HIS OWN NUMBER - William Croft Dickinson

HIS OWN NUMBER - William Croft Dickinson

'WHAT do you gain by putting a man into space?' asked Johnson, somewhat aggressively. 'Instruments are far more efficient."
'But,' protested Hamilton, our Professor of Mathematical Physics, 'an astronaut can make use of instruments which don't respond to remote control. Also, he can bring the right instru-ments into work at exactly the right time in flight.'
'Maybe so,' returned Johnson. 'But what if he gets excited? The advantage of the instrument is that it never gets excited. It has no emotions. Its response is purely automatic."
'Can you be sure of that?" asked Munro, from his chair by the fire. And, by the way he spoke, we could sense that there was something behind his question.
'If it is in perfect order, why not?" persisted Johnson.
'I don't know,' Munro replied, slowly. 'But I can tell you a tele of an electronic computer that was in perfect order and yet three times gave the same answer to an unfortunate technician."
'Something like a wrist-watch which is affected by the pulse-beat of the wearer?" suggested Hayles.
'Something more than that," said Munro. 'A great deal more. But what that "something" was, I simply don't know. Or can an instrument have "second sight", or respond to forces that are beyond our reckoning? I wish I knew the answer to that. How-ever, I'll tell you my tele, and then each of you can try to ex-plain it to his own satisfaction."
As you probably know, when I first came here I came to a Re-search Fellowship in the Department of Mathematics. And, as it happened, one of the problems upon which I was engaged necessitated the use of an electronic computer. There were several, in the Department, but the one which I normally used was quite a simple instrument: little more than an advanced calculator. I could 'programme' a number of calculations, feed them into it, and, in less than a minute, out would come the answer which it would have taken me perhaps a month to work out by myself. Just that, and no more. And I wish I could say it was always : 'Just that, and no more.' For here comes my tale.
One afternoon, being somewhat rushed - for I had been invited to a sherry party in the Senate Room - I asked one of the tech-nicians if he'd feed my calculations into the computer, and leave the result on my desk. By pure chance the man I asked to do the job for me was called Murdoch Finlayson: a Highlander from somewhere up in Wester Ross. He was a good fellow in every way, and as honest and conscientious as they make them. I say "by pure chance'; but perhaps it was all foreordained that I should pick on Finlayson. Certainly it seemed so, in the end. But, at the time, all I wanted to do was to get away to a sherry party; Finlayson happened to be near at hand; and I knew that I could trust him.
I thought, when I asked him to do the job, and when I indi-cated the computer I wanted him to use, that he looked strangely hesitant, and even backed away a bit. I remember wondering if he had been wanting to leave early, and here was I keeping him tied to his work. But, just when I was about to say that there was no real hurry, and that I'd attend to it myself in the morning, he seemed to pull himself together, reached out for my calculations, and, with an odd look in his eyes, murmured something that sounded like 'the third time'.
I was a little puzzled by his reaction to what I thought was a simple request, and even more puzzled by that murmured re-mark about 'the third time'; but, being in a hurry, gave the mat-ter no second thought and dashed off.
My sherry party lasted somewhat longer than I had expected and, when I returned to the Department, I found it deserted. Everyone had gone home. I walked over to my desk, and then stood there, dumbfounded. Instead of the somewhat complex formula I had expected, I saw one of the computer's sheets bearing a simple number. A simple line of six digits. 1 won't give you the exact number on that sheet, but it was something like 585244 and underneath the number was a short note: It's come for the third time.
I recognized Finlayson's handwriting. But what did he mean by that cryptic statement? First of all, he had murmured something about 'the third time'; and now he had left a message saying: 'It's come for the third time.' And what was that simple line of digits, anyway? If it was supposed to be the answer to my series of calculations, it was no answer at all.
At first I felt slightly angry. What was Finlayson playing at? Then a vague feeling of uneasiness supervened. Finlayson was too sound and solid to be playing tricks with me. I remembered his hesitancy, and a new thought struck me: had it perhaps been fear? What could that number mean? As a line of digits, a six-figure number, I could see nothing unusual about it. It was a simple number, and nothing more. Then, for a time, I played with it. I cubed it; but I was no wiser. I added up the digits and cubed the total; I multiplied by three and tried again; and so forth and so on till I admitted that I was simply wasting my time. I could make nothing of it.
Unfortunately I didn't know where Finlayson lived, so per-force I had to contain my curiosity until the next morning. Also I had to contain that vague feeling of uneasiness which still per-sisted. But the next morning, as soon as I had entered the De-partment, I sought him out.
This is an extraordinary result, Finlayson,' I said, holding out the computer sheet which he had left on my desk.
'Aye, sir.'
'But surely the computer must have gone completely haywire.'
The computer's all right, sir. But yon's the result it gave me, and I'm no liking it at all.'

