by Mike Tucker
‘Thank you, lad.’ Robin looked across at the Doctor. ‘Leave the boy with me. You two lead that thing away.’
The Doctor said nothing, his mind weighing up all the alternatives.
‘We both know that I’m just going to slow you down,’ Robin insisted. ‘Once it’s gone, we can barricade the windows, make this place secure. You need to go.’
The Doctor nodded. ‘It’s not going to stay distracted for long, and on foot we’re a sitting target. If we’re going to lead it away from here, we need transport of some kind!’
Robin leaned over to the coat stand next to the door and fumbled in the pocket of a mud-spattered Barbour jacket. ‘Can you ride a motorbike?’ he asked, holding up a set of keys.
The Doctor grasped them gratefully ‘Yes!’ His face immediately fell. ‘No! I think so. Maybe.’ He glared angrily at Robin, as if this confusion was somehow his fault. ‘I don’t know! I haven’t had a proper chance to find out what this body can do yet.’
Robin just looked at him as if he was mad.
‘I can,’ said Charlie Bevan quietly. ‘Basic police training.’
The Doctor stared levelly at him. ‘Are you sure?’
Charlie shrugged. ‘You need to get to this TARDIS thing of yours. A motorbike is going to be the quickest way of getting there.’
The Doctor tossed the keys to him. ‘Good man.’ He hauled open the front door. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Captain, we have civilians in the open!’
‘Cease fire, Private!’ Wilson snatched up the binoculars and quickly located the two figures racing from the front door. The spider was still at the rear of the house, momentarily confused by Arnopp’s bullets.
As Wilson watched, the figures crossed the yard to one of the dilapidated outbuildings, one of them fumbling with the chain and padlock that secured the faded wooden doors. The chain fell away and the doors were hauled aside, and the squeal of ancient hinges was audible from even this distance. Immediately the spider tensed, obviously alerted by the noise. Cautious now, it started to crawl around the farmhouse, making its way slowly to the yard at the front.
‘Come on, come on…’ Wilson murmured as he watched the two men vanish into the gloom of the outbuilding. Whatever they were up to, they needed to do it quickly otherwise they were going to be trapped.
For what seemed like an age there was no movement other than the slow, relentless crawl of the spider. Then, suddenly, there was a loud, throaty roar from inside the building and Wilson had to stop himself giving a cry of delight as a vintage Norton Big 4 motorcycle and sidecar, still in its original military olive green, burst out of the open doors.
Aware that its prey was out in the open, the spider launched itself forward, moving at frightening speed.
‘Private!’ yelled Wilson. ‘Give those men covering fire!’
Arnopp’s assault rifle roared into life once again, and bullets raked across the farmyard, stopping the spider in its tracks.
That hesitation was all that the two men on the motorcycle needed. Tyres squealing on the cobblestones, the powerful side valve engine sent the Norton speeding across the yard and out onto the road beyond.
Bellowing with rage and pain, the spider vanished into the trees, trying to catch up with its quickly disappearing prey.
Wilson lowered his binoculars and turned to one of the waiting soldiers with a grin of triumph. ‘Get on the RT, Private. See if we can find out where those two are heading!’
Chapter
Eleven
Clara watched with concern as Angela was led away by two of Clearfield’s white-coated ‘colleagues’.
The young vet gave a despairing look over her shoulder as she was pushed through a doorway in the corner of the warehouse, leaving Clara and Jason Clearfield alone.
Clearfield followed Clara’s gaze. ‘Please don’t worry about her, Clara. I may call you Clara? I’ve no intention of hurting your friend. I just want to ensure that I have your co-operation.’
‘I suppose that you didn’t intend to hurt those poor people in the village either?’
‘They are drugged. Nothing more. I would have preferred to have had the entire village evacuated before this evening’s solstice, but…’ He shrugged. ‘My resources to achieve that are somewhat limited. Trust me, I intend to hurt nobody.’
‘Tell that to Alan Travers,’ said Clara angrily. ‘Or Bert Mitchell. Or the crew of that helicopter. Those monsters that you’ve created are killing people!’
