 The Mutual Broadcasting System, in cooperation with Family Theatre Incorporated, presents Man Against Death, starring John Emery and Jane Wyatt, and the music of Meredith Wilson. John Charles Thomas is your host. More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams are. Good evening, dear friends. This is John Charles Thomas. Before we bring you tonight's stars, Miss Jane Wyatt and John Emery, and tonight's story, I want to thank everyone who has written wired or phone Family Theatre these past few weeks. As you know, this is your program dedicated to your family in the hope that your family will always be well and happy. Not only for the sake of your own personal happiness, but because a happy family is the very foundation of a happy world, a peaceful world. And it's wonderful to know that so many of you share the conviction that prayer, simple family prayer, can help keep our families and our homes together and happy. Remember a family that prays together, stays together. Tonight's story is something of a departure for your family theatre. It's about a man and a woman who believed, as we all must, that all men, our brothers, and whose labors and sacrifices brought hope and health and inspiration to the millions of us everywhere who today benefit from their devoted labors. We give you John Emery and Jane Wyatt in John Slott's play, Man Against Death. David and Diana Bruce is the story of an inspiration that led one man and his wife beyond the very outposts of civilization to do immortal deeds. It is a story of two valiant warriors and their heroic sacrifice for humanity. They explored the lakes, the rivers, the islands, the jungles of Central Africa, stumbling blindly, seeking ever seeking the deadly microbe, and digging into these pestilential holes, sharing his poverty, glorying in his obscure victories, was a woman who was his inspiration. Diana Bruce. And so begins our tale of man against death. It is the last quarter of the 19th century. David Bruce, graduate medical student, is celebrating the occasion with some of his friends and family. School David, at last you're out at the university. You should say at last you're ready to begin. Ready to begin what? I'll begin to make use of that book knowledge I've spent all these years acquiring. Oh, it's a happy day, son. I'm very proud of you. Thank you, father. Where's Diana? Out in the garden with the women folk. Oh, come into my study, son, I want. Now that you've finished with medical school, David, I suppose you plan to go into private practice, eh? No, father. The first thing I'm going to do is to get married. Married? But, lad, you happen to shilling to your neighbor. No one should know that better than you, father. You've done all you could for me financially and from this point on, I'm carrying the load alone. But how do you plan to earn a living for you and Diana? I've joined the medical corps. You've joined the medical corps? Yes, but not to fight, nor save lives, nor for any noble cause, except to earn that 300 pounds a year. But couldn't you wait until you had a nice medical practice here, David? I'm not so sure, father, that what I want is a medical practice. Oh, then you won't be in it in but along, eh? Nor in England, father. They're sending me to the garrison on the island of Malta in the Mediterranean. Lieutenant Bruce reporting for duty, sir. How do you do, Lieutenant? I'm Colonel Hague. Sit down, please. Thank you, sir. Lieutenant, there's a mysterious disease on this island. We call it the Malta fever. I have a hospital filled with the sick and dying soldiers. The last doctor here, patted them on the head, prescribed pills. They still continue to suffer and die. Malta fevering. I'd like to go through the hospital quarters with you, if I may. Gladly. The last doctor, Sanders, here up the job is hopeless. I hope he's wrong. Dead wrong. You see, we've a problem here that we must solve. And I say take back the Queen's filthy shillings. I want to go home. I want to go home. Easy, Billings. Easy, old man. It's no good, Colonel. I ain't never going to see you home. Yes, you will, Billings. Lieutenant Bruce is here to take care of you. He's the new doctor. The new doctor? Say what is it that makes them pains run up and down inside me? Never stopping. Up and down. Never stopping. What kind of devil got in me? Whatever it is, we'll get rid of it. You know, Doc, I believe you. There's a grace of God in your eyes. You'll get rid of