 Family Theater presents Cameron Mitchell and Gigi Perot. Virtual network in cooperation with Family Theater presents Survival Mechanism, starring Cameron Mitchell. And now, here is your hostess, Gigi Perot. Thank you, George Crowell. Family Theater's only purpose is to bring to everyone's attention a practice that must become an important part of our lives if we are to win peace for ourselves, peace for our families, and peace for the world. Family Theater urges you to pray. Pray together as a family. And now to our transcribed drama, Survival Mechanism, starring Cameron Mitchell as Russell. In the sea, oh Captain, there's nothing, nothing I can think of that scares me quite as much as the idea of being down in the sea. One man down in all that ocean. And he might not be, that's what gets me. You mean his last call? Yeah, that's exactly what I mean, that last call. He said he saw an island and he was gonna try and make it, didn't he? That's what he said, but, well, the mind plays tricks on a man, you know that. Yeah, sure, but for a reason usually. How could I? Sometimes you see what you wanna see, Gil, what you think you need to see. I mean, a guy could be saying to himself, what I need is an island that mean it so much he'd see it and knock it up, would ya? Never spend a day thirsty and dream about water that night? Yeah, what you're talking about is, well, it's a subconscious defense mechanism. Like you use well to keep your sanity. Are the part of your being considered the most important? Well, there's no island in these waters. Maybe you got something there. Let's see how long it's been since Russell's left. Hey! What's up? Bank the starboard. All right, you see something? Bank, will ya? I can't be sure. Where? Might be a bird. Look, there! That's no bird. That's a man in the water. Let's go get him, boy. Hold him, sir. I'll get him and give you a hand. There, there, I'm up. This is one heavy man. But more than half of it's seawater. Okay, can you get his legs? Got him. Okay, onto the stretcher. Man, I'm glad I don't have to do this for a living. That does it. Boy, it looks bad, doesn't it? Still breathing? Yeah, break out some of those blankets. Hey, Russ. Russ! Hey, let's catch you on your side. Share the blankets, sir. All right, help me roll them so they can cough out some of that water. Yes, sir. Hey, that's better. God heard me and hath attended to the voice of my supplication. Blessed be God who hath not turned away my prayer, nor his mercy from me. Huh? What's all this? Delirium? You got me, sounds like a prayer. How are we going back here? We got him, Commander, he'll make it. What's wrong? I don't quite know. This guy looks, well, he looks like Russell and he sounds like Russell, but Ernie, he sure doesn't talk like Russell. At least not like the Russell I knew. Maybe we better get going, Captain. Looks like he's real sick. Things in focus here? Hi, Ernie. You better sit down. You'll tip this crate over. Yeah, mind it that. Who's minding the store? Gil, Gilberg, you know him. Your Honor, he's the guy who put you to bed. How do you want your coffee? Oh, you got it. In a cup? Good enough. And watch your cups hot. Right. You have any trouble, Ernie? I mean, get me a board? Blake had to go in the water to pull you out, but he spent time with the captors anyway. It's all stuffed to him. Had to go into the water? Yeah. To get me off a raft? Now, wait a minute. Off a raft? Oh, so you were on a raft, rubber? Oh, bamboo. What's the matter with you? Say, what's this they were telling me about you getting religion or something? What do you mean? You came out of the water quoting scripture. Blake said it sounded like the Psalms or something like that. That you and God had a war on. War's over. The one. Both of us. God in me. Everybody won. I'm glad to hear it, Russ. Even if it did cost my boss an airplane. Uncle Sam's airplane's not being wasted, Ernie. In fact, I don't think it could have been put to better use. Wait a minute. Slow down, boy. You lost me. That island back there, Ernie. That's what I'm talking about. The island? And the people who live on it. What happened? Well, the people now give it to me from the beginning. From three or four days ago? Well, nothing. Well, as you know, I was flying the exercise, part of the war games at Okinawa. Well, you know all that. I'd finished my share of the work, had used up all my ammo, and I was headed back to the carrier. Everything was going along fine. Plenty of fuel. In fact, I had an excess, and I figured to use up as much of the excess as I could. Climbing. But it was while I was climbing that it