 The Cavalcade of America, sponsored by the DuPont Company, makers of better things for better living through chemistry, and starring Richard Widmark. Tonight's DuPont play is about a Liberty ship in World War II and her strange exciting mission. One of her officers was Maury Reynolds and as our DuPont story opens, here's our star, Richard Widmark as Maury Reynolds. I was third made on the Liberty ship in Bedford Forest. She was carrying a cargo of aviation gasoline in a hole and a deck load of bulldozers. Seems like only yesterday. I was on watch on the starboard wing of the bridge just outside the wheelhouse. It was flying fish where they're down there between the islands. So blue and tranquil, it was hard to remember, there were Jap planes and Jap destroyers up over the horizon to the north. But when I look down at the bulldozers, lashed hub to hub across the hatches. When I thought about the big oil drums in the anti-aircraft ammunition cases below decks, I remembered alright. I lifted my glasses again and I made the slow circle, not looking for flying fish, but for the feathered fin of a periscope. And then a higher circle on the other blue above, looking for a speck that might glint in the sun, looking for wings in the sun. Morning, sir. I'll take over. Anything no? Not a thing, Mr. Jorgensen. Thought we might just have decided the convoy again. Just possibly. I guess not. Now there at the beach had been now with seven whole hours behind. We're out of it now. Tired to take dragging behind like this like a poor hound dog too old to hunt? Don't get excited, son. There's nothing you can do. Now let's have the glasses. Yeah, sir. You see, I got a brother up ahead on that beach, Mr. Jorgensen, in 177th from Tennessee. Oh, I heard tell. Now listen, son, there's nothing we can do. Since we broke down yesterday, the Bedford's been burning oil like a 12-year-old jalopy. Now we're out of this strike for good. General Forrest would have found something to do. Huh? Oh, maybe so. A Captain Donald McIver ain't Nathan Bedford Forrest. He's old, and he's sick, and he's worn out like his ship. How was he this morning? Worse, fever's 103. Oh, my. You better get along below and have some rest yourself, son. Oh, but I can't. Well, yes, I guess so. And, uh, Reynolds? Yes. You, uh, you wouldn't resent a little personal advice? No, of course not, Mr. Jorgensen. Well, then, uh, don't talk so much about General Forrest. Sure, the ship's named for him, but the way you talk, don't let it show so much. Joker Farrell and the others, they'll make you pretty miserable. They do, Mr. They do. Don't give them so many chances. You know what I mean? Yeah, but they don't understand. Think it over. And as made of this spraving tramp, I order you to get some sleep. Shove off, I relieve you. All right. I'll just stop in for a minute at the wireless shack. Take it easy, boy. Well, if it ain't Johnny Rabb, hi-all, spoon bread. I'll cut it out. What's new out in the wide blue yonder? Not a thing. Well, they must have landed, but now, up ahead. You heard anything, Sparks? Nothing yet, Maury. Holy smoke. They'll be needing our stuff. Here we are just limping along. Old General Forrest must be galloping circles in his grave. How many horses was it he had shot out from under him now? 49? 29. Now lay off, Farrell. Gentlemen, fellow officers, comrades, our ferry boat has been shot out from under him. All right, now. We all must ask ourselves, what would General Forrest do? That's enough. Quick as a flash, we all have the answer. Get there firstest with the mostest and don't spare the horses. General Forrest said first with the most. General Forrest was a gentleman. Me and I'm not, kid. Well, maybe you're right. I've been out here in the boondocks too long. My thin venera civilization got all peeled off in New Guinea. But my heart's still young and gay, though I'm strictly not from Dixie. Now, I'm warning you, Farrell. Now, don't mind me, kid. Look, we were peddling high octane in these parts for a long time before you came aboard. A long time. We've had breakdowns before, and worse, from the Japs. We've had it. Well, we get the stuff there when we can. This is a beat-up cargo ship, not a troop of cavalry. Yeah, but my brother, Dave, my older brother, he's up there with that outfit. Sure, and I lost a brother at Anzio. And there's 20,000 brothers of somebody getting pasted on that lousy beachhead right now. If you think about it, you'll go nuts. So relax, relax. All right, all right. Sorry, kid. I talk too much. OK, Joker, you