THE SOUND MACHINE

THE SOUND MACHINE

THE AUTHOR
It was a warm summer evening and Klausner walked quickly
through the front gate and around the side of the house and into
the garden at the back. He went on down the garden until he came
Roald Dahl was born in Wales in 1916 of Norwegian to a wooden shed and he unlocked the door, went inside and closed
parents. He served as a fighter pilot in World War II, and the door behind him.
his first volume of short stories, Over to You, was based on The interior of the shed was an unpainted room. Against one
his wartime experiences. Other collections are Kiss Kiss, wall, on the left, there was a long wooden workbench, and on it,
Someone Like You, Switch Bitch, and Further Tales of the
among a littering of wires and batteries and small sharp tools,
Unexpected-, they have been translated into many languages
and are bestsellers all over the world. His stories, bizarre there stood a black box about three feet long, the shape of a child’s
and alarming, often with a touch of black humour, are more coffin.
in the fantasy and horror genres but sometimes make use of Klausner moved across the room to the box. The top of the box
science-fiction images. His stories for children, such as was open, and he bent down and began to poke and peer inside it
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, are also enormously
among a mass of different-coloured wires and silver tubes. He picked
popular. He died in 1990.
up a piece of paper that lay beside the box, studied it carefully, put
it down, peered inside the box and started running his fingers along
THE STORY
—
the wires, tugging gently at them to test the connections, glancing
It is hard to escape from sound of one kind or another
back at the paper, then into the box, then at the paper again, checking
traffic, birdsong, voices, the soft thump of one’s heartbeat
at night. There are those who claim to hear sounds inaudible
each wire. He did this for perhaps an hour.
—
to others the voice of God, for example. Is this just the
product of some chemical malfunction in the brain? Human
Then he put a hand around to the front of the box where there
were three dials, and he began to twiddle them, watching at the
ears cannot hear the high-pitched squeak of a bat, but does same time the movement of the mechanism inside the box. All the
that mean it does not exist? ‘1 am too much of a sceptic,’ while he kept speaking softly to himself, nodding his head, smiling
wrote the English biologist T. H. Huxley, ‘to deny the
sometimes, his hands always moving, the fingers moving swiftly,
possibility of anything.’
In a garden shed in a quiet suburb Klausner bends over deftly, inside the box, his mouth twisting into curious shapes when
his workbench, intent, absorbed, his hands busily adjusting a thing was delicate or difficult to do, saying, ‘Yes . . . Yes . . . And
wires inside a long black box. He is interrupted by a visitor, —
now this one ... Yes ... Yes. But is this right? Is it where’s my
Dr Scott, calling to enquire after his sore throat. Klausner diagram? . . . Ah, yes ... Of course ... Yes, yes . . . That’s right
answers briefly, dismissively, but the Doctor lingers, curious
to know the purpose of that strange black box . . .
. . . And now . . . Good . . . Good . . . Yes . . . Yes, yes, yes.’ His
concentration was intense; his movements were quick; there was

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an air of urgency about the way he worked, of breathlessness, of ‘So it seems.’ The Doctor went to the door, turned, and said,
strong suppressed excitement.
‘Well, I won’t disturb you. Glad your throat’s not worrying you
Suddenly he heard footsteps on the gravel path outside and he any more.’ But he kept standing there looking at the box, intrigued
straightened and turned swiftly as the door opened and a tall man by the remarkable complexity of its inside, curious to know what
came in. It was Scott. It was only Scott, the doctor. this strange patient of his was up to. ‘What’s it really for?’ he asked.
‘Well, well, well,’ the Doctor said. ‘So this is where you hide ‘You’ve made me inquisitive.’
yourself in the evenings.’ Klausner looked down at the box, then at the Doctor, and he
‘Hullo, Scott,’ Klausner said. reached up and began gently to scratch the lobe of his right ear.
