The Victoria Cross

Originally Aired: November 2, 1950

Suspense #401, "The Victoria Cross," finds Captain Vale, a housemaster at the prestigious Hoxley School, trapped in a nightmare of his own making. Tormented by war memories and dependent on medication to escape his dreams, Vale struggles to maintain his position of authority and respectability. When he catches student Francis Aud passing exam answers to Giles Bateman, the school's golden boy and cricket captain, Vale prepares to report the cheating. But Bateman turns the tables, threatening to expose Vale's secret visits to a barmaid named Maggie at the Dagon and Drum pub in the village.

As Vale's carefully constructed life begins to crumble, he desperately tries to discover what Bateman knows and how much he's shared with others. The young man's power over him grows, and Vale finds himself checking on his sleeping students at night, wondering about their futures while his own security dissolves. When the timid Francis Aud requests a room change, Vale realizes that Bateman's influence may be spreading, threatening to destroy everything he's tried to build since the war.