win. That a boy. And now, having delivered myself for those there noble sentiments, I shall hit the sack and curl up with a good book. I shall peruse my precious first edition of Superman, the man of steel. So long, Sparks. So long. And Joker, on your way out, leave that door open so that I can get a little fresh air in here after you I need it. OK, Sparks, come on, Stonewall, as General Forrest was wont to say, see you! I guess they had a right to give me a coin over. But they didn't understand. My grandfather, Dabney Reynolds, rode with General Forrest from Shiloh to Chickamauga. When I come aboard this bucket, most of them thought Bedford Forrest was just a lot of trees up in Massachusetts or somewhere. So I told him too often, I guess, about how old General Nathan Bedford Forrest captured Stuart's Yankee cavalry in the war between the states and Captain Bob Ingersoll's infantry and about the horses he lost in battle and all. Well, I was ready for the sack, too, any sack. The door to the purses cabin right next to the wireless shack was open. The bunk was empty, so I went in and stretched out. I thought about Grandpa and the garden house back home in Nashville with the locusts and the tulip trees and the old man talking to Dave and me when we were kids in the summer evening. I guess I must have fallen asleep thinking about Grandpa. Captured Bob Ingersoll. Oh, he captured it. You boys are part of an old man. And how many men did he capture, Grandpa? 1,700 plus. Plus how many? Dang it, nobody knows. Them days, David, we didn't care no add machines or no paperwork with Bedford. And how many men did old Bedford have? There were 600 of us, Mary. Fine fellows, every one. Now, look here, boy, I told you that it was the last story, time from a nap. Just one more, Grandpa. Just one more, please. All right, all right. Boy, did I ever tell you about the Battle of Gunside Gap? Well, sure you did. Only last week. Shut up, worm. No, Grandpa. I don't remember you ever did. Tell us now, please. Well, Ed, that one was old Bedford at his best. Look, I draw it out for you here in the dust with my walking stick just like a map. And there was the Yankees coming down this valley road and there. And right here was what we was with old Bedford on the other side of the mountain, right here. See? Well, sir, one of our scouts come in and he said, they're over there in the throat of the valley and they don't know we anywhere around. Well, you know what that meant to General Nathan Bedford for us? Charge. Yes, sir, but it wasn't so simple. No, sir, we, if we tried to go around that mountain either way, we'd have been too late. No, sir, we didn't have time. There was only one thing to do. Go over the mountain. Well, no, no. There was a gap, you see. They call it gun-side gap on the county was so small. Nobody had never been through there. Not even hunters went that way. But old Bedford knew about it and he knew we had to go through. So in we went. The gap was made by a creek. In half the time, we was in water up to a wave. How'd you keep your powder dry? Dang it, Murray, your animals don't interrupt. We threw everything away except for ammunition. We threw all our gear away, bedrolls and saddlebags and sits. Well, even most of the horses got left behind. We only kept our swords and rifles. You didn't take the horses? Some of them, some of them, boy. But lots of them broke their leg and got left behind and that scrambles through that awful gap in the mountain. It turned out to us that we didn't need the horses. We got to that valley road right here before the Yankees. Well, to make a long story short, when we'd rounded them all up, Colonel Cobb, that was the Yankee commander, he said, General, I can't figure out where my tactics was mistaken. Old Bedford said, 15 minutes above years of what they're weak at tactics. That's what he said. But that ain't the end of the story, Graham. No, indeed it ain't. Well, as soon as we got the marching them down the road, we're out of the bushes ahead, we heard rifle fire and the first thing we knew, we were surrounded. Uh, hey, it's a wireless. Something's up. Hey, Sparks, Sparks, what do they say? This is for us, all right. Well, what do they say? Looks like orders. I'll have to take it to the captain. But the captain's sick. Well, then the maid ought to see it, I guess. Well, I'll get Jorgensen. While I'm getting him, you can be breaking it. I'll be right back. Mr. Spatch is important, all right. We got orders. The main attack on Tulanga, where we were headed, has