'The computer can't be right,' I persisted. 'And your note seems to say that this is the third time you've received this result from it. Do you really mean that on three separate occasions, whatever the calculations you have put into this computer, it has each time returned this same number - 585244?'
'It has that, sir. And it's unchancy. I'm no liking a machine that gives me yon same number three times. I'm thinking that maybe it's my own number. And now I'm afeared o' it. I'm for handing in my papers and leaving, sir. I'll away to my brother's to help with the sheep. Tis safer feeding a flock of ewes than tending a machine that aye gives you a queer number.'
‘Nonsense,' I retorted. 'There's something wrong with the computer, or with the way in which you set it and fed in the cal-culations.'
'Maybe aye and maybe no, sir. But maybe I've been given my own number, and I'm no liking it at all. I'm wanting to leave.'
I realized that I was up against some form of Highland super-stition. Finlayson had been given a simple number three times, and that was enough for him. Maybe it was 'his own number' -whatever that might mean. I, realized, too, that he had made up his mind to go, and that nothing I could say would dissuade him. Sheep were safer than electronic computers.
'All right,' I said to him, 'I'll speak to the Dean. And if it is any comfort to you, I won't ask you to operate that computer again.'
He thanked me for what he called my 'consideration', and went back to his work. I, in turn, went straight to the Dean.
"What an extraordinary business,' said the Dean, when I had recounted the circumstances to him. I wouldn't have believed it of Finlayson. I would have said he was far too intelligent to let anything like that upset him. There's surely something wrong with that computer. It's a very old instrument Let's have a look at it.'
And, naturally, ‘having a look at it' included feeding in the cal_culations, which I had previously given to Finlayson. The com-puter quickly gave us the result. And it was a result far different from Finlayson's simple number, 585244. Although it would have taken me days to check it, the result was a complex formula like the one I had expected.
The Dean muttered something to himself and then turned to me. "We'll try it again. I have some calculations of my own to which I know die answer.'
He went to his room, came back with his calculations and fed them into the machine. A few seconds later, out came the com-puter's sheet bearing the answer.
‘Perfectly correct,' said the Dean, crisply. Finlayson must have been imagining things. Or else, for some unknown reason, he has three times fed a wrong programme into the computer. Even then, he couldn't get an answer like 585244."
'I don't know,' I replied, slowly. 'He's too good a technician to make mistakes. And carelessness is no explanation. He's con-vinced he has received that six-figure number on the last three occasions on which he has used this machine. I'm beginning to think he did - though don't ask me why. But he's also con-vinced that there's some premonition in it. "His own number" has turned up three times. And "the third time" is a kind of final summons. Superstition if you like, but I'm beginning to feel for him. I think we should let him go.'
"Very well,' returned the Dean with a sigh of resignation. 'Have it your own way. I'll tell him he can leave at the end of the week. But you know as well as I do how difficult it is to get good tech-nicians.'
We sought out Finlayson and the Dean told him that if he was determined to go he could be released at the end of the week. The man's eyes lit up at the news, and his relief was obvious.
‘I’ll away to my brother's,' he said, delightedly. 'He'll be glad of my help, and I'll be glad to be helping him. Not that I've been unhappy in my work here, sir. I would not be saying that. But I'm kind of feared to be staying. And if ye had not said I could go, I doubt I would have been going all the same. Though it would not be like me to be doing a thing like that.'
'Where does your brother live?' the Dean asked, quickly chang-ing the conversation.
'In Glen Ogle, sir, on the road from Lochearnhead to Killin.'
'A beautiful stretch of country,' I put in. 'Do you know, I’ll drive you there .on Saturday morning if you like. It will be a lovely run. Where shall I pick you up?'
He accepted my offer with alacrity, and gave me the address of his lodgings.
I did not tell him of the two tests of the computer which the Dean and I had carried out.
The Saturday morning was fine and clear. I called for him at the address he had given me, and found him waiting, with his possessions packed into a large grip.
Once we had passed through Stirling and had reached the foot-hills of the Highlands, the beauty of the country seized hold of me. Finlayson's desire to join his brother amid these browns and purples, golds, blues and greens, seemed the most sensible thing in all the world. The sun made the hills a glory; Ben Ledi and Ben Vorlich raised their heads in the distance; and, as we left Callander, the long-continuing Falls of Leny cascaded over their rocks by the side of the road. Finlayson's thrice-recurring num-ber was surely a blessing and not a curse.
We had run through Lochearnhead and had entered Glen Ogle when, just as I was about to ask Finlayson for the whereabouts of his brother's farm, the car suddenly slowed down and stopped. I knew the tank was practically full, for I had just put in eight gallons at Callander. My first thought was carburettor-trouble, or possibly a blocked feed. I loosened the bonnet-catch, got out, raised the bonnet, and went through all the usual checks. But, to my annoyance, I could find nothing wrong. The tank was full; feed, pump and carburettor were all functioning properly. I gave myself a few minor shocks as I tested the electrical circuits. Nothing wrong there. Coil, battery, distributor, plugs, were all in order. I reached over to the fascia board and pressed the self-starter. The starter-motor whirred noisily in the stillness, but the engine did not respond. Once more I tested every connexion and every part. Again I pressed the self-starter, and again with no effect. Thoroughly exasperated, I turned to Finlayson who had joined me in this exhaustive check and who was as puzzled as I was.
"Well, and what do we do now?' I asked.
‘I’ll walk the two-three miles to my brother's,' he said. "He has the tractor, and can tow us to the farm. Then maybe we can find out what has gone wrong.'
‘Excellent!' I agreed. 'Off you go.'

