The Star of Paramount Pictures, Alan Ladd as Dan Holliday.
Take a letter, Miss Jordan.
To Box 13, Care of the Star Times.
I need your help.
I dare not go to the police for reasons I'll explain when you see me.
I'm sorry, Miss Jordan.
I need your help. I dare not go to the police for reasons I'll explain when you see me.
Please come to my office in the security building.
Please come to my office in the security building, sign Douglas McIntosh.
Not much of a letter, but then, as the proverb says,
great oaks from little acorns grow.
And before this was over, the acorn grew into a large, large oak.
And now, back to Box 13 and Dan Holliday's newest adventure, Three to Die.
Douglas McIntosh.
That's a Scotch name, isn't it?
Ah, you can smell the heather, Susie.
Wonder what he wants.
Well, if this man is the same McIntosh I looked up,
he's building that new tunnel under the river.
Gee, maybe he wants you to be a hedgehog.
No, Susie, they're called sandhogs.
Oh, what will they think of next?
Well, I think I'll see what Mr. McIntosh has on his mind.
I'll be at the security building, Susie.
Security building?
Ha!
It was the only security I was to know until the whole thing was over.
Anyway, I went to McIntosh's office.
I was shown right into an oversized man who looked as big as the Washington Monument in tweeds.
He didn't waste much time.
So you're the man, eh?
Yes, I'm the man.
All right, you call me Mac.
What's your name?
Holliday, Dan Holliday.
All right, now, Dan, I'm in trouble.
Trouble gets around.
Fast.
But look here, and I'll tell you quick.
I'm a contractor.
I bid on this new tunnel.
Got the bid and posted my bond to finish the tunnel on time.
So far, everything's clear. What now?
Dan, I'm not going to finish in time.
Oh, why not?
Now we get to the point, and a sharp point.
You say you're running into trouble?
Hey, sabotage.
Why don't you call the police?
I can't, man.
They'd be publicity, unfavorable.
They can't risk it.
Oh, then what's my problem?
Find out who's doing this to me.
You suspect someone of doing it?
Look, man, accidents like we've been having don't just happen.
They're made.
Broken air hoses, emery in the compressors,
hundreds of delays, little things that add up to hours.
Oh, I see.
Another thing.
So far, the men working for me think these things are accidents.
But the moment they suspect somebody's doing the dirty work in that tunnel,
they'd walk out.
Sandhagen's dangerous enough itself.
In short, somebody's trying to ruin you.
Exactly. It would ruin me.
The contract would go to someone else.
They'd not get another contract for years.
But what can I do? I'm not a detective.
You see, I beg your pardon, Mr. McIntosh, but...
Can't you see I'm busy? What do you want?
Telegram. I thought you ought to see it right away.
All right, read it.
Well, uh...
Oh, it's all right. You can talk in front of him.
Dan, this is Fred Harris, construction engineer.
Harris, Dan Holliday.
How do you do?
Now, what about that wire?
Uh, the last shipment of concrete we ordered was derailed about 200 miles from here.
What?
Well, don't just stand there. Get every truck out of the road.
Get that concrete here.
You ought to have enough sense to think of that without coming to me first.
Go ahead. Get it down.
Yes, sir.
You see what I mean, Dan? Another delay.
Who's this Harris?
He thinks he's going to be my son-in-law.
Also, he thinks an engineering degree makes him a great man,
that it takes the place of 15 years of experience.
Hmm. That's an argument I'd rather watch from the sidelines.
Well, go on with your story.
Well, we have to finish in three weeks or I'll forfeit my contract...
McIntosh told me everything he knew. It wasn't much.
Only that whoever was doing the dirty work causing accidents, delays,
had to be working in the tunnel.
So we went to the tunnel.
But first, before I was taken down into the workings,
I was given khaki coveralls and a fiber helmet
and a little metal tag to hang around my neck.
Mac explained the tag.
Every Sandhawk gets one of those.
It's got his own number on it.
What's it for?
Ever hear of caisson disease?
Oh, the bends?
Aye.
On one side of the tag, it explains the man is a caisson worker,
working under pressure.
Oh, so if the disease hits him on the surface,
he can be given proper treatment.
That's it.
There are six places in the city where that can be treated.
The man is put into a chamber, pressure increased,
then gradually decreased.
Like a diver.
If he comes up too fast, the nitrogen in his blood
is forced into his tissues, causes pain.
And sometimes worse.
