Auto Light and its 98,000 dealers bring you Mr. John Hodiac in tonight's presentation of Suspense. Tonight, Auto Light presents a story about heroism as we document the attempt of three brave men to conquer the mountain. Our star, Mr. John Hodiac. Hello, Harlow. Bottom of the evening to you. You mean top of the evening, don't you, Mr. McSaulay? No, bottom. My spirits are low as the water in my car's battery. Oh, you mean it's dry? Dry is an Irishman's wit. Well, now it's an Auto Light's day full battery you're needing. That's the famous battery that needs water only use. You mean that long life battery, Harlow? It is one and the same. Fiberglass mats surround every positive plate to reduce shedding and flaking and give the Auto Light stay full longer life as proved by tests conducted according to accepted life cycle standards. Where could I be getting this marvel of marvel? Why from your nearest Auto Light battery dealer, the man who services all makes of batteries. To quickly locate him, just phone Western Union by number and ask for operator 25. I'll tell you where to get an Auto Light stay full. The battery that needs water only three times a year in normal car use. And remember, from bumper to tail light, you're always right with Auto Light. And now, Auto Light presents The Mountain, starring Mr. John Hodiac, hoping once again to keep you in suspense. We made the fourth camp on the East Glacier 22,000 feet above sea level. In that cold thin air we stood looking up and in the great loneliness we saw it. For a few seconds as the mist cleared, we saw it. The mountain, the peak towering over us was beautiful and terrible. Then a swirling curtain moved around it and it was gone again. There were six of us and the porters. Mantan and Leeds had been sent back to the third camp some 4,000 feet below. Both had been badly frostbitten. So then there were six of us left to make the attempt. Nobody had done it before. No one had ever reached the top of that tremendous windswept place. And now we were ready for the assault. That night we held our last meeting in the fourth camp. Gaines, Thomas, Feldman, Eldridge, Perucci and myself. Ah, that's the best way, the most practical. Three of us stay and three of us try to make it. We stand a better chance if we all do it together. What do you think, Bob? I don't think so. Thomas is right. The three of us go and have to turn back. The other three will still be fresh. They can have a go. That's right. All right? Sure. Yes, of course. Okay, two parties. Thomas, you'll head up the second. Stay at the camp. I'll lead the first one up. Right. Now, wait a minute. Don't we get a vote on this? No, it's a waste of time. Start voting and we'll start arguing again. Those monsoons aren't going to hold off forever. Take it easy, John. Yes. How's your leg, Harry? Not bad. If I might hold you back, you'd better leave me down here. All right. And you, Rucci, you want me to go? Feel up to it? Sure, you bet. Gains? Okay. Uh-uh, you're not acclimated. The cough? It's nothing. It'll get a lot worse, higher. Better not. Well, look, why not let me go with you and leave Harry in charge down here? That leg will be all right in a couple of days, don't you think, Harry? It ought to be. He hasn't had enough experience for a lead man. Oh. There's nothing wrong with me. Or is there? Well? Well, I don't know, John. It's going to be pretty tough. Well? Well, listen, John. You keep out of this, Thomas. What about it, Bob? I'm in good shape. I guess so. Okay. You, Perucci, and myself. That'll be it. We'll start at daybreak. And that's the way we decided. There was no other possibility. It wasn't that we didn't like Eldridge. It was just that he was always flying off the handle, and because of that, he wasn't a good risk. Nerves don't go so well with mountain climbing. Not that mountain. Cold and dangerous. It's never gained peak, hidden in mist. Later that evening, Thomas and I were going over the equipment before turning in. You know, someday they'll invent an oxygen tank that's light. Bet these things weigh over 30 pounds. Yeah. Hey, Bob. Hmm? About Eldridge. What about him? Do you think he ought to go? It's the only way, I guess. You're taking a big chance. He'll be all right. If we could only wait just a couple of days, Harry would be all right. We're late now. If the monsoon starts, none of us will be able to do it. That's the trouble. Well, you have Perucci