I sat down on the grass and I watched him striding away until he disappeared round a bend in the road. A little later I got up, closed the bonnet of the car, and took a road map from one of the door-pockets. Perhaps there was an alternative route for my way back.
I had barely opened the map and laid it out on top of the bon-net when a car came tearing round the bend ahead. As soon as the driver saw me, he pulled up with a screech of his brakes and jumped out.
'For God's sake come back with me,' he cried. 'I've killed a man, just up the road. He walked right into me.'
For a moment the shock of his words stunned me, and I stood irresolute.
'Quick!' he continued. 'We'll take your car. It will save the time of reversing mine.'
Without further ado, he jumped into the driver's seat of my car, pressed the self-starter and impatiently signalled to me to get in beside him.
So Finlayson was dead. Somehow I knew it was Finlayson. Dead in Glen Ogle where sheep were safer than machines. He had walked from my useless car to meet his death round the bend in the road.
My useless car! With a sudden tremor of every nerve I realized that the engine was turning over as smoothly as it had ever done.
Had the whole world turned upside down?
Mechanically I got in and sat down beside the man. He drove a short distance round the bend and then slowly came to a halt. I saw at once that my fears were only too true. Finlayson was dead. The man had lifted him on to the grass that verged the road. I got out and bent over him. There was nothing I could do.
'I saw him walking on his own side of the road,' I heard the man saying to me. 'And I was on my own side too. But he couldn't have seen me or heard me. Just when I should have passed him, he suddenly crossed over. My God! He crossed right in front of me! Do you think he was deaf? Or perhaps he was thinking of something. Absent-minded. How else could he walk right into me?'
The man was talking on and on. Later, I realized he had to talk. It was the only relief for him. But I was not listening. Finlayson lay there, broken, still. Seeking life, he had found death. His 'number' had 'come up' three times. It was 'un-chancy'. To hell with his number! What had that to do with this?
At the subsequent inquiry, the driver of the car was completely exonerated. In a moment of absent-mindedness Finlayson had stepped across the road right into the path of the oncoming car. The finding was clear and definite. Yet for me, I could not forget that the unhappy man had felt some premonition of mischance. He had decided to cheat mischance and seek safety amid the hills. And mischance and death had met him there. Yet what possible connexion could there be between 'his number', 585244, and his death?
At first I thought that Finlayson had possibly seen "his num-ber' on a telegraph pole, or perhaps on a pylon, and, startled, had crossed the road to look at it more clearly. I made a special journey to Lochearnhead, parked my car there, and examined every bit of the road from the place where my car had 'broken down' to the place where Finlayson had been killed. But I could find nothing to substantiate my theory. '
And why had my car so mysteriously broken down and then so mysteriously started again? Could it be that the fates had de-creed the time and place of the death of Murdoch Finlayson and had used the puny machines of man's invention for their decree's fulfilment? An electronic computer that could be made to give the one number, and an internal combustion engine that could be brought to a halt. And why that number? Why that number?
