 You, finding life rather dull, dreaming again of exotic places, wishing you were somewhere else, we offer you escape. Escape with us now to the windswept peak of Mount Everest and the story of a man who sacrificed everything to climb it. As Leonard Lee tells it in his gripping story, Conquest. You want to know what it's like up there? I'll tell you, it's a constant torrent of wind and snow. It's jagged rocks, iced as slick as a knife blade. No man has ever set foot on the place. It's as bleak and barren and lonely as the moon. But it's Everest. Mount Everest. And when you stand on its peak and know that every inch of the world is below you, there in the palm of your hand lies the final Conquest. We're not going to make the mistakes Norton and Somerville made. We'll spend the first night at Camp 5 and the second night at Camp 6. That brings us to 26,800 feet. Are you going to make the North Face to the cool wire Mallory? No, that's what they did. We're going to make a frontal attack, direct. We'll follow the crest of the northeast ridge to the peak. Now that's tougher climbing. There's only a chance, Hamilton. And we'll take oxygen on the last dash. Well, best of luck Mallory. Thanks. We watched them as they left Camp 4. 23,000 feet on the face of Everest. Mallory and Irvine, stocked with their provisions. Heatons, carabiners, hammers, axes, packed board snowshoes. Two diminishing silhouettes against the powder snow of the wrong book glacier. Finally disappearing behind a jut in the North Carle. We watched them and prayed for them. And we hated them. Because we weren't part of that final run to the top. Two days later, June 10th, 1924, a man crawled toward us in the snow. We ran out of the tent to get him. It was Odell, our geologist from Camp 6. He could hardly speak. Chalena, Brandy. Here. Here, Odell, drink this. Thanks. What happened? I saw the top. Did they make it? I don't know. They were about 800 feet from the peak. Mallory and Irvine. At the last step. The last step. Then the mist closed in. It's only a matter of time they'll make it. Hamilton, no man can live up there. There's nothing to breathe. And that was the last word. Somewhere in that jungle of ice their frozen bodies lay. The peak was still unscaled. We looked out at the expanse of desolation stretched out before us. We looked out. And up. The calm arrogance of the summit was wrapped in mist. From that moment on there was only one purpose to my life. To climb that mountain. I'm sorry, Hamilton, no more money. Look, Ben, I can make it. I know I can. I've been up there. I know every crevasse. I know every rock up to Camp Six. So what's the point? So you reach the peak. So what? The bear went over the mountain. What did he see but the other side? All right, all right. I don't expect you to understand why people climb mountains. It's kind of insanity. Let's let it go at that. But from your viewpoint, look at the publicity. Grisham sports equipment used on the first descent of Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world. It'll be worth a million dollars to you. You have a point there. The initial expense including everything will be about 25,000 dollars. 25,000? It's out of the question. The best I could do would be 15. I knew you'd say that. What? 15,000 is plenty. Well, what do you say, Chalena? Are you with us? Well, the last time it was pretty rough, but I'm always fooling up to try again. Fine. Who have you got lined up so far? Langmuir. He's pretty young, but he's got a lot of energy and a lot of experience for his age. Newt Revere, you know him. Four of us will lead. How about financing? The Mount Everest Committee can't supply it all, so I got most of what we need from Grisham. He makes sports equipment. It's a publicity deal. I see. Well, it's March now. We ought to have our base camp established by mid-April, and then we'll have about a month of climbing before the monsoon hits. Yes, that's what I planned. We'll be leaving in about 10 days. Can you be ready? Yes, I'll be ready, Hamilton. And so will Everest. We arrived in Darjeeling on April 2nd. We hired cheer power porters and Tibetan guides. Bought more tents and scientific equipment and headed toward Everest a hundred miles away. But it was almost three times as far as snaking through the gorges of the eastern Himalayas. A second night out, we camped in the sweltering swamp jungle of Sikken. I can't sleep. Try a wet towel on your head. I've tried everything. Hamilton? Yes. Can you sleep? If