In this captivating episode of the Campbell Playhouse, Orson Welles presents his radio adaptation of the classic tale, "Mutiny on the Bounty." The story unfolds with the dramatic court-martial of naval officers accused of high treason, revealing the harsh conditions aboard British naval ships that led to the infamous mutiny. Captain Bly recounts the harrowing events of the mutiny, where he and his loyal crew were set adrift, leading to a perilous journey across the sea. Meanwhile, Fletcher Christian and the mutineers seek refuge on the idyllic island of Tahiti, only to face the challenges of their rebellion.
As the narrative progresses, the episode delves into the aftermath of the mutiny, exploring the fates of those involved. The gripping tale is interspersed with insights into the lives of the descendants of the mutineers on Pitcairn Island, highlighting their struggles and resilience. The episode concludes with a real-life account of how amateur radio operator Dorothy Hall played a crucial role in aiding the isolated Pitcairn community, showcasing the enduring legacy of the mutiny and the power of human connection.
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Unknown:
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apply.
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The makers of Campbell Soups presents the Campbell Playhouse, Orson Welles, producer. Good evening listeners, this is Ernest Chappell speaking. Tonight the Campbell Playhouse presents Orson Welles in his own radio version of that great story, Mutiny on the Bounty. But first a word from our sponsor. Any day you look on the lunch or dinner menu, the most popular restaurant in town, you will likely find that one dish featured is chicken. Ask the proprietor about this and he'll tell you that chicken is a best seller, not only with the regulars but with people who are eating out in style.
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Why don't you surprise your family with Campbell's chicken soup for some meal this weekend?
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Good evening. This is Orson Welles. On the 09/12/1792, there occurred in England the most remarkable court martial in maritime history. Seven naval officers and men were on trial for their lives before the Lord's commissioner of the Admiralty on charge of high treason. Revelations of this trial of commissioner of the admiralty on charge of high treason. Revelations of this trial of conditions prevailing on the ships of the British navy came finally to exert a powerful influence in humanizing the administration of the world's navies and making more tolerable life at sea.
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You are here to be tried by a special form of naval inquiry assembled aboard His Majesty's flagship duke under article 19 of the naval articles of war, which reads as follows. If any person in or belonging to the fleet shall make or endeavor to make any mutinous assembly upon any pretense whatsoever, every person offending herein, being convicted thereof by the sentence of the court martial, shall suffer death.
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First witness to the crown, captain Bly. Captain Bly. Captain Bly. Captain Bly, have you any statement to make to this court concerning the mutiny aboard his magister ship bound at while under your command in the Great South Seas? I have sir. I have prepared a statement which I now beg the court's permission to read. The court will hear your statement, Captain Blythe. I respectfully beg to submit to the Lord's commission of the admiralty
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the information that his majesty's armed vessel bounty under my command was taken from me by some of the superior officers and men on the April 1789 in the following manner. Little before sunrise,
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Fletcher Christian, who was mate of the ship and officer of the watch, together with the accused and certain others of the crew, came into my cabin and while I was asleep seized me in my bed and with cutlasses and bayonets fixed at my breast threatened me with instant death if I spoke or made the least noise. I was hold on deck in my shirt and without a rag else.
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The boatswain was ordered to hoist the launch out, and the officers and men who remained loyal were ordered into the boat. The event veered astern and all 19 souls. The boat was so lumbered and deep in the water that it was believed we should never reach shore. The size of the boat was 23 feet from astern to Starn Road 6 O'ers. After considering our merit clear situation, I was earnestly solicited by all hands to take them toward home. Therefore, after commending ourselves to God, I bore away from New Holland and two more across a sea but little known in a small boat laden with 19 souls without a single map of any kind and nothing but my own recollection and general knowledge of the situation of places to direct us.
After enduring dangers and privations impossible to describe, we sighted Timor on the June 12. And on the morning of the fifteenth before daylight, I anchored under the fort of the Dutch settlement at Copan. This voyage in an open boat, I believe to be unparalleled in the history of navigation. One thing I wish to add, that on the night preceding the mutineer, coming up on deck during the middle watch according to my custom, I discovered Fletcher Christian, the ringleader of the mutineers, in earnest conversation with Raja Vayam Mitchelben, one of the accused.
In the darkness of the deck, I was not observed by these men who were standing on the starboard side of the quarterdeck between the guns, Nor had I any apprehension at that time that their conversation was not innocent. But as I approached on scene, I saw Raja Bhaam shake hands with Christian, and I distinctly heard him say these words, you can count on me. To which Christian replied, good. That's settled then. The moment they discovered me, they broke off their talk. I have not the slightest doubt that this conversation concerned the forthcoming mutiny. It's all a
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look.
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Roger Bayam, stand for.
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Roger Bayam, you have been accused with others of mutinous and heretical seizure of his majest design, mister Balde. You have heard the crown's witness. Roger Bayon, do you plead guilty or not guilty? My lord and gentlemen,
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I declare before god and the members of this court that I am innocent, that I have never been guilty either in thought or indeed of the crime of which I am charged. Roger Bayon, the court is now ready to receive
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whatever you may have to say in your own defense.
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My lords, I joined his majesty's armed transport bounty as a midshipman On the 12/21/1787, we were off Spithead, lying to for stores and crews to come aboard. I remember my first sight of the bounty. The crew crowded in the after deck around the huddled form of a man, lashed the capstan's spar. And Captain Bly reading from an admiralty order.
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If any person in or belonging to his majesty's fleet shall strike or endeavor to strike an officer, he shall be flagged in turn on board every ship of the fleet.
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Master Downes? Yes, sir. How many lashes are due for my ship? Two dozen, sir. Very well.
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Mister Morrison? Yes, captain Black. Two dozen lashes. One moment, captain. Yes, surgeon. The prisoner is dead, sir. Lucky devil we were only the sister. Well, mister Morrison, what are you waiting for? Wasn't. But the man is dead, sir. Yes. I heard the surgeon's report. Come, my dinner's getting cold. Who doesn't lash it, mister Morrison? Who doesn't lash it, dead or alive? Two doesn't, it is.
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On the morning of the December 23, with 45 officers and crew aboard, And as the guns of the fleet fired a farewell salute, the bounty set sail for Tahiti and the Great South Seas.
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Your turn, Christian. Hi, captain. Take shot. Raising anchor, sir. Sergeant Hagen. Sergeant Hagen. Sergeant Hagen, you'll moderate both your voice and your rum rations at your post. Very well, sir. Tomorrow, then we're ready, sir. Aye, sir.
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All hands all the down here. Thanks and carry. Hold short then. Hold short then. Close the top two. Are you sweeper in the foretubs? The main tupper of the island alive, you crown caterpillar. Wait a minute. No heed. Hold.
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She was a small ship, as you know, of little more than 200 tons. The great cabin aft was rigged as a garden for the transportation of breadfruit trees from the island of Tahiti to the West Indian plantations. Thus, the ship's quarters were more than usually crowded. A circumstance which undoubtedly affected the temper of its company. The officers messed in the screened off space on the lower deck after the main hatch. At the captain's table sat Mr. Friar, the ship's navigator, an elderly man long in the service of his majesty's navy. And mister Christian, the mate, a man of only 24, a fine presence from a good English standard.
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Man. Don't you talk to me about seamen, mister Christian. I know them better than you. Curse them a lazy incompetent lot of scoundrels. Them nose of captain, that's trials and others. Such cruel
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dregs of public houses, they don't know a sheep from attack. I bet you to differ with your captain why I should call Ellison and Mills first class seaman, even Birkett or he may be wilfully.
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Birkett's an insolent hound. I have my eye on him. Slightest report of miss Conrocks, I'll have him seized up and flogged. If I may express an opinion, captain Blythe Yes, mister Christian. Reckons a man to tame with kindness rather than with blows. La dee da, mister Christian. On my word, you should apply for a place as master in the young lady's seminary. Kindness indeed. A fine captain you'll make with such ridiculous notions. Our seamen understand kindness as well as they understand Greek. Fear is what they do understand. Without fear, mutine and piracy would be rife on the high sea. I there's some truth in that, sir. I can't agree.
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Seaman don't differ from other Englishmen. There are some, the best of them, who follow a fair and kind officer to the ends of the earth. Right. So as I trust them, it's the end of a yard.
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If you have to talk such nonsense, mister Christian, I'll do it in my mess where I have to listen to her.
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Very well, mister Blaine. In the future, I shall dine where my opinions are more acceptable.
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From that day on and for the rest of the voyage, captain Bly took his meals by himself in his cabin. Latitude thirty nine degrees north, just off the coast of Tenerife, we ran into heavy weather. A huge wave stove in three of our longboats, carried away our cases of beef, and spoiled a large part of our stock of bread. We laid into Santa Cruz for fresh supplies of water and beef. The meat that was taken on ship was so tainted the men threw most of it overboard. Captain Bly kept the men at work preparing the ship's boats from morning till
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night. Captain Bly. Yes, mister Pryor. Men are asking when they can start shore leave, sir. They can get drunk in the tavern, this will Then it's sea nearly eight weeks, sir. Maybe eight months before they set foot and land and might as well get used to it. Oh, surely, mister Pryor.
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Aye, sir.
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We left Santa Cruz at the February. We carried no purse. Bly filled the office himself assisted by Samuel, his clerk, a smug, tight lipped little man who was believed to be the captain's spy. On Monday of every week, he and captain Bly opened up the casks and checked over the supplies in the storeroom.
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18 pounds salt beef. 18 pounds.
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What's wrong with that cake bucket? Seems like it's been open, sir.
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So it has. Mister Friar, come here at once, sir. Mister Friar, is captain Bly calling you, sir? Yes, captain. Well, these castes have been opened and two cheeses are missing. Well, they may have been short waited when we were provisions, sir. They were not, mister Friar. I checked them. These cheeses were stolen. Well, perhaps you'll recollect, sir, that while we were a spit head, a cask was opened by your order and the cheeses carried ashore. Georgia tongue Birkett.
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Brought his men by a pack of thieves. Surely, captain, you don't fit the eye. Intrusion against me, officers and men.
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But I'll obtain you by head, and I will. I'll make you eat grass before I'm done with you.
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Settle. Yes, sir. If the allowance of cheese is stopped, the officer's too mind gentle that the patient is made good. Yes, Jack. And Burkett, if I hear another word out of you, I'll have you seized up and plucked to the vault.
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Samuel, you pluck the storeroom and keys to my cabin.
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So help me fly out of those two cheeses taken out of
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I can beg you there, Bertrand. I carried them myself. Two cheeses and a cask of vinegar of Blythe House. That's a game, is it? Lining his pockets by styling us. Person's blood. I'll be hanged if I do any more work on this ship. He puts back our cheese I'm with you, lads. No more work by any in this mess. I'll give the word to Quintal's lesson. He'll pass it on. No more work.
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No more work. No more work.
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No more work. Coming. Captain Wye.
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Yes, mister Christian.
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As officer of the deck, sir, I feel it's my duty to make a report. Well, what is it? The grumbling in the forecastle, sir. It's becoming serious. I did it. What are the scoundrels grumbling about now? Many things, sir. Chief, lay the fool. And they're not satisfied with the rations, sir? By heaven, they better make up their minds to be satisfied. Captain Bligh, a second officer. I'm in a measure responsible for their conduct. If I may suggest, sir, I think it would be wise to listen to that grievances. May I keep your suggestions to yourself, mister Christian? I think it only right that you should hear what the I am the only judge, sir, of what's right and wrong on the ship.
