Hi Debbie and Moo!
Debbie, sorry, I should have flagged 'Collaborator' as one of mine, not an episode. (I wish!!
) Thanks Librarian for helping out.
Moo, that Fairbairn-Sykes is a vicious-looking piece of kit
... I have to admit, I wrote that bit, then read it through and thought 'that won't do at all' so I called in Alec to cover Ed's behind.
Ed hasn't had an opportunity to arm himself, as he and Foster have just got off the LM, and although they've changed into their 'civvies' to go to the studio, he couldn't very well don his shoulder holster without Paul noticing. Also, he has to be defenceless in this scene, so that he's not tempted to make any aggressive moves.
I have the impression that SHADO personnel don't generally go 'equipped'. Certainly Paul didn't, in 'Cat with 9 lives'. And when Ed's walking around minus his jacket e.g. in SkyDiver, he's not wearing a weapon. Though in 'ESP', of course, both Ed and Alec are armed - and a fat lot of good it does them
(Oops - should have been 10 lives of course
)
(But I'm going to have to have him use that knife somehow. I'm reminded of a Brit TV series called Cadfael, set in the England of the early 12th century. Cadfael is an ex-Crusader turned Benedictine monk and something of a mediaeval Sherlock Holmes. In a story entitled 'The virgin in the ice' he is accosted by another ex-Crusader, Olivier de Bretagne, when they are both looking - separately, and unaware of each other's presence - for a pair of lost youngsters. Olivier grabs Cadfael and holds a knife to him:
Olivier: I have the advantage of you, brother.
Cadfael: And I think we should both have died.
Olivier looks down, and sees Cadfael's own knife (hidden away in his herbery since his Crusade days, in defiance of his vow of poverty) at his stomach!
That sort of situation turns up a lot in adventure fiction, so I think it wouldn't be plagiarism.)