happened. I guess you could say I saw it coming. You hear about infantrymen being able to see an artillery shell or a mortar shell coming. Well, for just an instant, I saw something that seemed to be coming at me. It was a bird, I think. And I saw it, white and gray, getting suddenly bigger in front of the ship. Then I didn't see it, but I knew where it went because the ship started shaking itself to pieces. I cut my engine, set my speed brakes to lower the vibration, and then I called home. Queen B, this is Red Wing 3. Queen B, this is Red Wing 3. Over. Come on, acknowledge. Queen B, this is Red Wing 3. Emergency, do you read me? Over. Come on, come on, I'm in trouble. I got a bird in my intake. Queen B, this is Red Wing 3. I don't hear you. I don't read you. My planes had a bad shaking. My receiver may be out. If you read me, I am ditching approximately 75 miles, 75 miles southeast of you, and route from the exercises to your position. Boy, you better be hearing me. There's an awful lot of ocean down there. Only there were an island. Something. Queen, this is Red Wing. I'm losing altitude fast. I'm ditching the plane about 70 miles southeast of your position. Over. Oh, what a hopeless thing this is. My receiver's out. I'm probably not sending either. Just talking to myself. What a lousy way to go, this is. Let's see, check and shoot harness, good, good. People want to fall or get me when I can drown. Drown. Flight. Life jacket. Life jacket. Won't have to drown. No, can die of exposure. Okay. If there was a God, maybe I could ask for a miracle. What's the agnostic's prayer? Oh, God. If there is a God, save me. If you can save me. There was only an island down there. Only an island. Now the next step, blow the canopy. Get ready to eject. Hey, wait a second. Russell. Hello, Queen Bee, this is Red Wing Three. I see an island. I'm going to try for the island position. About 60 to 65 miles southeast of your position. Over. An island. You might make it yet, Russell. Secure that speed brake. You gotta stretch your glide. We might make it yet, boy. We might make it. When the plane came to rest in the jungle, I just sat there. I hurt all over. Maybe that was the reason I didn't try to move. If you've ever been in a crash or hit on a battlefield, maybe you know how I felt. At first, surprise. Surprise that something's really happened to you, not somebody else, this time to you. And then the second feeling you get. Well, it's a kind of fear. You're afraid to try to move. Or for that matter, you're even afraid to look down at your body for fear you'll find too much wrong. That you'll find a wound that can only mean death. So you sit there and you concentrate on feeling the sensations going through your body. And your hope, your hope you're not dying. That's what I did. I studied the pain in my neck and shoulders and across my lap and I knew it was all right. They'd be from pulling against the safety straps and the too rapid de-acceleration of the crash landing. My knees hurt, but I knew that couldn't be too much because I could work the muscles of my legs. There were no other pains. So I broke out of the harness and stood up and looked around at the path my plane had cut through the jungle. That was when I first saw the people. They were standing at the edge of the clearing, smiling at me, smiling as if I were a little kid who'd done something to be proud of. Then the light started to close in and I saw the ground rushing up to meet me and I was out. You're awake at last, Mr. Russell. Hello. Can you speak English? And read it. Oh, let me get off my back. I will help you. Thanks. Oh, it's dark out. You've been asleep for several hours. I have. Not unnatural for someone suffering from shock. I don't know. Maybe I'm still out. Or this seems like a dream. Perhaps a little walk in the air. It would be all right. I think so. Let me help you up. Thank you. Oh. A little unsteady on my feet. Yeah, we'll take care of that, Mr. Russell. Watch that step. Yeah. You knew my name? The metal tag you wear around your neck. Dog tags. I forgot. Well, I'm afraid I don't know your name. My name is Sebastian. My real name is Sebastian Kwan. But here I am known only by my first name. Well, that's good enough. The terms you used, you a doctor? I was a doctor. But then I suppose I am many things. Looks like we're coming to the village. Doc, what's the name of this island? The name? The name. What do you call it? I'm afraid. I'm afraid it has no name, Mr. Russell. If there were only one person in the world, would he need a name? No, I suppose not. To the people who live here, this is the only