been fairly successful. With a secondary operation against the next island, Sula's in bad trouble. Our troops landed OK, took the airstrip, and brought in planes. The nips made a lucky hit and blew up our gasoline and ammunition. That's bad. Corsairs are grounded, the outfits short of ammo. More Jap planes have been reported coming down from the north. The Japs will be on top of them in an hour over there. In short, the deep six. What are the orders? We're going to get to Sula as fast as we can. And break out that chart, Reynolds. Yes, here it is. I'll spread it out. Now, let's have a look. There's Sula. Now, here's our noon position, south by West of Sula. By now, we must be just opposite the island, directly west of it. But there's this barrier reef in between us and them. Well, we'll have to steam north about 20 miles around the end of the barrier island chain. And come down this channel down here. Yeah, and if we do that just about here, the second wave of Jap planes will catch up with us and X marks the spot. It's suicide. We haven't got time to go up around those islands. Yeah, you're right. We haven't got the time. We haven't got time. We didn't have time to go around the mountain. There was this gap you see. They called it Gunside Gap, because it was so small. But old Bedford knew about it, and he knew we had to go. Reynolds, hey, snap out of it. We're in the war again. And boy, are we expendable. I was just thinking. Sick as he is, Captain McIverall after the side here. I'll see him at once. Farrell, take over the ward. Hi. Can I go along? Huh? Yeah, come along. What's the matter, boy? Nothing, nothing. Can I look that shot for a moment? I think maybe, maybe I've got an idea. You are listening to the Cavalcade of America starring Richard Widmark as Maury Reynolds, sponsored by the DuPont Company, makers of better things for better living through chemistry. Another one of the DuPont Company's better things for better living through chemistry is Dulux super white enamel. With this product, you can have gleaming white woodwork that will stay white and sparkling for years. And since Dulux super white gives such a hard, smooth surface, it resists dirt and smudging, and is so easy to keep clean. Your painting contractor will be glad to give your interior woodwork new life, new charm, with Dulux super white enamel. And you can rely on his professional skill for a good paint job. Dulux super white enamel is one of DuPont's better things for better living through chemistry. Our DuPont Cavalcade continues. We return to the Liberty ship, the Bedford Forest, with her hold full of aviation gas and a load of bulldozers on deck, laboring slowly ahead through tropic seas to be Ligard Sulla, helpless under threat of air attack. Captain McIver, his eyes burning with malaria, has roused himself with the news of possible action. Half-carried by Jorgensen and Maury Reynolds, he reaches the bridge in it. There's only one possible decision, Mr. Jorgensen. We'll have to push up north around the barrier. At this rate, sir, it'll take us too long. Around the point, we'll be too late. The Jap planes are sure to catch us in the channel. We've got to try. Captain McIver said. What is it, Mr. Reynolds? Well, maybe there's another way. Look here at the chart. It shows us straight, see? A gap in the reef here, right opposite us, right opposite Sulla, where we are now. It's barely five minutes away. Oh, I can't see, boy. I can't see my eyes blur. How wide is that gap? Oh, it looks to be about 60 feet or so. It's wide enough. Is it numbered on the chart? Yes, it is. 116. Oh, wait a minute. I remember now, and we were briefed. Oh, that passage is not navigable to the sun. Nobody goes through there. But Captain, the tides are high. If we reach it on a good tide, we can. Get the tide tables, Mr. Reynolds. I see. Jorgensen, Farrell, come here. Boys and I, dear, we can get through the barrier. Take a look at the chart. There's a straight, number 116. It's never used. They warned us in port. We'd hang her up on the coral. And when the jabs came in, boom, a sitting duck. Hey, Yasser. Tide table. Heated, son. Tide will be full and high, a pair of G at 315. That's 15 minutes from now. And plenty of water at mean high tide, too, the chart says. We're drawing about 27 feet now, I'd say. We can make it with luck. High old, it's holy. We'll try. Mr. Jorgensen, come left. Mr. Farrell, call the chief. Tell him to give me all he's got, even if he has to gag the safeties. We've got to make that tide. Uh-oh. Call