That one question so dominated my mind that it ruined my work by day and my rest by night. And then, perhaps a fort-night after Finlayson's death, I was given an answer; yet it was an answer that still left everything unexplained.
I had gone over to the Staff House for lunch, and had joined a table where, too late, I found an animated discussion in progress to the effect that members of the Faculty of Arts were too ignorant of elementary science, and members of the Faculty of Science too ignorant of the arts. I was in no mood to join in the discussion, though politeness demanded that occasionally I should put in my word. The table gradually emptied until only Grassland, the Professor of Geography, and I were left.
'Neither Science nor Arts can answer some of our questions,' I said to him, bitterly.
'I know,' he replied. 'It must have been a terrible shock for you. I suppose we shall never know why that computer returned the one number to Finlayson three times. That is, if it did. And what was the number, by the way? I never heard."
'A simple line of six digits - 585244.'
'Sounds just like a normal national grid reference,' Crossland commented.
'A normal national grid reference?' I queried.
'Yes. Surely you know our national grid system for map-references. Or,' he continued with a smile, 'is this a case of the scientist knowing too little of the work in the Faculty of Arts?'
"You've scored a point there,' I replied. 'I'm afraid I'm com-pletely ignorant of this grid system of yours.'
'Probably you've been using motoring-maps too much,' he conceded. 'But the grid is quite simple. If you look at any sheet of the Ordnance Survey you will see that it is divided into kilometre squares by grid lines, numbered from o to 99, running west to east, and o to 99, running south to north. Then, within each kilometre square, a closer definition is obtained by measuring in tenths between the grid lines. Thus a particular spot, say a farm-steading or a spinney, can be pin-pointed on the map, within its numbered square, by a grid-reference which runs to six figures : three, west to east; and three, south to north. A six-figure num-ber, which is known as the "normal national grid reference".'
For a minute or so I digested this in silence.
'Can we go over to your map-room?' I asked.
'Surely,' he said, a little surprised. 'And see on a map how it works?'
‘Yes.'
We went over to Crossland's department.
'Any particular map?' he asked.
"Yes. A map of Western Perthshire.'
Grassland produced the Ordnance Survey Sheet. I looked at it almost with reluctance.
Taking out a pencil, I pointed to the place on the map where, as near as I could judge, Finlayson had met his death. 'What would be the grid reference for that particular spot?' I asked, and wondered at the strangeness of my voice.
Grassland picked up a transparent slide and bent over the map. I heard him take in his breath. He straightened himself, and when he turned to look at me his eyes were troubled and questioning.

‘Yes,' concluded Munro. 'I needn't tell you what the grid reference was. But can anyone tell me why Finlayson was given that number three times on an electronic computer? Or why my car "broke down", so that he could walk of his own accord to that very spot?'

From Dark Encounters by William Croft Dickinson (Harvill Press, London).

Cf. The Signalman by Charles Dickens