along. He gets on pretty well with Eldridge. That'll help. It'll be fine. We're all in good shape. I think we're going to make it. In a way, I hope you don't. I'd like a crack at it myself. Oh, wouldn't that be something? The first man to get to the top. You understand why I didn't take you, don't you? Oh, of course. Wishful thinking, that's all. Well, you better turn in. I'll finish checking the stuff. Okay. See you in the morning. On May the 18th, we started to climb the Northwest Ridge. We were 23,000 feet. Each of us carried a 30-pound oxygen tank besides the equipment we needed for our next camp. For three or four hours, it wasn't bad. But as we went higher, the wind started to take it out of us, and we felt the cold more. Take 10, eh? Yeah. Boy, will you look at it up there. That's it. You almost feel like you could jump and touch the top. Big jump, Perucci. What do you figure? About 3,500 feet more? Something like that. Well, if the weather holds, we might make it by tomorrow. That's what I thought. Not a cloud in the sky. Oh, will you look at that thing. Boy, what can you say when you see a mountain like that? Save your breath. We'll move in a few minutes. Then we hit patches of snow, and the pace slowed down. We'd spelled each other as leader, and it was my turn up ahead. Perucci was bringing up the rear when I heard him yell and felt that dreadful tug of the rope at the same time. Falk, Perucci's gone down. Dig in. All right. What is it, crevasse? Yes. Use the ice axe. It won't hold. Snow's too soft here. I'm slipping, Falk. I'm slipping. I saw the snow crumbling away from beneath Elbridge's feet. I saw it, and I thought of a man I knew who slipped from an aerial ladder 100 feet up, and as he fell to the ground, his legs raced wildly, arms waving, trying to find the rungs to pull himself back up. And Elbridge was doing it now, his heels churning into the soft snow at the edge of the crevasse. Then he found solid ice. Bob? Yeah? Can you pull me back? I can't get Perucci out from here. I'm afraid I'll go over too. I'm right on the edge. Can he get a hold with his axe? No. He's hanging free. The wall slopes in. I'll try. You'll have to pull too, Bob. I can't do it alone. Too much weight. I tell you, I can't. I'm afraid to move. I can feel it going under me. All right. I'll try. I'll try. I'll try. I'll try. I'll try. I'll try. I'll try. I'll try. I'll try. I'll try. Can he feel it going under me, or around me? There's solid ice a couple of feet back. I can grab it with my axe. Don't let go! Don't let it go, slack. Bob! I'll go over. I won't. Just hang on! I knew that if I slipped when I reached behind me, it was the end. I looked at the figure of Eldridge below me, his body bent backwards, away from the drop beneath him. I closed my eyes, reached behind with my axe, and ducked into the ice. I can't. I'm slipping! I can't! And as Eldridge shouted, I thought I heard another cry. And suddenly the rope's weight was lighter. I saw Eldridge fall, then get up on hands and knees and crawl away from the crevasse, toward me. Norman! Where's Norman? He's gone. He fell. He's gone. He can't be. How? I don't know. Perhaps the rope frayed on some ice at the edge. Suddenly it went slack. I heard him, Bob. I heard him. Maybe it's not too deep. He might have fallen into a drift at the bottom. Stay here. I belayed the rope about the ice axe and paid out the rest of it as I slid down the slope to the crevasse. But when I looked over the edge, I knew. That dark blue, almost black emptiness below. I knew. There'd be no snow drift for Norman Perucci's body. Unless it was perhaps 10,000 feet below us. We bypassed that place, found a shelter from the wind and pitched our tent. For a long time, neither one of us spoke. I think we were too exhausted to say anything. Exhausted and shocked. There were only two of us now. I keep hearing him. I know. No, no. You don't. Not the way I do. He was a nice kid. Yes. It doesn't seem as cold without the wind. How high do you think we are? 24,000. I wonder. It's a little hard to breathe. I'd better use the oxygen. No, not yet. We won't need it. Yes, yes we will. We'd better save it. We're going down in the morning. No. We've got to. You and I couldn't make it up there alone. It's 2,500 feet to go. Maybe more. No, we've got to go back. Let the others try. Just because he's gone, is that why? Look, I've done more climbing than you out here. What