by Nigel Kneale
The camera cranes slowly towards Cobb.
COBB (crying out): I see them! All—!
The wail dies slowly. Only a few tiny, sporadic sounds—a dog barking, babies crying, a bell—break the relative quiet.
The camera reaches close shot of Cobb and halts as a thunderous nuclear roar crashes out from an explosion perhaps twenty miles away.
Cobb convulses at what he sees. The camera cranes in closer and closer as—
Demoralised, random cries break out again, close at hand. A woman screams in short, sharp barks. A man’s voice is shouting in hysterical relief:
MAN: They missed us! We’re all right, we’re all right—
The camera is tight on Cobb’s staring eyes.
All sound cuts dead.
Cobb’s eyes squeeze shut. He claps his fingers upon them, as if to crush the eyeballs and destroy the sight in them. And the colossal sound of a thermonuclear blast wave, sweeping outwards from the point of impact, thunders out and spreads and fades.
A low, wide shot of the clearing. For some seconds there is hardly a movement. Jethro, his bare torso glistening with sweat, looks fearfully round from the crossed Obeah branches. Lavinia lies there with one fragile hand extended to clutch the charm like a drowning creature. Her eyes flutter open.
Cobb is on his feet, shuffling forward in tiny steps. He takes his hands from his eyes at first fearfully. His face has curiously collapsed. He stares straight before him.
SIR TIMOTHY (at his side): What did you see? Who were they? You did see—tell me! Tell me!
Cobb nods almost imperceptibly.
SIR TIMOTHY: I must know!
Cobb nods on. There is a sound at their feet like an animal worrying. It is Sam, his face distorted as he rocks the limp shape of the girl.
SAM: She’s dead! I felt her heart burst!
LAVINIA: Dead—
JETHRO (whispering): She saw too—
They move towards Sam and the body he holds. Sir Timothy is crouching there, opening the girl’s eyelids for a sign of life.
Cobb hardly notices one more after so many.
His face is vacant, gentle, vulnerable. He drops to his knees and remains there without moving. Jethro looks round and comes to him in concern. He puts a hand on Cobb’s shoulder.
JETHRO: Master.
Cobb hardly turns. But it is as if the familiar voice restores some habit of thinking. And consciousness returns to his eyes. He puts a hand to the ground and brings it up full of leafmould. He shows this to Jethro, scattering it through his fingers.
COBB: Yet some day men will come here and make a great road through these very woods—a road—
His face shakes into a grotesque mask. His body is racked with great tearing sobs that trail slowly into a low howl of utter despair.
The camera cranes away to a wide, high shot of the clearing.
THE
STONE TAPE
THE STONE TAPE
CAST OF CHARACTERS
PETER BROCK, (Director of Research for Ryan Electrics) ... Michael Bryant
ROY COLLINSON, (establishment manager) ... Iain Cuthbertson
JILL GREELEY, (computer programmer) ... Jane Asher
STEWART JESSOP, (computer operator) ... Philip Trewinnard
EDDIE HOLMES ... Michael Bates
CLIFF DOW ... James Cosmo
HARGRAVE ... Tom Chadbon
MAUDSLEY ... John Forgeham
SERGEANT ... Neil Wilson
BAR LADY IN PUB ... Peggy Marshall
BAR HELPER ... Hilda Fenemore
ALAN, (handyman in pub) ... Michael Graham Cox
VICAR ... Christopher Banks
CRAWSHAW ... Reginald Marsh
PRODUCER ... Innes Lloyd
DIRECTOR ... Peter Sasdy
Produced on BBC Television, December 25, 1972
OUTSIDE TASKERLANDS HOUSE – DAY
A small car, an Austin 1300, is being carefully driven down the last of a long drive and into the forecourt of the house.
There is much evidence of the massive rebuilding this ugly late-Victorian structure has undergone. There are contractors huts on the lawn, and a large caravan. There are piles of material—sand and reinforcing metal and heavy pipes. Some scaffolding clings to the centre parts of the building.
The car pulls in behind large motor vans.
