Doctor Who: Players: 50th Anniversary Edition

by Dicks, Terrance

  ‘Is that St Omer down below?’ called Major Churchill some little time later. Receiving no reply he glanced over his shoulder and saw that his passengers were staring deeply into one another’s eyes. They kissed.

  ‘Ah well,’ thought Churchill. He saw a Union Jack flying above a parade ground and the familiar sight of marching British troops.

  As he circled to find a suitable landing field, the Doctor’s words echoed in his head. ‘Your country needs you, now and in years to come…’

  Outside the chateau, the Count and Countess were arguing furiously in the same fiery language that they’d used before.

  At last the Count shook his head angrily and went to speak to the officer in charge of the soldiers.

  ‘I’m sorry, Doctor,’ said the Countess sadly. ‘I tried to have you spared, but the Count insists –’

  ‘Upon having me shot? Yes, I heard. Thank you for trying.’ He smiled at her astonished face. ‘My Hungarian is reasonably fluent.’

  ‘I see. So that’s why…’

  ‘I heard the Count accuse you of betraying his plans last night, of being – unreliable. And of having taken what he called “one of your fancies” to Major Churchill. I thought you might have a sudden impulse to help us – as you did!’ He looked suddenly crestfallen. ‘Will it get you into any trouble!’

  ‘The Count will not harm me, I know too much about him. But as for you, Doctor…’

  ‘I know, the firing squad.’ The Doctor sighed. ‘It’s quite astonishing how many people have that reaction to me!’

  ‘He means it, you know. I’m afraid you hurt his pride.’ She studied his face. ‘You don’t seem too worried.’

  The Doctor smiled. ‘I have an ace up my sleeve!’

  The Countess stepped back. ‘I have enjoyed our brief acquaintanceship, Doctor.’

  A young officer came over and saluted stiffly. ‘You will please come with me, Herr Doktor.’

  The Doctor followed him.

  Having overborne the objections of Lieutenant von Schultz, the young officer in charge of the Imperial Guard detachment, the Count had succeeded in setting up his firing squad. He watched happily as the officer marched the Doctor to the chosen section of chateau wall.

  ‘Blindfold, Doctor?’ he called. ‘Last cigarette? We must do things properly.’

  ‘No blindfold,’ said the Doctor. ‘Not on such a lovely morning. And I don’t smoke, it’s very bad for the health you know.’

  Everything was ready. The Doctor and the firing squad were all in place.

  ‘Ready,’ called Lieutenant von Schultz. ‘Aim…’

  The soldiers raised their rifles.

  Von Schultz, a sensitive soul, averted his eyes.

  ‘Fire!’ he shouted.

  Nothing happened, and Lieutenant von Schultz looked up in surprise.

  The firing squad was staring bemusedly at the section of wall where the odd little figure had been standing. They hadn’t fired because there was nobody to shoot at.

  The Doctor was no longer there.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  RETURN

  ‘YOU JOLLY WELL took your time!’ said the Doctor indignantly, as he faded back into view in the Capitol ante-room on Gallifrey.

  ‘You were only under intermittent surveillance,’ said the second Time Lord irritably. ‘Can’t you go anywhere without getting into trouble, Doctor?’

  He held out his hand.

  The Doctor pushed back his sleeve and the time amulet dropped into the Time Lord’s hand.

  ‘Now, Doctor,’ said the second Time Lord. ‘We have indulged your whimsy. It is now time for your work to begin.’

  ‘Just a moment before we start,’ said the Doctor. ‘There’s something odd going on in Earth 1915. Some kind of historical interference. I’m not sure who’s doing it or why, and it’s all rather petty but it needs looking into. I’d be happy to…’

  ‘No, Doctor!’ said the first Time Lord firmly. ‘No more delays, distractions or diversions. We have much to do.’

  The Doctor sighed. ‘Yes… I suppose I do, don’t I…’

  INTERLUDE

  ‘Treachery!’ The deep voice was shaking with fury. ‘The plan was complete, the Piece was in my hands and then… Betrayal, by one I believed I could trust.’

  ‘“Trust nobody” is the first precept of the Game.’ The woman’s exotically accented voice was cool and amused. ‘My Reversal was within my rights, and within the Rules.’