You seem to know a lot about it, Dan.
I'm a writer.
A writer has to know a little about everything.
Then I hope you'll be able to tell me more about what's going on down there.
All right, ready?
Mm-hmm, I'm ready.
Let's go.
Together, Mac and I rode one of the horse down into the workings.
My ears began to pop from the pressure.
I swallowed hard to keep them open.
Then we came to the bottom of the shaft,
about 150 feet below the surface of the ground.
Mac looked around for a minute and then...
Angus! Angus! Here, come here!
A short, powerfully built man walked over to us.
He was grinning as he said to Mac.
Ah, what brings the boss into the tunnel?
Angus, meet a friend of mine, Dan Holliday.
Dan Angus Campbell, my foreman.
Best man in the world in his life.
Ha-ha-ha! Aye, the best beside yourself.
How do you do, Dan?
How are you, Angus?
First rate.
Except we had another little rumpus today, Mac.
Eh, what?
Another break in the air hose at the shield.
The hose whipped around.
Anybody hurt?
Aye, Phil Evans.
Who has got him right in the middle?
He's done for this job.
Won't work for a month.
Broken ribs.
Another one.
Aye.
You visiting us here, Dan?
Well, you might call it that.
Dan's a writer, doing a story on sand-hogging.
Wants atmosphere.
Ah, you'll get it here.
You want to see the works?
Show him around, Angus. And be careful of him.
Don't you worry, Mac.
Good.
I'll go back to the office now.
Come back there when you're finished, Dan.
Oh, sure.
Oh, it's got him worried, Dan.
And little wonder.
Every penny he stands to lose.
Every penny.
That bad, huh?
Worse.
And if I ever catch the one that's doing it,
I'll whip him around with me bare hands.
You and Mac seem to be good friends, huh?
I started together 30 years ago in Scotland.
Uh-huh.
Well, time's fleeting.
Want to show me around?
Sure.
Let's get going.
I followed Angus into a big airlock.
It was a reinforced concrete compound
with double steel doors.
As one door closed behind us,
the pressure was built up to equal that in the tunnel.
It built gradually.
But I knew what would happen if it went down fast.
K-SUN disease.
A terrible, racking pain.
Brother, I had a lot of respect for the men who worked down there
day after day, taking risks.
Big chances every time they descended into the workings.
Then he opened another step.
Then he opened another steel door,
and Angus and I were in the tunnel itself.
As soon as my ears became used to the noise,
Angus guided me to a small, flat car.
We got on and rolled down narrow gauge tracks
through the center of the tunnel.
If you can hear me, this car runs down by gravity.
But the handbrake cannot just slew it or stop.
There's a motor for running back up.
It saves time on a job like this.
How long is this tunnel?
This side's about a half mile long now.
This side?
Aye.
It started on the other bank of the river the same time we did.
Oh.
You have any trouble over there?
No. Only on this side.
But we're keeping up with them.
I'll keep driving until this thing's finished,
accidents or no accidents.
How much time have you got?
Three weeks.
Think you'll make it?
We've got to or Mac stands to lose every nickel.
Look. There's the end of the track.
I looked ahead.
A tremendous scaffold rose into the air.
Men covered it like ants,
working with pneumatic drills, shovels, wheelbarrows.
Dump trucks ran back and forth filled with the mud
and shale dug out of the wall of earth that lay ahead.
I looked up and I felt a little funny
when I realized that right over my head was the river
and lots of clean, fresh air,
while down here was nothing but the deafening noise of the hammers.
And the thought that death worked right next to every one of these men.
Angus noticed me gazing up at the scaffold.
First time you ever saw anything like this, eh?
Yes, yes.
What holds all that mud back?
That shield and compressed air.
Air?
Just air holding back the river?
Ha ha. Aye.
You see, compressed air here in the tunnel
is built up to a pressure equal to the pressure
that's shoving down from above.
Oh, in other words,
if the pressure outside this tunnel is, well, 45 pounds per square inch,
that's the pressure in here.
Right.
This may not be a good question,
but what happens if the pressure in here gets less?
We'd be crushed to jelly.
Eh, nice thought.
That's no all.
There's always the danger of a blowout.
What's that?
Sometimes we hit a weak spot in the riverbed.
The bed won't take all the pressure we've got in here.
And you get a blowout, like a tire blowing up.
Aye.
The men, machinery, equipment,
all blown to the surface of the river and into the air.