There are two vans, both emblazoned with the name “Ryan Electric Products”. one has unloaded, the other is just finishing. Men are shifting bulky apparatus onto trolleys and moving it inside the house.
The car driver is Jill Greeley, aged about 30. There is a very feminine, strong directness about her, so that what she is seems far more important than what she does. What she does is computer programming.
She surveys the house, oppressed by the sight of it. Her eyes go along the whole ugly length. One end of it looks still untreated, smothered in ivy.
She is so absorbed that she hardly notices that the vans are moving.
She looks round. One of them is backing straight towards her, huge and blind. She blips her horn but it still comes on. She glances to the side and sees the other van backing towards her from that direction. She has moved in too close; neither of the unseen drivers has noticed her.
She frantically starts her engine.
Then, as if something happens to her vision—the two objects are suddenly no longer motor vans but two huge, defocused shapes like standing stones in motion, slowly blundering and blending, looming over her. And their engine rumble descends to something deeper, an irregular grunting. Somehow obscene . . .
Then it passes.
Jill finds herself sitting motionless, her car on the point of being crushed. She frantically throws her gears into reverse and slams her foot down.
The Austin shoots wildly backwards out of danger, swaying and skidding in the loose gravel. She glances in the rear mirror—and sees a mass of builders’ equipment; piles of pipes and scaffolding! She tugs at the wheel, hits the brakes. The car skids straight on in a spray of gravel.
Jill screams.
The Austin scrapes past a pile of reinforcing metal with an ugly grinding—and thuds into a huge pile of sand. Jill is flung back in her seat. The engine stalls.
For a moment she hardly realises what has happened. She leans forward, head into hands. She shudders.
Fifty yards away the caravan door opens and Roy Collinson looks out. He is a grey-haired man of 45 or so, his face tight and strained.
Evidently he heard the scream. But he sees only the two vans slowly turning into the drive.
In the Austin, almost lost to sight behind the builders’ equipment, Jill is still huddled over the wheel, giving herself time to recover. She numbly watches the vans go . . . then a yellow fastback swinging in past them.
The fastback pulls up in the forecourt and Collinson turns to greet the new arrival: Peter Brock, aged 35, Director of Research for Ryan Electrics. He is a man with a lot of drive, his temperament all upswing and downbeat. At the moment, he is on a big upswing, arriving to take over his new establishment.
BROCK: Hello, Colly.
COLLINSON: Peter.
BROCK: The big day.
COLLINSON: Don’t expect too much. It’s all a mess. If only we’d had another month—
BROCK: Not a chance. (They survey the house in silence) It looks good. I mean, it looks as terrible as ever but—stronger.
COLLINSON (with feeling): Why didn’t they tear it down!
BROCK: Colly—
COLLINSON: It would have been better. They had to rip the floors out and the roof and even the window frames—there was nothing worth keeping. Just an ugly shell!
BROCK: Colly, he found it.
COLLINSON: Even so.
BROCK: Himself.
COLLINSON: I can understand about the park there—at least it’s big—but this!
BROCK: He liked the style of it.
COLLINSON: My God.
BROCK: One look, that’s all he needed, and his mind was ma
de up. He said it spoke to him. Spoke to him, so it did. (This last comes in the mock brogue which is staff code for utterances of the firm’s chairman) I know what it said. “Mr. Ryan, for pity’s sake don’t knock me down!”.
COLLINSON: He—he could have built it new! For half the cost!
The stridency in his voice worries Brock.
BROCK: How long have you been down here?
COLLINSON: Three or four months.
BROCK: Got somebody stashed away in the caravan?
COLLINSON: Eh?
BROCK: Why not?
COLLINSON: Hardly. I quite like it. It’s quite—snug.
Horns blare in cheerful chorus. Three more cars are approaching down the drive.
BROCK: Here they come.
COLLINSON: Eddie Holmes was a great help. He’s got most of your gear in position. I’m glad you could spare him.
BROCK: Good man, Eddie.
A battered estate car pulls in, with the other two close behind. Hands wave from windows. Then they are scrambling out. Most of Brock’s staff are under 30, stamped in general with a kind of alert ingenuousness. Eddie Holmes, at 40, is the oldest, a dull-faced clever man. Hargrave and Maudsley, both 25, one serious and introverted, the other afflicted with an adolescent sense of humour on top of basic cunning. Cliff Dow is 30, a slow perfectionist.