you ask me, we should have taken the south slope. Gets more sun, less ice. Do you hear me, Hamilton? Yes, I heard you. Well, why didn't we try the south slope? Because the north slope is explored and possible. Besides, Nepal want grant permission. Let's try to sleep. Can't sleep. Too hot. Can you sleep over there? I could try if it went for all these talk. Hold it. There's somebody outside. Yes, who is it? Tijbara Marani. The head porter. Or you better tell him to come in, Hamilton. Come in. Yes, Tijbara. What is it? Not go. Not go to Chomalungma. What? Signs very bad for mountain. Death. Death, I see. What signs? Bend of the trees and the stars. No good. Not go to mountain. All right, Tijbara. How much? I do not understand. The bend of the trees is worth how much? Oh, signs are bad. $500. Get back to your tent. $400. $400 blessing from Holy Lama of Rangbo. All right. But that's the last holdup. You understand? I'm sure signs will be better. Now get back to your tent. Oh, gladness. There's a good go for you. The sherpas won't come around for more money in the middle of the night. Well, good night, gentlemen. It's too blasted hot. Enjoy the heat, Langmuir. In another 48 hours, you'll wish you had every steaming bit of it. We pushed on through the sicken to the Tibetan plateau. The mercury plunged to zero. The wind and snow lashed at us. We'd begun to climb. We stopped at the monastery on the wrong book for the Lama's blessing to satisfy the porters. Moved on up the glacier. Twelve below now. And then in the momentary clearing of clouds, I saw it once again. Everest and the white plume flowing from its peak. We were at 16,000 feet. It was at this point we established our base camp. All right, shall I now tell them what we've decided? All right. Camp one will be at 18,000. Camp two will be at 20. Camp three at 21. Camp four at 23. I will each carry oxygen. The tanks are light, but we'll have enough to last us for about a week if we use it, right? When we get near the top, the routine will be 15 minutes of climbing. One hour's rest. We're not making the mistakes Mallory did. Are there any questions? Yes. How do we pair off, Hamilton? Chalena and Riviera, Langmuir and myself. We'll travel together up to camp four, then we separate into doubles. The rest of the men will be dropped off at the camps as we move along to maintain relays. Anything else? Yeah. I think we're going to make it. We climbed over the icy slopes establishing camps as we went. Finally, after days of driving forward inch by inch, we reached the north cowl. Just 7,000 feet from the summit of the mountain. The wind hurtled down in the slopes and the sweeping gale hard and cold as rock. Mallory had camped here just days from his death. Night closed in. The lack of oxygen had numbed the mind and fired the temper. Our civility was suffocated. We were savages, nothing more. We sat around an alcohol flame, the four of us breathing hard, staring at each other's bearded faces, while outside the wind beat at the tent flaps. Time to have oxygen. You've had plenty. Can't breathe. You can breathe. Just take it easy. Any more oxygen? Your body will stop regulating the theology. Then you won't be able to do without the stuff. My heart's going like a trip, Hammond. It'll get worse. I've got to have some, I tell you. Sit down. Stay away from that tank. I can't breathe. Hammond, I can't breathe. I said stay away. All right, come on. I'll get up. Oxygen, please. Set up and behave yourself. I'm the leader of this expedition, and you'll do as you're told. Yeah, Langmuir. Give me a hand. No. Let him lie there, Chalena. You'll be all right in the morning. In the morning, Reverent Chalena set out to establish Camp 5 at 24,000. Langmuir and I watched them go, chopping their way up the ridge to the northeast shoulder. When we lay down, waiting, trying to conserve our strength, Langmuir stared upward, his lips moving in prayer, deep-sunkeye's chest heaving. The next day we set out, following Chalena's marks. I can't! A hundred feet, Langmuir, then we can rest. Now come on. No. Take a little more oxygen then. More. More. Come on. Now come on. Corner-shell to the camp. Corner-shell. He stood on my shoulders, and I boosted him to the narrow ledge. He grasped for the edge, his fingers clawing at the smooth rock. I felt his foot slip from my shoulder. I grabbed for his leg and missed. Black space sank below us, and he fell. Escape, under the direction of Norman McDonnell, returns in just a moment. CBS