‘I happened to be passing,’ the Doctor told him, ‘so I dropped in There was a pause. The Doctor stood by the door, waiting, smiling.
to see how you were. There was no one in the house, so I came on ‘All right, I’ll tell you, if you’re interested.’ There was another
down here. How’s that throat of yours been behaving?’ pause, and the Doctor could see that Klausner was having trouble
‘It’s all right. It’s fine.’ about how to begin.
‘Now I’m here I might as well have a look at it.’ He was shifting from one foot to the other, tugging at the lobe
‘Please don’t trouble. I’m quite cured. I’m fine.’ of his ear, looking at his feet, and then at last, slowly, he said, ‘Well,
The Doctor began to feel the tension in the room. He looked at it’s like this . . . the theory is very simple really. The human ear . . .
the black box on the bench; then he looked at the man. ‘You’ve got you know that it can’t hear everything. There are sounds that are
your hat on,’ he said. so low-pitched or so high-pitched that it can’t hear them.’
‘Oh, have I?’ Klausner reached up, removed the hat, and put it ‘Yes,’ the Doctor said. ‘Yes.’
on the bench. ‘Well, speaking very roughly, any note so high that it has more
The Doctor came up closer and bent down to look into the box. —
than fifteen thousand vibrations a second we can’t hear it. Dogs
‘What’s this?’ he said. ‘Making a radio?’ have better ears than us. You know you can buy a whistle whose
note is so high-pitched that you can’t hear it at all. But a dog can
‘No, just fooling around.’
‘It’s got rather complicated-looking innards.’ hear it.’
‘Yes.’ Klausner seemed tense and distracted. ‘Yes, I’ve seen one,’ the Doctor said.
‘What is it?’ the Doctor asked. ‘It’s rather a frightening-looking ‘Of course you have. And up the scale, higher than the note of
thing, isn’t it?’ —
that whistle, there is another note a vibration if you like, but I
‘It’s just an idea.’ prefer to think of it as a note. You can’t hear that one either. And
‘Yes?’ above that there is another and another rising right up the scale for
‘It has to do with sound, that’s all.’ ever and ever and ever, an endless succession of notes ... an infinity
‘Good heavens, man! Don’t you get enough of that sort of thing —
of notes . . . there is a note - if only our ears could hear it so high
that it vibrates a million times a second . . . and another a million
all day in your work?’
‘I like sound.’ times as high as that . . . and on and on, higher and higher, as far

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as numbers go, which is . . . infinity . . . eternity . . . beyond the ‘Some time ago,’ Klausner said, ‘I made a simple instrument that
stars.’ proved to me the existence of many odd inaudible sounds. Often I
Klausner was becoming more animated every moment. He was have sat and watched the needle of my instrument recording the
a small frail man, nervous and twitchy, with always moving hands. presence of sound vibrations in the air when I myself could hear
His large head inclined towards his left shoulder as though his neck nothing. And those are the sounds I want to listen to. I want to
were not quite strong enough to support it rigidly. His face was know where they come from and who or what is making them.’
smooth and pale, almost white, and the pale-grey eyes that blinked ‘And that machine on the table there,’ the Doctor said, ‘is that
and peered from behind a pair of steel spectacles were bewildered, going to allow you to hear these noises?’
unfocused, remote. He was a frail, nervous, twitchy little man, a ‘It may. Who knows? So far, I’ve had no luck. But I’ve made
moth of a man, dreamy and distracted; suddenly fluttering and some changes in it and tonight I’m ready for another trial. This
animated; and now the Doctor, looking at that strange pale face machine,’ he said, touching it with his hands, ‘is designed to pick
and those pale-grey eyes, felt that somehow there was about this up sound vibrations that are too high-pitched for reception by the
little person a quality of distance, of immense immeasurable distance, human ear, and to convert them to a scale of audible tones. I tune
as though the mind were far away from where the body was. it in, almost like a radio.’