this devil. I know it. Come along, Bruce. There are a few hundred more like him. A few hundred more like him? It's all wrong. All wrong. Oh, did you ever think you'd be spending your honeymoon on Madi Nostrum with the government paying for it? Is that the most important thing about it, David? Of course not, lass. You're the most important thing about everything. You're the moon, stars, the blue waters. And the only reason why being so far away from a mother's table. Why, David, you never said such romantic words before. I'm full of them tonight. Standing here, looking out there across this island, makes all the history my teachers ever taught me come alive. Why, all the early Greeks, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, and Romans crossed each other's paths right here. Victories were won, battles lost. And even the Bible says that the powerful preacher St. Paul was shipwrecked on the north coast right over there. That was a long go, David. Tonight you can stalk this island like a new conqueror. David Bruce, Doctor of Medicine. Doctor of Medicine. You know, I was just thinking of a talk I had with my father not long ago. I said I didn't join the medical corps for any noble cause. And here I've learned that it isn't a matter of cause. The Lord had put me here for a just reason. The reason is to save lives. That you shall do tomorrow and all the tomorrows after that. Tonight, forget all that. Please, darling. All right. Tonight you can be Calypso, who enslaves Odysseus. I'd rather be Diana, who enslaves David. Proceed, enchantress. Oh, my love is like a red, red rose that's newly sprung in jewels. Oh, my love's like a melody that's sweetly played in tune. As fair art thou, my body lass, so deep in love am I, And I will love thee still, my dear, Till all the seas gang dry, and fair thee will my only love, And fair thee will a while, and I will come again my love, Though it were ten thousand miles. That's music to my ears. The poetry of Robert Burns on an island in the Mediterranean. Well, has Diana enslaved David? She has, and from the first day I saw her. You know, it's all very strange. Oh, I shouldn't be talking such nonsense. What is it, David? Here. Here we stand, glad to be alive, while over yonder a lad from Whitechapel is fighting the dancing devils inside of him. What is that awful fever, David? No one knows. They've named it the Malta fever. That's all they can do for it. But I've been thinking about it. And what have you been thinking? I'm going to set up a little laboratory. I'm going to find out what that little devil inside of Tommy Billings and all the others really is. And I'm going to help you, David Bruce. Here it is. How does my laboratory look? Still like a shack, only with more shelves than the ordinary shacks in Malta. Why, David, what is that stuff sticking all over you? Oh, that agar-agar solution spilled. I was experimenting with it. But, Dave, it's your best uniform. Nothing will take that stain out, so I guess I have to parade in the same uniform. Where has Lieutenant Bruce? He's off duty, Colonel. Where does he keep himself? Is he not in his quarters? Not here? I believe you'll find him in that hole he calls his laboratory. He's generally there at all spare moments. Laboratory? What sort of nonsense is he up to now? Just that, Colonel, utter nonsense. All day long, he fools around with test tubes and monkeys. Well, I think we shall see that another doctor is sent here. Where is this laboratory you're talking about? Just beyond the officer's mess quarters. I will look in and this idiot, see that this nonsense put to an end. Making experiments on monkeys? What's that got to do with my bit? Diana? Diana? I think I see something. Look into this test tube. See those tiny things? Yes. Yes, they're moving. Now, if I can get those germs into the food of the monkey, I'll know soon enough what is the cause of malta fever. How long will it take, David? If everything goes right, a week, 10 days. It's a long chance, isn't it, David? A whole-blame business is a long chance. We have to start somewhere. Come in. There's just one moment. I don't want to take my eye off this virus. David, it's the Colonel. You won't have to worry any longer about keeping your eye on the virus. Oh, I'm sorry, Colonel. I have a very interesting situation here. Receive your orders to sail for Egypt in the morning. Egypt? But, Colonel, I just need a few more days. What night, Lieutenant Bruce? Egypt