wishes to call your attention to the debut of three programs today. Bill Goodwin's entertaining Dollar a Minute, a new 15-minute news program featuring Eric Severide, chief of CBS Washington Bureau, and Charlie Wilde, private detective, which has moved to CBS from another network. And now, back to escape. As Langmuir fell, I braced myself against rock, waiting for the roper on my waist to pull taught. And when it jerked, it burned into my flesh and tore me into space. I scrambled under the double weight, lunging desperately for a hold. I threw my arm around to snub of rock just at the edge and started to pull up. Slowly, I reached the ledge, gasping for air. I looked down. Langmuir was swinging at rope's end and a small arc above the yawning emptiness. Just a hundred feet below me. The wind tore at my face. My arms were aching. I felt them slipping from the rock. And then I saw Langmuir grab a handhold and start to climb. And the rope loosened. And I relaxed. He was all right. I sniffed at my oxygen, but it made me drunk. Three hours, I told myself. Three hours to show him. Hamilton, are you all right? It's shallower. Are you all right? Yes. Yes, I'm all right. How did I get here? Langmuir brought you in. I must have passed out. Yes, he certainly did. Where's Revere? A rock fall. He must have been killed instantly. Three of us. Three of us left. We haven't even established camp six. Look, Hamilton, I'm not a young man anymore. I'm 38. That's fine. But selling shoes in a department store. Not quite up to this kind of thing. I just about reached my limit, Hamilton. You, you and Langmuir. You two will have to climb alone from here on up. I think we can do it. I'll stay here at camp five. All right, shallower. I hope I get a good sleep. Because tomorrow I've got a date with the mountain. Ah, it's quiet outside. It's a wonderful day. It's the best we've had yet. What do you think of cutting the north face across the cool wire? Making the final ascent directly up the western part of the north side. No, no, we'll take Norton's route as we planned. What about camp six? Well, if we can establish it at 27,000, the final dash will be short. That'll double our chances. Well, Langmuir, what do you say? You want to go on? Look. Look up there. What? The mist is beginning to clear. There it is, Hamilton. The summit. The top of the world. We started up again up toward the summit. Our altitude was 25,000. We planned to camp at 27, leaving only 2,000 feet for the final spurt. We huddled desperately to the sheer face of the mountain, the freezing wind whipping up from the great cool wire, tearing at our grasp. All the next day we inched upward, our hearts pounding. By nightfall we had only reached 26,000. We had to camp or die. I found a small recess. We pitched our tent over it, fastening the stage with pitons. We huddled together in the cold darkness. Langmuir was exhausted. I heard him gasping in the weak air. My arms and legs were swollen with pain, my lungs bursting. The top seemed miles away. Every ache in my body urged me down, down to the firm, warm earth. But the peak. Only 3,000 feet. The white-bloomed peak. 26,000. Only 26,000. We'll never make it, Hamilton. You can see it in the daylight. The peak, Langmuir. We'll go like Mallory went up there. Self-acation. We'll make it. Self-acation. No air. Nothing to breathe. Stop it, Langmuir. We've got to go. Go back. We're not going back. We're going for the top. We've got to go back. 3,000 feet, that's all. He couldn't breathe. He's here somewhere. Dead. Frozen dead. We'll make it. Tomorrow morning we're going back. Langmuir, we've climbed tougher ones than this in the Rockies. The slopes aren't hard. From here on it's simple. We'll make it, Langmuir. Hamilton, we've got to go back. We're not going back. You understand? We're going to make it. Hamilton. Listen. Listen to me. Try to turn back. I'll kill you. The mountain wasn't ice and rock to us anymore. It was a human force. An arrogant, wild challenge. Defiant. Fighting conquest with choking cold and the constant earth pull downward. Death didn't matter. My life a Langmuir. There was the top and we were going to reach it. In the morning we started up again. We moved like automatons. Not daring to think or feel. Moved up by instinct. Then it happened. Langmuir slipped again and I plunged my pickaxe into a crack and waited for a sharp tug on the waistrope. It came. I pressed myself against the rock waiting for the slag that told me that he'd regained