The Doctor waited for him to go on. Klausner sighed and clasped ‘How d’you mean?’
his hands tightly together. ‘I believe,’ he said, speaking more slowly ‘It isn’t complicated. Say I wish to listen to the squeak of a bat.
now, ‘that there is a whole world of sound about us all the time that That’s a fairly high-pitched sound — about thirty thousand vibrations
we cannot hear. It is possible that up there in those high-pitched a second. The average human ear can’t quite hear it. Now, if there
inaudible regions there is a new exciting music being made, with subtle were a bat flying around this room and I tuned in to thirty thousand
harmonies and fierce grinding discords, a music so powerful that it on my machine, I would hear the squeaking of that bat very clear.
would drive us mad if only our ears were tuned to hear the sound of —
I would even hear the correct note F sharp, or B flat, or whatever
it. There may be anything . . . for all we know there may ’
‘Yes,’ the Doctor said. ‘But it’s not very probable.’
— it might be — but merely at a much lower pitch. Don’t you
understand?’
‘Why not? Why not?’ Klausner pointed to a fly sitting on a small The Doctor looked at the long, black coffin-box. ‘And you’re
roll of copper wire on the workbench. ‘Y ou see that fly? What sort going to try it tonight?’
—
of a noise is that fly making now? None that one can hear. But for ‘Yes.’
all we know the creature may be whistling like mad on a very high ‘Well, I wish you luck.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘My goodness!’
note, or barking or croaking or singing a song. It’s got a mouth, he said. ‘I must fly. Goodbye, and thank you for telling me. I must
hasn’t it? It’s got a throat!’ call again some time and find out what happened.’ The Doctor went
The Doctor looked at the fly and he smiled. He was still standing out and closed the door behind him.
by the door with his hands on the doorknob. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘So For a while longer, Klausner fussed about with the wires in the
you’re going to check up on that?’ black box; then he straightened up and in a soft excited whisper

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said, ‘Now we’ll try again . . . We’ll take it out into the garden this Behind this crackling sound he could hear a distant humming
time . . . and then perhaps . . . perhaps ... the reception will be tone which was the noise of the machine itself, but that was all. As
better. Lift it up now . . . carefully . . . Oh, my God, it’s heavy!’ He he listened, he became conscious of a curious sensation, a feeling
carried the box to the door, found that he couldn’t open the door that his ears were stretching out away from his head, that each ear
without putting it down, carried it back, put it on the bench, opened was connected to his head by a thin stiff wire, like a tentacle, and
the door, and then carried it with some difficulty into the garden. that the wires were lengthening, that the ears were going up and up
He placed the box carefully on a small wooden table that stood on towards a secret and forbidden territory, a dangerous ultrasonic
the lawn. He returned to the shed and fetched a pair of earphones. region where ears had never been before and had no right to be.
He plugged the wire connections from the earphones into the The little needle crept slowly across the dial, and suddenly he
machine and put the earphones over his ears. The movements of heard a shriek, a frightful piercing shriek, and he jumped and dropped
his hands were quick and precise. He was excited, and breathed his hands, catching hold of the edge of the table. He stared around
loudly and quickly through his mouth. He kept on talking to himself him as if expecting to see the person who had shrieked. There was
with little words of comfort and encouragement, as though he were no one in sight except the woman in the garden next door, and it
afraid - afraid that the machine might not work and afraid also of was certainly not she. She was bending down, cutting yellow roses
what might happen if it did. and putting them in her basket.
