by Barry Letts
‘Sort of. Well, I’m sort of her boyfriend. One of them. Sort of. You know?’
‘Poor old Jeremy.’ She really did feel sympathetic!
‘It’s like that with us, you know. Sharing and all. I mean...’
He stopped. He was blushing.
Well, well, well!
‘Mother Hilda told us that you were on your way,’ he said, brightly.
‘How did she know?’
‘Don’t ask me. Come on, the food’s out of this world - and there’s lashings of it.’
Sarah looked round. Mother Hilda was leading the Doctor and the rest of the little group, which had now been joined by Bob Simkins, towards the tables. Great. She’d rather been off her food since the Captain had been killed. She’d only had a small slice of toast for breakfast, and now she was ravenous.
But where to begin? She picked up a plate, and surveyed the choice. It was all vegetarian. You’d expect that from a cult that was derived from the Hindu faith, as Mother Hilda’s book had said. But it didn’t seem to matter. There was every sort of salad, artfully designed to be a feast of colour as well as taste; there were cooked vegetable dishes - green, red, yellow and purple with white and brown rice; if there was a pasta shape that had been invented, it was there, in its own particular sauce. And the fruit! Red-black and golden grapes the size of plums; actual plums so ripe that the skin was bursting with their juice; oranges like miniature suns; apples and pears and quinces and kumquats and...
‘Here,’ said Jeremy, pouring out a sparkling juice from a crystal flask. ‘Have a drink. Non-alcoholic of course, but that doesn’t matter. It really gives you a lift.’
‘There’s all sorts,’ he went on, gesturing to a line of casks with taps, from which jugs were being filled with different-coloured juices. ‘Or plain water, of course. That’s the one at the end.’
Funny. The diamond-clear spring running through the rocks behind the table must be the one mentioned by the whaler.
‘Why should they bother to put it in a barrel?’ Sarah asked.
‘Filter it or something I suppose. I never bother with it, anyway. This purple thingy juice is my tipple. Honestly, Sarah, it’s the bee’s knees!’
Sarah laughed affectionately. Jeremy’s slang was always out of date. He probably got the expression from Mama.
Funny how it used to irritate her. ‘Not the cat’s whiskers?’
she said, taking the goblet.
‘Probably that as well,’ said Jeremy with a laugh. ‘Have a taste and see for yourself!’ He took a long swig from his own glass.
She lifted it to her lips, and was about to take a sip, when she happened to catch the eye of the Doctor, who was at the other end of the table. He was shaking his head at her.
Vehemently shaking his head. What was he on about?
She lifted the glass again, and this time he not only shook his head, but was mouthing ‘NO!’.
Oh. Yes, of course.
What was it he’d told them in London? Three per cent of some sort of drug in the fruit juice she’d nicked from the Skang place? Extremely powerful, he’d said.
Jeremy was busy filling up his own plate. She quietly put down the drink untasted.
‘Mmmm! Dee-lish! The cat’s whiskers, no question. In fact, I’d even go so far as to say it’s the cat’s pyjamas!’
‘Hey! Is this mango?’ she said, changing the subject. She reached over to scoop the orangey-gold cubes onto her plate.
‘Mm,’ he said with a mouth full of cherries and a nod.
The spoon was just about to go into her mouth when she thought to take another look at the Doctor. Maybe the food was off limits as well. But he seemed to have lost interest in her, once he’d stopped her drinking, and was talking intently to Mother Hilda.
Oh well, it couldn’t kill her... A spoonful of sunshine! Oh, bliss!
‘You know what Jeremy? I’m seriously thinking of becoming a mangoholic!’
It wasn’t as funny as all that, she thought, as he spluttered bits of raspberry, giggling at the idea.
Extraordinary that they had such an enormous variety of superb fruits and stuff, of all different seasons and from all the countries of the world. Better than any supermarket. A sort of Fortnum and Mason in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
She scooped up a dollop of the most colourful fruit salad and, as she munched, her eyes wandered over the scene. The sailors didn’t seem to mind that their hoped-for pints had been replaced by draughts of thingy juice’. On the contrary, you’d have thought it was Pompey on a Saturday night. She even spotted the delicious Miller slipping off into the darkness of the greenery behind the palms, with his arm around a slim white waist.