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I'm tired of their bloody complaints. Since you seem to be their advocate, mister Christian, you can tell this. The first man to complain from now on will be placed in chains.
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About a hundred leagues off the coast of Brazil, the wind shopped around to north and northwest, and the bounty lay becalmed. Here, another incident occurred to aggravate the resentment of the men. We'd been at sea six months, and for ten weeks now outside of the officers' mess, there had been no fresh food of any sort on board the bounty. Taking advantage of the calm, the crew employed themselves with fishing for shark with pieces of rotten pork for bait. Knock ahead. Knock ahead.
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They don't want the gas. Right under the mouth. Give him the bait there. Cycle cut. Johnny Merkett. Hooked by heaven. He's on. He's a big one. Hold on a move. Tower Hart is on equity. He's a big one. Alright. He's a bit. Alright? Heave ho. Stranded it now. Any boys? Anybody tonight? Slice him up, man. Cavalier Mills. The cutlass. Watch where you're cutting. Shark meat's good eating. It's better than dried dog's meat any day. House.
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Someone's coming. It's Samuel. Samuel, captain's spy. He doesn't get a scrap of the shark's meat. You hear men? Not a scrap. A fine catch, amen. I say it's a fine catch of fish you got there.
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I must have a slice. Okay, mister Burkes? Oh, you must have a slice, mister Samuel. I must have a glass of grog and a sip one too. If you eat stock today.
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Come come, my good man. You have enough fish there for a dozen. You have enough grass stored away for a thousand, my heaven. It's for the captain's table I wanted. And catch him a shark yourself. This is mine.
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He gets the best of the bread and the pick of the junk cactus as it is. You may get yourself crickets.
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Give me a slice of that large one, and
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I'll say nothing. Trouble with you. You take your slice right in your seeking face.
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Birkett sent the night and irons. His messmates saved him their entire allowance to prod to fortify him against the flogging they knew to be inevitable. At six bells, mister Bly came on deck.
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Good afternoon. Yes, captain Blythe. All all hands and deck to witness punishment. Yes, sir. All men on our deck, Boston. I have a suggestion.
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All hands on deck. All hands on deck. All hands on deck. All hands on deck. All hands on deck. All hands on deck. All hands on deck. All hands on deck. All hands on deck, captain White. I report all men on deck, captain White. Very good, miss Christian. Ring the greetings, miss Purcell.
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Greetings on each one.
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Thomas Burgess, step forward.
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Billing said? No, sir.
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Straight. Norton, seize him up.
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Seized up, sir.
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Thomas Birkett, for mutinous conduct, I sentence you in three dozen lashes.
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Morrison? Yes, sir? Mister Morrison, I see that you lay on with a will. Thought to eat breakfast, and then you're done. Yes,
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And now the old devil's got the first bell alliance. They say mister Friar and fly ain't speaking no more. Pretty pass then. We'll assume what's gonna happen the world with the entire day. Where do we get back? It'll be a day of reckoning for Blythe. Aye. And maybe before we get back. What do you say in Mills? We gotta get back to England, though. We we could get back without Blythe if we had to. There's a man that could take the bounty home. I am a better man than Bly. Christian, you mean? Christian. Yeah. That's right.
Mister Christian. Mister Christian.
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Fortunately for captain Bly, a gale blew up that night, and all hands were kept busy keeping the ship from being swamped. Day after day, we scudded before strong westerly to sowwesterly winds, carrying only the porcelain close reef main topsoil. At last, on the November 20, we rounded Cape Horn. 5 Weeks later, we sighted the first coral reefs and saw the great mountains of the Island Of Tahiti.
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Kicking sounding. Yes, sir. Mills.
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By the Marquise, by the d seven water shoring.
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Fair anchor. Yes, sir.
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Horizon, all men to their stations. All men to their station.
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Well, there it is, miss Christian. The Isle Of Tahiti. Long, hard voyage. My heaven, there it is at last.
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That's like a beautiful island, isn't I? It is.
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Captain Cook, under whom I sailed these waters, loved it. Only next angle. Well, I, an old man, and my work turn, I should ask nothing better than to end my days and its parlors.
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Mister Christian? Yes, sir. Sounding.
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Mills. By the deep five, one half less five, sir, and shawling fast. Throw away. Lower away,
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sir.
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Ladies are coming to voices.
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Lower the noise. Hey, sir.
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Miss Christians, set a watch.
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See that those thieving yellow devils don't steal anything when they come aboard.
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The next day, the crew went ashore. The danger of the mutiny seemed past. The hardships of the voyage were soon forgotten. We lived on the fat of the land amongst affectionate native friends. Those were the happiest weeks I ever spent. Our host was the chief of the island. He had two daughters, Hina and Tahani. Mister Christian and I used to visit them often. The four of us would go swimming, sporting in the breakers or lying on the white sand of the coral beach.
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Hina? Yes, I am. The tide is high.
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Swim with me out to the reef underwater.
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How about it, Christian? Brian, you're not lazy enough for the South Seas. I'll stay here with the honey. Bloody Hina. Ready? Come.
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I'll tell you when we get to the ring.
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Christian?
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Yeah.
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Are you a chief in your own land? Small one perhaps darling. I knew you must be. And have you no wife?
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None.
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I have no husband.
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Dani.
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Why do you stop? Dani is listening.
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When the ship sails to honey,
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I must go with it. But it will be two moons before the ship sails.
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Two moons are soon past, honey.
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We have a legend, Christiane, the antahiti, that time is a long lizard that sleeps with its tail in its mouth. And to those who keep their hearts within its circle, no harm can come.
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No harm will come, darling.
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What are you doing with those flowers?
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The honey make a wreath to go around your neck. White flower, long stem.
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What do you call it? This one,
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the tofana.
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Looks like the lotus. In my country, we have legends too, Dehane. In my country, they say a sailor who once taste the lotus, have a go zone.
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You are listening to the Campbell Playhouse presentation of Mutiny on the Bounty. We pause now for station identification. This is the Columbia Broadcasting System. This is Ernest Chappell welcoming you back to the Campbell Playhouse. In a minute or two we will resume our presentation of Mutiny on the Bounty starring Orson Welles. Meanwhile, may I say a word or two about mutiny in another form? Over many years, modern genius has been showing women the way to give their families better food with less kitchen time. And call it mutiny or call it evolution, women have been quick to take full advantage of these benefits for their families and themselves.
No longer does the good housewife feel she must spend long hours each week making her own bread and churning her own butter. To give her family their favorite dishes it is no longer necessary to spend so many hours in her kitchen. Her household shelves are laden down with many of these foods, ready prepared for her, and of a quality equal to her own good homemade kind. Among these fine foods are soups. Campbell soups. If you have never tried them, I invite you to try a can of Campbell's chicken soup tomorrow. I cannot think of a finer way to introduce you to Campbell's soups than that. Once you've tasted Campbell's chicken soup, I feel certain you'll be convinced that soup making at home is a task you can well turn over to Campbell's chefs.
And now, back to the Campbell Playhouse presentation of Mutiny on the Bounty, starring Orson Welles.
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Yes, sir. James Morrison, Potent Plate? Yes, sir. William Purcell, ship's carpenter? Yes, sir. Thomas Birkett, seaman? Yes, sir. John Mill, seaman? Yes, sir. Thomas Ellison, seaman? Yes, sir.
[00:28:37] Unknown:
Or Gevaim, have you anything further to say in your defense?
[00:28:41] Unknown:
I have my lord. Toward the March it became evident to all hands that the bounty would soon sail. More than a thousand young breadfruit trees in pots and tubs had been taken on board. The relaxation of discipline now came to an end. Captain Bly ordered Samuel to seize all the gifts which the friendly natives had given the men. With abundance around them, the crew were again put on slender rations. Two of them, deserted to the hills, were caught and severely clogged. On our last visit ashore, mister Christian was more than usually silent.
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Christiane, you are going to sail. Is that not so? Yes, Tahani. When?
[00:29:31] Unknown:
Tomorrow. Sunrise.
[00:29:33] Unknown:
Oh.
[00:29:34] Unknown:
Where would you be, D'Honey, when we sail?
[00:29:37] Unknown:
We're on the shore, waving my hand.
[00:29:40] Unknown:
I'll watch for you. Kristian,
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will you think of D'Honey sometime
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in your own land? I will not stay in my own land. I shall come back to hunting.
[00:29:53] Unknown:
Yeah, Christiane. These are for you.
[00:29:57] Unknown:
Black pearls to hunting.
[00:30:00] Unknown:
Where did you get these? I swim very deep one morning off coral reef. All people say pearlsake men never forget.
[00:30:09] Unknown:
Your people say right to honey.
[00:30:11] Unknown:
And I shall wait, Christian. I shall wait for you to come back. And every noon I shall watch for your ship. Make yellow hook, call only, Christian. Make yellow hook, call only.
[00:30:43] Unknown:
Mister Christian, Brian,
[00:30:46] Unknown:
you're late. Both of you. I'm sorry, sir. I didn't realize There's no definite time for our return, captain Brian. Of it.
[00:30:52] Unknown:
Surely it'll be back by four bells.
[00:30:55] Unknown:
You got there, mister Christian? Some gifts there from our friends on shore. Mister Samuel? Yes, captain?
[00:31:02] Unknown:
We will take charge of these Indian curiosities which may be useful for trading in other islands. Yes. One moment, sir. These things were given me as gifts for members of my family in England. Mister Samuel, who heard my orders? You're bundled, mister Christian. Captain's orders. Very well then. Take it. Mister Christian, you still have something in your hand. Come, let me see what it is. Pair of pearls. They appear to be remarkably fine stones. Yes, sir. Give them to mister Samuel, please. Black pearls are highly prized in the friendly islands where we should do some trading. Surely, sir, you won't take these.
[00:31:39] Unknown:
They were given to me by by a very close friend. And the woman, mister Samuel. Captain Bly, I've obeyed every order you've given me, and some of them with the utmost distaste. But this I refuse. I intend to keep this gift, sir, as long as I live.
[00:31:56] Unknown:
Very well, mister Christian. I accept your refusal, and I shall remember it.
[00:32:09] Unknown:
On the 04/04/1788, the bounty with our cargo of breadfruit trees set sail from Tahiti. All went quietly enough until the evening of April 14. That morning we left the island of Namuka in the friendly archipelago, where we did our usual trading with the natives. A great many coconuts had been brought aboard and piled up on the quarterdeck between the guns under the captain's eye. At about noon, some of the coconuts were found to be missing.
[00:32:43] Unknown:
Mister Morrison. Aye, sir. Roll the officers assembled on deck. Aye, sir.
[00:32:54] Unknown:
Gentlemen. Gentlemen.
[00:32:57] Unknown:
I regret to inform you that several coconuts have been stolen. I expect you to help me find the culprits. Well, speak up. Speak up. Some of you must know the guilty party.
[00:33:11] Unknown:
Mister Christian, step forward, please.
