Doctor Who: War Games (5 page)

‘You have been tricked,’ Smythe said. ‘You are a fool.’

‘Sir,’ said Ransom, desperately trying to defend himself.

‘Lieutenant Carstairs is a gentleman and a fellow officer. I had no reason to doubt his word.’

‘Well, you have now. Every effort must be made, including heavy artillery, to stop the escaping party.’

Ransom was shocked. ‘Fire on an ambulance, sir?’

Smythe stared straight into Ransom’s eyes. ‘They are all the enemy, Ransom. They must be killed.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Ransom’s eyes were also staring now. ‘They are all the enemy. They must be killed.’

From their hidden dug-out half-way up a peaceful hill, Willi Müller from Berlin and George Brown from London stared down at the ambulance and the shell explosions either side of the road. They had been in hiding three months, both having deserted their armies. They met by chance while wandering aimlessly in the woods, each expecting the other to kill him. But instead, the enemies had become friends and they intended to hide in their little dug-out until the war was over.

‘Who would shell an ambulance?’ said Willi. ‘Not my side,’ said George.

‘Germans do not fire on ambulances,’ said Willi. ‘We are too far from the German lines. It must be your side.’

George was silent. What Willi said made sense.

‘Anyway,’ he said after a while, ‘the ambulance is getting away, and good luck to them.’

They watched in silence for a couple of minutes as the ambulance slowly drove along the valley. Then something happened that was beyond their understanding. George rubbed his eyes.

‘What happened to it?’

‘It’s disappeared,’ said Willi, incredulously. ‘Before my eyes it vanished. I am looking, it is there, and then it is not there.’

‘’Struth,’ said George. ‘I wonder if we’re both going barmy?’

‘Barmy? What means barmy?’

‘Out of our minds. Fancy seeing something vanish into thin air...’

The ambulance had stopped. So had the shell explosions.

In the back, the Doctor was poring over maps that Lieutenant Carstairs had taken from Smythe’s headquarters before they made their escape.

‘We don’t seem to be moving,’ said Jamie.

‘What?’ The Doctor had been too engrossed in the maps to notice. ‘I wonder what’s wrong?’

He got down onto the road and walked forward to the driving cabin. ‘I say, are you two all right?’ They had stopped in a woodland area. A thin mist drifted between the trees.

‘I think this mist has affected Lady Jennifer,’ Carstairs explained. He sat beside her in the passenger seat. ‘Are you feeling a bit off?’

She held her hands to her head. ‘I can’t drive on.

Something’s... stopping me.’

‘Let me.’ The Doctor scrambled up into the cab. ‘May I take your place at the wheel?’

Without a word Jennifer moved over. The Doctor sat down, started the engine and drove forward.

‘I feel rather odd, too,’ Carstairs admitted. ‘Doesn’t this gas affect you?’

‘It isn’t gas,’ said the Doctor. ‘Anyway, it’s clearing now.

Look! ‘

They were almost out of the wood. Beyond was a peaceful country scene, and beyond that the sea and cliffs.

‘We’ve reached the coast,’ said Carstairs. ‘I didn’t realise we had come so far.’

‘I think we’ve gone further than you imagine.’ The Doctor continued driving a little way, then braked and turned off the engine. ‘I want to get out and investigate.’

He got down from the cab and called to his friends.

‘Zoe—Jamie! I’m going to take a little walk. Want to come?’

Zoe and Jamie climbed down from the rear of the ambulance. ‘Where are we?’ asked Jamie.

‘I don’t know, Jamie. But it looks different. It even smells different.’

Zoe looked around. ‘There are no signs of that awful war.’ The Doctor had already walked some distance from the ambulance and Zoe had to run to keep up. ‘Where are you going?’

‘No idea. I just feel there is something odd here and I want to know what it is.’ The Doctor kept walking. ‘You know, I think we have passed through some kind of force field.’ He paused and breathed in the sweet country air.

‘This is a very nice little valley.’ He winked at Jamie. ‘I wonder if we have somehow arrived in Scotland?’

‘Don.’t pull my leg,’ said Jamie. ‘If we were in France ten minutes ago, we can’t now be in...’

He stopped, eyes on the hillside.

‘Doctor,’ he said, ‘look!’

Racing down the hill towards them were two Roman chariots, knives sticking out from their wheels. Behind came a group of legionaries, shouting Roman war cries and raising their lances.

‘Quick,’ the Doctor shouted. ‘Back to the ambulance!’