be hanged. David? What are you doing? David! Let them all die. Who cares? Sure. I've always wanted to see Egypt. Oh, David, darling. It's so awful. I need it only 10 days. 10 days out of a lifetime to save a thousand lives. But they won't beat me. I'll show them. Order, Captain. David Bruce, back to England. Inform Captain Bruce that he's assigned to the teaching staff of the Army Medical School at Netley. You've done splendid work in microbe hunting, Major Bruce. I'm going to request your transfer to Zululand. Inform Major David Bruce that he has to head the first British and again a commission of Zululand. There it is. All before us. Zululand. A thousand miles away from Egypt. Zululand. A thousand miles concealing the dreaded disease Nagana. Here it is, Mrs. Bruce. Obambo. And on this hill, we're going to build our laboratory, eh? In this country, you don't build them. You just set your table down, place your microscopes, your glass slides, knives, syringes and test tubes on it. And it's a laboratory. And what's the first operation? I've arranged to have some of the cattle graze on a hilltop here. But all the rich grasses on the plains below. And all the cattle grazing in that rich grass below seem to be afflicted with Nagana. Oh, oh. You're having your first visitor. There's a farmer leading a horse up the path. I've been expecting him. Oh, that poor beast can hardly get up here. The plains are filled with the same kind of horses. All infected. Major Bruce. Yes. Mr. Lockhart said you wanted to look at one of my horses. It's got the disease. Yes, I do. You don't mind leaving him here? For all the good he is to me. I can't understand what it is. This animal I had shipped from the south. Two weeks of grazing in my lands and it's a skeleton. What is it, doctor? I intend to find out. God be with you. This pestilence is making me a poor man. I came here 30 years ago. Worked the soil, built a home. And now it's all useless. For the present it may be. But we'll find out why. You too, madam. You come here to frighten a gunner? I've come here to help my husband. You're not afraid? She has the courage for both of us. I'll pray for you both. Good day. I'll be back tomorrow. Let us hope we have some news for you. David. He looked into your face as though... as though you were God. No. If the grace of God was there. Let's try that horse. 20 horses in 20 days. And nothing yet. I'm going to try shaving the ears of this one. And leaving that area free from infection. Now, I'm going to jab him with my scalpel. And when the blood wells out, catch some of it on the glass slides. Ready, my dear? Easy, Coco. Easy. Get it, Diana. He's going to kick me. Are you hurt, dear? Diana, speak to me. No, I'm all right. Slide. Where is it? Here. Safe and sound. Good. I'll put the slide away and we'll forget the gunner for a while. And we'll let the whole world go to pot for tonight. Oh, darling David. I'm sure the world would go to pot if you weren't here watching over it. I'm sure I'd go the same way if you weren't watching me. I'll fetch you a nice long coat. Oh, I'd rather you sat down beside me here and let the long cold drink wait. The hours pass here so quietly, so quickly. It seems only a few minutes ago that it was noon. Oh, you're so intense, David. To me, it seems days since noon. And yet I do love all this, this perpetual excitement, this great and mighty adventure. I don't believe it. I swear you'd rather be back in England seeing the players and the theatres having tea with Mrs. McAlwin. Surely I would. And reading a bit of Bobby Burns. And if I remember rightly, I think it was your memory for Robert Burns that made me woo you so impetuously. If I remember rightly, you once said it was the way I looked at you. And it still is. The way you look at me, even when Coco sat you down on the ground. I would. The slide. I completely forgot about it. We've got to set it up. What do you see, David? Nothing yet. Wait. Here's something. Finkly yellow. Look, look, Diana. Here's something. Look at that blunt rear end. And a long, lashing whip in front of him. Yes, I do see it, David. He's different from the other microbes. There's more like him. That's what they are. The blood parasites known as tropanosomes. Diana, we're on the first step. What's next, David? We'll look for them in perfectly healthy animals. And if they're absent, then we've discovered the scourge. But how do these get from a sick animal to a healthy one? Here on