The Experiment!

    A few days ago I went out and bought myself a Cuckoo clock. I didn’t have one of my own, there was no Cuckoo clock I could have borrowed, so when acquiring one I put is outside the editor’s office door. The editor opened the door, looked down at the Cuckoo clock swore an oath that I was an idiot, and trampled the clock underfoot, and stormed off down the corridor.
    I took the wooden box the Cuckoo Clock came in up onto the roof of The Tally Ho office, along with a pencil, and a half eaten sandwich! The idea to conduct an experiment, to see if like Number 6 I could set a trap and catch a pigeon. I set the box down on the roof opened the lid, supporting it with the pencil, threw in my half eaten ham sandwich, and went away. I returned some time later to find the box just as I had left it, no pigeon, only the half eaten ham sandwich. I picked up the box, placed the pencil in the breast pocket of my blazer, and ate the rest of the ham sandwich on my way back to my office. The result of my experiment was a complete failure due to a distinct lack of pigeons, where only the day before you couldn’t move for pigeons. Perhaps they don’t like ham sandwiches!
   I like the way Number 6 is always so very active, each day he exercises with a walk around the Village. Daily he climbs the Bell Tower, it’s said the reason is unknown, although I suspect Number 6 is keeping an eye open for a light, a boat, a plane, someone from his world. He enjoys a physical workout in his private gymnasium in the woods, previously fencing and shooting in the Village gymnasium, along with bouts of Kosho. He enjoys water skiing, sitting to have his portrait painted. And he keeps his mind active by playing chess with the Admiral or General, and often wins by a seven move checkmate. He’s also artistically minded, remember that time he created that abstract sculpture for the Exhibition of Arts and Crafts. But since when did Number 6 become a pigeon fancier? If we’ve learned anything about Number 6, it’s that there’s always a reason for what he does. In capturing his pigeon he thought to send a message home by carrier pigeon, or at least that’s what the Supervisor-Number 60 thought.
   Number 6 thought to set a trap using a wooden box, a pencil and a half eaten ham sandwich, only it was more than half eaten, and yet looking from inside the box, the remnant of that ham sandwich actually grew in size! Also there must have been real pigeon fanciers in The Village, because the pigeon caught in the trap had a ring on its leg! So is the pigeon a homing bird? Number 6 took it out of The Village into the countryside, and when released the pigeon with a coded message attached to its leg would, if a homing pigeon, fly back to The Village because The Village is its home. So there really was no reason to employ the beam, set at “hellfire” or minimum strength. But when the bird had been stunned by the Beam a search team was sent to look for the bird and it might not have taken all that long to find the bird seeing as it had been tracked on radar.
   But this setting a trap can be seen as a metaphor, for the trap Number 6 was setting for Number 2, because it wasn’t only the pigeon that fell into the trap! The code written by Number 6 was made up by a list of numbers 20 60 40 47 67 81 90 80, these numbers were fed into the computer, and what came out was “Vital message tomorrow 0:600 hours by visual signal.” So someone was hiding out somewhere in the countryside, awaiting a message from Number 6! Well of course there wasn’t anyone, but Number 2 was convinced there was, and ordered the Observers to keep a watch at 0:600 hours the next morning. I have to say I’m surprised how early people rise in The Village, Number 6 was able to leave his cottage at 5 and twenty minutes to six. I wonder if it was the Supervisor’s idea of having the door to ‘6 Private’ unlocked, so to make it easier for Number 6 to keep his appointment? Mind you he could have always climbed out of the French window!
   So there he was, our friend Number 6 on the beach using a hand mirror to heliograph a message. Number 2 ordered the message to be written down, while the Supervisor-No.60 asked who could Number 6 be signalling to? I would have thought it was blindingly obvious as it should have been to Number 2, to those who were watching of course! You know what I think, I think Number 6 was jamming, and Number 2 fell for it! He fell for it because he didn’t know what a jammer was. No-one knew what a jammer was because No.6 is the original jammer! And if he wasn’t, it means he learned all about jammers from Number 118 in ‘It’s Your Funeral’ which would be placed before ‘Hammer Into Anvil’ in the screening order.

  Be seeing you