‘Thank you. Now, this is what we do.’
Carefully he scraped the amytol onto the paper. Then he partly folded the paper into a channel so that the amytol could be guided down into the lock of the safe. ‘All we need now is a fuse that will burn long enough to let us get out of this room before the explosion. Jamie, I think I noticed some candles in the other room.’
‘Right, Doctor.’ Jamie was already on his way.
Carstairs said, ‘I would like to know why I had to turn away.’
‘Afterwards,’ said the Doctor. ‘Let’s first see if all this works. And if there is anything in the safe once we have opened it.’
*
‘Shouldn’t we go and see if they’re all right?’ said Lady Jennifer. She was huddled in a corner in the back of the ambulance. It was pitch dark now.
‘The Doctor told us to wait here,’ said Zoe. ‘He knows what he’s doing.’
‘Where did the three of you meet up?’
‘We just met.’
Zoe expected Lady Jennifer to pursue the question. But Jennifer had other things on her mind. ‘I wish this war would end.’
‘By your side killing more of the other side?’ said Zoe.
‘No. I used to think war was rather a lark. Now I’ve seen it, it’s a different matter.’
‘Perhaps if women took over we wouldn’t have wars,’
Zoe suggested.
‘That’s radical talk. A woman’s place is in the home.’
Lady Jennifer realised what she had just said. ‘Except, of course, during a war.’
‘Which men have started,’ said Zoe.
‘You’re not one of these new socialists, are you?’
‘I don’t know,’ Zoe replied honestly. ‘What are they?’
‘They believe in a lot of nonsense—’
Any further discussion was cut short by a violent explosion somewhere inside the château. It was followed immediately by the shouts of guards calling orders to each other. Lady Jennifer crawled to the rear of the ambulance and pushed open the door. She saw flashlights as guards ran about in confusion.
‘Well, that’s that,’ she said flatly. ‘Someone must have thrown a handbomb at them.’
‘A handbomb?’
‘It’s made to fragment. Horrible wounds. I think we had better prepare ourselves for recapture. I shall be sent home in disgrace,’ said Lady Jennifer in des-pair. ‘And you will have to serve your twenty years.’ She pushed the door wide open. ‘I’ll call to the guards and we can give ourselves up.’
‘We’ll do no such thing!’ replied Zoe indignantly.
‘It will be for the best, my dear. I can hear men running towards us now. They must know all about us—’
The running men reached the ambulance. Jamie scrambled into the back clutching a sheaf of maps.
‘It’s me,’ he called in the darkness. ‘We’ve got what we wanted!’
As he spoke the engine started. The Doctor, with Carstairs beside him, drove away from the château at breakneck speed.
It was dawn. After driving much of the night, pausing only a short time to sleep, the group now sat in the back of the ambulance studying the maps found in General Smythe’s safe. The largest map was spread out on the floor.
‘Just as I suspected,’ said the Doctor. ‘The whole area is divided into time zones.’
The map, which showed roads, rivers and hill con-tours, was segmented by straight black lines. In each zone was printed a date in large black numbers—1862, 1951, 1776, 1917. Some zones carried the names of warring periods—
Punic Wars, Mongol Invasion. A small area in the centre of the map was completely blank.
‘Where do you think that is?’ Zoe asked, pointing. ‘It hasn’t even been printed on.’
‘Exactly,’ said the Doctor. ‘I think that’s where we must make for.’
‘I find this most difficult to understand,’ said Carstairs.
‘All these wars are going on at the same time?’
The Doctor nodded. ‘For some reason that we don’t understand—yes. My guess is that whenever we come to these dividing lines we’ll find that mist...’ He stopped, listened, and put his fingers to his lips. They all stayed quiet as he crawled to the partly open rear door.
They had stopped the ambulance once again in No Man’s Land. The Doctor saw the spike of a German helmet bobbing up and down behind a mound of mud. He looked around and saw two more. He retreatedback into the ambulance.
‘We’ve been found, I’m afraid. We’re probably already surrounded. Lieutenant, lie down on a stretcher and pretend to be wounded. And you, Lady Jennifer, look after him. Zoe and Jamie, follow me.’
The Doctor slipped down onto the muddy road and made casually for the driving cabin. His companions came behind him.
‘We’d better try to get started again,’ he said, loud enough for the Germans to hear. ‘That poor man must get to a hospital.’