Has that ever happened?
Aye.
And once, only once, mind you,
a man loved to tell about it.
Hang this, I take off my hat to you boys down here.
A million people drive through tunnels every day,
yet maybe not one in a hundred stops to think how the tunnel was built
and what it cost, not only in money, but in injury, in death.
Eh, when a man takes to Sandhogging,
he takes to the dangers too, only...
Only what?
We've only got a half crew working today.
Oh, why?
Two men have been killed.
Nobody wants to be the third.
Superstition?
Maybe.
But lots of them in a stay-in-home until the thirds.
Well, what I said.
Angus showed me the whole thing.
Oh, there were a million ways in which someone could sabotage the works.
Breaking air hose, tampering with the compressed air gauges.
Lots of ways.
Then later Angus took me to a complicated affair.
It was like an elevator cage.
In fact, it was an elevator, as Angus explained.
This is the latest thing.
Combination elevator and decompression chamber.
Hop in, we'll go back up.
We go up slow, Don.
As we go up, the pressure in here is decreased
until it's equal to that of the surface.
Oh, then there's no danger of case on disease.
Not if we go up slow enough.
And the pressure's reduced.
I set the gauges to do it for us.
Oh, I see.
Well, did you see enough to write your story?
No.
No, I don't think I have.
Not yet.
So, you didn't see anything done?
Of course not, Mac. How could I?
I was hoping you might get an idea.
Yeah, but I didn't.
You're going back again?
What could I find?
Try, try it, man.
But I don't think I could find it.
You advertised adventure.
You couldn't get it in a better place.
Yes, yes, I know, but how could I explain myself, Don?
You're a writer. Use your imagination, man.
Well, suppose...
Suppose I went back there as a worker.
As a sandhog, you mean?
Mm-hmm, that's it.
You don't know anything about it.
I can handle a hammer, a shovel, I think.
You'd get dirty and tired.
Every muscle in your body would hollow out loud at you.
Well, I can always say I'm doing it for my art.
Be a sandhog, see how it feels, then write about it.
Bye, Harry, man. You've got it.
All right, then.
Starting tomorrow, you're a sandhog.
Oh, that was the way to do it.
Well, when I got home that evening, I thought about it.
That huge scaffold.
Men scrambling over at the pressure within the tunnel
holding back the tons and tons of mud and silt
ready to come in and crush everyone.
What, uh, what if that pressure failed?
What if they hit a weak spot in the riverbed
and there was a blowout?
The more I thought about it, the more inclined I was to...
Yes?
Telegram.
Oh, shove it under the door, will you?
All right.
Oh-ho. And what a telegram.
It read,
save for the fact that I don't want more bloodshed,
you'd have gotten yours today.
Stay away from the tunnel,
or you'll be the third to die.
And now back to Three to Die,
another Box 13 adventure with Alan Land as Dan Holliday.
I showed Mac the telegram the next day,
and what he said filled the air with dark blue color
for ten minutes.
Then we can check to see who sent this.
I didn't kill him.
And?
He was sent from a pay phone booth.
I guess you'll be changing your mind about the job now, eh?
What makes you say that?
Well, he's after you, whoever it is.
Yes, I know.
You can back out if you want to.
And what would you think if I did?
Does that make a difference?
No, but there are a lot of men in that tunnel
who stand to lose their lives.
Mac, you've got to get the police.
I can't, man, I can't.
The publicity would ruin me.
All right.
Fix it up for me to work down there,
and we'll see what happens.
Okay, so I became a sandhog.
For three days I used muscles
that thought they'd gone on a permanent vacation.
Well, I woke them up.
And they woke me up in the middle of the night, aching.
Then one day in the tunnel I was talking
with one of the sandhogs.
You know, Dan, you've done pretty well,
considering you're new at this.
Oh, I egged you.
I ache all over.
You'll get used to it.
I don't think so.
But Joe, tell me something.
Sure, what?
What about these accidents down here?
Oh, them.
What about them?
Well, maybe they're just part of the job.
Well, what do you think?
Well, some of them weren't just like accidents, that's all.
I mean, well, like a hose breaker.
Two guys been killed.
Now what?
Look out!
Hey, you all right?
Yeah. Yeah, OK. You?
I had a shovel, you Dan.
That car would have clipped you in half.
Yeah. Look. Look, who's that?
Where?
Just going into the decompression chamber.
Huh?
What? Harris?
Where?
Yeah, Harris.
