over here.
Here you go.
Hey, thanks a lot.
Hello, Barney.
Now, listen, you better call that off and go on into the office.
This may develop into something out here.
The bomb didn't go off.
No, not a delay.
It just didn't take.
Well, the rumor we hear is that the last boys to hook it up are going to have to go out
and coax it down.
How do I know who it'll be?
Yeah, yeah, I know that's what I'm here for.
I know.
And Barney, don't call me.
I'll call you.
The Marine lies flat now.
Permission granted.
He hears unsolicited advice from his buddy on how to run an atom bomb test, but he thinks
about Vegas, and he wonders whether he'll ever see her again, the girl with the dark
hair, the dark eyes, the wonderful smile, and the Cadillac convertible.
In the civil defense shelter, it's hot.
No air conditioning for 40 minutes now.
These heavy clothes and sealed up this way.
Somebody better call control.
They must have forgotten us.
But they haven't.
They're concerned with more important things at control, like the photo lab with the final
pictures of the victim, Jack Hammer, pictures of the bomb with its viscera displayed A to
B and yellow to ground, the proper circuit for agony.
Well, this one's okay.
This one's all right.
The pictures show the patch cords are all okay, Dr. Thurston.
Now, wait a minute, just a minute now.
We've always assumed that if we got power to the site proper, that it would go on to
the bomb.
Of course.
The door to the Cad completes the circuit.
Voltage to the door, voltage to the bomb.
All right then.
What if the voltage didn't get beyond the door?
That's impossible.
Our monitors show the door completely closed.
But what if it didn't, for some reason?
What reason?
What could go wrong that wouldn't show in the monitors?
I don't know, but it's got to be out there.
Let me go check it.
I can't order anybody out there.
I'm asking to go.
I'll go with you, Frank.
No.
But if anybody goes, it should be two.
You'd need a phone line during the climb in case we found anything here.
You'd need test equipment, tools for opening the door manually, radiation test gear, and
a wrench.
That disconnect would have to be made immediately, Frank.
A wrench.
What's the matter?
You look ill.
No, no, nothing, sir.
I've had no sleep, I guess.
500 feet and no power for the elevator, Frank.
I'll go with you.
All right.
But I ought to go alone.
Act Three of Suspense follows in one minute.
Do you know the Social Security benefits to which you will be entitled when you separate
from the service and take a civilian job?
Here's a tip from Social Security.
When you open an account at a store, a special record is usually started for you.
When you get a Social Security account card, a personal record is also started for you,
using both your name and the number of your card.
To be sure your Social Security record is correct, it's a good idea to check your Social
Security record every few years.
To get a statement of your earnings from the Social Security records, you can use postcard
form 7004.
This form is yours by writing to Social Security, Department 15, Hollywood 28, California.
That's postcard form 7004.
And now we continue with Act Three of Misfire, starring Mr. Jack Carson, a tale well calculated
to keep you in suspense.
The afterbirth of darkness is light, the insipid gray light of a desert dawn.
The night animals scurry homeward and the day things begin their minor motions and slowly
it begins.
The gradual creep of light and warmth across the land, till its source explodes in the
vastness of the desert.
There it becomes the sudden kiss of heat, heat that warms, heat that kills, and the
in-between heat, the heat that expands.
Man's product, the awkward wrench, lies in its cramped position on the tower.
Having severed the connection to the bomb, it tries to make amends by stretching, ever
so slightly expanding, expanding, encouraged by the heat of the sun.
The electronic condensers on the door await their cue, metal on metal, and the blinding
concussion that has no beginning nor any end.
And the tortoise, unaware, accepts his gifts from the land and goes in search of his image.
I better go up first, John.
No, you've got to man the phone.
I'll start first, open the door manually and check for radiation.
Then you shoot in and disconnect the thing.
All right.
Hey, John.
Yeah.
You think we'll ever get off the tower?
We may never get on it if we sit here and talk.
Let's go.
Hello, Barney.
Now listen, they've started climbing the tower.
That's right, 500 feet.
I don't know how many stories that is.
The Washington Monument is 550, I think.
But now look, get this, Barney.
Play this one straight, will you?
No heroics.
This one will stand on its own.
Sure, we're on a detonation alert.
Well, who knows what's going to happen?
The fear of falling, it never goes away.
It only becomes conditioned to the environment.
And 500 feet straight up has no relation to man.
To look down or not to look down, this becomes the problem.
And what do you look at?
The eyes of the man below you?
No.
They reflect the fear of two men.
The expanse of Dry Lake, do you look at that?
No.