She recognised two or three of the London Skangites, yacking away as if they were at a party in Hampstead. One had produced a guitar, and was belting out a Beatles number.
Another face... Yes, of course! It was Mr Gorridge, singing along like a teenager, happily swaying with the rhythm, hardly recognisable as the neurotically wound up First Officer of the Skang.
That’s where all the food came from, of course. The Skang.
It would be bound to have umpteen cold stores and galleys and stuff. After all, it was designed for a millionaire - and a millionaire’s guests.
‘By the way,’ she said to Jeremy, who was concentrating on an ear of sweet corn, trying to stop the melted butter from running down his chin, ‘we were wondering. Where’s the Skang?’
He blinked.
‘Sorry?’ he said, his mouth full. ‘Oh, fish hooks! It’s all over my shirt!’ He dived into his pocket for a handkerchief, and feebly dabbed at the greasy spots. ‘Sorry. I wasn’t listening.
What did you say?’
The Skang. What have they done with her?’
He looked puzzled. The Skang?’ His face cleared. Oh, you mean the ship. They took it out into the deep water and sank it... Do you suppose this’ll wash out?’
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Brigadier had always had his doubts about bringing Sarah along with them, and now she was proving to be a real pain.
Dame Hilda was a charming woman - and, it had turned out, from a decent family. His grandmother had often talked about the fabled Olivia Hutchens, the first Tatler ‘Debutante of the Year’ after the end of the Great War. Hilda’s aunt, apparently.
She and Brother Will (where had he seen him before?) were taking the Doctor and himself - with the two Hallaton officers trailing along behind - on a guided tour of the island, and as the official representative of the United Nations it was his duty to be polite and follow protocol. Whatever that might be in such odd circumstances, it surely didn’t include rudeness such as Miss Smith’s behaviour, tagging along just behind him trying to get his attention.
‘Psst!’ she said, for the third time.
Ignoring her yet again, he turned back to what Dame Hilda was saying.
‘Of course, the number of the faithful is relatively small at the moment...’
The Brigadier uttered a non-committal grunt, noticing that the irritating child was now pestering the Doctor. Good. The Doctor was shaking his head at Sarah and whispering,
‘Later!’
‘But we are merely planting the seed. In years to come, the harvest will feed the hungry soul of humankind the world over. But it will take time.’
The road from the village (which had turned out to be, yes, made of golden-yellow bricks rather than the sand they’d assumed) swept round the corner away from the rows of little villas to reveal a wall of stone, soaring upwards out of the lush jungle. It was the side of what could only be the extinct volcano mentioned in the Pilot book. An age-old rock slide had produced an almost vertical precipice some five hundred feet high.
‘But then the spirit of the Skang is something quite new to us in the West,’ Dame Hilda was saying. ‘It can transform the world, as you’ll see in just a moment.’
What was the woman talking about? Following her with the others as the road disappeared through a
mini-canyon of volcanic rock, the Brigadier tried to concentrate on the matter in hand. Sightseeing, especially traipsing round buildings, ancient or modern, had never been his bag.
But... this was something else! For once the phrase was literally true. The yellow bricks ended in a largish clearing at the foot of a majestic staircase of white marble, which climbed in a perfect curve up the side of the steep hill. The top was crowned with a featherlight confection of intricately carved pillars, gleaming in the tropical sun whiter than any white he’d ever seen. It had a harmony that brought a yearning to the heart and tears to the eyes.
Nobody spoke. For a moment, nobody could have spoken.
‘Our temple, dedicated to the great Skang,’ said Hilda reverently.
It must have cost a bomb and a half, thought the Brigadier, coming down to earth as he followed them up the stairs. Bad form to say so, though.