the hilltop, the sick mingle in the same stable with the healthy animals and yet never infect them? And is that so? That rather reduces it to something internal? Come in. Yes, what is it? A message, Buena. Come along, will we? Oh, here, give it to me. It's from the office of the director general. What does it say? It's a typhoid epidemic raging at Peter Mattitsburg. We're to leave it once. To leave it once? Oh, David. We're always leaving in the middle of things. Oh, but David, David, you could say that you didn't receive a message. No, Diana. I'm still a soldier and lives at its stake. Pack up. We'll start for Peter Mattitsburg in the morning. General Clare will see you, Major. Thank you. Good morning, Bruce. Good morning, sir. Now what can I do for you? I'd like to make a request, sir. Oh, if it's within reason, yes. You've done some fine work here in Peter Mattitsburg. What I would like, sir, is a laboratory. A place to find out something of the microscopic aspects of the typhoid germ. I haven't a single spot, Major. I'm sorry. What about the morgue? Oh, good Lord, don't tell me you want to work there. With your permission, sir, yes. Well, you have my position. Go ahead. In order from the home officer. What is it? Major Bruce to go out as medical officer with a filibustering expedition. What? Why, that man just got up from a sick bed. He was nearly dead from typhoid. What shall I reply, sir? There's nothing to reply. Convey the message to Major Bruce. I can't. Yes, sir. Yes. A message from General Clare's office. Yes. What is it? Major Bruce is ordered to report for medical duty with the Royal 39. But he's not too well. I'm merely reporting orders, Mr. Colonel. I won't let him go. I don't make him go. Through this jungle? In a week, there won't be a horse or a mule left alive. The place is full of Nagana. A horse, a horse. Is there anything we can do for him, Dr. Bruce? No, nothing. You'd better turn back, Colonel. Even now, only a few of us can possibly survive the return trip. Colonel Jenks reporting on the Royal Expeditionary Division. 112 dead. Five living. Private sneaks. Corporal hugs. Major Bruce. News. Sir Walder's arranged our return to Bombo. Nagana is caused by big game, Doctor. The buffalo, the quagga, the waterbuck, the kudu, contaminate the grass, and the watering places. It is the tsetse flies that caused Nagana, Doctor. Oh, David, the whole world seems made of tsetse flies. We're getting closer, Diana. Hold on. Keep up your courage. Every horse I've taken down to the mimosa has died. And yet not one of them had eaten a blade of grass or swallowed any of the water. Then does that prove that they inhaled these germs? I have it. Diana, instead of taking the horses down, we'll bring the flies up here. Here it is, dear. Governor Haley Hutchinson's order to the farmers of Zululand and Netown. Beware of the tsetse flies. Kill it. Clear the thickets in which it breeds, exterminate the antelope from which it sucks the tropanosomes. It's been worth it, hasn't it, dear? Worth it in the sense that it gives us a start. We're always starting, aren't we, David? That seems to be our most familiar story. But we're veterans in the starting of things. In the finishing of them, too, dear. It says one time that we've gone a little beyond the start, isn't it? Yes. And I hope this time we'll see it through to the finish. I'll answer it. Colonel Winthrop! What are you doing over this way? We're marching on to Lady Smith. Marching on to Lady Smith? What for? We're having trouble with the bores. It's more than a little trouble, isn't it, Colonel? Yes, it's war. Then I presume I'm on duty at Lady Smith. Yes, those are my orders. We'll join you in an hour, Colonel. Oh, David, I'm glad to see you. How are things at the hospital? Thirty medical officers and not a surgeon and a whole lot of them. Not one of them can handle a knife. What are you looking for? That book on huntly surgery. What do you intend to do? I'm a laboratory man, but I've cut up enough specimens to be able to handle a Lancet. With God's help, I'm going to try saving these soldiers. It's a matter of life and death, and you're going to come along and help me. Get my instrument bagged, pack it with everything we've used in the laboratories. I'll be at the hospital, make it as fast as possible. That's David now. Hello, dear. Have you finished? No, I just started. Your Excellency, well, this is a surprise. Good to see you, David. Oh, what brings