  ‘Had it not been for the intervention of the Doctor –’

  ‘This Doctor…’ The third voice was much older, ancient, cold and dispassionate. ‘Fifteen years ago, when this Piece was first brought into play, a certain Doctor Smith interfered. Describe the man who – vanished.’

  ‘A clown! Small, black-haired, untidy, whimsical…’

  ‘A clown of genius,’ said the woman. ‘He stole your Piece from the board, eluded your firing squad and vanished before your eyes!’

  ‘It cannot be the same man,’ said the old voice thoughtfully. ‘Yet the name, the title… It is curious. Warn all Players everywhere to be alert for someone calling himself Doctor John Smith. He is clearly a random factor.’

  ‘May I remount my operation?’ asked the deep-voiced man.

  ‘Not yet. This Piece has been in play too much of late. Remember, the hand of the Player must never be seen.

  ‘I declare this Piece in balk. It must be out of bounds for the next twenty years…’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  INTERFERENCE

  ‘WEIRD,’ SAID PERI, as the Doctor concluded his story, and the images faded from the scanner screen. ‘We meet Winston Churchill when he’s young, but you’ve already met him before when he was older – and when you were younger! You could go to some guy’s funeral and follow his life backwards until he was born!’

  ‘The inevitable paradoxes of time travel, Peri,’ said the Doctor dismissively, yawning as he removed the thought scanner’s headset. ‘That’s not the point.’

  ‘So what is?’

  ‘Interference!’ said the Doctor, suddenly bursting with renewed energy. ‘Deliberate interference in human history!’

  ‘Shocking!’ said Peri, looking at him meaningfully.

  The Doctor scowled. ‘While I may have intervened myself from time to time, very occasionally, in a minor way, at moments of real crisis – my intentions are always for the best. This interference is wilful, malicious – malevolent even.’

  ‘Do you think it was the same people both times?’ asked Peri. ‘That’s quite a gap – 1899 to – when was it you met him again?’

  ‘1915. Yes, I do. The technique is the same.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Discreet, cunning interference. If Churchill had been killed in the Boer War, who in England would’ve suspected a third party at work? You can imagine the headlines, I’m sure: “Tragic End of Late Cabinet Minister’s Son”.’

  Peri snorted. ‘They’re not always so discreet. “Churchill defects to Germany” would have been a real whammy!’

  ‘Whammy?’ echoed the Doctor, apparently appalled. ‘Whammy?’

  Peri moved on quickly to avoid another lecture on linguistics.

  ‘Don’t forget there were people helping him as well,’ she said. ‘Someone sent him clothes, money – even a gun in the prison camp. And that snooty Countess in 1915…’

  ‘That’s the baffling bit,’ said the Doctor irritably. ‘It’s as if they were playing some kind of game! Human history is a complex and finely-balanced system, Peri. Tinker with it and the consequences could be disastrous!’

  ‘I know. I know. That whole web of time thing…’ she sighed. ‘Anyway, what did happen to Churchill once he’d flown home?’

  ‘You can ask him yourself if you like!’ said the Doctor, replacing a panel in the console.

  ‘Huh? When?’

  ‘When we get to London, of course. Elegance I promised you, and elegance you shall have.’

  ‘Look, Doctor,’ began Peri, ‘I’m starting to go off the
whole idea…’

  The Doctor ignored her. ‘It’s just a matter of hitting the right time-period,’ he went on. ‘We don’t want to arrive in the First World War – or the Blitz either, come to that. The trouble is, there’s only about twenty years of peace between them!’ He bent over the console and made a minute adjustment to the controls. ‘I think the mid-thirties would be the best time…’

  ‘The mid 2030s knowing the TARDIS,’ muttered Peri.

  ‘What?’ the Doctor asked, irritably.

  ‘I – er – you told me I could ask Churchill what happened to him.’

  The Doctor nodded. ‘Well, we’re bound to run in to him some time.’

  Peri looked at him shrewdly. ‘You’re planning to investigate this business, aren’t you?’

  The Doctor seemed too preoccupied with the TARDIS controls to look up. ‘What business?’

  ‘This interference in history.’

  Now the Doctor looked shocked. ‘Oh, I couldn’t do that, Peri. As you know, we Time Lords operate a strict non-interference policy. Although…’

  Peri nodded, wearily. ‘Although?’