As they neared the summit, all very much out of breath save Mother Hilda and Brother Will - and of course, the Doctor - the Brigadier noticed that, in spite of everything, Sarah was still up to her monkey tricks. She was now whispering intently to Pete Andrews, who was listening with a frown on his face. He seemed to be taking her seriously.
As they arrived outside the temple itself, they saw that the pillars were the setting for two immense mahogany doors, twenty feet tall, with the deep sheen of a dining table that has been wax-polished daily for hundreds of years. At a lift of Mother Hilda’s hand, the two tall guards who stood on either side swung them open as easily as if they were mounted on silken hinges.
She led the way inside. ‘The island had a gift for us, as you can see.’
They were looking down into the crater of the extinct volcano, which had been turned into a circular amphitheatre, open to the sky, with concentric rows of seats. Behind the seats there were doors, each in its own alcove, which broke the curve with exactly the right sharp angle. As with the pillars outside, the total effect seemed so right that it couldn’t have been otherwise.
Opposite the doors was a giant icon of the Skang, a painting of superlative quality, as striking in its way as the portrait of the Sutherland Christ in Coventry Cathedral -
which even the Brigadier, dragged there by an enthusiastic girlfriend soon after its opening, had to admit caught the eye, much as he disliked it.
Again, there were no comments. Nobody, it seemed could think of adequate words. Mother Hilda and Will exchanged a smile.
‘We’ll leave you here,’ she said. ‘Our quarters - the rooms of the teachers and our organisers - are here in the temple.
Please feel free to go anywhere. We have nothing to hide.’
So much for the Doctor’s insane theory of an alien invasion.
‘Thank you, Dame... ah... Mother Hilda,’ said the Brigadier.
‘You’ve been most helpful. You’ve completely set my mind at rest.’
‘I’m very glad to hear it, Brigadier. I’m only sorry you had to come such a long way. If I’d known about your concerns before we left Bombay, we could have cleared this up in no time.’
‘Yes, well... we’ll have a bit of a look round and then we’ll be on our way. Nothing more to keep us here. We’ll sail at once.’
The Doctor was frowning! Never mind, he could be dealt with later. This was a UNIT investigation, after all.
‘We’ll say goodbye now then,’ she said with a smile.
‘Tomorrow is the biggest festival of our year. I shall be very busy with the preparations for the ceremonies.’
Better be polite. ‘Ah... can’t we stay and watch?’
She laughed. ‘Not unless you want to become a devotee of the Skang,’ she said.
Heaven forbid!
‘We’ve missed today’s tide,’ said Bob Simkins. ‘We couldn’t get over the reef at the moment. If we don’t want to sail in the middle of the night, we’ll have to wait until tomorrow.’
Did Dame Hilda look worried for a moment? No, no. He’d imagined it.
As the two figures in their white robes, who seemed to complement the scene so perfectly, turned to go, the Brigadier noticed that Sarah, now even more agitated than before, was about to speak. No! He wouldn’t have it!
But instead, it was Pete Andrews who stepped forward.
‘Excuse me, Mother Hilda. Before you go, I wonder if you’d satisfy a sailor’s curiosity?’
‘Of course.’
‘Where is your ship, the Skang? Is there another anchorage apart from the part of the lagoon where we are?’
She looked surprised. ‘No, no. She isn’t here. The Captain had to go to Mauritius to refuel and so on. It’s a long way, but it seems it’s the nearest place.’
So that was what Sarah had been on about. Well, no harm done. But he’d have to have a word with the girl. Point out that she was only here on sufferance.
‘I’m sorry, Brigadier, but I’m not daft!’ Was he plain stupid?
What was the matter with the man? She’d seen him dig his heels in before, but this was beyond reason.
‘Now look here, Miss Smith...’
‘Of course he was speaking the truth. You should have seen how worried he was when he realised he’d let it out.
They’ve scuttled it, I tell you!’
‘But why on earth would they want to do a thing like that?’
said Pete Andrews, mildly. ‘One of the most beautiful craft I’ve ever set eyes on?’