He stood there in the garden beside the wooden table, so pale, Again it came - a throatless, inhuman shriek, sharp and short,
small, an<3 thin that he looked like an ancient, consumptive, very clear and cold. The note itself possessed a minor, metallic quality
bespectacled child. The sun had gone down. There was no wind, that he had never heard before. Klausner looked around him,
no sound at all. From where he stood, he could see over a low fence searching instinctively for the source of the noise. The woman next
into the next garden, and there was a woman walking down the door was the only living thing in sight. He saw her reach down,
garden with a flower-basket on her arm. He watched her for a while take a rose stem in the fingers of one hand and snip the stem with
without thinking about her at all. Then he turned to the box on the a pair of scissors. Again he heard the scream.
table and pressed a switch on its front. He put his left hand on the It came at the exact moment when the rose stem was cut.
volume control and his right hand on the knob that moved a needle At this point, the woman straightened up, put the scissors in the
across a large central dial, like the wavelength dial of a radio. The basket with the roses, and turned to walk away.
dial was marked with many numbers, in a series of bands, starting ‘Mrs Saunders!’ Klausner shouted, his voice shrill with excitement.
at 15,000 and going on up to 1,000,000. ‘Oh, Mrs Saunders!’
And now he was bending forward over the machine. His head And looking round, the woman saw her neighbour standing on
was cocked to one side in a tense, listening attitude. His right hand his lawn - a fantastic, arm-waving little person with a pair of
was beginning to turn the knob. The needle was travelling slowly earphones on his head - calling to her in a voice so high and loud
across the dial, so slowly he could hardly see it move, and in the that she became alarmed.
earphones he could hear a faint, spasmodic crackling. ‘Cut another one! Please cut another one quickly!’

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130 A Window on the Universe The Sound Machine 131

She stood still, staring at him. ‘Why, Mr Klausner,’ she said. ‘You might say,’ he went on, ‘that a rose bush has no nervous
‘What’s the matter?’ system to feel with, no throat to cry with. You’d be right. It hasn’t.
‘Please do as I ask,’ he said. ‘Cut just one more rose!’ Not like ours, anyway. But how do you know, Mrs Saunders’ - and
Mrs Saunders had always believed her neighbour to be a rather here he leaned far over the fence and spoke in a fierce whisper -
peculiar person; now it seemed that he had gone completely crazy. ’how do you know that a rose bush doesn’t feel as much pain when
She wondered whether she should run into the house and fetch her someone cuts its stem in two as you would feel if someone cut your
husband. No, she thought. No, he’s harmless. I’ll just humour him. wrist off with a garden shears? How do you know that ? It’s alive,
‘Certainly, Mr Klausner, if you like,’ she said. She took her scissors isn’t it?’
from the basket, bent down, and snipped another rose. ‘Yes, Mr Klausner. Oh, yes - and goodnight.’ Quickly she turned
Again Klausner heard that frightful, throatless shriek in the and ran up the garden to her house. Klausner went back to the table.
earphones; again it came at the exact moment the rose stem was He put on the earphones and stood for a while listening. He could
cut. He took off the earphones and ran to the fence that separated still hear the faint crackling sound and the humming noise of the
the two gardens. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘That’s enough. No more. Please, machine, but nothing more. He bent down and took hold of a small
no more.’ white daisy growing on the lawn. He took it between thumb and
The woman stood there, a yellow rose in one hand, clippers in forefinger and slowly pulled it upward and sideways until the stem
the other, looking at him. broke.
‘I’m going to tell you something, Mrs Saunders,’ he said, From the moment that he started pulling to the moment when
‘something that you won’t believe.’ He put his hands on top of the the stem broke, he heard - he distinctly heard in the earphones - a
fence and peered at her intently through his thick spectacles. ‘You faint high-pitched cry, curiously inanimate. He took another daisy
have, this evening, cut a basketful of roses. You have with a sharp and did it again. Once more he heard the cry, but he wasn’t so sure
pair of scissors cut through the stems of living things, and each rose now that it expressed pain. No, it wasn’t pain, it was surprise. Or
that you cut screamed in the most terrible way. Did you know that, was it? It didn’t really express any of the feelings or emotions known
Mrs Saunders?’ to a human being. It was just a cry, a neutral, stony cry - a single
‘No,’ she said. ‘I certainly didn’t know that.’ emotionless note, expressing nothing. It had been the same with
‘It happens to be true,’ he said. He was breathing rather rapidly, the roses. He had been wrong in calling it a cry of pain. A flower
but he was trying to control his excitement, i heard them shrieking. probably didn’t feel pain. It felt something else which we didn’t know
Each time you cut one, I heard the cry of pain. A very high-pitched about- something called toin or spurl or plinuckment*, or anything
sound, approximately one hundred and thirty-two thousand you like.