his foothold and suddenly above the high wind I heard a massive rumble. I felt the earth shaking itself to pieces. Avalanche. Beat you, Everest. I went to the top to no time. There was no space. There was only the mountain and me. I climbed. I kept climbing. The sky darkened. The wind rose. The air was like a blade in my throat but I kept going. And when it was too dark to climb I dug myself into a hollow place. And I lay there. Thinking of home. Of the sanity of the open fire. The comfort I'd left behind. Night on Everest. Everest and the terrible wind. I left the hollow and looked upward through the glare of the sun. The slopes were more gentle. The holes easier. It was as if Everest had suddenly relaxed its guard for there just above me lay the few yards of level terrain which formed my goal. I started again moving upward, senseless to pain. Hours later the ground leveled and I stopped crawling. I lifted my head. Direction, clouds and peaks. I was the first man ever to reach the peak of Mount Everest. I forced myself to my feet weaving dizzily. All the pain, all the intense agony of the altitude and the climb was forgotten now. I looked down at the magnificent peaks of the surrounding Himalayas. I couldn't believe that I'd done the impossible. There was a small camera in my knapsack. I took pictures of every horizon. I walked around the summit. My summit. Drunk with the knowledge of what I'd done. And then suddenly I stopped. For there wedged into a crack of rock. Something bright and gold shone up at me. I bent down and pulled it out. It was a cigarette case. It bore the initials G-L-M. George Lee Mallory. I stood there trembling this cigarette case in my hand. An instant before I'd experienced the elation of the greatest possible triumph. And now there was only defeat. Defeat and the indescribable hate for a dead man. Oh, how he must have smiled as he went to his death, knowing that the second man to reach the top would find his proof. The second man to reach the top. I was only the second man. And then it came to me. Why must anyone know? Why must I tell the world what I'd found? Mallory was gone. He wouldn't hear the applause. It would be me, Chase Hamilton. The man who had conquered Everest. I took a small plate of metal from my wallet and wedged it into the rock. It read, Hamilton Everest Expedition 1925. Then I scrapped on my sack. I looked below me. It would be a difficult descent. But there was only one direction to go now. Down. About a thousand feet from the peak. Is that right, Mr. Hamilton? Yes, that's right. Chalender found me. He brought me back to Camp Six. How come Langmuir didn't go to the top with you? He died, gentlemen. The rope broke and he fell. Langmuir deserved a lot of credit, though. Without him, I never could have gotten near the summit. How does it feel, Mr. Hamilton? How does it feel to be acclaimed as the first man to climb the highest mountain in the world? Well, gentlemen, I feel as if... as if you could just give our papers a statement of some kind. How does it feel to be the very first? Yes, that's what we want to hear, sir. You don't climb a mountain just for fame and glory, gentlemen. You climb it for something more personal than that. And you can't lie to yourself. I'm afraid I don't understand. You were the first. No, gentlemen. Not quite the first. George Lee Mallory reached the top last year. I found his cigarette case wedged in Iraq on the summit. This cigarette case. Smoke, gentlemen. Under the direction of Norman McDonnell, Escape has brought you conquest by Leonard Lee, especially adapted for Escape by David Ellis. Bill Conrad was starred as Hamilton. Featured in the cast were Larry Dubkin, Ramsey Hill, Luke Krugman, Jack Krushan, Larry Thor, and Ben Wright. The special music for Escape was composed and conducted by Del Castillo. Next week, Escape with us to Western Europe and the story of a futile attempt to save a beautiful girl from the clutches of the most cold-blooded political organization on Earth. As Anthony Ellis tells it in his exciting story, a bullet for Mr. Smith. Next year's evening, CBS has a big treat in store for all of you. Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, Amos Anande, Bob Hope, Mary Martin, Judy Garland, and a raft of other stars will be on hand to salute Bing Crosby, who is celebrating his 20th year in show business. Be sure and join them on Tuesday. This is Roy Rowan speaking. This is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System.