The Germans waited until the Doctor had mounted the running board and was about to get behind the wheel.
Then they emerged from shell holes all around, a morning patrol of about twenty men. Three came towards the Doctor.
‘
Sie mussen mit uns kommen,
’ one of them called.
‘Come with you?’ the Doctor called back. ‘Yes, if you insist. Which way this time?’
While Carstairs lay moaning in the captured ambulance, tended by Lady Jennifer, and Jamie and Zoe sat in a German front line trench drinking coffee with some friendly soldiers, the Doctor was in a dug-out being questioned by Leutnant Lücke. Lücke was a stern, humourless young Prussian who tried to conceal his youth with a stiff military facade.
‘For the last time,’ he said in excellent English, ‘what were you doing behind our lines?’
‘I’ve told you,’ said the Doctor. ‘We were lost and the nurse gave us a lift.’
‘Then what was
she
doing behind German lines?’
‘She was lost, too. I do assure you, sir, we are quite harmless. That young officer is badly wounded, you know.’
‘A doctor is on the way,’ said Lucke. ‘The British officer will be given our best medical treatment and sent to a prisoner of war camp. The nurse will be interned.’
‘Thank you,’ said the Doctor. ‘That puts my mind at rest. Well, I had better get on my way.’ He rose to his feet.
Lücke smartly stepped between the Doctor and the exit to the trench. ‘You are not going anywhere! Three people in civilian clothes behind our lines, that is very suspicious.
Admit you are spies.’
‘I can assure you we are not.’
‘Then tell me where you came from
before
the British ambulance gave you a lift. And this time,’ said Lücke, drawing his hand gun, ‘I want the whole truth.’
The Doctor looked at the gun. ‘Would you really shoot me? In cold blood?’ He looked straight into the young officer’s eyes. ‘Could you kill a man you had been talking to?’
‘You are appealing to my sense of decency,’ Lücke said.
‘All right, I won’t point my gun at you.’ He laid it on the crudely-made table, though he still kept his hand on it.
‘Just remember thousands of German soldiers are giving their lives for the Fatherland every day, so military justice is sometimes rough. Now tell me the whole truth about yourself and your companions.’
‘All right,’ said the Doctor. ‘But it will astound you.’
The young officer listened quietly while the Doctor explained truthfully that he was not of this planet, that Jamie came from 1745 and that he had met Zoe in a floating space station in the distant future.
‘And that’s where you all come from?’ Lücke said scornfully when the Doctor had finished.
‘I told you you would be astounded,’ the Doctor answered. ‘Ask my friends if you don’t believe me.’
‘I certainly shall!’ Lücke turned towards the exit of the dug-out and shouted, ‘
Bringen Sie die anderen Engländer
hierin! Sofort!
’ He swung back to the Doctor. ‘We shall soon see if your stories are the same.’
Zoe and Jamie appeared, behind them a soldier. Lücke waved the soldier away. ‘Young woman, where did you meet this man?’
Zoe looked at the Doctor.
‘I have told the whole truth, Zoe. You do the same:’
‘We met in a space station,’ she said.
‘Really?’ Obviously Lücke thought it was all nonsense.
‘And you, Scotlander, where did you meet this man?’
‘In Scotland.’
‘When?’
‘In 1745. We were fighting the English.’
Lücke seemed about to explode. ‘This ambulance,’ he shouted at the Doctor, ‘it was going to a hospital or a lunatic asylum?’
The Doctor felt in his pockets and produced his sonic screwdriver. ‘Where can I find a screw?’ The crude table had been nailed together as had the simple wooden bed.
‘What are you talking about?’ Lücke demanded, losing his patience.
‘I want to give you proof that I am not of this planet, nor of this time.’ The Doctor noticed the gun. ‘Ah, this will do nicely.’
Lücke’s hand closed more firmly over the gun lying on the table, but the butt remained protruding. ‘Don’t you try to take my gun!’
‘I have no such intention. But watch this.’ The Doctor held his sonic screwdriver a couple of millimetres above one of the screws in the gun’s butt. The screw began to turn and rise up on its own.
‘You’re using magnetism,’ said Lücke, though the Doctor guessed he was curious and impressed.
‘No, sir. I wasn’t even turning the screwdriver. Now I’ll make the screw go back.’
The screw wound itself back into the butt.
‘But you did not touch the screw,’ Lucke said. ‘This is fantastic—’
‘
Leutnant Lücke!