[00:33:14] Unknown:
I wish to know the exact number of coconuts you purchased
[00:33:22] Unknown:
for your own use, mister Christian. I really don't know, sir. Oh, you don't? I hope you don't take me so mean as to steal yours. Yes. I do think so.
[00:33:25] Unknown:
You must have stolen some of mine. You'd be able to give a better account of your own. You may be officers, but you're rascals and thieves.
[00:33:32] Unknown:
They're out of here.
[00:33:33] Unknown:
I'll break the spirit of every man of you. You'll wish you'd never seen me before we reach the Inches. Mister Samuel. Yes, sir. You'll stop the officers' grok and drop further orders. And instead of a pound of yen for men, you'll issue half a pound to all the messes. Understand? Yes, sir. And by heaven, I'll reduce you to a quarter of a pound if I find anything else missing. Make you crawl on your bellies for that.
[00:34:01] Unknown:
It was feverish hot below deck that night, and there was an uneasy stirring in the folks' room. I couldn't sleep and went up on deck. It was then about 01:00, and with the exception of the watch, there was no one on deck but Tinkler curled up asleep under one of the guns. Mister Norton, the watch, was standing at the rail on the opposite side of the deck. I could make out his form standing in the starlight. Someone appeared at the after ladderway.
[00:34:28] Unknown:
Who's that? Oh, it's you by him. Oh, hello, mister Christian. Have you seen captain Blyden at? Did you know that he invited me to sup with him? Why? Can you tell me that after spitting at me, wiping his feet on me, he sent Samuel to ask me to his table? He didn't go? After what happened, I should say not. Maybe he's got a conscience, Christian.
[00:34:48] Unknown:
His invitation might have been a way of letting you know he was sorry. I might have believed that once, but not now.
[00:34:54] Unknown:
By him, we're in his power, officers and men alike. He considers us so many dogs to be kicked or fondled as he pleases. There can be no relief, none, not till we reach England. Heaven knows when that'll be. Heaven knows if I can stand it till then. Heaven knows if the men can stand it. I am as Christian, something I wish you could do for me. A voyage like this one never knows what might happen. If for any reason I should fail to reach home, I'd like you to see my people in Cumberland. That'd be too much trouble for you? I'm not at all, mister Christians. Just before I joined the ship, my father asked that I'd make such an arrangement with someone on board.
In case anything should happen, he said that it would be a comfort to him to talk to one of my friends. You can count on me, sir. Good. That's settled then.
[00:35:46] Unknown:
Well, miss Crichton, you're up late. Yes, sir. And you, mister Blythe, can't you sleep? It's very warm below, sir. I've noticed it. A true sailor can sleep in an oven if the case requires or on a cake of ice. Good night, mister Bayard.
[00:36:06] Unknown:
Good night, mister Christians.
[00:36:25] Unknown:
Smith, wake up. It's three bells. Curtis, where's the other lads? Thompson's going to the arms chest. Come with me a bit quick about it. I that and I will. Coleman. Oh, Coleman. What do you want, Thompson? The key to the gun locker. Army man. It's hanging above the hatch. Thompson, is that you, Abaket? What did you get, man? 10 muskets and a bracelet pistols. Pass them around, mate. Smith? I I'll take one. Quite all? Give me one with a bin. Donaldson. Tank. Churchill. I'm with you. What's the rest of the lags, Birgit? In the App Deck. They see mister Christie. Hi. We need Christie, my dear. He's the man that'll rid us of that swine.
[00:37:16] Unknown:
Christened. Smile. Smile. Get up. Yes. Yes. Put on your fluids. No. Don't blame about it. What? Martin, are you mad? Have you any idea what you're doing? We know what we're doing.
[00:38:02] Unknown:
Into your ribs? Go ahead, Christian.
[00:38:05] Unknown:
Murder me. Go ahead.
[00:38:08] Unknown:
I'm master of this ship now, mister Blythe. Why? If I have, I'll spend no more of your views. Can you treat it? I see you hung. I'll have you frozen. Hold your tongue or your deadness at your throat. Let him have it. Quiet. Quiet. Quiet. All of you.
[00:38:23] Unknown:
I'll give the orders on my ship.
[00:38:25] Unknown:
So I could get the other orders on deck. They're pitching him up, sir. Christian. Mister Christian, think what you do. Release me. Lay aside your arms. Let's be friends again, mister Christian.
[00:38:33] Unknown:
Mister Christian, I give you my word that nothing more should be said of this matter. Your word is of no value, captain Bligh.
[00:38:40] Unknown:
What do you mean to do with me?
[00:38:43] Unknown:
Shoot you, swinely. Please him up at the gradings, mister Christian. Give us that chance that it was the last night. For
[00:38:49] Unknown:
the grandma. We'll give you justice, mister Bligh. It is more than you've ever given us. What's your plan, mister to know. I that we have Mind what you're about, Thompson. I'm master of the ship. Damn you. This way. That's what you are, Christian.
[00:39:03] Unknown:
They'll never listen to you. They're
[00:39:07] Unknown:
Maybe that'll teach you to hold your tongue. Mister Christian. Stand back, ma'am. Think what you're doing, Christian. This is my affair.
[00:39:13] Unknown:
Friar Patel. I'm on that side of the deck of Byrum And Morrison. Mister Christian,
[00:39:18] Unknown:
are you in this? Yes, mister Friar. I've taken the ship.
[00:39:21] Unknown:
None of you will be hurt unless you resist. What are you gonna do with captain Bly? Kill me. That's what the villain's gonna do. Oh, captain Bly, no. No. I'm not going to kill you.
[00:39:27] Unknown:
Captain Blythe, no. No. I'm not going to kill you. I'm going to put you at drift in the long boat. Humble. That was right. Tell me about the
[00:39:35] Unknown:
that rock little boat where you're 3,000 miles from land. What else does that but just that much murder? Giving you a chance, mister Dwayne.
[00:39:42] Unknown:
It's more than you'd give me. Mister Mills. I, mister Christie, have a launching device. Aye aye, sir. Ellison, Quintin, please give me a hand for the Dallas. Now, gentlemen, you have your choice.
[00:39:53] Unknown:
The rest of the men who haven't joined us, you stay on ship with me or you go as long. I'll give you one.
[00:39:59] Unknown:
Come with me here and I'll see you're hung.
[00:40:02] Unknown:
I'll stay. I'm with you, mister Christian. Stand on the side. I'm going with the captain. Off bay. Over here then.
[00:40:11] Unknown:
Mister Friar? Mister Christian, listen to me. One more time, mister Friar. Answer my question. I have sympathy for you, the wrongs you've suffered, but none whatever for what you're doing now. I have not asked for your sympathy, mister Friar.
[00:40:21] Unknown:
Mister Friar, what's your decision?
[00:40:25] Unknown:
Mister Blythe,
[00:40:26] Unknown:
I shall go with captain Blythe. Very well, will we will we hear then, left side? Purcell?
[00:40:32] Unknown:
No matter what I think of mister Blythe, I know my duty as an officer. Mister Purcell, I shall remember that. All that are going, Mister Bly, ready to man the launch? She's ready to lower, sir. In the boat, man.
[00:40:42] Unknown:
First, mister Bly. I'll never leave my ship of my free will. Very well. Carry your men. Is there a long overdue journey?
[00:40:50] Unknown:
And that. Send back to
[00:40:53] Unknown:
Kirk it. Keep your musket ready if anyone makes a move. That's it. Into the boat, man. Keep him in. Now the rest of you, Friar Pasell, Nelson. All of you that are going, keep moving. Ellison, Dudley, the supplies.
[00:41:08] Unknown:
In you get. We can't take any more. Christian, we can't take any more. Don't change it anymore. She's no alone in Christian. She's no alone in the swamp. No more men. Don't swamp the old men.
[00:41:18] Unknown:
I'll see that justice has done yours. Very well. Back the rest of you by him. Get back. Yes, mister Christian.
[00:41:24] Unknown:
War away, men. I said War away. One more charge, Christian. One more charge to surrender. Too late for that now, mister One more chance to surrender. Too late for that now, mister Bly. You'll pay for this. Every one of you, you'll pay. Give us some cutlasses at least, Christian. The match. Traitors. I'll have vengeance on you. I'll see you sweeten the atom of all two years apart. If I have to go to the edge of the earth, I'll get you.
[00:42:26] Unknown:
The launch was soon a hundred yards from the ship, with fly and 18 men crowded aboard. There was no chance of my joining. Nor east breeze freshened and the valley began to gather away. Under Christian's command, we put back to Tahiti. There we parted. It was his intention to turn us back forever on civilization and settle in some remote island in the South Seas. The rest of us well determined to return to England. With him aboard the bounty went eight members of the crew, eight native women, and Tahani, his wife. The last I saw of the bounty, she was standing off the shore of Tahiti with all sails set, set, heading north into uncharted waters, where the light easterly breeze had been.
[00:43:24] Unknown:
Prisoners, stand forth, Yes, sir. James Morrison. Yes, sir. William Muspratt. Yes, sir. Honors Birkett. Yes, sir. John Mills. Yes, sir. Honors Ellison. Yes, sir.
[00:43:42] Unknown:
Do Do any of the accused have anything further to say in your defense? No, my lord.
[00:43:51] Unknown:
No, my lord. No, my lord. No, my lord.
[00:43:55] Unknown:
Having heard the evidence produced in support of the charges made against you and having maturely and deliberately weighed the whole of the evidence, this court is of the opinion that the charges have been proved against you. It does therefore judge that you shall suffer death by being hanged by the neck on board any of his majesty's ships of war not later than one month from this day and at such a time and such a place as the commissioners for executing the office of Lord High Admiral of Great Britain and Ireland shall, in writing, under their hands, direct.
[00:44:48] Unknown:
Our story tonight is the true account of an adventure at sea. It is not fiction. It is history. And history seldom accommodates us with a happy ending. The boundaries of fact reach farther than the boundaries of romance. And even when the last of the principles of any action have died, it cannot surely be said that any human event has ended in the sense that a story ends. If our hero tonight was Captain Bly, then our story concludes with the fulfillment of his promise. For Captain Bly, sailing without charts or instruments, against thirst and hunger, against heat and cold, after forty one perilous days on the open sea, brought the launch of the bounty with its crew of 19 souls into the Dutch port of Timur, Three Thousand Six Hundred And Eighteen miles from where they had been set adrift.
He kept his word, returned to England, brought seven of the mutineers to trial and saw them convicted to treason and condemned to death. If our hero was Roger Byam, then the story still has a happy ending. For in spite of captain Bly and quite in keeping with the best traditions of Melodrama, he was reprieved from hanging at the eleventh hour and lived to marry a girl and to become a captain in the British navy. As to mister Christian, the end of his story has not been written. It has been told that with his wife, Tahani, and a few of the mutineers, he sailed the bounty far off the trade lanes to an island they called Pitcairn.
They may not have lived happily ever after. But for almost a hundred and fifty years, their descendants have continued in existence, free from the bondage and misery against which Fletcher Christian rebuild.