happened today is bad for the nerves. We couldn't make it. We'll go back. Try again later. The monsoons will be here later. We've got to do it now. Thomas and the others can do it. No, we'll keep going. I've got to. I'm not going back. What's the matter with you? You're talking like a kid. Look, I was the last one on your list when you got the party together, wasn't I? Yes. Why? Why was I last? I don't know. Somebody had to be. It was you, that's all. You didn't want me along. None of you did. You're here, aren't you? You know I'm afraid of climbing, don't you? Isn't everybody a little? Isn't that why we do it? Isn't that part of it? I mean really scared. I'm really scared. You know that. No, I don't. Look, something happened when Noy... Something happened to me today. I've got to go onto the top now. You think I'll call you a coward if we don't? No. All right, then forget it. We'll try again. Maybe next year. You'll be along, too. I'll do it alone, then. I'm going on alone. If you want to come with me, all right. If not, it doesn't matter anyway. I'm going on. So long. John. John! He didn't stop. Just moved up the ice slab and around the hammock out of sight. I went back inside the tent to get my pack. I couldn't let him do it alone, and I was trapped into going with him. Then I saw that the fool hadn't even taken his rope. It was neatly coiled in the corner. I grabbed it up, and as I did so, I saw the end of it. The end which had broken when Perucci hung over the crevasse. The rope which Eldridge had said was parted by the ice. But there were no frayed ends. The break was clean. It had been cut through, and the oil of Eldridge's knife blade was still on it. Auto Light is bringing you Mr. John Hodiac with Ben Wright as Eldridge in The Mountain, tonight's presentation in radio's outstanding theatre of thrills, Suspense. Oh an auto light staple's a battery for me. It's the finest fine battery I ever did see. That is the truth, Mr. McSaulay, and that famous auto light staple needs water only three times a year in normal car use. And how long, me boy, would you be repeating about the glass of fiber? A pleasure, a pleasure it is. Those fiber glass retaining mats surround every positive plate to reduce shedding and flaking and give the auto light staple longer life as proved by tests conducted according to accepted life cycle standards. So friends, visit your auto light battery dealer. He services all makes of batteries, and he's got an auto light staple for your car if a replacement is needed. To quickly locate your nearest auto light battery dealer, call Western Union by number. And ask for operator 25. I'll tell you where to get an auto light staple, the battery that needs water only three times a year in normal car use. And as they say in St. Patrick's Day, from bumper to tail light, you're always right with auto light. And now, auto light brings back to our Hollywood sound stage Mr. John Hodiac in Elliot Lewis's production of The Mountain, a tale well calculated to keep you in suspense. When Eldridge had thought that he was going over the crevasse, he'd cut the rope which had held Norman Perucci's body some 20 feet into the chasm. To save his own life, he'd done this. I pulled the coil through the straps of my pack and left the tent. I caught up with Eldridge about 100 feet higher. He was standing on a shallow ledge catching his breath, and his head was tilted back, eyes fixed on that mountaintop, the brain of the monster. That nasty bit back there, I was cutting steps up the cliff, I nearly fell. You didn't though. No, I didn't. I say you're coming with me, eh? I want to see that you get down alive. You forgot your rope. I found it in the tent. I didn't think I'd need it. You might. Here. Thanks. We better tie on together. All right. Do you want to go first? No. It's your party now. You lead. All right. He had a funny look on his face as we roped together. I think he must have known then that I'd found out what he'd done. He didn't say anything though, but turned and began to move upwards. At three o'clock that afternoon, we were at about 25,000 feet. Was hard to breathe now, terribly hard. We decided to rest for a few minutes. I remembered looking down from the ridge, looking down into the incredible scene below. Then up, and the peak which loomed over us, clear against the sky, perhaps 1,500, perhaps 2,000 feet over us. I remembered Perucci's excitement as he'd