me, shipwreck, Farrell. Old Bedford knew we had to go through. So in we went. Mr. Captain, ahead. Thank God my eyes are clearing. Come left a little, Mr. Jorgensen. Steady, steady. According to the chart, there's a soft bottom at the eastern mouth here. But there's coral rock ahead near the Sula Bay entrance. Captain MacGyver, sir, we're turning bottom. Look at the wake. Now in here, we're practically knocking coconuts off the trees on both sides, and we're navigating on mud. Well, we'll know in a minute now. The rock bottom's right ahead. Mr. Reynolds? Yes, sir. Tell the chief to start pumping out all the tanks, even the freshwater. There's the opening. You can see Sula across the bay. Maybe we're over, Mr. Maybe we're through. That does it. We're hung up higher than a kite and twice as pretty. There's not enough water. We're loaded so heavy. Out in the open, too, where the Japs can see how pretty we look when they come to call. Gents prepare to receive a certain convocation of politic worms, Shakespeare. Not to mention bulldozer parts in the valley. We're loaded too heavy. We threw all our gear away, bedroads and saddlebags and such, even most of the horses got left behind. We only kept our swords in the rifle. Captain McIver. I'm sorry, boy. It was a good try. Captain, the bulldozers. If there's anything those guys are sure don't need now, it's bulldozers. Now, if we could get rid of the deck load. Boy, you're right. All hands, all hands. Jettison the deck cargo. Chop the lashing and pry more, all hands. Push those bulldozers out of the side. Your job, Mr. Perl. You get down there too, Mr. Reynolds. I see. There wasn't time to rig the cargo booms, and no steam to spare for the deck winches. We unshipped the chain rails and knocked away the bracing with sledge hammers. And then we edged those bulldozers over the side, pried them over the scuppers with pinch bars, wrestled them into the sea. The boatsmen and the sailors, the steward and the messmen, the off-roach firemen and the engineers, they were all there. And Ferrell was everywhere, yelling like mad, working like a field, and so was I. One by one, they went over until we could feel a light. Until there were only two big brutes left, the biggest bulldozers in the world, I guess. They were hard up by the hatch-coman. We couldn't move them. The men pushed and strained, but leave off as you were. Cut it out. No use. Hey, wait a minute, Ferrell. I've got an idea. These babies are all gassed up and ready to eat dirt. I saw to it myself orders. They expected to build a strip on Tulanga in a hurry. What about it? Did you ever drive one, Joker? No, but I can drive a tractor. Well, how about it? Sure, let's go. You take Agnes here, and I'll take Bula. To one side, men, the sea beads of lense. Don't forget, when you get it started, open it all away. And when you get to the rail, jump for the deck, OK? OK. Do you know it worked? Yeah. You all right, kid? Yeah, yeah, I guess I'm OK. And look, we're off the rocks. Mr. Juggers, pull speed ahead. Mr. Reynolds, is there a dock on Suley? Yes, sir. Unless we knocked it out in the attack, the jabs built one. Well, if there's no dock, we'll pile the bed foot up on the beach and unload the drums and the surf. You see anything, Mr. Farrell? Yes, sir, there's a dock, all right. It's swarming with Joe's. But they can smell that gas coming. 4 o'clock, if the jabs are on time, our boys will have to get that stuff off fast. They'll have about 15 minutes. 15 minutes, boss. What's that, son? Oh, nothing. Nothing, nothing. Sparks has been trying to reach him. Maybe they'll be ready to unload. Yeah, there's cranes on that dock. Man, after nudging those bulldozers around, I'll be glad to see those doe foots go to work. I aim to watch from the balcony, fannin' myself gently. This'll load drums up the beach. Yes, sir. But they've got 20 off in the first two minutes. That's a lifeblood. Maybe we should give them a hand, huh, Farrell? Who, me? Sure. I'm an officer, sir, and a gentleman. Oh, hi, there, ashore. What outfit are you? The 177th Tennessee, first-hand formal. Great heavens. They're confederates. Hey, that's my brother's regimen. Not so fast, Watson. Maybe they're northern spies. I'll find out. Ahoy, below. What do you want now, sailor? Here's the $64 question. How many horses did General Nathan Bedford Forrest get shot out from under him? We came to the correct address, and we got here fussedest with the mostest. Now, I told you, he did not say that. You win, kid. You win. You know, I'll bet somewhere