vibrations a second. You couldn’t possibly have heard it yourself. He stood up and removed the earphones. It was getting dark and
But I heard it.’ he could see pricks of light shining in the windows of the houses all
‘Did you really, Mr Klausner?’ She decided she would make a around him. Carefully he picked up the black box from the table,
dash for the house in about five seconds. carried it into the shed and put it on the workbench. Then he went
132 A Window on the Universe The Sound Machine 133

out, locked the door behind him, and walked up to the house. For a while he stood there with his hands upon the trunk of the
The next morning Klausner was up as soon as it was light. He great tree; then suddenly he turned away and hurried off out of the
dressed and went straight to the shed. He picked up the machine park, across the road, through the front gate and back into his house.
and carried it outside, clasping it to his chest with both hands, walking He went to the telephone, consulted the book, dialled a number
unsteadily under its weight. He went past the house, out through and waited. He held the receiver tightly in his left hand and tapped
the front gate, and across the road to the park. There he paused and the table impatiently with his right. He heard the telephone buzzing
looked around him; then he went on until he came to a large tree, a at the other end, and then the click of a lifted receiver and a man’s
beech tree, and he placed the machine on the ground close to the voice, a sleepy voice, saying: ‘Hullo. Yes.’
trunk of the tree. Quickly he went back to the house and got an axe ‘Dr Scott?’ he said.
from the coal cellar and carried it across the road into the park. He ‘Yes. Speaking.’
put the axe on the ground beside the tree. —
‘Dr Scott. You must come at once quickly, please.’
Then he looked around him again, peering nervously through ‘Who is it speaking?’
his thick glasses in every direction. There was no one about. It was ‘Klausner here, and you remember what I told you last night about
six in the morning. my experience with sound, and how I hoped I might ’ —
He put the earphones on his head and switched on the machine. ‘Yes, yes, of course, but what’s the matter? Are you ill?’
He listened for a moment to the faint familiar humming sound; then —
‘No, I’m not ill, but ’
he picked up the axe, took a stance with his legs wide apart, and ‘It’s half-past six in the morning,’ the Doctor said, ‘and you call
swung the axe as hard as he could at the base of the tree trunk. The me but you are not ill.’
blade cut deep into the wood and stuck there, and at the instant of ‘Please come. Come quickly. 1 want someone to hear it. It’s driving
impact he heard a most extraordinary noise in the earphones. It was me mad! I can’t believe it . . .’
a new noise, unlike any he had heard before - a harsh, noteless, The Doctor heard the frantic, almost hysterical note in the man’s
enormous noise, a growling, low-pitched, screaming sound, not quick voice, the same note he was used to hearing in the voices of people
and short like the noise of the roses, but drawn out like a sob lasting who called up and said, ‘There’s been an accident. Come quickly.’
for fully a minute, loudest at the moment when the axe struck, fading He said slowly, ‘You really want me to get out of bed and come
gradually fainter and fainter until it was gone. over now?’
Klausner stared in horror at the place where the blade of the axe ‘Yes, now. At once, please.’
had sunk into the woodflesh of the tree; then gently he took the axe
handle, worked the blade loose and threw the thing to the ground.
—
‘All right, then I’ll come.’
