Doctor Who: The Myth Makers (11 page)

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I should be extremely honoured, of course.’

‘I hoped you might be. You deserve it, after all the hard work you’ve put in.’

‘Yes. But, dear me – there’s a problem.’

‘Good thing you thought of it in time. What is it?’

‘The machine won’t work!’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Positive. Yes, look here – I seem to have made a mistake in my calculations. The weight-volume ratio’s all wrong, do you see? Silly of me!’

‘Very.’

‘No, we’ll just have to face it, I’m afraid: man was never meant to fly!’

‘Oh, I don’t know about that. I mean, if your machine won’t work, you’ll just have to fly without it, won’t you?’

‘What... what do you mean?’

‘Well, surely the catapult
will
work all right. I think that’s a
very
good idea of yours – and it seems such a pity to waste it, that I propose to fire you over the walls of Troy. Then you can help
them
for a change. That’ll teach ‘em!’

‘But I should be killed!’

‘You must do as you think best. But since you have failed me, you are now expendable.’

‘Wait! I haven’t failed you yet!’

‘You mean, there’s
more
?’

‘Oh, a very great deal! Yes, I’ve just had a far better idea!’

‘Nothing like the prospect of death to concentrate the mind, is there? Go on!’

The Doctor took a deep breath, and sentenced the world to Greek civilization.

‘What would you say to a horse?’ he asked.

‘Is it a riddle?’

‘No, no – of course not! I mean, a huge wooden horse – Oh, about forty feet high, I should think. Look. I’ll do you a drawing.’

‘Don’t bother – I know perfectly well what a horse looks like.’

‘Good. Then that’s the first half of the battle.’

‘I can’t wait for the second. What on earth are you rambling on about now?’

‘I’m trying to tell you, aren’t I? Listen – you make the body of the horse hollow; then you fill it with your picked warriors; and you leave it on the plain for the Trojans to capture! How about that?’

‘It would be one way of solving our food shortage, I suppose. Got any more ideas?’

‘I do wish you’d pay attention! Can’t you see – they’ll drag it into the city?’

‘It’s my belief you’re demented! Why on earth would they do a silly thing like that?’

‘Because,’ said the Doctor triumphantly, ‘they’ll think it’s the Great Horse of Asia, come down to save them!’ There was a long pause.

‘And just how would they expect it to do that?’ asked Odysseus, having looked at the plan from every angle.

‘By frightening away the Greek army. Because that’s what it would seem to have done, wouldn’t it? Everyone of you not required for horse-construction duty, would sail away over the horizon.’

‘And only come back once the horse is inside the gates?’

‘Precisely! Splendid! I knew you’d see it! Well, how does it strike you?’ asked the Doctor, excited as if he’d thought of it himself. What we writers really need is absolutely water-tight copyright laws; but I don’t suppose we’ll ever get ’em.

‘I must think it over,’ said Odysseus, cautiously. ‘At least, I don’t think its ever been done before,’ he admitted. ‘On the other hand, that might be against it, in certain quarters... Tell you what, give me half an hour to work out a few details.’

‘To quantify the project,’ murmured the Doctor, beaming like Archimedes on a good day.

‘If you prefer it. And if I can’t find a flaw, we’ll ask Agamemnon over for a drink, and put it to him.’

Well, of course, I couldn’t wait half an hour to tell the Doctor the bad news about Steven and Vicki; because, if they weren’t already dead, they were bound to be in prison, waiting to be executed by the due process of law; so there wouldn’t be all that long for him to hang about congratulating himself, if he was going to get them out of it: certainly not long enough for him to build a damn’ great wooden horse, I wouldn’t have thought.

The snag was that Odysseus showed no signs of being about to retire to his cabin to do his thinking, no, he kept pacing the deck, growling to himself, and occasionally giving one of those great diabolical laughs of his. So there was obviously going to be no chance of getting the Doctor alone for a moment.

But Odysseus did seem to be in a good enough mood, judging by the sound effects: so I thought I’d better risk it, and gamble on the possibility of his not killing me before good faith could be established.

I therefore stepped confidently out of the shadows, and –

probably the bravest thing I’ve ever done – hopped buoyantly over the gunnels to deliver my message.