place in the world. Only one man on this island has ever seen any part of the rest of the world. You mean that? I do. But chips, let's stop here. What do they call your island? That has never happened in my memory or in the memory of the oldest man here. Oh, man. Shall we continue? A wall. I want you to see our city. Oh, yeah, yeah. By all means. By all means. All this is a little confusing. If you have any questions. Well, you bet I have. You say no ship ever comes here, but you got here somehow. And a while back, you said something. Father, father. Mary, here. Hey, what's this? My daughter. I didn't want this to happen, so I had a chance to speak to you. Oh, Mr. Russell is awakened, I see. Yeah, I have. Thank you. Mr. Russell, may I present my daughter, Mary? It's a great pleasure. You've brought a great miracle, Mr. Russell. A great miracle. You must be a very holy man. Miracle? Holy? Mary, my dear, it grows late. Perhaps a. But, Father, this is such a special day. And everyone is doing so much with all the wonders. I only came back to ask if I might stay and watch a little longer. Please? Perhaps a little longer. Oh, Father. Run along now. Oh, may I walk with you? Well, sure. Sounds like a fine idea. I think not, my dear. We have things to discuss. Run along now. Oh, all right. God be with you, Mr. Russell. Same to you. Look, Doc, I was confused before, but now. I can imagine what you must feel, Mr. Russell. Some explanation is in order. Some? More than 30 years ago, I came to this island in almost the same manner you did. I was a young doctor going home to China after studying in the United States. The ship on which I was traveling sank in a storm. I have no memory of arriving here. They found my boat grounded on the beach one morning, and I alone survived. At that time, there was a custom on merchant ships. Each lifeboat contained in its ration chest a quantity of tobacco and a copy of the Bible, the New Testament I read and reread during my convalescence. Just while I was reading it, that my answer came to me. I knew how I might repay these people. How? How was that? They had given me something I valued greatly, my life. I resolved to give them something I'd come to value even more, faith. Now, that's given nothing for something. Even then, they were a people rich in charity. A charitable soul is fertile ground, Mr. Russell. Yeah, I suppose. They had even learned English that they might read the book themselves. To these people, Christianity is not a religion. It is a way of life which, Mr. Russell, is the way it should be. Now, look, Doc, I'm indebted to you for helping me out, but don't try to convert me. I'm not trying to change your thinking, Mr. Russell. We are nearing the village, so I will say only this. You have been the instrument of a miracle for which we have all prayed for a long time. As such, you are an honored guest here. Be honorable, Mr. Russell. Their souls are the souls of children, full and happy. I only ask that you do not show them the emptiness, the sadness of your own. I knew what he meant when we walked through the village, because wherever I looked, the people were happy and laughing with each other very much like kids at a game. And then I saw what they were doing. These people are taking my plane apart. Will you have any further need of it? Wherever I looked, the people were working on parts of my plane, breaking it down into parts of steel and aluminum. There was an old lady separating threads of nylon from insulation and rolling it on a spool. A young man and a girl who could have been his wife taking the copper wire off one of the radio's transformers like they might have taken yarn off a skein. I watched an old man disassemble my turn and bank indicator using his teeth for pliers while his wife separated the strands of my control cables. I think everyone in the village was working. And wherever we stopped to watch, the people would stop. And they would smile and thank me for my part in it. And sometimes they would ask me to remember them to God. Sometimes they would tell me their names and ask me to tell God they were grateful. And sometimes, especially with the older people, they'd smile and their eyes would fill with tears and they wouldn't be able to speak at all. When we got to the end of the village, an old man approached us. The doctor introduced him as Philip. This man is the oldest here, Mr. Russell. He has something for you. It is nothing. The place to rest, I offer you my house. Your house? I don't know what to say, sir. Look, if I take your house, where will you sleep? I have many children. Oh, no, sir. I