‘There is another way,’ said Carstairs. ‘It’s only a dividing panel. Watch.’ He put his hand into the hole and quietly lifted out the entire panel. ‘You were saying something about its molecular structure, sir?’ He put the panel down to one side.
As Zoe stifled a laugh, the Doctor and Carstairs stepped into the processing room. Carstairs had his revolver drawn.
The scientist, about to work on the young Frenchman, had his back turned.
‘May I, sir,’ said the Doctor, ‘add my praise to that of the War Lord? You truly are a genius.’
The scientist half turned. ‘Thank you. Thank you very much.’
‘And may I,’ said Lieutenant Carstairs, ‘request you to raise your hands?’
The scientist swung round. ‘Oh, dear...’
Jamie became conscious to find himself strapped to a chair.
The Security Chief was lifting a metal cowl from his head.
‘Feeling all right now?’ asked the Security Chief.
‘Yes, fine.’ Jamie tried to move; it was then he realised he was bound to the chair. ‘Hey, what’s this?’
‘I am going to question you.’ The Security Chief snapped his fingers and a guard brought forward another metal cowl. ‘I have just un-stunned you. Now I am going to cause you intense pain.’ He paused. ‘Unless you answer my questions truthfully.’
Jamie looked at the cowl they were about to place over his head. ‘Let me hear the questions first.’
‘How did you arrive on this planet?’
‘In a thing called the TARDIS. It flies through time and space. Will you undo me now?’
The Security Chief gave his spine-chilling smile. ‘You Iike making jokes, do you?’
‘We Scots are very humorous.’
The Security Chief regarded his prisoner. His hand rested lightly on the cowl, one finger tapping its metal surface. ‘Who is the Doctor?’
Jamie didn’t answer.
‘Fix the cowl,’ said the Security Chief.
The guard moved forward to put the cowl directly over Jamie’s head.
‘I don’t know who he is,’ Jamie said quickly. ‘He almost told me, but then he didn’t. It’s no good hurting me with that thing. I can’t tell you anything else.’
‘Do you know, I think I believe you. Tell me, what sort of man is this Doctor?’
‘He’s a good man,’ Jamie said.
The Security Chief spoke his thoughts as he created a picture in his own mind. ‘A good man of mysterious origins who travels through time and space...’ He returned his attention to Jamie. ‘I want to show you to someone else.’ He moved to the door. ‘You won’t go away, will you?’
‘I’ll sit right here,’ said Jamie, unable to move.
‘Good,’ said the Security Chief. ‘I like a specimen with a sense of fun.’ Quietly he left the security room. Jamie looked at the guard. ‘Any chance you could unstrap one hand? I want to scratch my nose.’ The guard did not reply.
‘Just one hand,’ said Jamie. ‘I can’t do you any harm with only one hand.’
Instead of helping Jamie, the guard seemed intrigued by the pain helmet and the machine to which it was attached.
His fingers played across the controls.
‘You be careful,’ said Jamie. ‘Remember I’m under this thing...’
The guard’s finger hit the ‘on’ button. Instantly Jamie had a mild headache.
‘Hey, turn that thing off!’
The guard looked at Jamie’s pained expression and grinned. He searched for the control that would increase the pain—and found it. He edged the pointer round two calibrations.
Jamie closed his eyes in sudden agony. His brain was filled with stabbing pains and blinding explosions. ‘Please,’
he moaned, ‘I told the truth... You shouldn’t do that...
Please... Help me...’
The pain ceased as suddenly as it had begun. Hands were at Jamie’s wrists and ankles, releasing him. He opened his eyes to see the room filled with drab khaki uniforms, similar to those he had seen on the 1917 British Front Line.
‘It’s all right, Jamie,’ the Doctor was saying. ‘It’s me.’
The Doctor stood before him dressed in a voluminous general’s greatcoat.
Jamie tried to get the others into focus. ‘Lady Jennifer,’
he said, still confused.
‘It’s me,’ said Zoe. ‘They’ve got every type of uniform here. Do you think it suits me?’ She looked down at her khaki tunic and the long skirt of a Volunteer Ambulance Driver of the First World War.
The two Boer War soldiers, also dressed in British army uniform of eighteen years later than their time in history, were tying up the guard who had tortured Jamie. ‘Perhaps we should leave him under that gad-get,’ said the private.