‘Doctor,’ I said, ‘you don’t know me, but I assure you I’m a friend: and I have to tell you that Steven and Vicki have both been captured, and sentenced to death by the Trojans. Mind you the Trojans don’t seem to be at all bad chaps on the whole; and I’m sure a word in the right quarter, possibly from you, Lord Odysseus – would resolve the matter of their identity in no time.

But
something’s
got to be done – because it’s that Cassandra, you see? She’s the one who wants them to die; for various reasons which I won’t bother you with now, because there isn’t a lot of time.’

Well, I thought that wrapped the whole thing up rather neatly, considering I hadn’t done a lot of this exhausted messenger gasping out the tidings business before. I had considered clutching one of them by the arm for support; but decided against it, as being a touch too melodramatic. No – I was relying on the element of surprise, you see; the theory being that if you don’t give anyone else a chance to say anything, there’s not a lot they can do about it till you’ve finished. I’ve often noticed that chaps don’t seem able to kill other chaps to their faces, until they’ve told them that that’s what they’re going to do.

A sort of convention, I suppose it is.

And, do you know, it more or less worked? Because Odysseus didn’t actually kill me: he put out my right eye with a marlin-spike, instead! And then he laughed – just to show that everything was all right, really.

‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘my hand slipped. So you like the Trojans, do you? Well now, my little Cyclops, you’ll just have to learn to take a more one-sided view of things, won’t you?’

And then, I’m afraid, I fainted.

19

Of course, after the lapse of forty-odd years, I can afford to take a rather less jaundiced view of the matter than I did at the time.

Now, I suppose I must admit that the whole thing was largely my own fault: I should never have said that I quite liked the Trojans! Simply asking for it. Because one of the traditions of war is that you have to believe the enemy are fiends incarnate.

And anyone who takes the opposite view is not only on their side, but a bounder and a cad into the bargain. In fact, why Odysseus didn’t kill me I shall never know: but perhaps he thought he had. After all, that sort of wound can often be fatal –

especially when delivered without proper surgical care.

I like to think that the Doctor made some sort of protest, however ineffectual; and no doubt he did. But there wasn’t a lot he could actually
do
, without getting the chop himself. Quite!

Yes, I can understand that –
now
. But at the time I was... well, sour, about the whole episode.

‘That’s what you get for trying to do someone a good turn!’

I thought, as I came to, some hours later. I was lying in the scuppers, where Odysseus had obviously kicked me, not wanting bleeding corpses cluttering up the deck. To add to my pleasure, I was covered in fish-scales and crabs’ legs, and other marine bric-a-brac of a more or less noisome nature; and I suppose I should mention in passing that I was in the most excruciating pain I had ever known – or had believed was generally available outside the nethermost circle of Hades! No point in going on about it: but I tell you, I wanted to die, and was very sorry to find I hadn’t.
That’s
what it was like – so I’ll trouble you to bear the fact in mind, if you think I’m being altogether too flippant.

In any case, as I say, it was all a very long time ago.

But to resume: it was dark by now, Zeus be praised; except where a lantern illuminated the Doctor’s designing board, and a selection of brooding evil-looking faces. Because Odysseus had obviously sent out the formal invitations as arranged; and Agamemnon and Menelaus were now among those present. A couple of death’s head moths were fooling about in the lamp-light, I remember. All very well for them, I thought – but somehow ominous, all the same. Not that I go much on signs and portents as a rule – but you know what I mean.

The genial host was excited as a schoolboy, and busy explaining the whole horrendous scheme to his dubious guests.

‘I tell you, it’s revolutionary,’ he was saying, ‘war will never be the same again!’

‘Show them the working-drawings, Doctor. There! What do you make of that?’

Understandably, no one seemed very impressed at the outset – and you couldn’t blame them. Surprisingly, Menelaus was the first to venture a diagnosis.

‘It’s a horse,’ he said, ‘isn’t it?’

‘Well done, Menelaus,’ said Odysseus, patronisingly. ‘Now, come on – what
sort
of a horse?’

Menelaus tried again: ‘A
big
horse?’

‘Precisely. A
very
big horse. A horse at least forty feet high!’

‘But,’ objected Menelaus, ‘they don’t grow that big – do they? I mean, not even that Great Horse of Asia the Trojans worship.’