back home in Tennessee there's a statue of old Bedford. Sure there is. I must be psychic. Where is it? In Forrest Park, Memphis. He's riding King Philip. King Philip? That would be the horse that didn't get conked? Kid, you know what I'm going to do when I get home? What? I'm going to board that midnight choo-choo straight for Memphis, Tennessee. I'm going to have me three quick mint julips. And then, Seth, then I'm going to go out to that park and kiss King Philip right on the snooze. Ha, ha, ha. Hey, look, the planes are taking off. One, two. With the most, first with the most. What's that, kid? Fastest with the mostest, Joker. Fastest with the mostest. Our thanks to Richard Woodmark and the Cavalcade players for tonight's story. Now, Bill Hamilton speaking for the DuPont Company. If you were walking down the main street of Crystal City, Texas tonight, you would see a life-size statue of Popeye the Sailor Man. Now, you might stop right in your tracks and wonder with a smile what on earth he was doing there. Well, let me tell you. He's there because 35,000 acres around Crystal City and Eagle Pass are planted with spinach, Popeye's own preferred muscle food. Not so long ago, the spinach growers of Texas were losing as much as half their crop year after year. A fungus disease known as white rust was doing the damage. Each season, growers suffered losses. And when food growers suffer, we all, as consumers of food, suffer through our pocket books. So one day, if you strolled out on the highway from Crystal City, you would have seen an airplane behaving in a strange way. Criss-crossing a field of spinach, the plane would swoop, its wheels almost touching the plants, spreading a white fog behind it. A DuPont technical representative had arranged with an airplane company to dust the plants with DuPont Parcet fungicide, attempting to cover the bottoms as well as the tops of the leaves. In cooperation with the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station and the growers, he was trying to find out if white rust could be controlled by dusting spinach fields with chemicals from the air. If so, the Texas growers would get better crops. What was learned in Texas could be passed along to growers in all parts of the country. Everybody would benefit, including you and me as consumers. And of course, the DuPont company would have another way of serving you with agricultural chemicals. In this actual case, the DuPont technical man did help solve the problem of the Texas growers. White rust was brought under control. And today, and tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, other DuPont men will help to solve problems for agriculture, for the steel industry, the rubber industry, the textile industry. DuPont customers get more than the products they buy. They get the benefits of a century and a half of technical know-how, along with the DuPont company's better things for better living through chemistry. Next week, the DuPont cavalcade will present another of your favorite Hollywood stars, Robert Cummings. Our story, Decision in the Valley, is the suspenseful drama of a doctor who gambled his life to save somebody loved. Then was asked to take the same chance for the sake of a stranger. Be sure to listen to next week's DuPont cavalcade and our star, Robert Cummings. Tonight's DuPont cavalcade was written by George H. Faulkner and was adapted from a short story by Walter Havickhurst. Richard Widmark appeared by arrangement with 20th Century Fox producers of Under My Skin, starring John Garfield. Music was composed by Arden Cornwell and conducted by Donald Voorhees. The program was directed by John Zoller. DuPont congratulates Paul Vogel for winning one of the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences awards. His much sought after award was for black and white photography used to film the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Production Battleground, photographed on DuPont Motion Picture Film. Ladies and gentlemen, every one of us wants the children of our nation to grow into strong and useful citizens. By buying Easter Seals, you ensure those children who have been crippled by disease or accident the help and special services they need. Buy Easter Seals this year. Buy a lot. Thank you. The DuPont cavalcade of America comes to you from the stage of the Belasco Theater in New York and is sponsored by the DuPont Company of Wilmington, Delaware. Makers of better things for better living through chemistry. Next here, Baby Snooks and Daddy on NBC.