Clearfield turning away, his face flushing. ‘That’s not my fault. There have been problems, the creatures are not always easy to control!’
‘And that makes it all right?’ asked Clara incredulously.
‘You don’t understand the difficulties that I have faced—’
‘Enough!’
The vile gurgling voice boomed through the warehouse one more.
‘Why do you waste time on this endless bickering?’
‘It is important that she understands!’
‘Do you presume to argue with me?’
‘No. No, I’m sorry, but please… If I can just explain to her what we are trying to do…’ Clearfield turned to Clara, indicating one of the chairs next to a control console with the pistol. ‘Sit down, please.’
Clara looked pointedly at the pistol.
With an apologetic smile Clearfield slipped it back into a holster beneath his jacket.
‘Thank you.’ Clara perched on the edge of the seat. ‘I’m all ears.’
‘An experiment took place here during the Second World War. A British experiment that was intended to put us in touch with creatures from another planet…’
The Doctor clung to the sidecar for dear life as Constable Charlie Bevan drove the vintage motorcycle at breakneck speed through the narrow country lanes. Behind them he could hear the spider as it crashed through the undergrowth, but its speed was no match for the Norton and soon they had left it far behind.
With the noise that the old bike was making, however, they were likely to attract the attention of everything else in the village, human or otherwise. The Doctor fumbled in his pocket for his sonic screwdriver, activating the sonic shield. That should keep them safe from the mosquitoes at any rate.
Charlie leaned over and shouted above the roar of the engine. ‘Where are we headed?’
‘The big meadow just beyond the stone circle,’ the Doctor yelled back. ‘When you get there, just head for the police box!’
‘The what?’
‘Just drive!’
Charlie twisted the throttle and the Norton hurtled forwards. Before long they were back at the village green and Charlie brought the bike coasting to a halt in the lane alongside the Post Office.
‘What have you stopped for?’ asked the Doctor in irritation.
‘Look,’ whispered Charlie, pointing to the far side of the green.
A huge crowd of people – men, women, children – was standing motionless in the centre of the village. Several of the huge mosquitoes were perched on the top of the war memorial, basking in the sunlight, or clinging to the stone sides, their wings occasionally filling the air with a low drone.
‘It looks like the entire village…’ breathed Charlie in amazement.
The Doctor tapped his teeth with his sonic screwdriver. ‘Is there another way to get to the meadow?’
‘We could take the ring road, but there’s no telling whether it’s going to be passable.’
‘Then we’re just going to have to go through them.’
Charlie looked at him in horror. ‘You’re not suggesting that I run them down?’
‘Of course not!’ snapped the Doctor. ‘Just concentrate on keeping this thing on three wheels, and let me worry about clearing the way.’
He twisted the barrel of his sonic screwdriver, making careful adjustments to the settings, altering the sonic shield that he had been using to protect them from the mosquitoes to operate on a much wider scale. He needed to be careful. These people were unwitti
ng participants in the events that were unfolding. He wanted something that was painful, but not damaging. He also had to focus the beam so that he and Charlie weren’t affected.
Satisfied that the settings he had would give the desired effect, he turned to Charlie Bevan. ‘Right. Let’s see what this can do.’
Directing the screwdriver towards the waiting crowd, he pressed the activation stud. The effects were instantaneous. The crowd of villagers reeled, clutching at their ears.
‘Go!’ yelled the Doctor.
Charlie threw the Norton into gear, sending it roaring across the village green. A few at the edge of the crowd made half-hearted attempts to reach for them as they swept past, but Charlie proved to be an experienced bike rider, and managed to manoeuvre the big Norton so that they were always just out of reach.
As they cleared the edge of the crowd, Charlie gave an unexpected whoop of delight. ‘We made it!’ His exultation was short lived as he took a quick glance in his wing mirrors. They might have eluded the crowd, but the insects were another matter.
