When Do You Plan To Escape?

    After the Prisoner smashed the television screen with the glass ashtray, and then began to fight with the two crewmen, I wonder if he had on his mind those reliable men he left in the Green Dome to keep an eye on Number 2. Or whether it was pure self-preservation he was thinking of? I mean of course escape. After all even if Number 6 had been able to unlock the helm and take command of M. S. Polotska, surely he knew he would never be able to go back to The Village, as that would mean recapture. Even if he all his reliable men with him, he would still be in the predicament with the locked helm. Except Number 53 was an electronics expert, and he might have known how to disable the lock on the helm. Having written all that, really the Prisoner was lucky to be alive. After all when he smashed the screen of the television the tube behind the screen should have exploded, and showered glass splinters around the wheelhouse. Fortunately enough for the Prisoner the television didn’t have a tube. But then the Prisoner didn’t know that, another of his risk taking maybe. The doctor Number 22 said that Number 6 had a total disregard for his own personal safety!
   However as it is, Number 6 is trapped aboard a disabled vessel that’s going nowhere. Except that The Village Guardian arrived on the scene and the vessel was underway again. Both the power and the steerage provided by the Guardian? If not, M. S. Polotska was remotely under command, like the helicopter in ‘Arrival’ when Number 6 was previously attempting to escape. And again, when he tried to get away in the jet boat in ‘Free For All,’ both piloted by remote control by an operator in the Control Room.
   Of course when Number 6 went out to sea aboard that pair of lilos, taking the place of Number 53, it was the second time he had taken to sea aboard a raft. Only this time he knew there was a boat out there, searching for survivors of a crashed plane. Someone he thought to be from his world. But as Number 2 once told the Prisoner, The Village is his world, that she was his world. And yet, had the Prisoner managed to take command of M. S. Polotska, at least he knew the location of The Village, having discovered that when he navigated the aircraft back to The Village in ‘Many Happy Returns.’ The question remaining is, would he have gone running back to his ex-colleagues for a third time, had he managed to escape? It never did him any good the first two times. I know that the Prisoner went running back to Sir Charles Portland that time, but given the situation he found himself in, the Prisoner had no choice in the matter.
   So the Prisoner known as Number 6 was returned onto the chessboard, as a pawn. I sometimes wonder if these tests are not also a number of well hard earned lessons for the Prisoner. After all that effort, having learned to distinguish between the whites and the blacks. The way it is in life, to judge by attitudes, you soon find out who is for or against you. For Number 6 to find reliable men he could depend upon, and for what? For nothing at all. I say reliable men…..it was Number 6 who took command of that little venture. He told the others what to do. Number 53-the Rook was of course essential to the plan, because he was an electronics expert. The others were merely strong arm men, good in a fight, with the shopkeeper adding weight to any physical argument. Number 14 the chess champion? Well he was too old for escape on his own, especially with that gammy leg of his. No doubt he was allowed to join the group of reliable men, because he had made an early contribution, when he instructed Number 6 in the way of distinguishing between the blacks and the whites. But sadly it did Number 6 little good, especially when the Rook put to Number 6 his own test! So much for Number 6’s own natural air of authority.
   Everyone tries to escape when their spirit’s broken, and everyone has a plan, but they all fail because it’s like the game. You have to distinguish between the Prisoners and the warders, but even then you cannot be sure who you can truly trust. That’s why escape is not possible!

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