[00:46:57] Unknown:
In a moment or so, Orson Welles will return to the microphone with his guest of the evening, missus Dorothy Hall, a person who has had direct contact with the descendants of the mutineers and who has been recently and dramatically associated with life on Pitcairn Island. While we are waiting for them, let me remind you of something I was talking about a little while ago, of the lavish emphasis on chicken in Campbell's chicken soup. Actually all the good meat of fine, government certified chickens goes into the making. The broth bubbles slowly and softly in shining kettles until it takes on a golden glint and the flavor of chicken is rich in every drop. Pieces of chicken meat cooked deliciously tender go into the soup too along with snowy rice.
Every woman knows that the merit of a chicken soup depends on the amount of chicken used in making it. And since that is so, then as surely as you like chicken, you'll like Campbell's chicken soup. You'll like it for lunch, for supper, for family meals, whenever the idea of chicken sounds good. Why not put Campbell's chicken soup on tomorrow's shopping list and have it this very weekend. And now, Orson Welles.
[00:48:12] Unknown:
Ladies and gentlemen, the last or at least the latest chapter in the strange story of the mutiny on the bounty, we're going to tell you tonight before this broadcast is over. It was written only last summer and only a few miles from the studio. Hack is a taxicab. It is also what you call a writer if you're mad at him. Quack is what Donald Duck says and what you should never call a doctor. Ham is the most distinguished reference you can make to an amateur radio operator. But there are two kinds of hams and smile when you call a radio actor a ham. Say ham to missus Dorothy Hall, however, and she'll just smile.
I'd like to make this quite clear before I go on. When you say radio ham to me, it is either dramatic criticism or fighting words depending on how big you are. But okay around missus Hall because ham is just a pleasant reminder in the queer vernacular for her own people that she has passed tests a and b of the Federal Communications Commission and belongs to the elect among amateur radio operators of the world. Missus Hall's kind of ham, pioneered radio. Missus Hall's kind of ham stays up late and gets up early, eats irregularly, rescues flood victims, and talks like an E. Phillips Oppenheim spy into an H. G. Wells machine thinking nothing of such phrases as q r m, q c, q r t, and q s l, the exact meaning of which I am not entirely certain.
88, however, means love and kisses. This I have committed to memory in several languages. 88. Y one five k g is what missus Hall assures me she calls his royal highness, crown prince Faisal Gostle of Iraq. I said crown prince Faisal Gostle of Iraq. And there are a lot of other hams, missus Hall's kind. I mean, there is w five d e w, for example, who is married, a dew drop of Texas, and the mother of four children. There is Howard Hughes. There is Wilmer Allison, the tennis star. There is doctor James Hard, the John d Rockefeller of Mexico, who's invested a hundred and $50,000 in amateur radio. This is the the son of Herbert Hoover too and Andy Sunella, the band leader and about 85,000 others including Amos of our own Campbell Soup, Amos and Andy. I don't know what makes her him.
Missus Hall's kind, I mean. But I do know that it's very lucky for an awful lot of people that hams do exist and 214 of those lucky people are especially lucky and especially grateful to missus Hall. They are the two fourteen great grandchildren and great great grandchildren and great great great grandchildren of the crew of the HMS Bounty. Remember the headlines? Pitcairn islanders face starvation, bounty survivors isolated by typhoid rumor, Queens woman rallies British to aid survivors, radio amateur acts to save starving inhabitants. Well, it was only last summer and only last summer it was that the rumors of a dangerous epidemic forced the little island into a tragic quarantine that threatened to erase all life from Pitcairn.
That same Pitcairn, that same paradise that mister Christian and the rest of them founded a hundred and fifty years ago in tonight's story. What happened was this. Stories of a contagious disease on Pitcairn Island spread faster than any disease through the islands from Panama to Tahiti, from Samoa to New Zealand, and boats, all of them from the biggest traders to the littlest tramps kept off. The harbor was closed. Pitcairn islanders watched them, boats with food and most vital with medical supplies sailed past them almost within shouting distance and away into the sky. And so it was that slow death and death by torture faced a community in the very presence of civilization, faced a people whose ancestors had known this torment and this kind of death.
And here's how another chapter was written in the saga of the bounty. Andrew Young, descendant of midshipman Edward Young, latitude twenty five minutes four seconds south, longitude hundred and thirty minutes six seconds west, fighting time, fighting the ebbing power of his radio transmitter, found an old friend in the ether whom he knew well and whom he had never seen 7,740 miles away, a colleague in the great good fellowship of radio hands, found and gave the word to missus Dorothy Hall, one eight six one eight Williamson Avenue, Springfield Gardens, Queens, Long Island, New York. And here she is. Missus Dorothy Hall who picked up the message and gave it to the world. I'd like you to meet missus Hall. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Missus Hall, will you please read the entry which you made in your log on July nineteenth of last year? Certainly, mister Wells. Here it is.
[00:53:08] Unknown:
04:38AM. While in contact with v r six a y, he requested that I contact the British Council that no ships had stopped for trading since May 25, and they needed food and medical supplies. Missus Hall,
[00:53:24] Unknown:
when did help finally reach the islanders? Just nine days after I received the message. You must be tremendously grateful for what you've done for them. Well, they're very nice people. I think you're understating the situation, missus Hall. I must tell you that since missus Hall rescued Pitcairn Island, I found out from other sources, she's become what amounts to its unofficial council general, purchasing agent, adviser, and guardian angel.
[00:53:49] Unknown:
Well, mister Wells, that's quite a title. Tell us, missus Hall.
[00:53:52] Unknown:
What do you think is the outlook for the islanders?
[00:53:55] Unknown:
I'm afraid not so very encouraging. They are entirely cut off from regular professional medical attention, whereas they recovered from this epidemic, which incidentally has never been diagnosed. It is more than possible, particularly with the threat of cholera, that someday a ship will pull into the harbor and find no one alive.
[00:54:17] Unknown:
Missus Hall, certainly something should be done about this. The people at Pitcairn Island need a doctor. They need someone to tell them what they've got when they're sick and someone to cure them when they've got it. They need at least the simplest medical supplies. I don't know what can be done, but maybe somebody, somewhere, who's listening to this will know the answer. Let's hope so. And now before wishing you good night, missus Hall, and thanking you for visiting us at the Campbell Playhouse, I'd like our listeners to hear what I found in your log when I visited your home the other day. It's your most recent entry regarding the island. It's just a sentence, but I think it's very eloquent.
From the chief magistrate of Pitcairn Island to missus Dorothy Hall, quote, you do what is for our good. It's okay with me. Signed, Richard Edward Christian. And now, ladies and gentlemen, just before I lose my voice and just before we say good night, just a minute of next week's story. A preview is what the movies call it. Music, if you please, professor Thurman.
[00:55:35] Unknown:
When mister Fippany took the mules out of the traces to lead them down to the stream to drink, he noticed that his wife continued sitting on the spring seats staring ahead of her and that Addie, now 10 years old, remained in the wagon under the canvas. When he came back, they were as before.
[00:55:52] Unknown:
Josephine, are you feeling alright?
[00:55:56] Unknown:
Fine.
[00:55:57] Unknown:
Don't you like this camping place?
[00:56:00] Unknown:
As well as any camping place.
[00:56:02] Unknown:
Well, what about supper?
[00:56:05] Unknown:
I don't plan to cook any more suppers in this fine, free, out of doors.
[00:56:10] Unknown:
Well, how come?
[00:56:11] Unknown:
Tomorrow, Addie and I is going back to some town to live or die. Some town like Natchez.
[00:56:19] Unknown:
And and leave me?
[00:56:21] Unknown:
We too are going back to that town to live or die.
[00:56:26] Unknown:
Perhaps mister Tiffany's poker playing, in spite of his wife's frequent corrosive remarks about it, had given him some helpful training. At any rate, mister Fippany leaned down and began pulling at Bricksteal's long ears. Bricksteal,
[00:56:39] Unknown:
we don't want a good town, we do. We're we're we're ashamed of the old wagon. Who we here now? Why why we're the chicken wagon family. It ain't got no home except in all these situations. Yes, sir. We we can't be chicken wagon people no more. It's it's it's disgraceful. We're the shame. We're going to town. We're in. Hey. We're going to town. And by dogs, we're going to the biggest downtown in the world. We're on our way to New York City.
[00:57:11] Unknown:
This is Tiffany screaming.
[00:57:23] Unknown:
Ladies and gentlemen, what you've just heard comes about at the beginning of next week's broadcast and the voice you heard telling you the story because he happened to visit the Campbell Playhouse in the studio tonight and because he was nice enough to do this for us was the voice of America's finest actor, mister Burgess Meredith, who is the star of next Friday's story which is a queer story, a funny story, a very, very good story and a very, very human story called the chicken wagon family. Until then, until the chicken wagon family, Burgess Meredith, who is next week's star, my sponsor and I, and all of us on the Campbell Playhouse remain obediently yours.
[00:58:39] Unknown:
In tonight's broadcast of mutiny on the bounty, captain Bly was played by Orson Welles. Roger Byam was played by Karl Frank. Joseph Cotton was was Fletcher Christian. Thomas Birkett was played by Ray Collins. Mr. Friar by Frank Redick. Morrison by Myron McCormick. Edgar Barriere was Purcell. Richard Wilson was Thompson. William Allen was Samuel and Memo Holt was Tehani. Don't fail to listen in next Friday night when Orson Welles brings to the Campbell Playhouse Burgess Meredith in that lovable, laughable bestseller of a dozen years ago, THE CHICKEN WAGON FAMILY. Missus Ernest Chapel saying good night on behalf of the makers of Campbell Soup.
This is the Columbia Broadcasting System.
[00:59:51] Unknown:
What you're hearing is Hardie fiber cement siding living up to its reputation as the siding that handles hail impact with ease. James Hardie knows how important a reputation is, especially when you're a contractor. That's why Hardie siding withstands severe weather better than vinyl siding, with styles to match its strength, so you can be sure you're providing your clients with the best. Protect your reputation with exterior products by James Hardie.
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[00:00:33] Unknown:
apply.
[00:00:53] Unknown:
The makers of Campbell Soups presents the Campbell Playhouse, Orson Welles, producer. Good evening listeners, this is Ernest Chappell speaking. Tonight the Campbell Playhouse presents Orson Welles in his own radio version of that great story, Mutiny on the Bounty. But first a word from our sponsor. Any day you look on the lunch or dinner menu, the most popular restaurant in town, you will likely find that one dish featured is chicken. Ask the proprietor about this and he'll tell you that chicken is a best seller, not only with the regulars but with people who are eating out in style.
And it's true wherever you go. Chicken is usually first choice when the meal is to be something specially fine. I mention this because it seems to me the widespread liking for chicken is one reason Campbell's chicken soup is enjoyed so eagerly by families everywhere. You see, this soup is chicken through and through so that as sure as you like chicken, you'll like Campbell's chicken soup. And the aroma that drips up as this soup is set before you, there's an unmistakable promise of chicken. There's deep down chicken flavor in each spoonful as you taste it and tender pieces of chicken meat too. That's what makes this such a grand soup, The lavish emphasis on chicken.
Why don't you surprise your family with Campbell's chicken soup for some meal this weekend?
[00:02:34] Unknown:
Good evening. This is Orson Welles. On the 09/12/1792, there occurred in England the most remarkable court martial in maritime history. Seven naval officers and men were on trial for their lives before the Lord's commissioner of the Admiralty on charge of high treason. Revelations of this trial of commissioner of the admiralty on charge of high treason. Revelations of this trial of conditions prevailing on the ships of the British navy came finally to exert a powerful influence in humanizing the administration of the world's navies and making more tolerable life at sea.