Oh.
See what I mean?
That car didn't look like no accident.
Thanks, Joe.
And this is one time I can honestly say I was glad I was shoved.
That's OK.
You know something?
You were almost as safe to die.
Before leaving the tunnel, I ran down to the spot where that car
had hit the stop bumper at the end of the track.
It was wrecked.
But in the wreckage, I found something.
One of the tags like the one I had.
This one had the number 57 on it.
I slipped it in my pocket.
Maybe one of the sand dogs had dropped it.
Then just as I was about to step into the decompression chamber,
Angus Campbell came up to me and
said, here's the safe.
And I was going to get the safe.
But it's just a little piece of the same.
Your shift's going off, Don?
Yeah, I'm finished for the day.
Almost in more ways than one.
Huh?
What do you mean?
Come on, let's get in.
I want to get back up.
All right.
Tired?
I'm worried.
I can guess why.
Huh?
Look, I know you're no writing a story on Sandhogan.
I know why you're down here.
How did you find out about me?
You've been nosing around, then?
That obvious, huh?
Aye, but be careful, lad. Be careful.
Yeah, I will be.
Joe told me about the car that almost got you.
Somebody sent it down the tracks.
Aye.
Angus.
Aye?
You've been with Mac a long time.
Thirty years.
Thirty years.
Good ones, bad ones.
And yet you stay with a job.
I could have a top job on the surface.
I see.
Angus, got any idea who's doing all this?
No.
Harris?
Huh? Why him?
Mac doesn't like him.
Ah, Doc said so.
What point in Harris's ruin as his own feather in law?
A father-in-law to be, Angus.
Still no point.
Then how about the protection insurance to cover the completion bond?
Eh?
You mean Mac might be doing this himself to get the insurance?
Yeah, this could be.
No, no, lad. The insurance wouldn't half cover the loss.
No, this, that's no it.
And why?
Ah, I wish I knew.
Competitors, do you think?
Who are they?
Brill and Company.
But no, they wouldn't.
They'd be too easy to find out.
Men got a habit of talking.
And talk gets around.
No, Dan, that's no them.
Then who and why?
And why did someone try to kill me today?
You got the answers to those things, Dan.
And you'll have the whole thing.
Well, we're up at the top.
I'll walk to the shack with you.
No, I'm going back soon.
But I thought you were through for the day.
I've still got lots to do.
See you tomorrow.
What Angus said made sense.
Couldn't be Mac's competitors because I checked.
They'd been in business a long time, had plenty of money behind them.
Had gotten a bid for another job upstate.
And Harris?
Didn't make sense either.
If he was going to be Mac's son-in-law,
just didn't wash that he'd be sabotaging Mac.
So I changed clothes, thought a lot, and then went home.
Went out to get some dinner when...
when it hit me.
First the Twins.
And sudden cramps that made me bend over
as if someone had folded me inward with a baseball bat.
The buildings started to spin, twist,
and it got all nice and dark.
There you are. You're all right now.
I... I know this isn't very original, but...
Where am I?
Take a deep breath.
That's it. Feel better?
Lots.
What happened?
Couldn't have bent anything I ate, I...
You had the bends.
The bends?
The tag around your neck tipped us off you were suffering from caisson disease.
So we put you in the chamber.
Come on, get up.
We may need this chamber for someone else any minute.
You make it sound as bad as the housing situation.
Yes, it is, but you're all right now.
Next time don't come up so fast.
But I... I didn't come up fast.
Yes?
Nothing.
Nothing at all.
Thanks a million, Doctor.
Well, it had me. Good.
I knew I came up slowly.
Angus had been with me. He...
He... Oh, but that couldn't be. Not Angus.
The next day I went back to the job.
I had just put on my coveralls when...
when an idea hit me.
I searched in my pocket...
Loose something, Dan?
Oh, no, Joe, I...
It's easy to drop something out of these coveralls.
What's the number of your tag, Joe?
Tag? Oh, the one we all wear in case we get the bends on top?
Yeah.
Five hundred and two. Why?
Got it on?
Sure. I always wear it. Here it is.
Uh-huh.
Why? What are you getting at?
I... I don't know.
Listen, I'm going back for something I forgot.
I'll be a little late on the job.
Tell the section boss for me, will you?
Oh, true. Where are you going? You're all hept up.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess I am, Joe. I'll... I'll be back.
I went to see Mac.