you to Lady Smith? You, the greatest germ hunter in all Africa. What's up? There's a mad little bug or something that's putting all Central Africa to sleep and slow death. Oh, yes, I've heard about that. Particularly at Lake Victoria. Sleeping sickness, eh? Yes. A few years ago, they couldn't get rid of me fast enough. Wherever I got to start, they shipped me off. Well, my wife and I had planned a long vacation back home. Can't that wait for a while? We've waited for that while ever since David joined the medical corps, eight years ago. You've both been valiant workers. I don't blame you. Well, I shall extend your regrets to the Colonial Office. I suppose the office will have to let Castellani work it out himself. Castellani? Good man. Yes, he's been working with tropanosomes. Tropanosomes. But there's only one man who rarely knows how to work with those devils, David Bruce. That's what I told them. Castellani claims that sleeping death is caused by a germ called striptococcus. He's wrong. It's a tropanosome, if it's anything. If he was smart, he'd spear the spinal cord of a native afflicted with the sleeping fever and put the fluid under a microscope and then draw the same fluid from the spinal cord of a healthy native. He'd find the difference right there. If he was at David Bruce, he would. I wish I could take the time to get down there. Yes, but England's nice at this time of the year. Well, goodbye, David. Goodbye, Sir Walter. Goodbye, Mrs. Bruce. Have a nice vacation. Thank you, Sir Walter. Let Castellani, as I'm the right road, if he don't remove carefully. Yes. Yes, that's the art of it. Detail. Careful detail. Dana, where are you? In the bedroom, David. What in the world are you doing with my shirts? We're packing, David. We're not due to leave until next week. We're not going home. We're going to Lake Victoria. They help Castellani fight the sleeping sickness germs. Darling, you're an angel. No. I'm an English girl who's married to a madman. But I love him for it. Kimmy! It's the cart. We're off to meet our friend the tropanosome. So, thousands of you who listen to family theater regularly are fathers and mothers. And when you parents pick up the newspaper and learn that almost one out of every two marriages nowadays seem headed for divorce, you get scared. No matter how happy you may be right now, you can't help wondering if maybe something won't happen to your marriage. And you're not only scared for yourself, you're especially scared because of your children. Nobody has to tell you that a youngster finds it pretty tough going when his mother and father are separated. Well, look, sure, any marriage can break up. Keeping a family together and happy is one of the hardest jobs in the world, particularly today. It's a job that takes intelligence and patience and, well, sometimes it takes more than we've got. Sometimes the job can be too big for anybody who tries to go it alone. But who says you've got to go it alone? Don't forget, you can always get help. The most wonderful, the most powerful help a man could wish for. God's help. No matter who you are, you can get God's help for the asking, but you have to ask for it. Ask and ye shall receive. Say a prayer, thank God for what you have and ask Him for what you need and pray together with your family because a family that prays together stays together. So pray together with your family tonight and every night. Do that in the job of keeping your family together and happy will be lighter, easier, and so much more successful. See if it isn't. Before saying goodnight, I want to express our thanks to all of you who have helped make this program possible. A special word of praise to John Slott for his adaptation to Mel Williamson for directing our play tonight. In support of Mr. Emery and Ms. Wyatt in tonight's play were Francis X. Bushman, Herb Rawlinson, Stanley Ferrar, Alec Hartford, John Fostini, Don Morrison, and Don Diamond. Next week our stars on the Family Theater will be Gary Cooper and James Craig. Thanks for listening, this is John Charles Thomas saying goodnight to you all. This series of the Family Theater broadcast is made possible by the thousands of you who felt the need for this kind of program by the Mutual Network which has responded to this need and by the actors and technicians in the motion picture and radio industries who have volunteered their services to fulfill it. Tony Lofrano speaking, this is the Mutual Broadcasting System.