 Tired out from a strenuous weekend? Get a little too much sunburn? Want to get away from it all? We offer you escape! You are stealthily stalking into a silent desert fortress walking into what you know may be a trap Around you stand a legion of dead men and over you an unseen menace hangs in the African night Escape! Designed to free you from the four walls of today for a half hour of high adventure Tonight we escape to Africa to the Sahara to an earlier day and one of the greatest adventure mysteries of all time Perceful Christopher Wren's Bogyest The report had been brought to my headquarters in Tokotu three days before And I'd had the squadron on horse and ready to leave within 10 minutes We'd be no continuous forced march ever since The camel scout had reported that the Zindan of outpost was under attack from a force of at least 2000 Arabs And that the tiny garrison had little chance of survival As we came up to the last crest of sand dunes shutting off our view of the lonely mud fort I ordered my sergeant major to dismount the men in form skirmish lines while I rode on a head to reconnoiter At the top of the ridge I reigned in my horse and sat staring in amazement Over the 200 yards of bare sand stretching up to the walls of the fort Nothing moved There was no sound no sign of life The oasis after my left was deserted The Arabs were gone And the draggler of France still waved overhead It was then two shots of work who were fired from the fort And the bullets kicked up spats of dust off to one side of me I rode in under the walls and stopped in front of the tall wooden gate I could see now that every gonslet above me was manned by a grim-faced legionnaire Holding his rifle leveled and ready Congratulations, mes amis! Who else can I have proud to salute you? Kanda! Why so grim, you are victorious! Inform your commandant that I'm major of the Spahis awaits his pleasure Legionnaire! You up there with the pipe in your mouth! Go inform your commandant you hear me! Is there anything in order, mon commandant? I'm not sure Lugle, sound the regimental call Do not answer, mon officier Believe me, sergeant, when I get inside this fort... Look, mon capitain, the man over the gate, he has been shot in the forehead Shock! He blew your rights, sergeant, he's dead! And they went next to him, old sergeant Come along this wall, they are all dead! Impossible! Then who fared the shots when I rode up? Sergeant, get a volunteer Have him climb up the wall and open this gate from the inside If you will pardon me, mon commandant Yes, I will volunteer Huh? All right, Lugle, go ahead Oui, mon commandant Sergeant, this could be a trap However, the men take open order at 50 yards and wait And watch the gonslets there along the wall And wait, we did Five minutes Ten The men began to look at one another And just stir uneasily The fort was silent Nothing moved Fifteen minutes pass The gate was not opened And the bugler did not come back Finally, my sergeant and I climbed the wall ourselves We researched the eerie outpost Room by room But we could find a way But we could find no sign of our bugler Nor of any other living soul The bodies of the entire garrison Were on the battle ramp at the top of the wall Their heads and shoulders jammed grotesquely Into the gonslets where someone had robbed them While their dead hands clutched the rifles They would never fire again Only two bodies were not so pleased One was that of a light-haired young man Who lay peacefully on his back His hands crossed over the rifle wound And the other body This one was the commandant See, he was a gold star So he does, sergeant But he also wears a French bayonet in his heart He was murdered by one of his own men Rifles fired from an empty fort The bugler has disappeared I do not like this place How in the name of heaven did they stab him His revolver is still in his right hand And in the other A scrap of paper Perhaps the paper explains all of this Perhaps to the eye-commissioner of Scottingyard I hereby confess Fully and freely that I and I alone Stole the great sapphire Known as Blue Water Signed Borgeste What's this all about? What does this mean? Mon commandant, these things are impossible But they have happened They do not make sense Why don't we not go outside? This was not to be the end of it Shortly after dark a tongue of flame Flared suddenly in the heart of the salient fort And in a matter of moments the whole interior Was ablaze Throwing a great pillar of fire-rop Into the black desert night We sat and watched it burn There was nothing else to do And as I stared at the leaping flames Kindled by some unseen and unknown hand I realized suddenly That neither I Nor any man alive would ever know What strange things Had really happened Here at the lonely fort Of Zindaneuf My name is John Geste And I am the only person alive Who knows all that happened At Zindaneuf My two brothers and I grew up At Brandenabers south of London Beau was the oldest Ben Digbet And finally myself two years younger I can remember very little of those Days as I look back Except that we were happy As only young boys can be We read thrilling tales of the French Foreign Legion, sailed toy boats on the Pound and gave flaming viking funerals For the tin soldiers who fell in our battles Burning them on funeral pyres of Kindlingwood with toy dogs And horses to their feet While Digbet blew taps on his trumpet Our only queen Was cool and lovely Aunt Patricia With whom we lived Her husband Sir Hector was seldom in England And if the hurt in Aunt Patricia's eyes Grew deeper with the years Why the great estate fell slowly into ruin Then we children