Klausner sat down beside the telephone and waited. He tried to
With his fingers he touched the gash that the axe had made in the remember what the shriek of the tree had sounded like, but he
wood, touching the edges of the gash, trying to press them together couldn’t. He could remember only that it had been enormous and
to close the wound, and he kept saying, ‘Tree . . . oh, tree ... I am frightful and that it had made him feel sick with horror. He tried to
sorry ... I am so sorry . . . but it will heal ... it will heal fine . . . ’ imagine what sort of noise a human would make if he had to stand
134 A Window on the Universe The Sound Machine 135

anchored to the ground while someone deliberately swung a small ‘I wanted a tree. There aren’t any big trees in the garden.’
sharp thing at his leg so that the blade cut in deep and wedged itself ‘And why the axe?’
in the cut. Same sort of noise perhaps? No. Quite different. The ‘You’ll see in a moment. But now please put on these earphones
noise of the tree was worse than any known human noise because and listen. Listen carefully and tell me afterwards precisely what
of that frightening, toneless, throatless quality. He began to wonder you hear. I want to make quite sure . . .’
about other living things, and he thought immediately of a field of The Doctor smiled and took the earphones and put them over
wheat, a field of wheat standing up straight and yellow and alive, his ears.
with the mower going through it, cutting the stems, five hundred Klausner bent down and flicked the switch on the panel of the
stems a second, every second. Oh, my God, what would that noise machine, then he picked up the axe and took his stance with his legs
be like? Five hundred wheat plants screaming together and every apart, ready to swing. For a moment he paused.
second another five hundred being cut and screaming and no, he— ‘Can you hear anything?’ he said to the Doctor.
thought, I do not want to go to a wheat field with my machine. I ‘Can 1 what?’
would never eat bread after that. But what about potatoes and ‘Can you hear anything?’
cabbages and carrots and onions? And what about apples? Ah, no. ‘Just a humming noise.’
Apples are all right. They fall off naturally when they are ripe. Klausner stood there with the axe in his hands trying to bring
Apples are all right if you let them fall off instead of tearing them himself to swing, but the thought of the noise that the tree would
from the tree branch. But not vegetables. Not a potato for example. make made him pause again.
A potato would surely shriek; so would a carrot and an onion and ‘What are you waiting for?’ the Doctor asked.
a cabbage . . . ‘Nothing,’ Klausner answered, and then he lifted the axe and
He heard the click of the front-gate latch and he jumped up and swung it at the tree, and as he swung, he thought he felt, he could
went out and saw the tall doctor coming down the path, little black swear he felt a movement of the ground on which he stood. He felt
bag in hand. a slight shifting of the earth beneath his feet as though the roots of
‘Well,’ the Doctor said. ‘Well, what’s all the trouble?’ the tree were moving underneath the soil, but it was too late to check
‘Come with me, Doctor. I want you to hear it. I called you because the blow and the axe blade struck the tree and wedged deep into the
you’re the only one I’ve told. It’s over the road in the park. Will you wood. At that moment, high overhead, there was the cracking sound
come now?’ of wood splintering and the swishing sound of leaves brushing against
The Doctor looked at him. He seemed calmer now. There was other leaves and they both looked up and the Doctor cried,
no sign of madness or hysteria, he was merely disturbed and excited. ‘Watch out! Run, man! Quickly, run!’
They went across the road into the park and Klausner led the The Doctor had ripped off the earphones and was running away
way to the great beech tree at the foot of which stood the long black fast, but Klausner stood spellbound, staring up at the great branch,
coffin-box of the machine — and the axe. sixty feet long at least, that was bending slowly downward, breaking
‘Why did you bring it out here?’ the Doctor asked. and crackling and splintering at its thickest point, where it joined
136 A Window on the Universe The Sound Machine 137

the main trunk of the tree. The branch came crashing down and he said, ‘we’d better get back.’
Klausner leapt aside just in time. It fell upon the machine and ‘Look,’ said the little man, and now his smooth white face became
smashed it into pieces. suddenly suffused with colour. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘you stitch this up.’
‘Great heavens!’ shouted the Doctor as he came running back. He pointed to the last gash that the axe had made in the tree trunk.