Told him he'd have to go into the tunnel that day and supervise operations.
He thought I was crazy.
Me? What for?
To force your opponents into the open where we can get a shot at them for a change.
I don't get this.
Look, they're going after you, but by accidents. Things like that.
So?
But if you're in the workings,
they might be tempted to wreck the entire tunnel with one stroke.
You mean by going after me?
That's it.
You want me to lead with my chin like that?
I'll call the whole thing off first. Lose the contract.
Money isn't everything. Exactly.
You're right. But men have been killed down there.
You've got to think of their lives, too.
I do.
Then get down with me.
End this once and for all. Force them into the open.
You're going, too?
Yeah, because I've got an idea.
But I can't prove a thing until we see the last play.
I was leading with Mac's chin and I knew it.
But mine was plenty sore, too, and that made me feel a bit better about it.
Mac knew he had no choice and so he decided to go with me into the tunnel.
I went to my job and it was a ticklish feeling knowing that any minute something might happen.
Something that would make Joe, Mac, Angus,
any one of us, the third dude, die.
Or worse, then...
Hey, Dan.
Is that a stuff running?
Running? What?
I could have sworn the mud down here wasn't this deep before.
What do you mean, Joe?
Look. Stand still. Look around.
The mud's coming up. It's getting higher.
Yeah. Yeah, it is.
Joe, the pressure in here must be going down.
Yeah.
Dan, if it gets too low, that wall will come in on us.
The whole river will be in our laps.
Come on, let's get to the gauges.
Dan! Dan, push them up!
Pressure's going down in here.
Come on.
There's nothing wrong with the gauges. They read the right pressure.
Well, they can't. The mud's getting higher.
Look. Look, the men are coming in. They've seen the mud coming up.
What about these gauges?
Hey! There ain't no air being pumped in. The gauges are stuck. Jammed.
Somebody jammed them so anybody reading them would think the pressure was okay.
Get to the emergency compressors.
Pressures drop and fire. Get to the compressors. Get them on.
I got them.
Watch the gauges. We're getting pressure now.
What's the matter? What happened?
Angus, somebody jammed the pressure gauges to make it look like we had a lovely meal.
Jammed? Well, save for those emergency compressors we'd have been done for.
What did you say, Angus?
I said the emergency compressors.
You said save for the emergency. Save for.
Funny way of putting it, Angus. Either in words or on a telegram.
What's the matter with you?
Where's your tag?
Huh? Right here.
Yes, with a new chain. So is your tag I picked up in that cart yesterday.
The cart that almost killed me.
You're crazy.
And you. You weren't anywhere around a minute ago.
I was coming in here.
Then what you're trying to see.
There's your saboteur.
My, you're crazy. Stock raven crazy.
Yeah? And you went back down yesterday to decompress yourself after I left the chamber.
You didn't turn on the decompression valve from me on the way up.
You're, you're crazy, man.
Not crazy, Angus, because you were the only one who could have played that trick on me.
Get me out of the way by failing to turn on the decompression valve.
You and I were the only ones in that chamber.
Hey, he's running back to the shield.
Get him. Get him before he gets the compressors. He'll wreck them.
Cut him, Dan.
Good.
Dan, Dan, I never can thank you enough.
But to think that after 30 years Angus would ever do a thing like this.
Mac, don't waste time even thinking about it.
Let's go finish this tunnel instead.
Gee, what was the matter with him, Mr. Holiday?
Jealousy, Suzie. You see, he'd worked with Mac as a foreman.
Then he saw Mac rise from a foreman to the owner of a big company.
For 30 years, every day he'd go into the tunnel just, just an employee.
While Mac stayed on top, the big boss.
And it kind of made him well jealous, huh?
To put it mildly, yes.
Golly. Well, that makes up my mind for me, Mr. Holiday.
Congratulations, Suzie.
Huh?
What do you mean?
I quit.
Huh?
In about 29 years.
Oh. Good night, Suzie.
Next week, same time, through the courtesy of Paramount Pictures,
Alan Ladd stars as Dan Holiday in Box 13.
Box 13 is directed by Richard Sandville.
Three to Die is an original story by Mr. Sandville,
adapted for radio by Russell Hughes.
Original music is composed and conducted by Rudy Schrager.
The part of Suzie is played by Sylvia Picker.
Production is supervised by Vern Carstensen.
This is a Mayfair production from Hollywood.
Watch for Alan Ladd in his latest Paramount Picture.