knew nothing of it There were the two girls, of course Our cousins Only girls didn't count at that age But those days are far away now And gone forever And I can remember clearly Only that one last night When the three of us came home from Oxford Our cousins were there And we were all together for the holidays Was on that night The story of Zindana Rarely began We finished dinner and played games For a while Now we just sat in the library talking Gradually our attention became Focused more and more on the small Black setting box Standing in the centre of the table Please Aunt Patricia, can't we open the case now And look at it, you've had it sitting there Now, where, Claudia, dear I thought you always liked to draw out the suspense As long as possible I must say I agree with her, Aunt Patricia Why, Beau, you do Come on, let's have our semi-annual look At the family jewel, shall we? Well, all right then I should have my trumpet and blow a fanfare There we are Ladies and gentlemen, one of the six Largest and most perfect sapphires in the world The blue water Rather, and I've seen it All my life Oh no It's nice to look at, Beau, but when you touch it It always feels cold Would you like to juggle a stone worth 50,000 pounds? I think I'll just look for a wild dig After all, it was heaven to the lads It must be a fuse, Burden will have them Back on again in a minute Please, don't move about and bump into things I'm quite sure everything will be all right in a moment Sort of ghostly Makes you think of skeleton hands Hey, Claudia, you're among friends, you know I could swear I felt something touch me I can't understand why Burden did... Oh, there we are Not a soul got lost in the dark We're probably all... Patricia, look Please, ladies and gentlemen And I think all of us are Who decided to play this joke? The sapphire's gone Next hour became a nightmare None of us present would admit having taken the sapphire And if the thing had been done as a joke Then already it had been carried too far Our Patricia went to bed finally Telling us that the library would be left open all night So the prankster Which we're not using the word thief Could return the blue water to its case in secret The rest have us drifted off to our rooms Then an hour before midnight Digged me came in to tell me quietly That our brother Beau had packed a bag And left Brandon Abbas Turned out my light and said in the darkness Listening to the ticking of the clock I was not surprised When two hours after midnight I heard a sound below my window I looked out to see Digby Slipping off down the drive I was fairly certain that neither of my brothers Had stolen the sapphire But I understood what they were doing Gallant as always, Beau had run away To draw suspicion from those innocent ones Who might be hurt And Digby had followed In order to split up the search for Beau I could only guess where they'd gone But long before dawn I decided where I must go And what I had to do And so it was that five days later I walked into the Fort Therese Into the recruit barracks of the French foreign legion In Algeria And if they refer to this cattle barn as a barracks Heaven knows what they open Digby, look who just came in the door Good Lord Beau It's John, youngster, come here Digby, Beau Digby, Beau I'd have waited ten to one I'd find you in the lead just a few Brainless young idiot, both of you Why, what's wrong, Beau? Oh, Beau wanted to be the only noble one in the family John, pay no attention to him Well, there was no need for all of us running away After all, I stole the blue water Don't fairly say how you could have Beau Since I brought it with me Oh, you didn't did you I've had that sapphire all the time And if either of you would like to take a look at it I wonder who did steal it What's the difference? It's driven all three of us into the foreign legion now We've been in for five years, whether we like it or not Fine, what do we do? We haven't done anything yet, it's supposed to be some kind of an inspection in a minute You know, you shouldn't have come, either of you But, well, I'm I'm glad you're both here Thanks, Beau, so am I I can't say exactly what we're into Oh, Lord Oh, Lord Well, what is it, a man or a gorilla? I think it's Sergeant Lejeune The other men say he's a scholar Three sniveling little personalities If I ever saw one Oh, I say now Shut up! One more remark, and I will be most happy To kick your teeth out of your head Put out your hands All three of you Hands up! Never done a day's work in your life Well, we are going to change all that My little pigs Sir Craig Blue We are not going to change it I shall march you through the sand Until you drop on your faces When that happens I shall kick you until you get up or die If you choose to die Perhaps I shall go on kicking you after you are dead You are in the Legion now My little dogs And I shall give you cause to know it You will curse Sergeant Lejeune Ten thousand times If you live long enough And each time You will wish you had stayed in England To be hanged If you know that properly should Is all of that perfectly clear? Yes, sir Yes, sir That's much better Recruits report in full Get to the parade ground in ten minutes Get out and clean up this pigsty Yes, miss If anybody want him I'll sell my share Five years of that He's not even human Well, he's part of the Legion lads And after all they didn't ask us to come over here And join did they? If you will pardon me gentlemen I would like to take the liberty of introducing myself Francisco Blondard at your service Well, the Smith brothers Monsieur Blondard This is my third enlistment With the Legion