  ‘Well, if you interfere with interference, is it still interfering? You might say they cancel each other out. In a way, interfering with interference is a form of non-interference in itself!’

  ‘You are going to investigate it!’

  ‘Not at all.’ He flicked some switches with a flourish. ‘Of course, if I happen to stumble across anything, purely by chance… Meanwhile, you’d better get out of your barbarous native costume and into something more ladylike. Come along, I’ll help you to pick something out. I have a keen eye for such things.’

  Peri shuddered. ‘What makes you think these people will still be active, twenty years later?’ she asked as they left the control room.

  ‘Why shouldn’t they be? If they were busy tinkering with history in 1899 and in 1915… I think our unknown friends are playing the long game, Peri. Tweaking here, adjusting there. Somebody dead, somebody ruined, somebody else suddenly rising to power. There are all sorts of odd little anomalies in human history. Maybe this accounts for some of them.’

  ‘But who are these people?’ demanded Peri. ‘What are they up to?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ said the Doctor broodingly. ‘But take it from me, Peri, somewhere, somehow they’re still out there. And still plotting…’

  The Chancellor signed the last of the documents and handed it to the thick-set little man hovering deferentially at his side. Martin Bormann took it and added it to the sheaf of files under his arm.

  ‘Thank you, my Fuehrer.’

  ‘Is that the last?’ asked Adolf Hitler petulantly.

  ‘It is, my Fuehrer.’

  Hitler’s mood improved. ‘That is good. What would I do without you, my faithful Bormann? With you I can work through a pile of papers in ten minutes. With anyone else – ten hours!’

  Bormann bowed his head deferentially.

  When Hitler seized the post of Chancellor, the Nazi Party had only 33 per cent of the vote. Now, just three years later, he held Germany in an iron grip. All his political enemies were dead or in concentration camps.

  There was only one party in Germany now.

  Despite his amazing achievements, and his public image as an untiring superman toiling endlessly for his people, Adolf Hitler wasn’t fond of hard work. He liked sleeping late, and he liked long lunches, haranguing his deferential subordinates over world affairs. He liked inspecting factories and newly-built autobahns.

  Best of all, he liked addressing thousands of the faithful at torch-lit rallies, whipping them up to a hysterical frenzy with long ranting speeches denouncing the enemies of the Reich.

  But work, real work, memos and meetings and committees, the nuts and bolts of running a business, or a country, bored him.

  He had other people to take care of that. Goering for the ruthless policing. Goebbels for the propaganda – newspapers, radio, films, everything under Nazi control. Himmler for ruthless terror and repression – the night and fog policy, under which enemies of the Reich vanished silently and without trace, and Bormann for administration and paperwork.

  Hitler yawned. ‘Is there anything else?’ He was ready for tea.

  ‘Only one matter, my Fuehrer, but it can easily be postponed if you wish. Von Ribbentrop is here. He requests an immediate audience. The matter, he says, is urgent.’

  Hitler brightened. ‘You know, Bormann, it always cheers me up to see Joachim.’

  ‘Indeed, my Fuehrer?’

  ‘I like his enthusiasm. I have to spend my time inspiring my other colleagues, trying to put some heart, some guts into them.’ He held a hand to his head. ‘Very tiring, Bormann. But with von Ribbentrop, I have to hold him back! Much better! Send him in.’

  Bormann’s face was sour as he turned away. He knew exactly why the Fuehrer was so fond of von Ribbentrop. The man’s only principle, his only policy, was whatever Hitler wanted – only more so.

  ‘If the Fuehrer says grey,’ thought Bormann, ‘von Ribbentrop says, black, black, black! I wonder what mad scheme he’s come up with now?’

  None of the Nazi party officials cared for von Ribbentrop. Goering, in particular, detested him and had nicknamed him Ribbensnob. Then again, there might have been a certain amount of rivalry involved. Apart from Goering himself, von Ribbentrop was one of the few party chiefs with any claim to being a gentleman. The son of an army officer, von Ribbentrop came of an old military family. As a young man he had travelled to Canada and Holland before the First World War. During the war he had served in a decent regiment as a Lieutenant of Hussars.

