by Barry Letts
‘Of course.’
‘But that’s horrible!’
‘No different from the way your pussy cat plays with a mouse.’
‘I haven’t got a cat,’ said Sarah, still unhappy.
The Doctor put down his glass. He sat down next to her.
‘You’re bound to be upset,’ he said. ‘But they’re only being themselves. We must just thank the quirk of evolution that seems to make them friendly to humans. But, yes, they’re carnivorous animals. They eat seals, and penguins - even porpoises - and fish of course.’ He paused a moment and then went on, ‘I seem to remember someone who thoroughly enjoyed eating a lump of minced buffalo.’
Sarah grinned ruefully. Take no notice of me. I’m a silly ungrateful mare. I’m just being childish.’
‘And what’s wrong with that?’ said the Doctor.
How much longer will it take us, do you reckon,’ asked Sarah.
Like the Doctor and the Brigadier, Sarah had been officially invited to come onto the bridge whenever she cared to. But in practice this meant only about half the time - whenever the CO was off duty. He never told her to leave, but his manner to her was always so cold - and she found it so embarrassing when he shouted and swore at the crew - that she confined her visits to those times when either Pete Andrews or Bob Simkins was Officer of the Watch and in charge of the ship.
‘How much longer? That’s difficult to say exactly,’ answered Bob, who’d just put their noon position on the chart. ‘We lost about two hundred miles yesterday, what with one thing and another. Bit more. If we don’t hit anything else like that, it should be about five days. We’ve a pretty good idea of the way the tidal currents go, but it’s not like driving down to Brighton for a day out.’
Five days. Okay, forget the photography. Let’s face it, after yesterday she needed a holiday. Her head was still sore, and there was an impressive lump just above her left ear. And the whole thing had left her feeling sort of wobbly inside.
Concentrate on the pleasure-cruise bit, that was the thing.
Lounging on a deck chair, being brought beef tea by white jacketed stewards, like in the old thirties films. Huh! That’d be the day. Or what about a ship-board romance? Who with, though? She ran her mind’s eye over the possible candidates: the nice but impossibly furry Pete; lanky Bob, who’d always be rushing off to his beloved charts; or the plump Chris. Not a lot of choice. Where was Sammy when she needed him?
She suddenly giggled. Out loud. How snobby could you get? Only the officers had been asked to audition for the part!
Miller, the steward - Dusty Miller didn’t they call him? - he was just about the yummiest male on board, so why hadn’t she even considered him? Briefly, she did just that; and recoiled from the hideous social complications that might ensue.
Forget it.
One thing, she must get some exercise. She was really missing her morning jog. She could hardly go for a three-mile run, but in all the books she’d read with cruises in them, it was traditional every morning to have a brisk walk round and round the deck - thirty or forty laps, or whatever. It would have to do.
Dusty Miller picked up the tray of food from the table. He looked across at the unmoving figure on the bunk, its back to him and to the door. ‘You okay, Mr Whitbread?’
Brother Alex kept quite still. He wouldn’t have an alibi for the attack (if it was needed), but if people took it for granted that he’d been out of action, that could be just as good. As soon as he’d got back to the cabin, he’d got rid of the remains of the chair over the side - making quite sure he wasn’t seen
- and then retired to bed again.
‘You haven’t hardly eaten a thing - and you didn’t touch your breakfast neither.’
The answer came as a groan, and a muffled feeble voice.
‘What day is it?’
‘Day? It’s Wednesday. No, I tell a lie. It’s Thursday. And a lovely day and all. Sun scorching your bleeding eyes out.’
Another groan.
Miller turned back at the door. ‘You want me to get somebody, sir?’
Whitbread heaved himself round. ‘No, no. I’ll be all right. I must have slept all day yesterday...’
‘Yeah. Ask me, you were well out of it. What with Miss Smith and the Doctor and all.’
His heart leapt. ‘The Doctor as well? What about them?’ he asked.
‘Only went overboard, didn’t they?’
Praise be to Skang! The Doctor as well!
‘Still, all’s well that ends well...’ The door slammed behind him.
What? What did he mean by that? He sat up in bed, meaning to call the steward back - and just managed to stop himself. It could mean only one thing. She’d been rescued.
He had to do the job all over again.
Sarah got up early the next morning, feeling almost back to normal, put on her trainers and set off on her first constitu-tional.
She’d done a recce as soon as she’d had the idea. There was no way it would be possible to establish a high-speed walking track around the main deck. There was far too much equipment - and for that matter, at that time of the morning, there’d be too many men indulging in the Royal Navy’s obsession for spotless cleanliness.
But the boat deck, she realised, where the ship’s boats hung from their davits, was a different matter. Open to the sky, it ran along each side and aft of the officers’ living quarters. The wardroom was at the back, and a corridor ran down the middle, with the cabins each side. The Captain’s suite - a grand name for his sleeping cabin and his day cabin
- ran across the for’d end.
The only snag was that the open deck didn’t continue round the front of the bridge structure. Instead, there was a door at the front end of each side into the control part of the ship: the sonar; the sparks’s cabin; the main gyro-compass room with its auxiliary wheel for steering if the bridge above was damaged; and so on. So you couldn’t get round to the other side.