can't do it. Perhaps it is not good enough. No, no. It's fine. Fine. I could gather my children and build a big... Oh, no, sir. It'll be fine, really. I couldn't ask for anything better. Thank you. My thanks to you. I'm a little tired now, if you don't mind, sir. Of course. You will remember me to our creator. Oh, sure thing. Happy to. Good night. God be with you. That's what I meant. God be with you, sir. Doc. Doc, can I have a word with you? Thank you. For what? For being an honorable guest thus far. Come on inside, will you? Well? What's going on? Don't you know? What do you mean, don't I know? Those people out there taking my plane apart, piece by piece, thankin' me, treatin' me like an angel sent from... from some... some deity you've got him believin' in. You don't believe he exists? Let's not go into that. Do you, or don't you, Mr. Russell? Now, Doc, now, I don't know what to believe. Oh, when I was younger, I had faith. Nothing else, but I had faith. I knew my scripture and I used to pray for things, too. I did. I prayed to meet the right girl. Nothing. I prayed to pass the bar examination, missed by one percent. I prayed the reserve wouldn't call my number. Nothing. Perhaps you were not ready for these things. Ah, please knock it off, Doc. I lost my faith in good riddance. Perhaps your faith is not lost, but only buried under disappointment, which comes easily to the young. Mr. Russell, the people on this island must fish and hunt until the soil to live. At one time, there was flint on the island, but has all long been used up. But few hunting tools we have left are generations old and constantly in use. Still, the men cannot kill enough game to feed everyone, nor is there enough gut to make nets, and bone hooks and plows are too poor to be practical. I don't follow you, Doc. They prayed, Mr. Russell. They prayed and have been praying for a long time for a miracle. God has given it to them. Now, wait a minute. You mean me? Your aeroplane will provide enough raw material to last 100 years, Mr. Russell. There is nothing these people need that they cannot make now, thanks to your aircraft. An accident. A miracle. Perhaps two miracles and a great gift. How do you figure? If you had gone down in that sea, you would have died. Yeah, that's likely. That's your second miracle? Where's the great gift routine? It could be the means of finding your faith again. A man who flies through the sky should be close to its creator. Nuts. Pardon me. Those people out there, they think I came directly from God. Directly or indirectly, it makes no difference. I came to save my own skin, Doc, because something just happened to go wrong with my plane. That's a fact. Fact? Are you sure, Mr. Russell? Are you very sure it just happened? It took me a long time to get to sleep that night. I kept telling myself it was because of the strange surroundings, because my neck and shoulders still hurt, or because I'd slept too long after the accident. But every time I'd think of the slight ache in my neck and shoulders or of the accident, I'd start wondering if it really had been an accident. And then when I got to sleep, a little before daybreak, I had a dream. I was flying through an empty sky, and suddenly a bird flew into my intake and my plane went down, but there was no island. No island, just the sea, the cold, green sea. I woke up in a cold sweat. I'd given almost anything then for a cup of coffee. But I took what the villagers gave me instead, some fruit I'd never seen before and some cooked fish. And then Mary, the Doc's daughter, came for me. She was as excited as a kid with a brand new scooter. She insisted I take a walk with her. She took me down toward the beach. Most of the people followed us. Hey, wait a minute. I got a bad knee, remember? Oh, I'm sorry. Does it pain you? No, no, but it could. Oh, come, you must see what they've been doing. They were working by firelight most of the time. Working at what by firelight? You will see, you will see. I won't see quite as soon as you'd like. A little slower, please. The doctor said you were his daughter. I am his daughter. Oh, no, no, no, look, look, can you see it? A raft. It's a raft. And look at the people. Well, everyone in the island must have turned out. I hope you will not think we are eager to see you leave, Mr. Russell. It does seem a little that way. When you were at my home, while you slept, you spoke of a search for you. But your friends would be seeking you. They would be distressed if they do not find you. But on the island, they... Mr. Russell, you and I are the only ones who ever found this island. They