The mosquitoes launched themselves from the war memorial and set off in pursuit. Gunning the engine, Charlie sent the motorbike and sidecar racing towards the footpath out of the village. As they passed through the narrow gap in the wall, there was the grinding shriek of metal against stone and the mudguard tore off the sidecar.
The Doctor gave him a reproachful look. ‘Somehow I doubt that Robin Sanford is going to let you borrow his bike again.’
Twisting around in the sidecar, he pointed his sonic screwdriver towards the swarm of giant insects following them. Buzzing angrily, they swooped away, unable to stay in close proximity to the sonic wave that the Doctor was generating.
The bike swept past the circle of standing stones, bouncing along the footbath before finally emerging into the meadow where the TARDIS had landed.
‘What on earth?’ spluttered Charlie as he caught sight of the incongruous blue box. ‘That’s never been there before!’
‘Just keep going!’ yelled the Doctor, dropping back down into his seat, adjusting the controls on his sonic screwdriver yet again and pointing it at the TARDIS. ‘Drive straight at the doors!’
The Norton shot across the field, sending up clouds of white seeds as the tyres tore up the dandelions that carpeted the grass. The warble of the sonic screwdriver was joined by the high-pitched scream of Charlie Bevan as the bike hurtled towards the waiting police box.
At the very last moment, the doors slammed open and the Norton screeched to a halt in the control room beyond, dandelion seeds slowly settling around it as Charlie cut the engine.
The Doctor was out of the sidecar in a flash, closing the doors and hurrying over to the control console. ‘Clara does that with a lot more style and a great deal less noise.’
Charlie dismounted from the bike, staring around the interior of the TARDIS in awe. ‘It’s—’
‘Bigger on the inside, smaller on the outside, defies all the laws of physics, totally impossible, blah, blah, blah…’
‘It’s a time machine, isn’t it?’
The Doctor looked up from the controls in surprise.
Charlie gave him an exhausted smile. ‘That’s why you were so keen for Robin to tell you the exact date, wasn’t it? You want to go back and see what happened?’
‘Yes,’ said the Doctor, regarding Charlie Bevan with a new respect. ‘That’s exactly what we are going to do.’ He pulled down hard on the dematerialisation switch and the huge rotors above the console started to turn. ‘Welcome aboard!
Chapter
Twelve
Private Robin Sanford of the 14th Wiltshire (Ringstone) Battalion Home Guard took one final look over his shoulder to check that no one was watching him, then leaned forward and struck a match on the rough dry-stone wall.
As the match head flared into sputtering life, and he raised it to the tip of his hastily constructed roll-up, a gruff, gravelly voice boomed from the darkness behind him.
‘Those things are going to be the death of you, Private Sanford. That’s assuming that I don’t kill you first, of course.’
Cursing his luck, Sanford let the cigarette drop into the mud, crushing it under the heel of his boot and snapping to attention as Sergeant Desmond Hughes stepped into the stone circle.
‘Just what do you think that you are doing, Private?’ The sergeant’s voice growled like distant thunder.
‘Thought I heard something, sir!’
‘Oh, really?’ The sergeant thrust his face close to Sanford’s, until their noses were practically touching. ‘And just what was it that you thought you heard, you horrible little man?’
‘A wheezing, groaning noise, sir!’
‘A wheezing, groaning noise?’
‘Yes, sir! And I think I saw a flashing light. Thought that I should check.’ He gave the sergeant a cheeky grin. ‘Might be that spaceship that Mr Churchill is always telling us to look out for.’
The sergeant took a long look around the moonlit fields. ‘Well, I don’t see any spaceships or flashing lights, Private. And the only wheezing and groaning that I want to hear is from you helping the rest of the men unload our top-secret government experiment from the truck! Do I make myself clear?’
‘Yes, sir!’
‘Well then, hurry along! At the double!’
As Sanford turned away, Sergeant Hughes stopped him.
‘Private Sanford…’
‘Sir?’
‘Stay alert. There’s something a bit queer about all this. Doesn’t smell right to me. Just… Just keep your eyes open.’
