No.6 And A Cuckoo Clock!

   In ‘Hammer Into Anvil’ Number 2 thought that there was a bomb in that Cuckoo clock. He was wrong of course, as the bomb disposal expert soon found out. Whilst Number 2 in ‘Dead of the Dead’ promised that she would warn the doctor-Number 40 the moment Number 6 puts a bomb into his lovely hospital. Where she thought Number 6 would get plastic explosive from can only be left to the imagination. Unless of course it was from the same place as Number 51-the Watchmaker of ‘It’s Your Funeral’ got his! Number 2 of ‘Hammer into Anvil’ no doubt thought the bomb hidden in the cuckoo clock was brought in with the special import of cuckoo clocks by the Intelligence agency Number 6 was working for.

    Exploding devices feature well in ‘the Prisoner,’ either through the possibility of such a device, imagined, or hidden in a replica of the Great Seal of Office. Colonel Hawke-Englishe was on the trail of The Girl Who Was Death. Why the Colonel himself was in “the field” is unknown, but perhaps he liked to have that “hands on” approach. That he wouldn’t be prepared to send an agent into a situation he wouldn’t enter into himself. But whatever the reason, it cost him his life. Blown to pieces at the wicket, one run short of his century, by an exploding cricket ball! “That certainly wasn’t cricket!” Imagine the horror for the spectators of the game after the bowler had made his delivery of the ball. With one bounce on the wicket, the ball makes contact with the Colonel’s cricket bat, then the loud report, smoke and flame, blood and guts all over the stumps and wicket-keeper. It must have been a terrible sight to look upon, for players and spectators alike. Almost as devastating, it might be imagined, as the bomb concealed in the replica of Great Seal of Office in the episode ‘It’s Your Funeral’ would have been if it had been detonated on the balcony during the Appreciation Day ceremony. As Number Six told the retiring Number 2 when he said in ‘It’s Your Funeral,”

   “I can think of better ways to die.”

   “And better causes to die for!”

   Number 6 was attempting to stop the assassination/execution of the retiring Number 2. And while the Great Seal of office was being taken from the head and shoulders of the out-going Number 2, then placed about he head and shoulders of the new Number 2, a desperate struggle was taking place. A fight between Number 6 who was by that time in possession of the remote radio detonator, and Number 100 who was desperate to retrieve that device. Imagine while in that struggle the button of the radio remote detonator have been depressed by accident. It would have been a hard lookout for the new Number 2, blown to pieces by the exploding Great Seal. His torn flesh, shattered bone, blood and gore, covering everyone in the confined space of that balcony. It’s more than likely that others might also have suffered injury, as well as being covered in blood and gore! Imagine if you will the horror of it, not only of those directly concerned, but of the onlookers also.

  

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