[00:03:36] Unknown:
You are here to be tried by a special form of naval inquiry assembled aboard His Majesty's flagship duke under article 19 of the naval articles of war, which reads as follows. If any person in or belonging to the fleet shall make or endeavor to make any mutinous assembly upon any pretense whatsoever, every person offending herein, being convicted thereof by the sentence of the court martial, shall suffer death.
[00:04:04] Unknown:
First witness to the crown, captain Bly. Captain Bly. Captain Bly. Captain Bly, have you any statement to make to this court concerning the mutiny aboard his magister ship bound at while under your command in the Great South Seas? I have sir. I have prepared a statement which I now beg the court's permission to read. The court will hear your statement, Captain Blythe. I respectfully beg to submit to the Lord's commission of the admiralty
[00:04:31] Unknown:
the information that his majesty's armed vessel bounty under my command was taken from me by some of the superior officers and men on the April 1789 in the following manner. Little before sunrise,
[00:04:45] Unknown:
Fletcher Christian, who was mate of the ship and officer of the watch, together with the accused and certain others of the crew, came into my cabin and while I was asleep seized me in my bed and with cutlasses and bayonets fixed at my breast threatened me with instant death if I spoke or made the least noise. I was hold on deck in my shirt and without a rag else.
[00:05:06] Unknown:
The boatswain was ordered to hoist the launch out, and the officers and men who remained loyal were ordered into the boat. The event veered astern and all 19 souls. The boat was so lumbered and deep in the water that it was believed we should never reach shore. The size of the boat was 23 feet from astern to Starn Road 6 O'ers. After considering our merit clear situation, I was earnestly solicited by all hands to take them toward home. Therefore, after commending ourselves to God, I bore away from New Holland and two more across a sea but little known in a small boat laden with 19 souls without a single map of any kind and nothing but my own recollection and general knowledge of the situation of places to direct us.
After enduring dangers and privations impossible to describe, we sighted Timor on the June 12. And on the morning of the fifteenth before daylight, I anchored under the fort of the Dutch settlement at Copan. This voyage in an open boat, I believe to be unparalleled in the history of navigation. One thing I wish to add, that on the night preceding the mutineer, coming up on deck during the middle watch according to my custom, I discovered Fletcher Christian, the ringleader of the mutineers, in earnest conversation with Raja Vayam Mitchelben, one of the accused.
In the darkness of the deck, I was not observed by these men who were standing on the starboard side of the quarterdeck between the guns, Nor had I any apprehension at that time that their conversation was not innocent. But as I approached on scene, I saw Raja Bhaam shake hands with Christian, and I distinctly heard him say these words, you can count on me. To which Christian replied, good. That's settled then. The moment they discovered me, they broke off their talk. I have not the slightest doubt that this conversation concerned the forthcoming mutiny. It's all a
[00:07:03] Unknown:
look.
[00:07:05] Unknown:
Roger Bayam, stand for.
[00:07:07] Unknown:
Roger Bayam, you have been accused with others of mutinous and heretical seizure of his majest design, mister Balde. You have heard the crown's witness. Roger Bayon, do you plead guilty or not guilty? My lord and gentlemen,
[00:07:23] Unknown:
I declare before god and the members of this court that I am innocent, that I have never been guilty either in thought or indeed of the crime of which I am charged. Roger Bayon, the court is now ready to receive
[00:07:35] Unknown:
whatever you may have to say in your own defense.
[00:07:38] Unknown:
My lords, I joined his majesty's armed transport bounty as a midshipman On the 12/21/1787, we were off Spithead, lying to for stores and crews to come aboard. I remember my first sight of the bounty. The crew crowded in the after deck around the huddled form of a man, lashed the capstan's spar. And Captain Bly reading from an admiralty order.
[00:08:08] Unknown:
If any person in or belonging to his majesty's fleet shall strike or endeavor to strike an officer, he shall be flagged in turn on board every ship of the fleet.
[00:08:19] Unknown:
Master Downes? Yes, sir. How many lashes are due for my ship? Two dozen, sir. Very well.
[00:08:24] Unknown:
Mister Morrison? Yes, captain Black. Two dozen lashes. One moment, captain. Yes, surgeon. The prisoner is dead, sir. Lucky devil we were only the sister. Well, mister Morrison, what are you waiting for? Wasn't. But the man is dead, sir. Yes. I heard the surgeon's report. Come, my dinner's getting cold. Who doesn't lash it, mister Morrison? Who doesn't lash it, dead or alive? Two doesn't, it is.
[00:09:02] Unknown:
On the morning of the December 23, with 45 officers and crew aboard, And as the guns of the fleet fired a farewell salute, the bounty set sail for Tahiti and the Great South Seas.
[00:09:16] Unknown:
Your turn, Christian. Hi, captain. Take shot. Raising anchor, sir. Sergeant Hagen. Sergeant Hagen. Sergeant Hagen, you'll moderate both your voice and your rum rations at your post. Very well, sir. Tomorrow, then we're ready, sir. Aye, sir.
[00:09:41] Unknown:
All hands all the down here. Thanks and carry. Hold short then. Hold short then. Close the top two. Are you sweeper in the foretubs? The main tupper of the island alive, you crown caterpillar. Wait a minute. No heed. Hold.
[00:10:44] Unknown:
She was a small ship, as you know, of little more than 200 tons. The great cabin aft was rigged as a garden for the transportation of breadfruit trees from the island of Tahiti to the West Indian plantations. Thus, the ship's quarters were more than usually crowded. A circumstance which undoubtedly affected the temper of its company. The officers messed in the screened off space on the lower deck after the main hatch. At the captain's table sat Mr. Friar, the ship's navigator, an elderly man long in the service of his majesty's navy. And mister Christian, the mate, a man of only 24, a fine presence from a good English standard.
[00:11:28] Unknown:
Man. Don't you talk to me about seamen, mister Christian. I know them better than you. Curse them a lazy incompetent lot of scoundrels. Them nose of captain, that's trials and others. Such cruel
[00:11:38] Unknown:
dregs of public houses, they don't know a sheep from attack. I bet you to differ with your captain why I should call Ellison and Mills first class seaman, even Birkett or he may be wilfully.
[00:11:50] Unknown:
Birkett's an insolent hound. I have my eye on him. Slightest report of miss Conrocks, I'll have him seized up and flogged. If I may express an opinion, captain Blythe Yes, mister Christian. Reckons a man to tame with kindness rather than with blows. La dee da, mister Christian. On my word, you should apply for a place as master in the young lady's seminary. Kindness indeed. A fine captain you'll make with such ridiculous notions. Our seamen understand kindness as well as they understand Greek. Fear is what they do understand. Without fear, mutine and piracy would be rife on the high sea. I there's some truth in that, sir. I can't agree.
[00:12:27] Unknown:
Seaman don't differ from other Englishmen. There are some, the best of them, who follow a fair and kind officer to the ends of the earth. Right. So as I trust them, it's the end of a yard.
[00:12:38] Unknown:
If you have to talk such nonsense, mister Christian, I'll do it in my mess where I have to listen to her.
[00:12:44] Unknown:
Very well, mister Blaine. In the future, I shall dine where my opinions are more acceptable.
[00:12:57] Unknown:
From that day on and for the rest of the voyage, captain Bly took his meals by himself in his cabin. Latitude thirty nine degrees north, just off the coast of Tenerife, we ran into heavy weather. A huge wave stove in three of our longboats, carried away our cases of beef, and spoiled a large part of our stock of bread. We laid into Santa Cruz for fresh supplies of water and beef. The meat that was taken on ship was so tainted the men threw most of it overboard. Captain Bly kept the men at work preparing the ship's boats from morning till
[00:13:33] Unknown:
night. Captain Bly. Yes, mister Pryor. Men are asking when they can start shore leave, sir. They can get drunk in the tavern, this will Then it's sea nearly eight weeks, sir. Maybe eight months before they set foot and land and might as well get used to it. Oh, surely, mister Pryor.
[00:13:50] Unknown:
Aye, sir.
[00:13:58] Unknown:
We left Santa Cruz at the February. We carried no purse. Bly filled the office himself assisted by Samuel, his clerk, a smug, tight lipped little man who was believed to be the captain's spy. On Monday of every week, he and captain Bly opened up the casks and checked over the supplies in the storeroom.
[00:14:21] Unknown:
18 pounds salt beef. 18 pounds.
[00:14:24] Unknown:
What's wrong with that cake bucket? Seems like it's been open, sir.
[00:14:28] Unknown:
So it has. Mister Friar, come here at once, sir. Mister Friar, is captain Bly calling you, sir? Yes, captain. Well, these castes have been opened and two cheeses are missing. Well, they may have been short waited when we were provisions, sir. They were not, mister Friar. I checked them. These cheeses were stolen. Well, perhaps you'll recollect, sir, that while we were a spit head, a cask was opened by your order and the cheeses carried ashore. Georgia tongue Birkett.
[00:14:51] Unknown:
Brought his men by a pack of thieves. Surely, captain, you don't fit the eye. Intrusion against me, officers and men.
[00:14:57] Unknown:
But I'll obtain you by head, and I will. I'll make you eat grass before I'm done with you.
[00:15:04] Unknown:
Settle. Yes, sir. If the allowance of cheese is stopped, the officer's too mind gentle that the patient is made good. Yes, Jack. And Burkett, if I hear another word out of you, I'll have you seized up and plucked to the vault.
[00:15:16] Unknown:
Samuel, you pluck the storeroom and keys to my cabin.
[00:15:29] Unknown:
So help me fly out of those two cheeses taken out of
[00:15:34] Unknown:
I can beg you there, Bertrand. I carried them myself. Two cheeses and a cask of vinegar of Blythe House. That's a game, is it? Lining his pockets by styling us. Person's blood. I'll be hanged if I do any more work on this ship. He puts back our cheese I'm with you, lads. No more work by any in this mess. I'll give the word to Quintal's lesson. He'll pass it on. No more work.
[00:15:59] Unknown:
No more work. No more work.
[00:16:11] Unknown:
No more work. Coming. Captain Wye.
[00:16:14] Unknown:
Yes, mister Christian.
[00:16:16] Unknown:
As officer of the deck, sir, I feel it's my duty to make a report. Well, what is it? The grumbling in the forecastle, sir. It's becoming serious. I did it. What are the scoundrels grumbling about now? Many things, sir. Chief, lay the fool. And they're not satisfied with the rations, sir? By heaven, they better make up their minds to be satisfied. Captain Bligh, a second officer. I'm in a measure responsible for their conduct. If I may suggest, sir, I think it would be wise to listen to that grievances. May I keep your suggestions to yourself, mister Christian? I think it only right that you should hear what the I am the only judge, sir, of what's right and wrong on the ship.
[00:16:50] Unknown:
I'm tired of their bloody complaints. Since you seem to be their advocate, mister Christian, you can tell this. The first man to complain from now on will be placed in chains.