However, there was also a door each side into the cabin area that opened into a short corridor going from one side to the other. So, by going indoors - not very nautical sounding that, thought Sarah, but she could hardly say (or even think) going below’ when it was all on the same level - by going indoors for a moment or two, she’d be able to complete the circuit.
Hang on. It must be the CO’s private entrance to his cabins. It didn’t go anywhere else. That was a bummer.
She’d just have to be ultra quiet.
So here she was, bright and early on Friday morning, striding out at a speed she reckoned to be four miles an hour; or even five. Power-walking they called it, didn’t they?
So if she kept up the same speed for half an hour, she would have gone at least two miles. If she really pushed it she might get as big a buzz as she did from her run on Hampstead Heath - if it wasn’t for the silly hiatus when she had to slow down and creep through the short corridor past Hogben’s cabin. But she hadn’t any choice, had she?
It was a bore. He was a bore. She could even hear him snoring as she tiptoed by.
Horrible man.
Having spent Thursday establishing to the world that he was barely convalescent, Whitbread rose very early on Friday and presented himself in the wardroom (once he’d found it) for breakfast.
There must be no more mistakes. From the way they’d behaved so far it seemed that the Doctor and the Brigadier had nothing to go on but suspicions of the cult. But if the Smith girl started putting two and two together...
‘Good morning, Mr Whitbread. Glad to see you up. Feeling better?’ Pete Andrews was the only one in the wardroom. The welcome was so obviously sincere that he was instantly reassured If the truth had been discovered, he would have had a very different welcome.
He settled down to eating a frugal poached egg on toast, and concentrated on listening to the First Lieutenant, asking disingenuous questions, so that he could learn all about the Hallaton and its people.
If everybody got used to seeing him around the ship, he’d
be able to keep an eye open and establish the pattern of the girl’s day, and spot any regularities, so that he would be able to predict when she’d be alone and vulnerable.
But then, as he was sipping his second cup of coffee, he saw her, whipping past the open windows of the wardroom as if she was in a race. Round she went, past the after door and round to the other side, disappearing up the deck outside; and then, a few minutes later, there she was again. And again. And again.
Pete Andrews finished his breakfast and disappeared, but the girl kept on passing by. He didn’t count the number of times, but it must have been twenty-five minutes or more before she stopped appearing. Did she do this every morning?
Was this what he’d been looking for?
His mind gave a little lurch. Now, what was that all about?
He examined his twisted complex of emotions, and began to untangle them. Pleasure that the girl hadn’t been drowned?
Surely not. A sort of guilt? He’d been pretty ruthless in the hidden back alleys of his public life, but he’d never been responsible for anyone’s death. Then again, it had never been necessary before.
As the pieces fell into place, the picture revealed itself. It wasn’t guilt or remorse, just a fear that he might get caught -
and a fierce determination not to let it happen. And as for the other emotion...
Yes, it was true that he was pleased that Sarah Jane Smith (stupid name) had been saved, but only because it meant that he could experience once more the rush of simple pleasure that he’d felt as the chair leg smashed into her skull.
He was really looking forward to killing her.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
‘Sarah!’ The Doctor’s voice came from his open door as she passed it on her way back to her cabin.
Hastily hiding her book under the blanket she was carrying
- she wouldn’t want the Doctor to know she was an addict of such rubbish! - she turned back. ‘Yes?’
‘Are you busy?’
Busy! For the first time in her life since she’d left kinder-garten, there was nothing, nothing at all, that she really ought to be doing. She’d still be lying on the deserted upper bridge if it hadn’t turned so hot as the sun climbed up towards noon.
‘Nothing that can’t wait.’
Like getting a tan, or finding out whether Lady Amelia would really fell for the manipulative charms of Sir Percival.
‘Good. If you can spare a moment or two...’
She entered the Doctor’s cabin and he gestured towards an empty chair with the object in his hand. It looked a bit like a long version of one of those things you use to test the pressure in a car tyre. Of course! The sonic screwdriver!
He aimed it at an open silver box on the table. Now she recognised that as well; she’d seen it before, the Doctor was always fiddling with it. As she heard the strange sound of the screwdriver, the box’s contents gave a sort of wobble, rather like a mirage she’d seen in the Moroccan desert three holidays ago.
‘That’s better,’ said the Doctor, closing it.
‘That’s the bit from the TARDIS, isn’t it?’ she said, sitting opposite him.
‘The relativity circuit of the temporal balancing governor.
That’s right,’ he replied, minutely adjusting one of the many small knobs on the side of the box. Then he pressed the largest button. The box responded by making its tinkly music-box noise. ‘I thought I’d improve the shining hour by having another go at it,’ he went on. ‘Improve the shining hour! Ridiculous expression. Like polishing a diamond. Like polishing a diamond. Like polishing a diamond.’
What was he on about!
‘Did you notice anything?’ he asked.
‘Like what?’
‘Anything at all. Anything odd.’
‘Well... Not really. Only you saying “like polishing a diamond” over and over again.’
‘Ah! How many times?’
‘Three.’
‘Mm.’