will not find you here, but you will be found. I wish you could stay with us. We will meet again someday, Mr. Russell. We will. I'd like to stay. I'd like to know all of you. And perhaps someday I will. I mean to come back to this island. I do hope so. But I think not. We have what we prayed for, Mr. Russell. And you have your miracle and your gift. Yeah, I guess so, Doc. I guess so. You asked for scrap, and I turned a million-dollar airplane to scrap in your backyard. And it sure wasn't my idea. I called for help, and body and soul got another chance. But, Doc, I'll see you again. I'm going to try to come back. God be with you, Mr. Russell. The doc gave me the compass out of the plane, and I got on the raft with the provisions they'd put on board. Oh, they'd done things in wonderful style, sunshelter out of leaves, pots full of water, fruit, just about everything a man could ask for. Well, I'm a little vague, Ernie, about how long I spent on that raft. I don't think it was more in a couple of days, and you guys picked me up. Yeah, and we picked you up. You know the rest. You got your faith back, Russ? I'm pretty sure I have, Ernie. Russ, you ever hear the expression, the instruments of God are strange? Yeah. That he, meaning God, might use a man's own mind as an instrument? What are you trying to say? When did you last see this seaplane? At, uh, at Okinawa. At the exercises doing rec photo work. You know why the carrier didn't hear your call? My radio was working perfectly. Your call was lost in combat directions for the war games. So I forgot to change frequencies. So what? Somebody heard me, or there wouldn't have been a search? Sure. We heard you because we were nearby, on our way back from the war games. There wasn't any island, Russ. There wasn't any island? You nuts. We heard you go down on your own radio, and we got you out of the water less than an hour after you went in. There wasn't any island, Russ. Sorry. Ernie. Yeah? There was an island, all right. Maybe there isn't one now, but there was one. Gone now? Sure. I don't need it anymore. That's right. Well, I'd better get back up front. See you later. Right. Oh, oh Ernie. Yeah? God be with you. This is Gigi Perot again. In the program you just heard, the doctor spoke of the Bible, which the merchant mariners included among the things in the survival stores of a lifeboat. And in a way, we do the same thing. Relegate the things of God to our survival stores, and then only bring them out when we're in trouble. It's, well, it's a little like storing away food and only eating when it looks like we're about ready to die of starvation. That too would be a very bad idea. No one could stay healthy with a practice like that. Eating at regular intervals, keeping the body supplied with its needs is just common sense. Family theater recommends daily prayer as a means of keeping spiritual health or against spiritual starvation. And we recommend family prayer each day as a means of keeping the families of the world healthy and rich in God's love and His blessings. For through family prayer, you can actually bring God in your family. He promised it when he said, whenever two or three are gathered in my name, there will I be also. Prayer does not belong in a survival kit. It belongs in use among the members of a family for still another reason. The family that prays together stays together. More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of. But Family Theater has brought you transcribed survival mechanisms starring Cameron Mitchell and featuring Philip Ah. Gigi Perot was your hostess. Others in our cast were John Stevenson, Barney Phillips, Lance Avatt, and Jill St. John. The script was written and directed for Family Theater by Robert Hugh O'Sullivan, with music composed and conducted by Harry Zimmerman. This series of Family Theater broadcasts is made possible by the thousands of you who feel the need for this type of program by the mutual network, which has responded to this need and by hundreds of stars of stage, screen, and radio who give so unselfishly of their time and talent to appear on our Family Theater stage. To them and to you, our humble fans. This is George Crowell expressing the wish of Family Theater that the blessing of God may be upon you and your home, and inviting you to be with us next week when Family Theater will present the stupid saint starring Diana Lin. Barry Sullivan will be your host. Join us, won't you? Family Theater is broadcast throughout the world and originates in the Hollywood studios of the world's largest network. This is Mutual, the radio network for all America.