[00:17:08] Unknown:
About a hundred leagues off the coast of Brazil, the wind shopped around to north and northwest, and the bounty lay becalmed. Here, another incident occurred to aggravate the resentment of the men. We'd been at sea six months, and for ten weeks now outside of the officers' mess, there had been no fresh food of any sort on board the bounty. Taking advantage of the calm, the crew employed themselves with fishing for shark with pieces of rotten pork for bait. Knock ahead. Knock ahead.
[00:17:37] Unknown:
They don't want the gas. Right under the mouth. Give him the bait there. Cycle cut. Johnny Merkett. Hooked by heaven. He's on. He's a big one. Hold on a move. Tower Hart is on equity. He's a big one. Alright. He's a bit. Alright? Heave ho. Stranded it now. Any boys? Anybody tonight? Slice him up, man. Cavalier Mills. The cutlass. Watch where you're cutting. Shark meat's good eating. It's better than dried dog's meat any day. House.
[00:18:08] Unknown:
Someone's coming. It's Samuel. Samuel, captain's spy. He doesn't get a scrap of the shark's meat. You hear men? Not a scrap. A fine catch, amen. I say it's a fine catch of fish you got there.
[00:18:26] Unknown:
I must have a slice. Okay, mister Burkes? Oh, you must have a slice, mister Samuel. I must have a glass of grog and a sip one too. If you eat stock today.
[00:18:34] Unknown:
Come come, my good man. You have enough fish there for a dozen. You have enough grass stored away for a thousand, my heaven. It's for the captain's table I wanted. And catch him a shark yourself. This is mine.
[00:18:44] Unknown:
He gets the best of the bread and the pick of the junk cactus as it is. You may get yourself crickets.
[00:18:50] Unknown:
Give me a slice of that large one, and
[00:18:53] Unknown:
I'll say nothing. Trouble with you. You take your slice right in your seeking face.
[00:19:04] Unknown:
Birkett sent the night and irons. His messmates saved him their entire allowance to prod to fortify him against the flogging they knew to be inevitable. At six bells, mister Bly came on deck.
[00:19:17] Unknown:
Good afternoon. Yes, captain Blythe. All all hands and deck to witness punishment. Yes, sir. All men on our deck, Boston. I have a suggestion.
[00:19:28] Unknown:
All hands on deck. All hands on deck. All hands on deck. All hands on deck. All hands on deck. All hands on deck. All hands on deck. All hands on deck. All hands on deck, captain White. I report all men on deck, captain White. Very good, miss Christian. Ring the greetings, miss Purcell.
[00:19:39] Unknown:
Greetings on each one.
[00:19:42] Unknown:
Thomas Burgess, step forward.
[00:19:45] Unknown:
Billing said? No, sir.
[00:19:48] Unknown:
Straight. Norton, seize him up.
[00:19:54] Unknown:
Seized up, sir.
[00:19:56] Unknown:
Thomas Birkett, for mutinous conduct, I sentence you in three dozen lashes.
[00:20:01] Unknown:
Morrison? Yes, sir? Mister Morrison, I see that you lay on with a will. Thought to eat breakfast, and then you're done. Yes,
[00:20:41] Unknown:
And now the old devil's got the first bell alliance. They say mister Friar and fly ain't speaking no more. Pretty pass then. We'll assume what's gonna happen the world with the entire day. Where do we get back? It'll be a day of reckoning for Blythe. Aye. And maybe before we get back. What do you say in Mills? We gotta get back to England, though. We we could get back without Blythe if we had to. There's a man that could take the bounty home. I am a better man than Bly. Christian, you mean? Christian. Yeah. That's right.
Mister Christian. Mister Christian.
[00:21:22] Unknown:
Fortunately for captain Bly, a gale blew up that night, and all hands were kept busy keeping the ship from being swamped. Day after day, we scudded before strong westerly to sowwesterly winds, carrying only the porcelain close reef main topsoil. At last, on the November 20, we rounded Cape Horn. 5 Weeks later, we sighted the first coral reefs and saw the great mountains of the Island Of Tahiti.
[00:22:02] Unknown:
Kicking sounding. Yes, sir. Mills.
[00:22:05] Unknown:
By the Marquise, by the d seven water shoring.
[00:22:11] Unknown:
Fair anchor. Yes, sir.
[00:22:13] Unknown:
Horizon, all men to their stations. All men to their station.
[00:22:23] Unknown:
Well, there it is, miss Christian. The Isle Of Tahiti. Long, hard voyage. My heaven, there it is at last.
[00:22:34] Unknown:
That's like a beautiful island, isn't I? It is.
[00:22:38] Unknown:
Captain Cook, under whom I sailed these waters, loved it. Only next angle. Well, I, an old man, and my work turn, I should ask nothing better than to end my days and its parlors.
[00:22:51] Unknown:
Mister Christian? Yes, sir. Sounding.
[00:22:54] Unknown:
Mills. By the deep five, one half less five, sir, and shawling fast. Throw away. Lower away,
[00:23:02] Unknown:
sir.
[00:23:09] Unknown:
Ladies are coming to voices.
[00:23:11] Unknown:
Lower the noise. Hey, sir.
[00:23:13] Unknown:
Miss Christians, set a watch.
[00:23:18] Unknown:
See that those thieving yellow devils don't steal anything when they come aboard.
[00:23:35] Unknown:
The next day, the crew went ashore. The danger of the mutiny seemed past. The hardships of the voyage were soon forgotten. We lived on the fat of the land amongst affectionate native friends. Those were the happiest weeks I ever spent. Our host was the chief of the island. He had two daughters, Hina and Tahani. Mister Christian and I used to visit them often. The four of us would go swimming, sporting in the breakers or lying on the white sand of the coral beach.
[00:24:14] Unknown:
Hina? Yes, I am. The tide is high.
[00:24:17] Unknown:
Swim with me out to the reef underwater.
[00:24:19] Unknown:
How about it, Christian? Brian, you're not lazy enough for the South Seas. I'll stay here with the honey. Bloody Hina. Ready? Come.
[00:24:33] Unknown:
I'll tell you when we get to the ring.
[00:24:41] Unknown:
Christian?
[00:24:42] Unknown:
Yeah.
[00:24:43] Unknown:
Are you a chief in your own land? Small one perhaps darling. I knew you must be. And have you no wife?
[00:24:54] Unknown:
None.
[00:24:56] Unknown:
I have no husband.
[00:24:59] Unknown:
Dani.
[00:25:01] Unknown:
Why do you stop? Dani is listening.
[00:25:04] Unknown:
When the ship sails to honey,
[00:25:06] Unknown:
I must go with it. But it will be two moons before the ship sails.
[00:25:11] Unknown:
Two moons are soon past, honey.
[00:25:14] Unknown:
We have a legend, Christiane, the antahiti, that time is a long lizard that sleeps with its tail in its mouth. And to those who keep their hearts within its circle, no harm can come.
[00:25:28] Unknown:
No harm will come, darling.
[00:25:31] Unknown:
What are you doing with those flowers?
[00:25:34] Unknown:
The honey make a wreath to go around your neck. White flower, long stem.
[00:25:39] Unknown:
What do you call it? This one,
[00:25:42] Unknown:
the tofana.
[00:25:43] Unknown:
Looks like the lotus. In my country, we have legends too, Dehane. In my country, they say a sailor who once taste the lotus, have a go zone.
[00:26:12] Unknown:
You are listening to the Campbell Playhouse presentation of Mutiny on the Bounty. We pause now for station identification. This is the Columbia Broadcasting System. This is Ernest Chappell welcoming you back to the Campbell Playhouse. In a minute or two we will resume our presentation of Mutiny on the Bounty starring Orson Welles. Meanwhile, may I say a word or two about mutiny in another form? Over many years, modern genius has been showing women the way to give their families better food with less kitchen time. And call it mutiny or call it evolution, women have been quick to take full advantage of these benefits for their families and themselves.
No longer does the good housewife feel she must spend long hours each week making her own bread and churning her own butter. To give her family their favorite dishes it is no longer necessary to spend so many hours in her kitchen. Her household shelves are laden down with many of these foods, ready prepared for her, and of a quality equal to her own good homemade kind. Among these fine foods are soups. Campbell soups. If you have never tried them, I invite you to try a can of Campbell's chicken soup tomorrow. I cannot think of a finer way to introduce you to Campbell's soups than that. Once you've tasted Campbell's chicken soup, I feel certain you'll be convinced that soup making at home is a task you can well turn over to Campbell's chefs.
And now, back to the Campbell Playhouse presentation of Mutiny on the Bounty, starring Orson Welles.
[00:28:22] Unknown:
Yes, sir. James Morrison, Potent Plate? Yes, sir. William Purcell, ship's carpenter? Yes, sir. Thomas Birkett, seaman? Yes, sir. John Mill, seaman? Yes, sir. Thomas Ellison, seaman? Yes, sir.
[00:28:37] Unknown:
Or Gevaim, have you anything further to say in your defense?
[00:28:41] Unknown:
I have my lord. Toward the March it became evident to all hands that the bounty would soon sail. More than a thousand young breadfruit trees in pots and tubs had been taken on board. The relaxation of discipline now came to an end. Captain Bly ordered Samuel to seize all the gifts which the friendly natives had given the men. With abundance around them, the crew were again put on slender rations. Two of them, deserted to the hills, were caught and severely clogged. On our last visit ashore, mister Christian was more than usually silent.
[00:29:23] Unknown:
Christiane, you are going to sail. Is that not so? Yes, Tahani. When?
[00:29:31] Unknown:
Tomorrow. Sunrise.
[00:29:33] Unknown:
Oh.
[00:29:34] Unknown:
Where would you be, D'Honey, when we sail?
[00:29:37] Unknown:
We're on the shore, waving my hand.
[00:29:40] Unknown:
I'll watch for you. Kristian,
[00:29:43] Unknown:
will you think of D'Honey sometime
[00:29:46] Unknown:
in your own land? I will not stay in my own land. I shall come back to hunting.
[00:29:53] Unknown:
Yeah, Christiane. These are for you.
[00:29:57] Unknown:
Black pearls to hunting.
[00:30:00] Unknown:
Where did you get these? I swim very deep one morning off coral reef. All people say pearlsake men never forget.
[00:30:09] Unknown:
Your people say right to honey.
[00:30:11] Unknown:
And I shall wait, Christian. I shall wait for you to come back. And every noon I shall watch for your ship. Make yellow hook, call only, Christian. Make yellow hook, call only.
[00:30:43] Unknown:
Mister Christian, Brian,
[00:30:46] Unknown:
you're late. Both of you. I'm sorry, sir. I didn't realize There's no definite time for our return, captain Brian. Of it.
[00:30:52] Unknown:
Surely it'll be back by four bells.
[00:30:55] Unknown:
You got there, mister Christian? Some gifts there from our friends on shore. Mister Samuel? Yes, captain?
[00:31:02] Unknown:
We will take charge of these Indian curiosities which may be useful for trading in other islands. Yes. One moment, sir. These things were given me as gifts for members of my family in England. Mister Samuel, who heard my orders? You're bundled, mister Christian. Captain's orders. Very well then. Take it. Mister Christian, you still have something in your hand. Come, let me see what it is. Pair of pearls. They appear to be remarkably fine stones. Yes, sir. Give them to mister Samuel, please. Black pearls are highly prized in the friendly islands where we should do some trading. Surely, sir, you won't take these.