‘And turn on the juice!’
‘I think we’d do better,’ suggested Lieutenant Carstairs,
‘to get out of here as quickly as possible.’
‘Get this stuff on, Jamie.’ The Doctor produced from under his greatcoat a khaki cap and another greatcoat.
‘And put this over your face.’ He held out a mask with two circular glass windows to see through and a snout.
‘What is it?’
‘A gas mask.’ The Doctor called to the others in the room, ‘Quickly! Gas masks back on—and off we go!’
The Boer War sergeant’s muffled voice boomed through his gas mask as they marched down the corridor.
‘Left, right, left, right, left, right...’
The group made a fine spectacle as the Doctor led them through one corridor after another towards the sidrat materialisation bay. Officers of many armies jumped out of their way and some even saluted.
‘Left, right, left, right,’ the sergeant continued to shout.
In an undertone he said to the Doctor, ‘Do you really know the way?’
‘Of course I do,’ said the Doctor, hoping he could remember. To his delight as they turned yet another corner the sidrat bay appeared before them. Not a sidrat was to be seen.
‘This is it,’ he said.
‘Left, right, left, right. Compan-ee-ee, halt! ‘
They all stopped. The black-overalled technician at the control console half turned.
‘Where-to?’ he asked.
‘1917,’ said the Doctor. ‘British sector.’
The technician looked at his check list. ‘Nothing about that here.’
‘The reason you have not been informed,’ said the Doctor, ‘is that our journey is unofficial.’
‘Eh?’ The technician was genuinely bewildered.
‘Take him,’ the Doctor snapped.
Three of the soldiers grabbed the startled man, bound and gagged him, and bundled him out of sight behind the console. Meanwhile the Doctor tugged off his gas mask and sat down to study the controls.
‘Now let me see... First we need to materialise a sidrat.’
The Doctor adjusted controls on the console. Instantly the chamber was filled with the strangely familiar materialisation sound.
The Boer War private watched as a sidrat took shape before his eyes. ‘I still don’t believe that’s possible.’
‘Now,’ said the Doctor, ‘I must pre-set its journey for 1917 and off we go.’ He made further adjustments to the controls.
Zoe eyed him curiously. ‘Doctor, how do you know what to do with those controls? You’ve never touched them before.’
‘I was wondering that,’ said Jamie. ‘You seem to know a lot about this place.’
‘Just a matter of logic.’ The Doctor touched another control. The sidrat’s door opened. ‘Everybody get in, and no more questions.’
They all rushed into the safety of the sidrat, the Doctor carrying a knapsack.
‘What have you got in there, Doctor?’ Jamie asked.
‘The solution to the problem,’ replied the Doctor. ‘All of you, prepare for take off!’
The door of the sidrat closed and the floor shuddered as they started their journey.
The Security Chief was walking along the corridor to his own security room accompanied by the War Chief. He was trying to make the War Chief hurry, but, in theory at least, the War Chief was his superior.
‘I really cannot understand why you wish me to see a prisoner,’ said the War Chief.
‘He has never been processed.’
‘Oh, you mean the young man who wears a skirt? Our scientist showed him to me.’
‘He did?’ This was news to the Security Chief. ‘I have questioned him since then. He claims he came here in a space-time machine.’
The War Chief did not reply.
‘Isn’t that very strange?’ said the Security Chief. ‘Only your species can travel through space
and
time. You had to teach us how to do it. Isn’t that why our War Lord made you the War Chief?’
‘What are you trying to say, Security Chief? That you do not trust me?’
Fortunately, the Security Chief did not have to answer this direct question. They had already reached the door to the security room.
‘The prisoner is in here,’ he said, flinging open the door.
‘I shall use the pain process to make him talk ‘ He found himself looking at his own guard, gagged and strapped in a chair.
The War Chief concealed a smile. ‘Another escape? I suggest that before you start doubting me, you might take a little more interest in security. If you will excuse me, I must return to the war room.’ He turned and left.
The Security Chief glared at the gagged man. ‘You idiot!’
The guard stared back in mute terror. He could read his chief’s mind.
‘You are strapped in tight,’ said the Security Chief. ‘The pain cowl is over your head. For what you’ve done I should turn on the power and leave you!’