so I know what I am saying And I can tell you may as well For you have started off on the wrong foot You should not have antagonized him How did you antagonize the good sergeant Monsieur Blondard? Well, who knows Perhaps your hands were too clean But no matter For now you have Francisco Blondard As your advisor We are honored I stand in very well with Sergeant Lejeune There are reasons For the other contacts too I know all the ins and outs of this business And I can be most useful To anyone who has something Very valuable to hide These men here They are all thieves of course Good heavens, not really There is no time to talk now But after drill we will meet in the canteen For a bottle of wine And I think we shall become Very good friends Au revoir mes amis Au revoir Well, chaps, I can't quite see Mr. Oil is one of our close friends He overheard us talking about the sapphire of course Yeah, between him and thousands of soldiers Hey, senor, pay no attention to me Pretend that I'm only polishing this boot But listen carefully Do not trust that that man Blondin He's a thief, a liar He's a little bloodhound who works for sergeant Lejeune When you wish to know something You come to me, Juan Taiyo I will take good care of you I'll bet you would at that Soon we find the chance to talk I, Juan Taiyo, will fix everything Do not let anyone steal it I go now You'll be very gale Well, along with Lejeune We now have a bunch of thieves Who will probably try to steal the sapphire Oh, come along, lads Let's find out how they march in the Legion And march we did Hours in the curling sun and the dust Day after day We wondered how much worse it would be on the desert We grew hard and tough And we learned the ways of the Legion And the ways of the Legionnaires Some we liked and some we hated But either way we learned to live with them Talk with them, drink with them We became soldiers, Legionnaires We longed for active duty And we got it even sooner than we hoped Down the road Down the road Down the road Marched out of city Belabest to the south And we learned how beastly cruel the desert is Look how far broke out the second week That madness that comes When the brain is cooked by the sun And men became gibbering idiots and died At Tugur some of them were detached And sent to Tokur too for cavalry training Among them my brother Digby And the rest of us marched on Two days later our commandant Went mad and shot himself And the detachment's command passed To Sergeant Legion And southward we marched to the last Southern outpost straight into the mouth of hell The fort at Zindanof If we'd hoped for action We didn't find it at Zindanof Day after day went by with no sight Of the Arab forces Nothing but eternal sentry duty And each dull day was like the one before In full command now Lejeune became more brittle than ever And the men glowered and growled At their breath and whispered together in small groups In a month the fort was seething Under the surface with madness Hate, but even worse Off duty for the moment Bo and I were sitting at the oasis And talking one afternoon But we heard someone coming toward us Across the sand Uh-oh, hold on to your watch, Johnny Here comes that little weasel, Guantio What a sir, isn't he? Oh, little puppy, goodbye No, no, no, no, no, I must talk with you You should know what is going to happen Must be good, it couldn't be any worse You, of course, know the legionnaire named Schwartz The one who was once a butcher I know him, what about him? Perhaps he's going to become a butcher again Very soon, senor, perhaps he's going to kill a pig There are no pigs here Oh, but there is one A great fat pig, a real commandante of a pig Lejeune I did not say that There are a lot of butchers to kill that pig There are a lot of butchers, but for you, too The question is whether to be a pig Or butchers, huh? We shouldn't like to be butchered, of course But now that we'd like to be eaten by the pig Yes, very difficult But you must decide, it will happen soon Suppose the butchers did kill the pig And started across the desert They'd be dead in three days Of thirst or from the Arabs One must take a chance, besides This Lejeune, he plans to kill you The great Jewel which you have I heard him teleblonding I see Well, we'll let you know, Gwantayo Decide quickly if you wish to live I must go now Say nothing to anyone Go Rather think of going to die One way or another There are dickbees out of it So am I Well, we'll wait and see what happens, shall we? But we were not forced To wait any longer than that same night I was awaiting an hour before Dorned by someone whispering in my ear It was Lejeune And he held a pistol in his hand If you make one sound, I shall blow Your brains out, follow me I followed him quietly out of the Beddock room with its roses sleeping men And we stood beside the oil lamp that burned In the casserole I've been informed of a plot to mutiny And I've been told that you and your brother Have not joined it Do you understand? Yes, sir You will go back in there and wake your brother While I keep you covered from the door I have two rifles here Your brother will take one of them And kill any man who tries to leave his bed You will take the other and come with me We are going to disarm the guard Whatever you say, mon commandant We left Bowen guard at the Beddock room door And made our way through the sleeping fort Up the ladder to the battle ramp Everything is very quiet What a pire, mon commandant I have just ordered the sentry into the guard house And the arsenal is locked Bien bien, go down to the gutters And take their guns, tell them Two rifles are covering