That shimmers in the coming heat brings on the dizziness.
Do you look inside yourself at the fear of God?
You might look there, that might help.
But for the most part, you climb.
You lift each aching limb after the other.
One platform after another.
One after another.
Rest a second, Frank.
How you doing?
Okay.
How much further?
One more platform, Frank.
Just one more.
It's murder.
There's one consolation though.
What?
Going down.
We'll have power to the elevator afterwards and we'll ride down.
Maybe.
If there isn't afterwards.
The wrench that's missing from the kit.
Couldn't be up here though.
Couldn't possibly be.
Must have dropped it, but not up here.
Not where it could do damage.
Better get on the phone and tell Dr. Thurston we're here.
Okay.
Dr. Thurston?
Yes.
We're at the top.
Good.
Have you found anything?
Grant is at the door now.
We'll make a manual entry as soon as we can.
Good.
Frank, tell him to read the voltage sheet on this door.
I don't think it's completely closed.
Check the voltage sheet on the door, doctor.
Hey Frank, come here.
What is it?
Yes, hello.
Were you talking to me?
Hold it, doctor.
Can you see it?
Here.
Look, from here.
There's a small wrench.
Oh no.
It's wedged in the door there.
You see it?
John?
It's mine.
It's my wrench.
I must have dropped it when we were up here arming the bomb.
It can happen.
Look through the glass.
It severed the detonation circuit.
That's what happened.
But it completed the door contact.
Sure.
That's why the monitors didn't show it.
Good Lord, Frank.
Look how close it is to making contact.
John, that's going to go any second.
Take it easy now.
Move and shade that thing.
Heat expansion will set it off.
How's this?
Give me the phone.
Dr. Thurston.
Dr. Thurston, can you hear me?
Is that you?
Now listen carefully.
We found the problem.
A small hand wrench has been accidentally dropped into the door track.
Good Lord.
Now apparently it severed the detonation circuit, but it's so close to making the contact now
that we've got to have power to the door.
Not while you're there.
Come off the tower.
We'll open it.
No, you don't understand.
The door condensers are already loaded with enough power to detonate the bomb.
Well, is the wrench above the contact?
Yes.
Then opening the door, we'll drop the wrench and set it off.
Look, you've got to give me power just enough to make the door jump.
I'm putting a pair of pliers on the wrench.
I'll yank it out as soon as you loosen the door.
What if you miss?
I'll never know about it.
John, you've got to do something fast.
The sun is moving.
Thurston, you've got to.
You can't leave us like this.
I can't risk it.
Try to get back.
No chance.
Now if you could only see it.
All right.
I'll do it.
Windship, give me ground zero power on my count.
Just do it.
I got to explain now.
Grant?
Yes.
Are you ready?
Yes.
Grant, I'll give you a ten second count.
Make it five.
All right, five.
I get a good hold on that wrench.
Five, four, three, two, one.
Is that it, Grant?
Grant, are we out of it?
Nice going, John.
We're out of it, Thurston.
We're out now.
The bomb can't go off.
The desert sun continues to work its subtle magic on the wrench, expanding ineffectually
on the platform floor.
The marine stands up in the trench.
The sea demon emerge from their steel shelter to the relative chill of the desert heat.
The newsmen converge on ground zero.
The redhead and the baldhead hop from the welcome elevator to see a tortoise scurrying
ponderously towards his burrow.
They pick him up and he pretends he's not there at all, but he is and they know it.
So they take him back to control points to live for another day.
Suspense.
In which Mr. Jack Carson starred in William N. Robeson's production of Miss Fire, written
by Tom Hanley.
In a moment, the names of the players who supported Mr. Carson in Miss Fire and a word
about next week's story of suspense.
This is Johnny Baker with Communism on the Spot.
In speeches and newspaper articles and over radio and television, the communist leaders
constantly state that everything they do is guided by the people's interests.
All this adds up to just another of their big lies.
The Soviet government is rule of the few by the few for the few.
The small group that rules is interested above all in staying in power and adding to that
power.
Its members treat the masses as pawns to be moved around as they see fit.
The people have only one right.
The right to do as they're told by the small clique which makes policy and gives the orders.
Supporting Mr. Carson in Miss Fire were John Danaer, Barney Phillips, Sam Pierce, Eddie
Firestone and Norm Alden.
Listen.
Listen again next week when we return with Miss Margaret Whiting in The Well-Dressed
Corpse.
Another tale well calculated to keep you in.
Suspense.
Suspense has been brought to you through the worldwide facilities of the United States
Armed Forces Radio and Television Service.