‘That was a near one! I thought it had got you!’ ‘You stitch this up quickly.’
Klausner was staring at the tree. His large head was leaning to ‘Don’t be silly,’ the Doctor said.
one side and upon his smooth white face there was a tense, horrified ‘You do as I say. Stitch it up.’ Klausner was gripping the axe
expression. Slowly he walked up to the tree and gently he prised the handle and he spoke softly, in a curious, almost a threatening tone.
blade loose from the trunk. ‘Don’t be silly,’ the Doctor said. ‘I can’t stitch through wood.
‘Did you hear it?’ he said, turning to the Doctor. His voice was Come on. Let’s get back.’
barely audible. ‘So you can’t stitch through wood?’
The Doctor was still out of breath from running and the ‘No, of course not.’
excitement. ‘Hear what?’ ‘Have you got any iodine in your bag?’
‘In the earphones. Did you hear anything when the axe struck?’ ‘What if I have?’
The Doctor began to rub the back of his neck. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘as ‘Then paint the cut with iodine. It’ll sting, but that can’t be
a matter of fact . . .’ He paused and frowned and bit his lower lip. helped.’
‘No, I’m not sure. I couldn’t be sure. I don’t suppose 1 had the ‘Now look,’ the Doctor said, and again he turned as if to go.
earphones on for more than a second after the axe struck.’ ‘Let’s not be ridiculous. Let’s get back to the house and then . . .’
‘Yes, yes, but what did you hear?’ ‘Paint-the-cut-with-iodine.’
‘I don’t know,’ the Doctor said. ‘I don’t know what I heard. The Doctor hesitated. He saw Klausner’s hands tightening on
Probably the noise of the branch breaking.’ He was speaking rapidly, the handle of the axe. He decided that his only alternative was to
rather irritably. run away fast, and he certainly wasn’t going to do that.
‘What did it sound like?’ Klausner leaned forward slightly, staring ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll paint it with iodine.’
hard at the Doctor. ‘Exactly what did it sound like?’ He got his black bag which was lying on the grass about ten yards
‘Oh, hell!’ the Doctor said. ‘I really don’t know. I was more away, opened it and took out a bottle of iodine and some cotton
interested in getting out of the way. Let’s leave it.’ wool. He went up to the tree trunk, uncorked the bottle, tipped
‘Dr Scott, what-did-it-sound-like ?’ some of the iodine on to the cotton wool, bent down, and began to
‘For God’s sake, how could 1 tell, what with half the tree falling dab it into the cut. He kept one eye on Klausner who was standing
on me and having to run for my life?’ The Doctor certainly seemed motionless with the axe in his hands, watching him.
nervous. Klausner had sensed it now. He stood quite still, staring at ‘Make sure you get it right in.’
the Doctor and for fully half a minute he didn’t speak. The Doctor ‘Yes,’ the Doctor said.
moved his feet, shrugged his shoulders and half turned to go. ‘Well,’ ‘Now do the other one - the one just above it!’
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The Doctor did as he was told.

‘There you are,’ he said. ‘It’s done.’
He straightened up and surveyed his work in a very serious
manner. ‘That should do nicely.’
Klausner came closer and gravely examined the two wounds.
‘Yes,’ he said, nodding his huge head slowly up and down. ‘Yes,
that will do nicely.’ He stepped back a pace. ‘You’ll come and look
at them again tomorrow?’
‘Oh, yes,’ the Doctor said. ‘Of course.’
‘And put some more iodine on?’
‘If necessary, yes.’
‘Thank you, Doctor,’ Klausner said, and he nodded his head again
and he dropped the axe and all at once he smiled, a wild, excited
smile, and quickly the Doctor went over to him and gently he took
him by the arm and he said, ‘Come on, we must go now,’ and
suddenly they were walking away, the two of them, walking silently,
rather hurriedly across the park, over the road, back to the house.