It was like when he had started howling in the sea. Just Doctorish. It was no good trying to keep up with him.
‘That should do it,’ he said, as he gave a couple of the knobs another tiny tweak. ‘Mark you,’ he continued as he pressed the main button again, ‘an unpolished diamond looks like something you’d pick up on the beach and toss into the sea. So perhaps it’s not so ridiculous. Well?’
‘Well what?’
‘Notice anything this time?’
What on earth was he talking about? ‘What am I supposed to notice?’ she asked.
‘Nothing. Nothing at all.’
She laughed. ‘Well, good on you, Doctor. You’re in luck!
That’s exactly what I did notice. Nothing! Come on, what’s this all about?’
The Doctor was laughing too. ‘Well you see...’
Footsteps. The Brigadier appeared in the doorway.
The Doctor lifted his little silver case and pressed the button again.
‘Ah, there you are, Doctor...’ said the Brigadier.
And vanished.
‘Blimey!’ said Sarah.
Footsteps. The Brigadier appeared in the doorway.
‘Ah, there you are, Doctor...’ he said, and vanished once more.
‘I’ve got it!’ said Sarah. ‘It’s a time loop!’
The Brigadier appeared again. This time the Doctor didn’t press the button.
‘Ah, there you are, Doctor,’ he said.
‘Why, so I am,’ said the Doctor, putting away the sonic screwdriver. ‘Except that I would have called it a temporal recursion,’ he went onto Sarah, ‘but you’re quite right. A time loop. And you never noticed a thing when I aimed it at you?’
‘Not a sausage.’
‘The temporal recursion algorithm is the basic default setting for the relativity circuit. If you get that right, everything else falls into place.’
The Brigadier was waiting patiently. ‘It’s just been pointed out to me that the sun is over the yard arm,’ he said. ‘Our hosts have invited us for a snifter before lunch. You too, Sarah.’
‘Great! I’ll be right along.’
Sarah returned to her cabin. Having dumped the blanket and book on her bunk, she pulled a pair of - less provocative
- shorts over her bikini, and found a clean shirt (beautifully ironed by Wong Chang, who happily moonlighted as dhobi-man).
Funny that, she thought, the Brigadier calling her Sarah.
He didn’t often address her by her first name. Depended on the circs. When formality was appropriate it was ‘Miss Smith’.
Like the junior officers saying ‘sir’ to the Number One on the bridge, and calling him ‘Pete’ in the wardroom.
With the Doctor, anything could happen at any time. Time loops, for example. That’s what made him so exciting. On the other hand, you knew where you were with the Brigadier. It made you feel sort of safe.
Alex was pretty certain that the Smith girl would start her walkabout just after seven o’clock, as usual. Certainly she seemed to have established a routine for herself that hadn’t varied for the past three days. It had been tricky, keeping an eye on her without it being noticed. But, bit by bit, Alex had managed to build up a picture of her activities - or lack of them; she seemed to spend a lot of her time lying in the sun, or reading in the shade.
The trouble was, she was hardly ever out of sight of somebody or other. It was supposed to be a skeleton crew, but the number of seamen on board was surely excessive, far more than you’d get on a merchant ship. Even when she was sunbathing on the upper bridge, all by herself, there was no way up there that wasn’t in view of somebody most of the time.
On the other hand, before breakfast, people were either in their cabins or else had very specific jobs to do. And the upper bridge area was always deserted at that time of the morning, as it was most of the day. It must be used only when they were going into action, or entering harbour or something. If he got up there early enough on the fourth morning, nobody would know. He’d be able to slip up ther
e -
and down again - quite safely. This would be his last chance.
According to the Navigating Officer, they would probably arrive at Stella Island the next day.
So, on the fourth morning, he slipped out just when it started to get light, and established himself in the after corner of the open bridge, where the starboard searchlight was rigged. He peeped over the edge. Just as he’d estimated from his quick recce the previous day, the overhang was immediately above where she came out of the door in her clockwise perambulation.
Keeping well down, just in case, he loosened even further the large butterfly fastening of the bracket that supported the heavy searchlight, unscrewing it until it was hanging by a thread.
This time he had to be certain.
Everybody on board knew better than to wake up the Skipper unless it was really necessary. If he didn’t turn up for his watch, it would be quietly covered by either Pete or Bob, who, although he was only a sub-lieutenant, already had his Watch-keeping Certificate and was fully qualified to be in charge.
It wasn’t that he woke with a hangover. His body was long habituated to a bloodstream that could have been used to make a passable cocktail without the addition of further alcohol. But until he’d knocked back the half-tumbler of gin that always stood by his bedside, he had such a filthy temper that whoever had woken him would be lucky to live to regret it.
Sarah’s first invasion of his territory had made no impression on him. His snoring didn’t falter for a second. Nor did he stir on the second day.
On the third day, however, she was becoming rather care-less. As there’d been no reaction from the cabin, her passage through the little corridor was getting faster and faster, and the click of the doors as they closed was becoming a small thump as she let them swing to. On each circuit he half woke up, blearily saw her going by with a sort of obscure irritation that subsided as soon as she disappeared, and fell back into the heavy torpor that now passed for sleep.