The three of them raced from the approaching Romans towards Carstairs and Jennifer, who were also staring in disbelief.

‘Everyone get in,’ the Doctor ordered. A thrown lance whipped over his shoulder and embedded itself in the ground. ‘I’ll drive,’ he announced, scrambling behind the steering wheel. He started the engine, threw the gear into reverse and rammed his foot on the accelerator.

Drusus Gracchus of Rome pulled on his horses’ reins, blinked and looked again. He called to his friend, Brutus Sullas, in the other chariot.

‘The square elephant has vanished, Brutus,’ he said, speaking Latin and trying to make sense of the ambulance’s sudden and complete disappearance. ‘It is an omen.’

‘It was some Gaulish trick,’ said Brutus, who tried to think scientifically.

‘Such talk is dangerous,’ said Drusus, who did not want his friend to get into trouble. ‘It was an omen, a message from the God of War. We must make sacrifices to appease Mars.’

‘If you insist,’ said Brutus.

Drusus was glad his friend had seen reason. He turned his chariot round to head back to the fort. Tonight he would sacrifice three goats, two pigs and a human slave to make the God of War happy.

A distant rumble of heavy gunfire filled the air, yet where the ambulance stood all was peaceful. Shell craters pitted the land, but they were mainly waterlogged and the shells had fallen some time ago. There was no sign of life except for the five wanderers who were now studying the maps.

‘Are these the only maps you are given?’ the Doctor asked.

‘Yes,’ said Carstairs. ‘These are the regular issue.’

‘I don’t think they’re much help. What we need is a map that shows all the time zones.’

‘Time zones?’ said Lady Jennifer.

‘We went through that mist,’ the Doctor said patiently,

‘then we saw Romans. Don’t you see, we went back two thousand years.’

‘Of course,’ Zoe exclaimed. ‘We were following this road’—she pointed to the map—’and as soon as we went off the edge of the paper we were into another time.’

‘People can’t move through time,’ Lady Jennifer protested. ‘That’s ridiculous.’

‘No more ridiculous than me being in a prison cell with a stupid Sassenach from 1745!’ Jamie said.

‘Well,’ said the Doctor, ‘let’s not argue among ourselves. What we need is a bigger and better map. I think I know where we can get one.’

‘Where?’ asked Carstairs.

‘From General Smythe. We must return to the château.’

‘After all that’s happened?’ said Lady Jennifer. ‘How can we go back there?’

‘Quite simple,’ the Doctor answered. ‘You’re going to take us.’

Captain Ransom trimmed the wick of the oil lamp over his desk. It puzzled him how the ambulance had vanished without trace. After the general gave his order, a Sopwith Camel pilot had spotted the ambulance travelling through a valley. Fortunately, the plane was equipped with one of the new-fangled wirelesses; using Morse Code the pilot had told the heavy artillery gunner where to aim. Over two hundred shells were fired, enough to destroy an entire village. Yet when a ground patrol went to search for the wreck-age of the vehicle, not a trace of the ambulance and its occupants was found.

Satisfied that the wick was now giving the best light possible, Ransom hung up the oil lamp and went back to his book. Before finding his place he glanced up at the chandeliers, trying to imagine what the château’s main living room had been like when it was ablaze with light and in its former glory. Peace, he thought, must have been wonderful. The pity was, he could not remember what he had been doing before 1914, nor where he had been.

A motor vehicle pulled up outside. Quickly he put the book away. General Smythe had already caught him reading a book once; that was no way to get promotion. He brought out a work file on the supply and distribution of latrine buckets, spread papers all over his desk, and tried to give the impression of a man engrossed with his job. To his surprise, though, it was not the general who entered. It was the Doctor and Jamie, followed by Lieutenant Carstairs holding his gun on them.

‘Reporting back, sir,’ said the lieutenant. ‘Returning the prisoners.’ He barked at the Doctor, ‘Keep still. One move from you and I fire.’

Ransom half rose in amazement. ‘Carstairs, what on earth have you been up to? And why did you give me that fake message from the general? You are in very serious trouble and you will be reported...’

He went no further. Carstairs’s gun was now pointing directly at his chest.

‘Carstairs, are you out of your mind? Point the gun at the prisoners, not at me.’

‘Sorry about this, sir,’ Carstairs replied. He turned to Jamie. ‘Get the Captain’s revolver. Please don’t do anything foolish, sir. Doctor, the bandages.’