‘Ah,
now
you’re beginning to get the point! They
don’t
grow that big. The Great Horse of Asia doesn’t exist. That’s why we’re going to build one for them – as a sort of present!’

‘Go on,’ said Agamemnon, his slow brain stirring in its sleep.

The Doctor took over the sparkling exposition: ‘We build it of wood, and we build it hollow. And what’s more we build it as quickly as possible, so as to rescue my friends. And then we fill it with a picked team of your best warriors.’

‘I’m with you so far. What next?’

‘Why, the rest of you take the fleet, and you sail away!’

Menelaus lit up a bit at that. ‘Marvellous!’ he said. ‘A first rate idea! Oh, yes – I like it very much!’

‘And then, after dark, you sail back again.’

Menelaus subsided. ‘Why is there always a catch?’ he grumbled. ‘No, I’m afraid I’ve gone off it now!’ But nobody cared what Menelaus thought.

‘Now,’ said Odysseus, ‘we come to the difficult bit. Because someone has to winkle Achilles out of his tent for long enough for him to take his Myrmidons, and hide out there in the plain.

As a covering force,’ he explained patiently, before anyone could ask him why.

‘But I thought you said that the best warriors were going to be inside the horse?’ objected Agamemnon, rooting about in his beard, where something had come to his attention.

‘So they will be,’ agreed Odysseus; ‘I shall be there with my Ithacans. Oh, yes,
and
the Doctor, of course.’

The Doctor leaped like a gaffed salmon. ‘That wasn’t part of the plan!’ he objected.

‘It is now. I’ve just thought of it. Don’t you want to be on hand, to rescue your friends?’

‘Yes, of course. But can’t I join you later? I’m afraid I should only be in the way...’

‘You’d better not be, that’s all. No, Doctor, I prefer to keep my eye on you. And then the rest is up to the Trojans. They see we’ve all gone home, or so they think; and naturally assume it’s the Great Horse which has driven us away. So they dance around it like maniacs; cover it with garlands, I should think; and then they drag it into the city!’

‘Are you sure they do?’ enquired Agamemnon, not unreasonably. ‘Suppose they set fire to it? In my experience, you never know
what
those damn’ fellows are going to do...’

‘That is a calculated risk,’ said the Doctor, ‘but I’ve given the matter some thought, and they’d hardly destroy one of their own gods, would they?’

‘All right – but once they’ve got the horse inside, won’t they close the gates again?’

‘Oh, dear,’ sighed Odysseus. ‘Yes, Agamemnon, old war lord, of course they will. But during the night, my men will leave the horse and open them again, won’t they? Thus, if you follow me closely, letting the rest of you in. Nothing could be simpler,’

he concluded triumphantly, rolling up the battle plan.

Well, of course it couldn’t: provided, that is, the Trojans were working from the same script! But I’d heard enough to be going on with: and while they were all busy, slapping each other on the back, and saying how clever they were, I dragged my bleeding remains over the bulwarks; and, sobbing and stumbling, I set out for Troy once more.

20

A silly thing to do, you may think – but remember, I wasn’t reasoning too clearly at that time: and the only thought in my throbbing head was that if Vicki and Steven had to wait for the doctor to get his ridiculous horse built before they were rescued, what was left of them might not be worth the effort. So I trudged back across that damn’ plain – keeping a wary look-out, with my remaining eye, for the beasts of the field; because a jackal or so had picked up my blood-trail, and were following along, nudging each other and chuckling in anticipation. Well, one can cope with jackals – but one doesn’t want lions, or things of that nature; and in those days there were a good few of them about.

So, as I say, I was careful.

And just as well, too – because I nearly trod on my old friend Paris, who was sensibly taking a little time out from war, under a hibiscus bush.

‘Hello, again,’ he said, ‘so there you are. I was wondering where you’d got to. What on earth’s that on your face?’

I told him it was probably the remains of my eye – and explained as much of the circumstances as seemed advizable, without mentioning the Doctor, of course. He was most sympathetic; and, as far as he could without proper facilities, helped me to clean up the mess. As I say, he was a decent enough chap at heart – I doubt if his sister would have done as much; probably made some crack about blind Fate, or something equally tactless.