There are three or four others, less noticeable characters. All of them are in high spirits. There has clearly been a lot of laughter on the way.
EDDIE: Aye, aye, Peter! Setting a good example.
MAUDSLEY: The conscientious boss is always the first in!
He leads the hammed-up dirty laugh.
BROCK: See what I’ve got—a bunch of kids.
VOICES: Where is he! Mascot! Mascot! Mascot!
The rear of the estate car is flung up. An extraordinary figure bounces out. Its head is covered by a rubber Martian mask with bug eyes and sprouting wires. Its body is padded and covered with the green undulating rubber foam that is used under carpets, belted into place. on its chest hangs a control panel with flashing indicator lamps and a loud beeping noise. A sash marked “Ryan Electric Products”—a relic of some trade exhibition—is tied round its middle.
BROCK: Stew! Is that Stewart?
EDDIE: Who else?
The figure bows as the cheering research staff close in. They sweep it off its feet and swing it aloft. They run with it beeping and flashing, in a wide circle.
In the Austin, Jill sits watching. Her nerves are steadying. She smiles slightly, moves to get out.
The Martian figure yells as he is swept towards the house and nearly crashes into the door lintel. They tip him back and run him under it.
INSIDE THE ENTRANCE HALL
The figure is borne triumphantly in and set down with a bump. Then they demolish him. He yelps as the Martian mask is ripped off to reveal the thin face of Stewart Jessop, 22, computer operator.
STEW: Help! Take me to your leader! I come in peace!
HARGRAVE: You’re coming in pieces, mate!
They yell like wild animals. The control panel is battered into silence, the sash sent flying. Hands rip at the cords and rubber foam. They fight for possession of the padding.
An elaborately uniformed “Sergeant” appears from the reception desk, worried about exercising authority. Brock waves him back.
BROCK: They’ve got to do it. Like dogs peeing on something.
COLLINSON: Like what—!
As Jill comes in, Stew is flung almost at her feet with the worrying pack on top of him, whooping and yelling.
JILL (in genuine, momentary horror): What are you doing to him!
MAUDSLEY: We’re sacrificing a Martian!
BROCK: All right, break it up. That’s enough. That’ll do! (He reaches Jill, puts his arm round her) Just a bit of clowning.
MAUDSLEY: Innocent clowning, sir.
BROCK: Innocent? You lot?
EDDIE: You missed the fun, Jill.
DOW: You’re late.
MAUDSLEY: Bride’s privilege.
Brock gives him a hard look.
HARGRAVE: We’ve sacrificed a Martian!
Stew sits up, grinning and sweating. He wipes his face.
Brock draws Jill aside.
BROCK (quietly): You’re shaking.
JILL (as quietly): I was—nearly in an accident.
BROCK: How? Where?
JILL: Outside here. I had a sort of—momentary—I don’t know—
BROCK (his face hardening): Blackout’s the usual word.
JILL: It wasn’t that.
BROCK (sighing): You should have been with me. I should have been driving you. I’m sorry, I couldn’t make last night.
JILL: Peter, please.
BROCK: So you’ll get accident-prone.
JILL: Nothing happened.
She turns, aware that the others are watching them now. The house is as oppressive inside as out. Changes have only worsened it. The great curving staircase now embraces a lift shaft. Air-conditioning ducts run everywhere and spare sections of ducting lie stacked about the place. There are coils of cable and other debris. Wires dangle unconnected from the walls. A low-level reception desk shelters the sergeant.
BROCK: Welcome to Taskerlands. It doesn’t look much now but wait till it’s finished—then you’ll get the full horror.
COLLINSON: Don’t put them off.
BROCK: Everybody know Roy Collinson, house master and bunny mother?
COLLINSON: Hold on.
BROCK: Any problems about the move—getting digs in the area, housing wives and harems—see Colly.
EDDIE: Why is it called that?
COLLINSON: Taskerlands?