’ A monocled German major had entered the dug-out.
Lücke sprang to attention. ‘Major von Weich!’
Major von Weich looked at the three strangers. ‘
Wer
Sind these Leute? Was ist hier los?
’ His voice was cold and menacing. (’Who are these people? What is going on here?’)
Lücke remained at attention. ‘
Das sie die englischen
Zivilisten.
’ (‘These are the English civilians.’) Von Weich looked at the Doctor. ‘What are you doing here? Where do you come from?’
Lücke answered for the Doctor. ‘
Er hat mir gesagt, dass er
aus einem anderen Zeitalter in etwas namens TARDIS kommt.
’
‘Time travellers?’ said Major von Weich. ‘In something named TARDIS?’
The Doctor began to say, ‘I know this is difficult to believe...’
But Major von Weich was not listening. He had turned back to Leutnant Lücke and had fixed him with a steady stare. ‘
Es sind englische Spione. Wir miissen sie festhalten. Ich
werde mit dem General darüber sprechen.
’ (‘They are English spies. We must hold them. I shall go and speak with the General.’)
Lücke responded in a trance-like state. ‘
Jawohl, Major
von Weich. Es sind englische Spione.
’
Von Weich stepped out of the dug-out. Jamie couldn’t contain himself. ‘They’re talking to each other just like those two officers were before our court martial! ‘
‘Listen,’ the Doctor implored. ‘We are not spies. We are from another time.’
‘You are spies,’ said Leutnant Lucke icily. ‘In accordance with the rules of war, which Germany strictly observes, you will be shot!’
In another dug-out a few metres further along the trench, Major von Weich stood before a framed photograph of Kaiser Wilhelm, Emperor of Germany. He slid aside the photograph to reveal a telecommunications unit. He activated the ‘on’ control and waited for the video screen to come to life before speaking.
‘Von Weich, 1917 German Front Line to Central Control. We have captured the three people who escaped from the British sector. I await instructions.’
The face of General Smythe looked at him from the screen. ‘Kill them immediately, please.’
5
‘Before that major came in,’ Zoe said indignantly, ‘you were ready to believe us.’
‘He hypnotised you,’ Jamie said. ‘That’s what they call it.’
‘Don’t you remember my special screwdriver?’ asked the Doctor.
Lücke was struggling, obviously confused. ‘Please, don’t all talk at once.’ He waited for silence. ‘Yes... you did something with the gun.’
‘Put your gun back on the table and I’ll do it again.’
Lücke had holstered his Luger. He looked from one to the other suspecting a trick.
‘Keep your hand on it if you wish,’ the Doctor said. He got out his screwdriver again.
Cautiously Lücke placed the gun back on the table, his hand firmly on the barrel. The Doctor repeated the demonstration. Memory returned to the German’s troubled face.
‘Yes, I remember. But how is it possible?’ In his confused state, Lücke lifted his hand from the gun.
‘We have more tricks than that,’ the Doctor said. ‘Let me show you.’ He picked up the gun and threw it to Jamie.
‘Catch!’
Jamie neatly caught the gun and pointed it at the Leutnant. ‘That’s our best trick of all.’
‘Now, Leutnant Lücke,’ the Doctor said, putting his arm around the officer’s shoulder, ‘perhaps you would be good enough to take us back to our ambulance.’
‘For losing my gun,’ said Lücke, his face sombre, ‘I shall be court-martialled.’
‘Then be glad you’re on the German side,’ said Zoe.
‘We’ve had a British court martial, and they’re awful!’
*
General Smythe and Count Vladimir Chainikof stood together by a huge illuminated map in the centre of the war room. Black uniformed technicians at the far side were dealing with calls from the many time zones, coming in on the telecommunications central control.
‘Well,’ said Chainikof, ‘and how is your war going?’
‘Enormous losses,’ said General Smythe. ‘That’s why I’m here again, to ask for new specimens. What about you?’
Chainikof wore the long grey topcoat and tall leather hat of a Russian officer in the Crimean War. ‘My soldiers are illiterate peasants. But the survivors are good fierce warriors. They will be useful when the time comes to fulfil our destiny.’ He gave a little laugh. ‘Incidentally, we are fighting the British!’
General Smythe laughed too. ‘Perhaps we should not be talking to each other!’ He saw that Chainikof wanted to go.