  After the war, a young man on the make, he had married the plain and sickly daughter of a wealthy champagne-making family. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he had subsequently done well as a champagne salesman. He had visited Rome and Paris and, particularly, London.

  Ribbentrop and his wife had been well-known society figures in the Berlin of the 1920s. It was at this time that Ribbentrop had awarded himself the ‘von’ that denoted nobility.

  Coming under Hitler’s spell in the early thirties, von Ribbentrop had joined the Nazi Party in 1932. The Fuehrer was convinced that von Ribbentrop had the entrée to English high society, and was determined to make him Ambassador to Britain.

  ‘He knows them all over there, you know,’ Hitler had once said, admiringly.

  ‘True, my Fuehrer,’ Goering had replied. ‘Unfortunately, they all know him!’

  But Hitler wouldn’t listen. Von Ribbentrop was high in the Fuehrer’s favour, and for the moment at least his position was assured. He came in now, tall and thin and elegant, an almost-handsome man with a beaky nose that held the attention over a weak mouth and chin. He wore the uniform of a General in the SS, an honorary rank awarded to him by the Fuehrer.

  Von Ribbentrop came to attention and delivered a theatrical salute.

  ‘My Fuehrer!’

  ‘You can leave us now, Bormann,’ said Hitler carelessly. ‘Oh, and get them to send in some tea for us, will you? And some of those little cream cakes.’

  Von Ribbentrop gave a curt nod to Bormann as the man stomped sulkily away. Then Hitler gave his, favourite one of his rare smiles. ‘Well, Joachim, what’s so urgent this time? What have you got for me?’

  ‘My Fuehrer,’ said von Ribbentrop emotionally. ‘I bring you – England!’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CONSORTIUM

  ADOLF HITLER SAT back and looked thoughtfully at his excitable diplomat, then waved him to a chair.

  ‘That is a considerable claim, my dear Joachim. Explain!’

  Von Ribbentrop’s explanation was delayed by the arrival of an SS waiter with tea and cakes on a silver tray. When they were both served and the waiter had withdrawn. Hitler bit into a cream cake and gestured to von Ribbentrop to continue.

  ‘I have long been aware, my Fuehrer,’ said von Ribbentrop earnestly, ‘that it is your dearest wish to achieve a closer rapprochement with England.’

>   Hitler nodded. ‘That is so. Look at the way the British rule India,’ he said. ‘A whole continent held down by a handful of troops. Why? Because they are of the superior Aryan race. One day that is how we Germans will rule Russia and all the barbarous lands to the east.’

  ‘During my many diplomatic missions to England on your behalf, my Fuehrer,’ Ribbentrop went on, ‘I have done my utmost to promote this cause. I have spoken, publicly and privately, to many of the most influential figures in English society. I think I can say that at last my words have begun to bear fruit.’ He paused impressively. ‘I have received – an approach.’

  Hitler leaned forward eagerly. ‘From the English Government?’

  ‘From those who speak for someone higher still.’

  Hitler scowled. ‘Damn you, talk plainly, Joachim.’

  ‘The approach came from a group calling itself the Consortium,’ said von Ribbentrop. ‘Their members include many international financiers, men of vast power and wealth. Also among them are leading members of the English aristocracy. These men wish you well, my Fuehrer, and support your aims. They recognise in you a force for law and order and decency, someone to hold back the Bolshevik hordes. For the moment, however, their names must remain a secret.’

  Hitler nodded his understanding.

  ‘And have the unknown members of this Consortium anything specific to propose?’ he asked sceptically.

  ‘They have indeed, my Fuehrer.’ Von Ribbentrop paused impressively. ‘They refer to it simply as the Plan.’

  Over tea and cream cakes, von Ribbentrop proceeded to outline the Consortium’s scheme. A smile flitted over Hitler’s face at the sheer audacity of it.

  ‘The Plan will give you England, my Fuehrer, without a shot being fired. At the very least, the English will become your staunchest allies. In time England will become a province of Germany, in actuality if not in name. The advantages to the Reich –’

  ‘The advantages to the Reich are quite clear,’ snapped Hitler, ‘if the plan succeeds. Remember, even with allies in England, we have many enemies. That gangster Churchill and his friends continue to conspire against me.’