EDDIE: Yes, what’s it mean?
DOW: Work!
COLLINSON: It was built by a man called Tasker and these were his lands. He made a fortune out of iron railings.
HARGRAVE: It’s not—ancient?
COLLINSON: Sorry to disappoint. It was built about 1880. Mostly owned by the one family. Requisitioned during World War Two—the American forces had it. Derelict ever since.
Some laughter.
BROCK: Right. Let’s butter their paws. Come on—(Leading the way briskly) Lift, soon to operate, I hope. My office is up there.
EDDIE: Very palatial.
BROCK: Of course, or why be boss? Reception desk, with Sergeant Patterson. Sergeant, get to know these faces.
SERGEANT (nodding and grinning): I know some already, sir.
BROCK: From here on, we’re secret. So no chums in, no parties in the canteen—which by the way is through there and extremely decent.
COLLINSON: And working.
BROCK: Loos that way, also working. And now—
He opens the lab door and leads the way in.
The laboratory is large and well equipped. It is filled with benches and steel shelves holding all kinds of equipment. Crates still unpacked stand round the walls.
There are a couple of TV cameras on roller tripods, large monitors, oscillographs, thermographs, a spectrum analyser.
Separated off from the rest by a glazed partition is the computer section. This is the territory of Jill and Stew. There is the usual teleprinter for data communications—a plotter of automatic graphs . . . a high-speed line printer. But only a couple of the conventional tape storage units with their heavy tape spools visible through windows.
BROCK: This is Lab One. Soon there’ll be two others like it to spread into. And if that’s not enough there are five hundred acres outside to sit and think in.
MAUDSLEY: Who else is coming here?
BROCK: Nobody. Just us.
HARGRAVE: But it’s enormous.
BROCK: We’ll get bigger. I’ll expand the team with people I choose. Hand-picked. The best. Same as you’re the best.
STEW: Flattery, Pete..
MAUDSLEY: Gets him a lot of places.
DOW: Yeah.
HARGRAVE: This lot.
MAUDSLEY: Fantastic.
DOW: Too good to be true
.
HARGRAVE: After North Acton, eh!
STEW: What about the other crowd? The washing machine?
DOW: Here?
BROCK: Forget it.
DOW: That bunch in here?
BROCK: No! Can’t you get it through your heads—you’re special! Incredible as it may seem, you are! I’ll spell it out. This—place—is—ours. It—is—all—for—us. Because—we—are—on—the Big One! (He surveys their faces) D’you want a pep talk? D’you really want that?
DOW: About the Japs?
STEW: He’s a bit simple. Brilliant but simple.
BROCK: Cliff—it is always about the Japs. In ten years they are going to have us all by whatever part of our anatomy they pick. There will be no electronics industry anywhere in the world but theirs. Unless—
EDDIE: I think we’ve a good chance.
BROCK: We’ve got only a single chance. We’ve got to play a card so high they can’t top it.
STEW (mock-Japanese): Aah, so!
BROCK: A completely new recording medium.
STEW: Already have in honourable pocket.
EDDIE: Shut up, Stew.
STEW (seriously): What about tape, though?
EDDIE: Tape’s finished.
STEW: They can still improve—
EDDIE: Its day is done.
BROCK: Stew. (He has a spool in his hand) Magnetic tape is compact, responsive, all the sales chat-up says. (He pulls some loose and crushes it in his fingers) Also delicate and prone to lose its memory.
MAUDSLEY: Like Cliff here.
BROCK: As you rightly say. (He tosses the spool down) It’s time, gentlemen, for a breakthrough. Just record me, say, the whole of Wagner’s Ring cycle inside a pin head—with instant playback, of course—
MAUDSLEY: Gimme till lunchtime.
BROCK: —and you can name your royalties.
EDDIE (hungrily): It is royalties, then?
BROCK: Forget about bonuses, you’ll be right in there. I’ve got his word on it.
EDDIE: Himself?
BROCK: Yesterday. “Just put the boot into ould Nippon!” is how he delicately phrased it. So—if you want to be millionaires, it’s a crash programme. Find the medium and everything else follows.
DOW: The hardware?