The terrain was hilly and wooded. The cart track led between two sharp rises of the land.
‘There’s nothing to tell us which time zone we’re in,’
said Lieutenant Carstairs.
Zoe looked at the gentle green scenery. ‘You couldn’t even tell if there’s a war on.’
They had walked at least three miles since leaving the sidrat and now sat in a circle on lush grass by the track.
The Doctor shrugged off his general’s topcoat, revealing his own clothes beneath.
‘It doesn’t really matter which zone we’re in,’ he said.
‘The important thing is we have Zoe, and she now knows what all the resistance leaders look like.’
‘That’s going to be wonderful,’ said Sergeant Russell.
‘We could never really trust anyone who said they were in the resistance. Now we can all get together and form one big army.’
‘Exactly,’ said the Doctor. ‘The other important thing is that we have this.’ He reached into his knapsack and brought out a small silver-coloured box with controls and terminal points.
‘What is it?’ asked Jamie.
‘Before we rescued you we helped ourselves to this from the processing room. It’s the head from their machine.
With this we can
de
-process other soldiers.’ As he talked the Doctor scrutinised the little box. ‘It’s a remarkable machine, almost as good as I could have made myself.’
Lieutenant Carstairs stood up. ‘Shall we press on?’
‘Might as well.’ Sergeant Russell started to rise. He stopped half-way. ‘Don’t look now,’ he said, ‘but there’s someone hiding over there.’
He sank back onto the grass, assuming a lazing position and described exactly where he meant. ‘Where this track goes between those two rising bits of land, half-way up on the left—there are some men in those bushes.’
Carstairs made a pretence of rubbing cramp out of his left knee, as though that was the reason he had stood up.
Then he too sank back onto the grass, seemingly as unconcerned as a man at a picnic. ‘That’s an obvious place for an ambush,’ he said quietly. ‘Do we have to go that way, Doctor?’
‘This track must lead somewhere,’ said the Doctor.
‘You, Jamie and I shall keep to the track. The rest of you could go up that rise of land and come down behind whoever is hiding there.’
‘You vill act as decoy?’ said the German soldier.
‘That’s right.’ The Doctor got to his feet. ‘I suggest we start moving now.’
‘But Doctor,’ said Zoe, ‘why can’t we all go up round the top behind them?’
‘Because if it is an ambush, my dear, someone has to draw their fire.’ The Doctor hoisted over his shoulder the knapsack containing the processing head. ‘Now you lot get moving. You must be in position up there to pounce when they make their move.’
He strode off down the track. Carstairs and Jamie scrambled to their feet to follow.
‘You heard what he said.’ Sergeant Russell got to his feet. ‘Off we go, at the double.’
The outflanking party ran towards the rising land, making a wide detour so as not to be seen by whoever was lurking on the little wooded hill. Sergeant Russell acted as pacemaker, urging them on and signalling them to keep very quiet. Soon they were at the top of the rise looking down onto the track. The sergeant pointed downwards into the thicket. Zoe caught glimpses of men in British steel helmets of the 1917 period.
‘
Englander
,’ murmured the German.
‘
Anglais
,’ said the French soldier.
They all held themselves ready to crash down onto the British soldiers at the sergeant’s order.
The Doctor, Jamie and Lieutenant Carstairs came into sight, casually walking along the track.
Zoe whispered, ‘Perhaps they’re resistance fighters like you.’
‘We’ll soon see,’ said the sergeant.
He had no sooner spoken than the chatter of a heavy machine-gun broke out immediately below them. Earth spurted up all around the trio on the track below. Without waiting for the sergeant’s command, all the soldiers broke cover and battled their way downhill through the trees and thicket to get at the concealed machine-gun nest. Zoe held back, knowing she could contribute little to the fight taking place on the slope below. She waited to see the Doctor, Jamie and Lieutenant Carstairs rush for cover into the wood on the other side of the track. Then she followed the others down the hill.
The battle had taken less than a minute. Three British machine-gunners lay knocked out by their gun, which was now in the possession of the resistance men.
Sergeant Russell stood up to call to the Doctor. ‘It’s all right,’ he bellowed. ‘There are three men here you can de-process with that machine!’
The Doctor, Jamie and Carstairs emerged from hiding on the other side of the track.
‘That won’t be so easy here,’ the Doctor called back.