The editor of The tally Ho said to me, "Go forth my son, out into the Village and seek out a story one that tells of the human side to life within our community." Well I was really struggling to find such a story. There was Number Two’s cat getting stuck up a tree, Number Eight's heart breaking story of a "woman spurned." The heroic story of Number Twelve who valiantly tried to save the Professor from being electrocuted by his own creation! These are human stories, but they do not tell the story that I was after. Being completely uninspired I decided to take a slow walk along the beach for a quiet think.
It was just as I was making my way along the sea wall, when from one of these bathing tents down on the beach that Numbers Six and Fifty-three suddenly emerged. Between them they carried a pair of rubber lilos tied together with a length of rope. While Number Fifty-three carried what looked to be a radio, and Number Six a length of wood. This was my story! Luckily I had my camera with me to take the accompanying photograph. As it turned out, Number Six had come up with a daring escape plan employing a small group of "reliable" men, whom he had selected by judging their attitude to his false air of authority. Number Fifty-three had been chosen because of his subservient attitude, and because of his knowledge of electronics, and had been put in charge of constructing a radio transmitter. He was later to have been cast adrift aboard the two rubber lilos, in order to transmit a radio distress signal using the said radio transmitter, having been a crashed aircraft at sea, Transoceanic flight. The sending of the distress signal was to bring a rescue boat, M. S. Polotska in-shore, and rescue them, to effect their escape.
While Number Fifty-three was about this, it was quite on the cards that the signal Fifty-three was to have transmitted would have also been picked up by the Guardians of the Village. Number 6 and the rest of his reliable men were to have prevented them from taking any action, perhaps even to prevent Number Two himself from taking any action against them.
The only thing with any escape plan, is that it has to be well timed, and as it happens that was the one flaw in this plan, timing! It would seem that when Number Six too command of this little venture he forgot just one thing. He did not take into account the tide! For as Number 6 and Fifty-three emerged together from their bathing tent, they did so only to discover that the tide was out! This for me is the perfect "human story," one of endeavour and failure. A device is found in order to distinguish between the prisoner’s and the Guardians, which led Number Six to discover his "reliable" men. To then go about stealing pieces of Village equipment with Fifty-three in order to construct a radio transmitter, thereby making contact with the outside world, or so they thought. It was a good plan, and even though Number Six took responsibility for the overall execution of the plan, like some overgrown schoolboy leading a gang of classmates, he couldn't be expected to think of think of everything. Something was bound to have let him down in the end. It's just a pity he didn't think to check the times of the tides first!
Our own reporter
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