Stacy Harris stars in a Charles B. Smith story about three prisoners who have escaped when they were released to help assist a scheduled small plane that crashed in the Everglades. It’s their chance to get away with some of goods and money that might be on the plane. Infighting and vicious revenge against the guards cause the ad hoc plan they had to fall apart into a surprise ending.
The story opens with Harris’ character setting the stage through narration. He plays Joe McGuire, one of a “road gang” of prisoners working near the Florida Everglades. He notes that every day he hears a plane at the same time, and they wonders who is on it and what is on the plane. One morning they don’t hear the plane. It crashed, and they have ideas about finding out what might be on it in terms of mail and currency that might be being sent from one bank to another (there was no electronic funds transfer at that time they way there is in modern times).
One of the prisoners recently got a letter from his his wife where she declares she wants a divorce so she can marry someone else since he has been away in prison for six years. Each prisoner has a personal incentive to escape. Joe is just tired of it all. Things are made worse when one of the prisoners kills a deputy, with an axe! Now they have to flee to escape certain punishment.
Quiet night? Almost the entire broadcast has sound effects of wildlife and other sounds, and the sloshing of walking in the swamp. They reach the plane, and start looking inside. They realize there is a young boy there, but his parents are dead. The others want to leave him to die, but Joe wants to stay because he believes the boy can be revived and survived if he gets the proper attention. What is the “quiet night,” then? Joe ends up trying to clear some trees so a helicopter can see the plane, him, and the boy. The night may be quiet for just a moment, but the real quiet night is the change of Joe McGuire’s heart as he makes a right decision to save the young victim of the crash. He had the restless heart of a criminal, but he is willing to save a life, and clearly face the consequences of his prior actions to do so. Perhaps he will have a quiet night when it is all over.
There is $1500 on the plane. That is about $17,500 in US$2025.
This is an involved and good story that requires close listening. There are many relationships and grudges and subtleties of the characters’ lives that feed their motivations. If this program is just playing in the background it is very likely an important fact or dialogue will be missed.
There are two surviving recordings of the broadcast, and the network one is the better of the two. A recently available Armed Forces Radio Service recording (AFRS#573) is in good sound with some minor disc noise.
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TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP560306
THE CAST
Stacy Harris (Joe McGuire), Helen Kleeb (Martha Upshaw), Herb Butterfield (Sheriff George Upshaw), Charlotte Lawrence (Hazel Bryar), Tony Barrett (Bert the Deputy), William Forrester (Harry Bryar), Joe Kearns (Fats Carver), Joe DuVal (Paul Jeffers), George Walsh (Radio Announcer / Narrator)
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