Bob Simkins joined in. ‘If you ask me, she has gone to Mauritius, just as Mother Hilda said.’
‘Without the First Officer? Come off it!’ Her earlier euphoria was fading fast. She turned in exasperation to the Doctor.
‘You haven’t said anything. What do you think?’
The Doctor tilted his head and stroked his chin with the back of his forefinger, which he often did when he wasn’t quite sure. ‘Mm. I must admit that I’d expected something of the sort. It bears out my conviction that these poor benighted youngsters aren’t intended to return. On the other hand, it seems a crass thing to do if they knew we were going to turn up.’
The argument had broken out halfway down the marble staircase, when Sarah could contain herself no longer and blurted out what Jeremy had said, not giving a damn whether Mother Hilda and her satellite were still within earshot or not.
‘Now, that’s ridiculous. No way could they have known we were coming,’ said the Brigadier.
‘Oh, but they did. Jeremy told me that too.’
He looked at her with an infuriating smile. ‘Of course he did, Miss Smith. And the place is swarming with your mysterious bug-eyed monsters from outer space. Good Lord! Look!
There’s half a dozen of them over there, swinging through the palm trees!’ He set off down the stairs, laughing merrily, followed by the two officers, both trying not to grin.
Sarcasm always got under her skin. She opened her mouth, looking for a withering retort - something to the effect that he’d better be careful not to trip - ‘the thicker they come the harder they fall’ - when she noticed that the Doctor had his fingers to his lips, and was shaking his head at her again.
The message was different but just as plain: ‘Cool it!’
So she shut up. She felt that there was a fair chance that she might burst, but she took a deep breath and kept quiet; and followed the Doctor as he went after the others.
Hilda thoroughly disliked the term ‘clairvoyance’ because of its connotations of self-deceiving mediums giving dodgy demonstrations - ‘Does the name Eric mean anything to you?’ - or, even worse, private ‘readings’ at an exorbitant cost. ‘Far-seeing’ was much to be preferred, with its plain Anglo-Saxon etymology; and it certainly expressed with far more accuracy the faculty she and the others had developed since becoming Skang teachers - or perhaps the word should be adepts’? (Neither was entirely accurate. There was really no way of expressing a relationship that was unique in human experience.)
Hilda was sitting deep in concentration in her elegantly plain room off the temple, watching - in her min
d’s eye -
Brother Alex climbing the long staircase. Was he coming to see her?
As she relinquished the image, she noticed again the regret, almost irritation, which she had so often felt before. If only far-hearing had developed along with far-seeing! Or even better, some form of simple telepathy. No matter how hard she tried, or what techniques she used, she’d found that they were limited to seeing - and even that was rudimentary, requiring total absorption for a very simple sighting.
When Will had first picked up the approach of the Royal Navy ship during a routine scan of the surrounding area, he had reported that Alex was on board, apparently ill, and most distressed. But had Alex betrayed them? There was no question that the Doctor and the companion whom he addressed as Brigadier’ were highly suspicious; why else should they have come? For that matter, the very fact that they had been prepared to mount an armed attack was evidence enough.
Being forewarned, she had managed to deal with the immediate situation. But she still had no idea whether she could now trust Alex. Whether or no, maybe it would be safer to allow him to rejoin, so that she could keep an eye on him during the next critical twenty-four hours.
It was too much for her to decide alone. She would have to refer the matter to the inner council.
‘Mother Hilda...’
She opened her eyes. Alex was standing in the open doorway.
That was it, thought Sarah. They were all stoned out of their skulls on Jeremy’s thingy juice, or one of its variants.
You’d have thought they were as squiffy as if they’d just been turned out of the pub and were on their way to the curry house, if it wasn’t for the way they climbed into the boats for the trip back. It was starting to get dark, but nobody fell in; nobody even staggered or lost their balance.
Nor was anybody looking for a quarrel. But their laughter, their shouting, their uninhibited behaviour would surely have earned them a reprimand at the very least if the Cox’n hadn’t been in much the same state.