the door And any man who steps into the light Will be shot We stood there on the ramp Our rifles into the square of light in the doorway And we waited I watched the first gray light of dawn Filter over the walls I played with it I was given no chance to find out Lejeune, look, outside the fort Arabs, thousands We are under attack Blondin, turn at the guard Open the arsenal and pass at the gun Buehler, sound us out Okay, the little pigs are theirs They're blue, but they'll find before they're done It's Lejeune, they're fighting Come on, soldier Fire the gun The men streamed up the ladders onto the ramp Loading the rifles as they ran They were soldiers, first and last Lejeuners, and in the face of battle All thoughts of the mutiny were swept aside Through the hole of that long, hot day We fought the Arab mob Met their fierce charges Reloaded smoking guns And fought them off again All through the night the snipers crept in Close and poured deadly fire Into the gun slits And slowly but surely Garrison melted away Lejeun was everywhere Cursing and firing specials Grabbing bodies as they fell And jamming them back into the ramparts So the Arabs could have no way of knowing how few we were As the ghastly night Due to a close Only four of us were left Bueh and I, Lejeun and Blondin And before dawn Blondin was gone And then, as the first red rays of the sun Swept over the sand Bueh! Bueh! Never mind soldier, get below And bring up a pile of soup The devil seemed to be letting up for the moment But my brother perhaps is only wounded I said get below, I'll take care of him I propped my rifle against the wall and went down the ladder But the bottom must start suddenly Lejeun would take care of him He was not going to take care of Bueh The way he did the others By making a grotesque dummy out of his dead body I climbed back up to the ramp Lejeun was bending over Bueh's body He turned up in his tunic and was pouring out Some papers he'd taken from it I thought I'd send you below You bishly thief! Take your filthy hands off! There's no reason why I should not shoot you You have disobeyed orders I have no need of you now I sent off a runner When I heard of the mutiny There should be a relief force here in an hour or two Perhaps Two or three bullets in the stomach Would be... Take it! I punched forward with my bayonet out of its cabinet And I drove it into his house Nice work, Johnny I'm glad I could help Bo, then you're alright, you weren't dead That's what you think, youngster Deliver those letters Be sure Confessions mean Well, like Be sure The gambit of the letters Closed his eyes He crossed his hands over his chest There's nothing else to do Then I filled a knapsack with bread, water, and ammunition Prepared to slip out of the dead fort That moment an officer in the relief force Run over the ridge to the north I wasn't sure whether the yellows were still in ambush As I fired two shots to warn him Then slid over the wall on the far side And sprinted for the nearest sand dune A hundred yards away I must have dropped there and fallen asleep immediately When I woke up it was dark And the moon was just rising behind the black walls of the fort And even as I watched it A tongue of flame shot up And in a moment the whole interior of the fort was ablaze But why? Why was the relief force burning into the earth? Just then the figure of a man slid over the wall Nearest to me and came running in my direction I braced my rifle Halt, you're covered! Oh, hello old boy I thought you'd be out here somewhere Digby, how did you get here? I was bugled with the relief force, Johnny They sent me to open the gate, I hid instead Things were pretty rough Fairly so Digby, they killed Bo Yes, I know, I saw it Did you start the fire? Bo always wanted a viking funeral I had to give it to him, you know Yes, I remember The sheets poured lamp oil around It was the best I could do He'd have liked it, Digby I didn't have a horse or a spear But I did find a dog to burn at his feet A dog? Yes, Johnny, a dirty rotten dog I found on the battle ramp It used to call itself Lejeune What came afterwards? How we fled southward for many weary miles across the desert Fort Bend, it's dark and thirsty All those things matter very little now It's a farce to say that the day did come And I sat once again In the great library at Brandenevers In the same room where it all began On that other night, long before And I told the story to Aunt Patricia Well, it was all so completely horrible And so useless, John Why did Bo steal the sapphire? Why did he have to do such a thing? I couldn't say Aunt Patricia So useless I have a letter for you I have a letter for you I haven't opened it, of course Please do so at once, John Very well Read it to me She says My beloved Aunt Patricia If I may still call you that When you read this I should be dead I took the blue water, of course Or rather the imitation Which you had made After you sold the real stone Oh, yes Aunt I knew about that You wanted the money for the tenants On the estate I approve But I also knew how much You feared Sir Hector would find out I thought that stealing it Might help you If I was wrong I only hope that you may forgive me Oh, dearest Bo For my part I remain affectionately As always Your own Bogest Escape is produced and directed By Norman McDonnell And tonight brought you Bogest By PC Wren Adapted for radio by Les Crutchfield Featuring Barry Kroger Wilms Herbert Jane Avello and Ben Wright With Ramsey Hill Lillian Bayef and Peggy Weber Music was conceived by Lucian Marowak And conducted by Wilbur Hatch Roy Rowan speaking This is CBS The Columbia Broadcasting System