[00:31:39] Unknown:
They were given to me by by a very close friend. And the woman, mister Samuel. Captain Bly, I've obeyed every order you've given me, and some of them with the utmost distaste. But this I refuse. I intend to keep this gift, sir, as long as I live.
[00:31:56] Unknown:
Very well, mister Christian. I accept your refusal, and I shall remember it.
[00:32:09] Unknown:
On the 04/04/1788, the bounty with our cargo of breadfruit trees set sail from Tahiti. All went quietly enough until the evening of April 14. That morning we left the island of Namuka in the friendly archipelago, where we did our usual trading with the natives. A great many coconuts had been brought aboard and piled up on the quarterdeck between the guns under the captain's eye. At about noon, some of the coconuts were found to be missing.
[00:32:43] Unknown:
Mister Morrison. Aye, sir. Roll the officers assembled on deck. Aye, sir.
[00:32:54] Unknown:
Gentlemen. Gentlemen.
[00:32:57] Unknown:
I regret to inform you that several coconuts have been stolen. I expect you to help me find the culprits. Well, speak up. Speak up. Some of you must know the guilty party.
[00:33:11] Unknown:
Mister Christian, step forward, please.
[00:33:14] Unknown:
I wish to know the exact number of coconuts you purchased
[00:33:22] Unknown:
for your own use, mister Christian. I really don't know, sir. Oh, you don't? I hope you don't take me so mean as to steal yours. Yes. I do think so.
[00:33:25] Unknown:
You must have stolen some of mine. You'd be able to give a better account of your own. You may be officers, but you're rascals and thieves.
[00:33:32] Unknown:
They're out of here.
[00:33:33] Unknown:
I'll break the spirit of every man of you. You'll wish you'd never seen me before we reach the Inches. Mister Samuel. Yes, sir. You'll stop the officers' grok and drop further orders. And instead of a pound of yen for men, you'll issue half a pound to all the messes. Understand? Yes, sir. And by heaven, I'll reduce you to a quarter of a pound if I find anything else missing. Make you crawl on your bellies for that.
[00:34:01] Unknown:
It was feverish hot below deck that night, and there was an uneasy stirring in the folks' room. I couldn't sleep and went up on deck. It was then about 01:00, and with the exception of the watch, there was no one on deck but Tinkler curled up asleep under one of the guns. Mister Norton, the watch, was standing at the rail on the opposite side of the deck. I could make out his form standing in the starlight. Someone appeared at the after ladderway.
[00:34:28] Unknown:
Who's that? Oh, it's you by him. Oh, hello, mister Christian. Have you seen captain Blyden at? Did you know that he invited me to sup with him? Why? Can you tell me that after spitting at me, wiping his feet on me, he sent Samuel to ask me to his table? He didn't go? After what happened, I should say not. Maybe he's got a conscience, Christian.
[00:34:48] Unknown:
His invitation might have been a way of letting you know he was sorry. I might have believed that once, but not now.
[00:34:54] Unknown:
By him, we're in his power, officers and men alike. He considers us so many dogs to be kicked or fondled as he pleases. There can be no relief, none, not till we reach England. Heaven knows when that'll be. Heaven knows if I can stand it till then. Heaven knows if the men can stand it. I am as Christian, something I wish you could do for me. A voyage like this one never knows what might happen. If for any reason I should fail to reach home, I'd like you to see my people in Cumberland. That'd be too much trouble for you? I'm not at all, mister Christians. Just before I joined the ship, my father asked that I'd make such an arrangement with someone on board.
In case anything should happen, he said that it would be a comfort to him to talk to one of my friends. You can count on me, sir. Good. That's settled then.
[00:35:46] Unknown:
Well, miss Crichton, you're up late. Yes, sir. And you, mister Blythe, can't you sleep? It's very warm below, sir. I've noticed it. A true sailor can sleep in an oven if the case requires or on a cake of ice. Good night, mister Bayard.
[00:36:06] Unknown:
Good night, mister Christians.
[00:36:25] Unknown:
Smith, wake up. It's three bells. Curtis, where's the other lads? Thompson's going to the arms chest. Come with me a bit quick about it. I that and I will. Coleman. Oh, Coleman. What do you want, Thompson? The key to the gun locker. Army man. It's hanging above the hatch. Thompson, is that you, Abaket? What did you get, man? 10 muskets and a bracelet pistols. Pass them around, mate. Smith? I I'll take one. Quite all? Give me one with a bin. Donaldson. Tank. Churchill. I'm with you. What's the rest of the lags, Birgit? In the App Deck. They see mister Christie. Hi. We need Christie, my dear. He's the man that'll rid us of that swine.
[00:37:16] Unknown:
Christened. Smile. Smile. Get up. Yes. Yes. Put on your fluids. No. Don't blame about it. What? Martin, are you mad? Have you any idea what you're doing? We know what we're doing.
[00:38:02] Unknown:
Into your ribs? Go ahead, Christian.
[00:38:05] Unknown:
Murder me. Go ahead.
[00:38:08] Unknown:
I'm master of this ship now, mister Blythe. Why? If I have, I'll spend no more of your views. Can you treat it? I see you hung. I'll have you frozen. Hold your tongue or your deadness at your throat. Let him have it. Quiet. Quiet. Quiet. All of you.
[00:38:23] Unknown:
I'll give the orders on my ship.
[00:38:25] Unknown:
So I could get the other orders on deck. They're pitching him up, sir. Christian. Mister Christian, think what you do. Release me. Lay aside your arms. Let's be friends again, mister Christian.
[00:38:33] Unknown:
Mister Christian, I give you my word that nothing more should be said of this matter. Your word is of no value, captain Bligh.
[00:38:40] Unknown:
What do you mean to do with me?
[00:38:43] Unknown:
Shoot you, swinely. Please him up at the gradings, mister Christian. Give us that chance that it was the last night. For
[00:38:49] Unknown:
the grandma. We'll give you justice, mister Bligh. It is more than you've ever given us. What's your plan, mister to know. I that we have Mind what you're about, Thompson. I'm master of the ship. Damn you. This way. That's what you are, Christian.
[00:39:03] Unknown:
They'll never listen to you. They're
[00:39:07] Unknown:
Maybe that'll teach you to hold your tongue. Mister Christian. Stand back, ma'am. Think what you're doing, Christian. This is my affair.
[00:39:13] Unknown:
Friar Patel. I'm on that side of the deck of Byrum And Morrison. Mister Christian,
[00:39:18] Unknown:
are you in this? Yes, mister Friar. I've taken the ship.
[00:39:21] Unknown:
None of you will be hurt unless you resist. What are you gonna do with captain Bly? Kill me. That's what the villain's gonna do. Oh, captain Bly, no. No. I'm not going to kill you.
[00:39:27] Unknown:
Captain Blythe, no. No. I'm not going to kill you. I'm going to put you at drift in the long boat. Humble. That was right. Tell me about the
[00:39:35] Unknown:
that rock little boat where you're 3,000 miles from land. What else does that but just that much murder? Giving you a chance, mister Dwayne.
[00:39:42] Unknown:
It's more than you'd give me. Mister Mills. I, mister Christie, have a launching device. Aye aye, sir. Ellison, Quintin, please give me a hand for the Dallas. Now, gentlemen, you have your choice.
[00:39:53] Unknown:
The rest of the men who haven't joined us, you stay on ship with me or you go as long. I'll give you one.
[00:39:59] Unknown:
Come with me here and I'll see you're hung.
[00:40:02] Unknown:
I'll stay. I'm with you, mister Christian. Stand on the side. I'm going with the captain. Off bay. Over here then.
[00:40:11] Unknown:
Mister Friar? Mister Christian, listen to me. One more time, mister Friar. Answer my question. I have sympathy for you, the wrongs you've suffered, but none whatever for what you're doing now. I have not asked for your sympathy, mister Friar.
[00:40:21] Unknown:
Mister Friar, what's your decision?
[00:40:25] Unknown:
Mister Blythe,
[00:40:26] Unknown:
I shall go with captain Blythe. Very well, will we will we hear then, left side? Purcell?
[00:40:32] Unknown:
No matter what I think of mister Blythe, I know my duty as an officer. Mister Purcell, I shall remember that. All that are going, Mister Bly, ready to man the launch? She's ready to lower, sir. In the boat, man.
[00:40:42] Unknown:
First, mister Bly. I'll never leave my ship of my free will. Very well. Carry your men. Is there a long overdue journey?
[00:40:50] Unknown:
And that. Send back to
[00:40:53] Unknown:
Kirk it. Keep your musket ready if anyone makes a move. That's it. Into the boat, man. Keep him in. Now the rest of you, Friar Pasell, Nelson. All of you that are going, keep moving. Ellison, Dudley, the supplies.
[00:41:08] Unknown:
In you get. We can't take any more. Christian, we can't take any more. Don't change it anymore. She's no alone in Christian. She's no alone in the swamp. No more men. Don't swamp the old men.
[00:41:18] Unknown:
I'll see that justice has done yours. Very well. Back the rest of you by him. Get back. Yes, mister Christian.
[00:41:24] Unknown:
War away, men. I said War away. One more charge, Christian. One more charge to surrender. Too late for that now, mister One more chance to surrender. Too late for that now, mister Bly. You'll pay for this. Every one of you, you'll pay. Give us some cutlasses at least, Christian. The match. Traitors. I'll have vengeance on you. I'll see you sweeten the atom of all two years apart. If I have to go to the edge of the earth, I'll get you.
[00:42:26] Unknown:
The launch was soon a hundred yards from the ship, with fly and 18 men crowded aboard. There was no chance of my joining. Nor east breeze freshened and the valley began to gather away. Under Christian's command, we put back to Tahiti. There we parted. It was his intention to turn us back forever on civilization and settle in some remote island in the South Seas. The rest of us well determined to return to England. With him aboard the bounty went eight members of the crew, eight native women, and Tahani, his wife. The last I saw of the bounty, she was standing off the shore of Tahiti with all sails set, set, heading north into uncharted waters, where the light easterly breeze had been.
[00:43:24] Unknown:
Prisoners, stand forth, Yes, sir. James Morrison. Yes, sir. William Muspratt. Yes, sir. Honors Birkett. Yes, sir. John Mills. Yes, sir. Honors Ellison. Yes, sir.
[00:43:42] Unknown:
Do Do any of the accused have anything further to say in your defense? No, my lord.
[00:43:51] Unknown:
No, my lord. No, my lord. No, my lord.
[00:43:55] Unknown:
Having heard the evidence produced in support of the charges made against you and having maturely and deliberately weighed the whole of the evidence, this court is of the opinion that the charges have been proved against you. It does therefore judge that you shall suffer death by being hanged by the neck on board any of his majesty's ships of war not later than one month from this day and at such a time and such a place as the commissioners for executing the office of Lord High Admiral of Great Britain and Ireland shall, in writing, under their hands, direct.
[00:44:48] Unknown:
Our story tonight is the true account of an adventure at sea. It is not fiction. It is history. And history seldom accommodates us with a happy ending. The boundaries of fact reach farther than the boundaries of romance. And even when the last of the principles of any action have died, it cannot surely be said that any human event has ended in the sense that a story ends. If our hero tonight was Captain Bly, then our story concludes with the fulfillment of his promise. For Captain Bly, sailing without charts or instruments, against thirst and hunger, against heat and cold, after forty one perilous days on the open sea, brought the launch of the bounty with its crew of 19 souls into the Dutch port of Timur, Three Thousand Six Hundred And Eighteen miles from where they had been set adrift.