While Jamie unholstered Ransom’s service revolver, the Doctor produced rolls of bandages from his pockets.

‘We’re going to tie you up,’ he explained. Before we gag you, would you care to tell us where the General keeps his maps?’

‘You’re a German spy,’ said Ransom. ‘I shall tell you nothing. As for you, Carstairs, you’ll be court martialled for mutiny.’

‘Why not leave him with me a few minutes, I’ll get him to tell us everything,’ Jamie suggested.

The Doctor shot him a withering look. ‘Really, Jamie, we don’t do that sort of thing. All right, Captain, hands behind your back, please.’

Within thirty seconds the captain’s wrists and ankles were tied in bandages, his mouth gagged sufficiently to keep him quiet without causing suffocation. Carstairs dragged him to a dark corner of the office.

‘I’m really very sorry, sir,’ he said to the mute figure.

‘But I believe this is for the best.’

The Doctor was already trying to pick the lock of the steel safe when Carstairs joined him in the general’s bedroom. The Doctor was using a piece of wire that he had produced from his voluminous pockets.

‘You’ll get nowhere with that wee piece of wire,’ said Jamie. ‘It keeps bending.’

The Doctor straightened up. ‘You’re right. Lieutenant, since this is a military establishment, could you lay your hands on any explosives?’

‘I could try,’ said the lieutenant. ‘Let me hunt around.’

He hurried from the room. When Carstairs had gone, Jamie told the Doctor what was on his mind.

‘Doctor, this is a terrible war and a terrible place to be.

Why don’t the three of us try to get back to the TARDIS

and leave them all to it?’

‘Are you afraid, Jamie?’

‘Och away, no,’ Jamie said, trying to hide his nervousness. ‘But it’s such a miserable place.’

‘I believe something very evil is going on here, Jamie.

Not just this war. In any case, we now know there is more than one war—the British against the Germans in about 1917, the English against your people in 1745, even the Romans fighting two thousand years ago. How have all these soldiers been brought here and yet kept in their different time zones? And why? We can’t run away without discovering what’s behind all this.’

Jamie smiled. ‘You never do run away, Doctor. You always want to put things right.’

‘I am of an interfering nature,’ the Doctor agreed amiably. ‘Mind you, I’m not supposed to interfere.’

‘Who says you shouldn’t?’

‘Well,’ the Doctor said mysteriously, ‘perhaps I may tell you one day.’

‘And at this rate, perhaps we’ll all be shot dead. Tell me now, who says you mustn’t interfere. I thought you were your own master?’

‘But I am,’ the Doctor said. He turned back to the safe and tried again with his piece of wire. ‘You’d think the lieutenant would have found some explosives by this time...’

‘Doctor,’ Jamie persisted. ‘You were going to tell me something about yourself. Who are you really? Where do you come from?’

‘Another time, Jamie.’ The Doctor turned the wire. ‘I’ve almost got it...’

‘It’s bent again,’ said Jamie, exasperated. ‘Aren’t you going to tell me—please?’

The Doctor turned and looked at him. ‘We’ve travelled together a long time, Jamie, so perhaps I should let you know who I really am. You see—’

Lieutenant Carstairs hurried back into the room. ‘I’ve found this.’ He held up a small metal object shaped like a pineapple. ‘It’s a Mills Bomb. I thought we could hang it on the front of the safe and let it off.’

The Doctor took the bomb and examined it. ‘That would blow up the room and might not harm the safe at all. We need to concentrate the explosion in the lock itself.

If I remove the charge from this bomb...’

‘For goodness’ sake be careful,’ Carstairs warned.

‘There’s amytol in there.’

‘That’s a start!’ The Doctor had managed to remove the pencil-shaped detonator and held it up for the others to see. ‘Now all I have to do is to open the casing.’ He fished in his pockets and brought out his sonic screwdriver.

‘Lieutenant, do you mind looking the other way?’

‘Why?’

‘Because I’ve asked you. I can’t think of any other good reason.’

‘If you insist.’ The lieutenant turned round.

Only a few seconds went by before the Doctor said,

‘Bomb now open. Jamie, will you get me a sheet of paper from the other room. Anything will do.’

Jamie left the bedroom. Carstairs looked at the two sections of bomb casing that the Doctor was holding. ‘How did you open that?’

‘It’s not difficult when you have the knack.’ The Doctor looked up, pleased to see Jamie back with a sheet of paper.