seen it further down. And even then, I thought it could be beaten, that we might do it. We'll lose the oxygen from here as soon as we start again. Can't do any more today. Oh yes. We can go higher. Then what? Then it gets dark camp. Finish it tomorrow, if we don't today. If a storm comes up, we'll be in trouble. It won't. If we're going to make it, I know we are. Then what? It doesn't matter after that. We'll have to go down to the others. Yes, I suppose so. We'll have to tell them about Norman. Yes. Are we going to tell the same story? I think we will. You know why I followed you, why I came along? Yes. Just like that. Yes. You murdered a man and that's all there is to it. I was afraid. I knew if I went over, we'd all go. It was the only way. If you'd waited, we could have got him out. I didn't know it then. I felt myself going. I had to do it. What's all this for? To wipe out the sin? Get to the peak and be a man again? In a way, perhaps. You won't be. You'll never be. When this gets out, and it's going to, there'll be no place for you to hide. No place to go. We better get moving. We began to use the oxygen sparingly and kept moving up, slower and slower. Our hearts pounding with the effort. Hundred feet. Two hundred. Three. I began to feel lightheaded. I couldn't. Not another step. I couldn't. Then it was four hundred feet. Eldridge collapsed in front of me and lay in the fine snow, sobbing. We stop. Stop here. We've got to go on. No. Go on. And he sobbed like a child. His mind willed him to keep going and his body wouldn't allow it. We lay there using our precious oxygen because I think had we not done so, we'd have died of fatigue. The wind had died down. Completely. And there was a silence so complete that you could almost imagine it bore a sound in itself. Deadening. Awful. We made camp and tried to sleep. We were too tired to think of food. With the night came a heavy mist and it began to grow much colder. The morning of May 20th was gray, clouded. The peak of the mountain was shrouded and I knew that it was going to snow. Directly ahead of us was an ice wall. There was no way around it. We had to climb almost vertically, cut our own steps with ice axe, one by one, and climb. This time I took the lead. And as I nodded the rope, Eldridge said, you don't trust me, do you? You're afraid if I'm leading a new fall, I'll cut the rope again. You might. Let's go. At that point we had ascended 25,400 feet. The ice wall would take us another hundred higher. The wind began to blow when we were halfway up. Two pathetic specks on a wall of the world. We'll move around to the right after this step. There's a bit of a ledge. I'll cut it. Okay. Come on. The ledge was at most 10 inches wide, narrowing down in places to no more than a toehold. I felt my way along until the ledge gave out. Then the hacking of steps began again. The wind tore at me, screamed. And like a great hand tried to sweep me off the wall. Once I looked down and it was as though a white blanket were stretched out beneath. It was snow. I could see it billowing up and around. While above the summit ignored everything beneath. The blizzard hit us as we reached the top of the ice wall. We found a little shelter in the lee of a pyramid-shaped summit and waited. And then the slope seemed to lurch. And I had a split second to see the wave of snow pouring down on me. It was over. Done. The avalanche swept us down, smothering, killing. And I thought of the ice wall and the drop below. That's all I remember. I had stopped falling. It was my first thought when I came to. I wasn't dead. I saw a pair of legs crouch next to me. I didn't think you were going to make it. Where'd I land? Hanging over the ice wall? But you were behind me. You didn't go over. No. Don't ask me why. It must have been a corner of the avalanche that hit us. You ended up pulling me down. My axe caught in one of the steps and it held us both. And you pulled me up. Yeah, looks like it. Thanks. How long have I been out? An hour. A little more. Blizzard's letting up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Did it feel like going on? I think so. All right. You tell me something. What? Why did you pull me out of it? Why didn't you just let me go over the edge? Then you wouldn't have had me around to tell. Look, I'm not a murderer, Bob. I cut Norman's rope because I was afraid. If I thought there was even a chance of us not falling, I