He kept his word, returned to England, brought seven of the mutineers to trial and saw them convicted to treason and condemned to death. If our hero was Roger Byam, then the story still has a happy ending. For in spite of captain Bly and quite in keeping with the best traditions of Melodrama, he was reprieved from hanging at the eleventh hour and lived to marry a girl and to become a captain in the British navy. As to mister Christian, the end of his story has not been written. It has been told that with his wife, Tahani, and a few of the mutineers, he sailed the bounty far off the trade lanes to an island they called Pitcairn.
They may not have lived happily ever after. But for almost a hundred and fifty years, their descendants have continued in existence, free from the bondage and misery against which Fletcher Christian rebuild.
[00:46:57] Unknown:
In a moment or so, Orson Welles will return to the microphone with his guest of the evening, missus Dorothy Hall, a person who has had direct contact with the descendants of the mutineers and who has been recently and dramatically associated with life on Pitcairn Island. While we are waiting for them, let me remind you of something I was talking about a little while ago, of the lavish emphasis on chicken in Campbell's chicken soup. Actually all the good meat of fine, government certified chickens goes into the making. The broth bubbles slowly and softly in shining kettles until it takes on a golden glint and the flavor of chicken is rich in every drop. Pieces of chicken meat cooked deliciously tender go into the soup too along with snowy rice.
Every woman knows that the merit of a chicken soup depends on the amount of chicken used in making it. And since that is so, then as surely as you like chicken, you'll like Campbell's chicken soup. You'll like it for lunch, for supper, for family meals, whenever the idea of chicken sounds good. Why not put Campbell's chicken soup on tomorrow's shopping list and have it this very weekend. And now, Orson Welles.
[00:48:12] Unknown:
Ladies and gentlemen, the last or at least the latest chapter in the strange story of the mutiny on the bounty, we're going to tell you tonight before this broadcast is over. It was written only last summer and only a few miles from the studio. Hack is a taxicab. It is also what you call a writer if you're mad at him. Quack is what Donald Duck says and what you should never call a doctor. Ham is the most distinguished reference you can make to an amateur radio operator. But there are two kinds of hams and smile when you call a radio actor a ham. Say ham to missus Dorothy Hall, however, and she'll just smile.
I'd like to make this quite clear before I go on. When you say radio ham to me, it is either dramatic criticism or fighting words depending on how big you are. But okay around missus Hall because ham is just a pleasant reminder in the queer vernacular for her own people that she has passed tests a and b of the Federal Communications Commission and belongs to the elect among amateur radio operators of the world. Missus Hall's kind of ham, pioneered radio. Missus Hall's kind of ham stays up late and gets up early, eats irregularly, rescues flood victims, and talks like an E. Phillips Oppenheim spy into an H. G. Wells machine thinking nothing of such phrases as q r m, q c, q r t, and q s l, the exact meaning of which I am not entirely certain.
88, however, means love and kisses. This I have committed to memory in several languages. 88. Y one five k g is what missus Hall assures me she calls his royal highness, crown prince Faisal Gostle of Iraq. I said crown prince Faisal Gostle of Iraq. And there are a lot of other hams, missus Hall's kind. I mean, there is w five d e w, for example, who is married, a dew drop of Texas, and the mother of four children. There is Howard Hughes. There is Wilmer Allison, the tennis star. There is doctor James Hard, the John d Rockefeller of Mexico, who's invested a hundred and $50,000 in amateur radio. This is the the son of Herbert Hoover too and Andy Sunella, the band leader and about 85,000 others including Amos of our own Campbell Soup, Amos and Andy. I don't know what makes her him.
Missus Hall's kind, I mean. But I do know that it's very lucky for an awful lot of people that hams do exist and 214 of those lucky people are especially lucky and especially grateful to missus Hall. They are the two fourteen great grandchildren and great great grandchildren and great great great grandchildren of the crew of the HMS Bounty. Remember the headlines? Pitcairn islanders face starvation, bounty survivors isolated by typhoid rumor, Queens woman rallies British to aid survivors, radio amateur acts to save starving inhabitants. Well, it was only last summer and only last summer it was that the rumors of a dangerous epidemic forced the little island into a tragic quarantine that threatened to erase all life from Pitcairn.
That same Pitcairn, that same paradise that mister Christian and the rest of them founded a hundred and fifty years ago in tonight's story. What happened was this. Stories of a contagious disease on Pitcairn Island spread faster than any disease through the islands from Panama to Tahiti, from Samoa to New Zealand, and boats, all of them from the biggest traders to the littlest tramps kept off. The harbor was closed. Pitcairn islanders watched them, boats with food and most vital with medical supplies sailed past them almost within shouting distance and away into the sky. And so it was that slow death and death by torture faced a community in the very presence of civilization, faced a people whose ancestors had known this torment and this kind of death.
And here's how another chapter was written in the saga of the bounty. Andrew Young, descendant of midshipman Edward Young, latitude twenty five minutes four seconds south, longitude hundred and thirty minutes six seconds west, fighting time, fighting the ebbing power of his radio transmitter, found an old friend in the ether whom he knew well and whom he had never seen 7,740 miles away, a colleague in the great good fellowship of radio hands, found and gave the word to missus Dorothy Hall, one eight six one eight Williamson Avenue, Springfield Gardens, Queens, Long Island, New York. And here she is. Missus Dorothy Hall who picked up the message and gave it to the world. I'd like you to meet missus Hall. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Missus Hall, will you please read the entry which you made in your log on July nineteenth of last year? Certainly, mister Wells. Here it is.
[00:53:08] Unknown:
04:38AM. While in contact with v r six a y, he requested that I contact the British Council that no ships had stopped for trading since May 25, and they needed food and medical supplies. Missus Hall,
[00:53:24] Unknown:
when did help finally reach the islanders? Just nine days after I received the message. You must be tremendously grateful for what you've done for them. Well, they're very nice people. I think you're understating the situation, missus Hall. I must tell you that since missus Hall rescued Pitcairn Island, I found out from other sources, she's become what amounts to its unofficial council general, purchasing agent, adviser, and guardian angel.
[00:53:49] Unknown:
Well, mister Wells, that's quite a title. Tell us, missus Hall.
[00:53:52] Unknown:
What do you think is the outlook for the islanders?
[00:53:55] Unknown:
I'm afraid not so very encouraging. They are entirely cut off from regular professional medical attention, whereas they recovered from this epidemic, which incidentally has never been diagnosed. It is more than possible, particularly with the threat of cholera, that someday a ship will pull into the harbor and find no one alive.
[00:54:17] Unknown:
Missus Hall, certainly something should be done about this. The people at Pitcairn Island need a doctor. They need someone to tell them what they've got when they're sick and someone to cure them when they've got it. They need at least the simplest medical supplies. I don't know what can be done, but maybe somebody, somewhere, who's listening to this will know the answer. Let's hope so. And now before wishing you good night, missus Hall, and thanking you for visiting us at the Campbell Playhouse, I'd like our listeners to hear what I found in your log when I visited your home the other day. It's your most recent entry regarding the island. It's just a sentence, but I think it's very eloquent.
From the chief magistrate of Pitcairn Island to missus Dorothy Hall, quote, you do what is for our good. It's okay with me. Signed, Richard Edward Christian. And now, ladies and gentlemen, just before I lose my voice and just before we say good night, just a minute of next week's story. A preview is what the movies call it. Music, if you please, professor Thurman.
[00:55:35] Unknown:
When mister Fippany took the mules out of the traces to lead them down to the stream to drink, he noticed that his wife continued sitting on the spring seats staring ahead of her and that Addie, now 10 years old, remained in the wagon under the canvas. When he came back, they were as before.
[00:55:52] Unknown:
Josephine, are you feeling alright?
[00:55:56] Unknown:
Fine.
[00:55:57] Unknown:
Don't you like this camping place?
[00:56:00] Unknown:
As well as any camping place.
[00:56:02] Unknown:
Well, what about supper?
[00:56:05] Unknown:
I don't plan to cook any more suppers in this fine, free, out of doors.
[00:56:10] Unknown:
Well, how come?
[00:56:11] Unknown:
Tomorrow, Addie and I is going back to some town to live or die. Some town like Natchez.
[00:56:19] Unknown:
And and leave me?
[00:56:21] Unknown:
We too are going back to that town to live or die.
[00:56:26] Unknown:
Perhaps mister Tiffany's poker playing, in spite of his wife's frequent corrosive remarks about it, had given him some helpful training. At any rate, mister Fippany leaned down and began pulling at Bricksteal's long ears. Bricksteal,
[00:56:39] Unknown:
we don't want a good town, we do. We're we're we're ashamed of the old wagon. Who we here now? Why why we're the chicken wagon family. It ain't got no home except in all these situations. Yes, sir. We we can't be chicken wagon people no more. It's it's it's disgraceful. We're the shame. We're going to town. We're in. Hey. We're going to town. And by dogs, we're going to the biggest downtown in the world. We're on our way to New York City.
[00:57:11] Unknown:
This is Tiffany screaming.
[00:57:23] Unknown:
Ladies and gentlemen, what you've just heard comes about at the beginning of next week's broadcast and the voice you heard telling you the story because he happened to visit the Campbell Playhouse in the studio tonight and because he was nice enough to do this for us was the voice of America's finest actor, mister Burgess Meredith, who is the star of next Friday's story which is a queer story, a funny story, a very, very good story and a very, very human story called the chicken wagon family. Until then, until the chicken wagon family, Burgess Meredith, who is next week's star, my sponsor and I, and all of us on the Campbell Playhouse remain obediently yours.
[00:58:39] Unknown:
In tonight's broadcast of mutiny on the bounty, captain Bly was played by Orson Welles. Roger Byam was played by Karl Frank. Joseph Cotton was was Fletcher Christian. Thomas Birkett was played by Ray Collins. Mr. Friar by Frank Redick. Morrison by Myron McCormick. Edgar Barriere was Purcell. Richard Wilson was Thompson. William Allen was Samuel and Memo Holt was Tehani. Don't fail to listen in next Friday night when Orson Welles brings to the Campbell Playhouse Burgess Meredith in that lovable, laughable bestseller of a dozen years ago, THE CHICKEN WAGON FAMILY. Missus Ernest Chapel saying good night on behalf of the makers of Campbell Soup.
This is the Columbia Broadcasting System.
[00:59:51] Unknown:
What you're hearing is Hardie fiber cement siding living up to its reputation as the siding that handles hail impact with ease. James Hardie knows how important a reputation is, especially when you're a contractor. That's why Hardie siding withstands severe weather better than vinyl siding, with styles to match its strength, so you can be sure you're providing your clients with the best. Protect your reputation with exterior products by James Hardie.
Introduction to the Campbell Playhouse
Captain Bly's Testimony
Roger Bayam's Defense
The Voyage Begins
Tensions Rise on the Bounty
Arrival at Tahiti
Return to Sea and the Mutiny
Aftermath of the Mutiny
Historical Context and Reflections
Interview with Dorothy Hall
