Prismatic Reflection

   A question of time!

    Number 6 jumped overboard from the gun runner’s boat sometime in the night and he goes swimming off in the direction of the light projected from a lighthouse which could be seen in the distance. So Number 6 actually swam a good length of the English Channel! When Number 6 eventually comes round, he’s lying on the beach at Beachy Head. It’s already daylight, so any time after dawn, perhaps as late as 8am, there is just no way of knowing. It took him time to scale the chalk cliff, thankfully there had been some recent cliff erosion which aided him in that. From the cliff edge Number 6 makes his way in land, encountering a gypsy camp. He’s given a mug of tea, or broth, and sent on his way, a road having been pointed out to him. There is a police roadblock, there being an escaped prisoner about. Number 6 avoids this, and manages to get into a moving van and goes to sleep. At the sound of a police siren, he jumps out the back of the van, and into the traffic in Park Lane in London. The journey from Beachy Head to London would take roughly two and a half hours, depending on the average speed of the Luton Van.

    Number 6, having no money for bus or taxi, sets off across London on foot until he finally reaches his home in Buckingham Place. However there is a new inhabitant in his home, a Mrs. Butterworth, to whom the nameless exile spends time talking, taking nourishment, washing, shaving, and gaining fresh clothes. Mrs. Butterworth then lends Number 6 her {his} car in order for him to get about easier.

   When he set off, how did Number 6 know that he had to make two calls, one in town, and one in the country? Who did he see after seeing the bureaucrat sat behind that desk in the London office, not the Colonel obviously. He might have been told by the bureaucrat that the Colonel was at his country residence. But Number 6 already knew that when he told Mrs. Butterworth he had the two calls to make. So how did he know that after months of incarceration in The Village? It could very well be that seeing Number Six arrive back in London on March 18^th, that day being a Saturday in 1967, he knew that the Colonel would not be in his office, but at his country residence. So perhaps there’s not so much mystery about this, as Number 6 may well have been aware of that during his former employment.

   It could very well be that the residency went with the position of Colonel. So it didn’t matter which Colonel was in residence at the time Number 6 went to make his call. Only that he knew he would get to meet “a” Colonel there.  
    By the time Number 6 reaches the Colonel it appears to be the afternoon, after all he said to the Colonel that he was sorry to interrupt an afternoon’s golf. Or on the other hand, perhaps Number 6 simply made a sarcastic comment! So having reached the afternoon, there was even less time to check the details in Number 6’s report, let alone to organise the help of a Naval Commander, with his navigational skills, and Royal Air force Group Captain to organise the Gloster Meteor Jet aircraft. Not to mention sending a local police constable to check on the gypsy encampment, which had already packed up and moved off and the remains of the fire was cold. As well as Special Branch questioning Mrs. Butterworth. All of which couldn’t be put into action until after Number 6’s debriefing with the Colonel and Thorpe.
    And what of the Colonel? In the closing credits of ‘The Chimes of Big Ben’ the actor Kevin Stoney is credited as Colonel J, but he is not actually referred to as such in the episode, simply as Colonel. So might not the “J” in Colonel J. stand for…..James, as in Colonel James in ‘Many Happy Returns,’ because in that episode Number 6 calls the Colonel by his first name James {Colonel J.}. So thinking outside the box, might not both the Colonel in ‘Chimes’ and MHR be the same Colonel, but played by two very different actors?

    The problem with Colonel James of MHR being different to the one in ‘Chimes,’ how would Number 6 know that he was calling on a different Colonel to the one he met in The Village during ‘The Chimes of Big Ben?’ He couldn’t possibly have known. There was no way he could have known that while incarcerated in The Village. And if it had turned out to be the same Colonel from ‘Chimes’ when Number 6 went to call on the Colonel at his country residence, surely he would have known that he couldn’t trust the Colonel because of his part in the deception he carried out in The Village!

    We are not privy to when Number 6 and the Colonel first met in ‘Many Happy Returns,’ and therefore we have no way of judging the initial exchanges between the two men, how they reacted towards each other. However during the de-briefing session they did appear at ease with each other. More than that, the Colonel referred to Number 6 as an old, old friend. So they had known each other for quite some time. Number 6 having called the Colonel by his first name “James.” And yet in having a different Colonel for ‘Many Happy Returns’ they played that same clever trick they played in ‘Arrival,’ when they replaced the first Number 2. That action put Number 6 back to square one, having to begin all over again with a new Number 2. Thus once having explained about The Village to the Colonel during ‘The Chimes of Big Ben,’ he then had to go over it all again with a new Colonel in ‘Many happy Returns.’

    Then there’s the question of Thorpe. Why was Thorpe with the Colonel at his country residence? There discussing other business would be one answer, I cannot see Thorpe playing a round of golf with the Colonel. He was hardly dressed for it, unlike the Colonel. Other than that, it could be thought that Thorpe accompanied Number 6 from the office in London to The Colonel’s country residence. And it does appear that Thorpe has replaced Fotheringay!

    So, a search area had been calculated, 1,750 square miles, and then there’s the journey and time taken in getting to the airfield, and then there is the flight time to Gibraltar to take into consideration, which would take about a couple of hours more or less, and after that to begin that search of 1,750 square miles. As Number told the Colonel, he’ll sweep as far as they could that day, and again tomorrow…… and as the Colonel added “And tomorrow and tomorrow.”

   And finally two other details should be taken into consideration. On March 18^th sunrise was at 6:19am, and sunset was at 6:13pm. As it was full daylight when Number 6 woke up, it couldn’t possibly have been much before 7am. In order for the Gloster Meteor Jet to take off from the airfield somewhere in England, to arrive at RAF Gibraltar for refuelling, and to begin the search in daylight, would have meant leaving the airfield at about three o’clock. {What was the milkman doing delivering milk at that late hour? The impression given by the milkman that its first thing in the morning!} This would greatly restrict the start of the search of those 1,750 square miles that day. Most likely the start of the search for The Village would not have commenced until the next day, due to the lack of daylight hours after reaching Gibraltar. And lets not forget that it was daylight when Number 6 found The Village, so that had to be the next day. And if not the day after, then the day after that, tomorrow and tomorrow, and tomorrow. It is suggested in ‘Many Happy Returns’ that Number 6 arrived back in The Village on March 19^th, that day being his birthday, and by the suggestion of a birthday cake presented to him by Mrs. Butterworth. “Many happy returns” she said to Number 6. But the cake wasn’t a birthday cake. Yes Mrs. Butterworth said she would bake him a cake if he promised to return. The Prisoner returned hence the cake, a sort of welcome home cake. It’s impossible for everything, from when Number 6 woke up on that beach, to when he was returned to The Village to all have happened in one day.

   The thing with ‘Many Happy Returns’ is there is a great deal the viewer simply has to swallow, even though reason and logic tells us it couldn’t possibly be so. But because we are dealing with a piece of fiction, not the reality of a physical world, then anything is possible.

    Footnote: If it can be assumed that Colonel J. of ‘Chimes’ and Colonel James of MHR are supposed to be one and the same, {but played by two different actors}. Then scriptwriter Anthony Skene, writer of ‘Many Happy returns,’ would need to have been briefed about Colonel J. in Vincent Tilsley’s script for ‘The Chimes of Big Ben,’ by George Markstein in his capacity as Script Editor. If not, it’s rather a coincidence.

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