wouldn't have done it. But I didn't know. Oh. That doesn't excuse me. But it doesn't mean I'd kill you to get out of it. No. I'd better save the talk. We'll need our breath. You want to lead or shall I? I'll do it. The storm had passed and although we could see the cold sky again, the peak was still only occasionally visible through patches of mist. We went up, higher, higher. And then my oxygen tank went out and we had to share outages. We'd nearly reached 26,000 feet. We could see the top. For a moment it stood out clear and it looked so easy. The last lap. But now we could only move a few steps at a time until we had to rest and I couldn't get up again. It looks pretty easy past that ridge. I have to wait. All right. Wait for me. No. Go on. No, together. Just wait. A couple of minutes. Oh. It'll be getting dark. I'll come back for you. No. A minute. Yeah. You? You take the oxygen. No. No, John. No. I won't need it. You wait here. No. I'll get down again. Wait. Look, I'm sorry. I was afraid. I'm still afraid. That's why I've got to do it. You understand? Come on, Bob. I didn't have the strength to stop him as he untied the rope which had held us together. Then he was gone. And after a while, I felt stronger. I sat up. I could see him, a dark blob against the mountain snow. Smaller. Smaller. And he was climbing upwards. He'd reached the final pinnacle and became a dot that was lost in the mist. I saw Eldridge once more. He couldn't have been more than 250 feet below the peak. For perhaps 10 seconds, I saw him. And then he disappeared. I waited. Waited into the night. The next morning, I began to look for him. But the oxygen was gone. I knew that if I had to climb another foot, I'd die. So I turned back. There was no wind anymore. It was almost warm. Somehow I got down. Down to the base camp. I told him the story. Almost the whole story, but not quite. I changed a rope which had been cut with a knife into a rope which had frayed and parted on the ice. I remember as we started down to the valley below, I turned and stood a minute looking back, looking up. Then a cloud softly poured over the peak. And in a moment, the mountain was gone. Suspense, presented by Autolite, tonight's star, Mr. John Hodiac. This is Harlow Wilcox again speaking for Autolite, world's largest independent manufacturer of automotive electrical equipment. Autolite is proud to serve the greatest names in the industry. That's why during these early months of 1953, the Autolite family joins again in saluting the leading car manufacturers who install Autolite products as original equipment. Our Autolite family is made up of the nearly 30,000 men and women in 28 great Autolite plants from coast to coast, and in still other Autolite plants in many foreign countries. Our family also includes more than 18,000 people who have invested a portion of their savings in Autolite, as well as 98,000 Autolite distributors and dealers in the United States, and thousands more in Canada and throughout the world. Three weeks from now, as the climax of this year's Autolite family salute program, Autolite will present special programs on both radio and television, direct from the Easter Parade of Stars Auto Show in New York's Waldorf Historia Hotel. So don't miss this exciting Suspense radio program originating from the grand ballroom of the Waldorf Historia on Monday, April 6th. Next week, a story in the classic tradition of suspense as we present a new version of Charles Dickens' terrifying short story, The Signalman. Our star, the First Lady of suspense, Miss Agnes Moorhead. That's next week on Suspense. The Mountain was written for suspense by Anthony Ellis. The program is produced and directed by Elliot Lewis, with music composed by Lucian Morawick and conducted by Lutte Gluskin. In tonight's play, Ben Wright was heard as Eldridge. Featured in the cast were Joseph Kearns, John Fraser, Paul Fries, and James McCallion. John Hodiac may soon be seen in the Columbia Pictures production, Mission Over Korea. And remember next week, Miss Agnes Moorhead in Charles Dickens' The Signalman. Tomorrow is an important day not only to the wearers of the green, but also to the Campfire Girls. March 17th marks the 43rd anniversary of this organization dedicated to teaching American girls how to become good citizens of the future. Auto Light congratulates the Campfire Girls and their inspired leaders. This is the CBS Radio Network.