Puzzled, Sanford just nodded, and then hurried away to where the rest of his battalion were struggling to unstrap the huge metal bell from the back of a Scammell truck.
Sergeant Hughes took one last look around the field. Apart from the restless shuffling of the cows it was as quiet as the grave. He gave a scornful sniff. ‘Wheezing, groaning noise, my hat.’
Turning the collar of his coat up against the strengthening wind, the sergeant went to re-join his men.
Crouched amongst the cows in the field, the Doctor watched as the sergeant vanished into the inky blackness. Hunched in the grass alongside him, Charlie Bevan was still trying to come to grips with what had just happened to him.
‘It really worked,’ he said, more to himself than anyone else. ‘We really have gone back in time, haven’t we?’
‘It’s 21 March 1944,’ said the Doctor calmly. ‘I told you that I needed to find out exactly what happened here on that day.’
‘And I thought you meant finding a decent library or something.’ Charlie’s voice was starting to become slightly hysterical. The Doctor turned to face him, placing a hand firmly on his shoulder.
‘Constable. I realise that you have been through a lot over the last couple of hours, but I need you to stay calm and stay focused.’
Charlie pulled his now filthy handkerchief from his pocket, wiped his face and took a deep breath. ‘So, we’re going to try and stop them doing whatever it is they’re about to do, I suppose?’
The Doctor’s face grew stern. ‘The events of tonight are already part of history. Immutable. We cannot change one moment of what is about to happen, do you understand me? We are observers, nothing more.’
Charlie nodded. ‘Well, I suppose it can’t be any more dangerous than where we were before, eh?’ he said with a nervous smile.
The Doctor just stared at him.
Charlie’s smile faded. ‘Oh…’
The Doctor pointed to the stone circle. ‘Back in your time, one of those stones has been replaced with a concrete bollard. There is a plaque on it. Can you recall what is written on that plaque?’
Charlie shrugged, puzzled by the question. ‘The history of the stones. When they were built and why, the reason why there are only a few of them left…’ He tailed off with the sudden realisation of what he was saying. ‘The circle was destroyed during a German bombing raid during the Second World War!’
The
Doctor nodded, and then raised a bony finger to point at the overcast sky. From above the clouds, Charlie could hear the distant drone of a plane.
Sergeant Hughes heard the plane too. He made his way back towards the village, glancing nervously at where half a dozen men were unloading the Bell onto a trolley. As he did so, he could make out the shape of one of the 90cm carbon arc searchlight units, sitting in the centre of the village green.
‘Private Sanford!’ he bellowed.
Sanford hurried over, with the perpetual expression of a man who had just being caught doing something he shouldn’t have. ‘Sergeant?’
‘Why isn’t that light over at the decoy site?’
Being spotted from the air had always been a risk. They were maintaining a complete blackout in the village, but there was only so far that could go. When they fired up the Bell, the purple glow that it created was likely to be seen for miles. Intelligence reports indicated that the Germans had some idea of what they were up to, and roughly where, so it had been decided that the best way to ensure the safety of the test site was to set up a decoy site several miles away. Hughes had sent a team out into the middle of nowhere with instructions to construct something that would look right from the air, and then illuminate it with searchlights. With any luck the Luftwaffe would waste all their bombs destroying several square miles of Salisbury Plain.
‘Private Gould thought they had enough, sir,’ explained Sanford. ‘Spoke to them half an hour ago. Said that they have enough to light the place up like it’s Christmas. They even managed to find an old church bell to finish things off. It should fool Jerry properly!’
Hughes grunted. ‘Well, you can tell Private Gould that if I wanted him to start using his initiative I’d have asked for it! I want that light shifted as soon as he’s able. If this cloud cover gets any thinner and that spotter plane comes over again then I want Jerry to be able to see that decoy site from the Moon.’
‘Sir!’ Sanford hurried off to the RT room they had set up in the village hall. As he did so, a big, black Austin staff car pulled up into the village green and the thin figure of a young man emerged from the rear door.
