Doctor Who: Players: 50th Anniversary Edition

by Dicks, Terrance

  The young man beside her said, ‘Carstairs. Jeremy Carstairs.’

  ‘Smith,’ said the Doctor. ‘Doctor John Smith.’

  He studied the two young people thoughtfully. They were old friends, comrades-in-arms. The three of them had shared life-and-death adventures on the Planet of the War Games. But Lady Jennifer and Lieutenant Carstairs didn’t know it. Not any more.

  And they didn’t recognise him. Which, thought the Doctor, was just as it should be.

  Carstairs got out of the ambulance and held open the passenger door. ‘Perhaps you’d care to sit in the middle, Doctor?’

  The Doctor climbed onto the long front seat, and Carstairs got back in beside him and closed the door.

  Lady Jennifer put the engine into gear and with a spluttering and coughing the ambulance lurched on its way.

  The Doctor decided it was time for a little test. ‘Have you been out here long?’ he asked.

  ‘Only about six months,’ said Lady Jennifer. ‘Though I must say it seems like forever.’

  ‘I’ve been here for over a year,’ said Carstairs. ‘I came out near the beginning in ’14. Had a couple of leaves, though.’

  ‘I should imagine you lose track of time out here,’ said the Doctor casually. ‘I certainly do. What’s the date exactly?’

  Carstairs frowned. ‘It’s the 18th, I think. November the 18th.’

  ‘Year?’

  ‘1915 of course!’ Carstairs smiled a little uncertainly. ‘You can’t be that confused already, Doctor!’

  ‘November the 18th, 1915,’ confirmed Lady Jennifer. ‘How long have you been out here?’

  The Doctor shrugged apologetically. ‘Just long enough to get myself lost – and confused!’

  ‘Medical delegation?’

  The Doctor nodded.

  ‘We get all sorts of groups out here,’ said Carstairs. ‘Politicians, doctors, actors, singers, the lot. There was some writer chap out here on a lecture tour the other day. Jolly old fellow.’

  ‘G. K. Chesterton?’ suggested Lady Jennifer.

  Carstairs shook his head. ‘That other one, great friend of Chesterton.’

  ‘Belloc?’

  ‘That’s the one! Hilaire Belloc! The troops called him –’

  Carstairs broke off.

  ‘That’s right, Hilaire Belloc,’ said Lady Jennifer. ‘Go on.’

  ‘I think perhaps I’d better not…’

  ‘Come on, you’ve got to tell me now,’ insisted Lady Jennifer. ‘What did the Tommies call him?’

  ‘Hilarious Bollocks!’ said Carstairs, blushing furiously. ‘Awfully sorry…’

  Lady Jennifer gave a whoop of laughter. ‘Don’t worry, Lieutenant Carstairs, I’ve heard far worse than that out here.’

  The Doctor watched the two humans closely, his eyes darting keenly between them as they engaged in their trivial banter. Time for one last test, he decided, peering out of the window. It was darker now, and the mist was thickening.

  ‘Have you any idea where we are?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, I hope we’re somewhere between Boulogne and St Omer,’ said Lady Jennifer. ‘But I wouldn’t swear to it. Someone seems to have been mucking about with the signposts – or what’s left of them!’

  The Doctor nodded, satisfied at last. His two friends knew who they were and when they were. They even knew where they were – more or less – presumably near the point where they’d been interrupted.

  Sadly, the Doctor reflected that he hadn’t achieved all that much. All they’d done was swap one war for another. He looked at them both – cheerful, confident, ready to die for king and country. He’d thrown away a life of his own to enable them to perish here on Earth instead of throwing away their lives in the service of some mad alien experiment.

  The ambulance rolled on into the mists, and the Doctor looked ahead through the grimy windscreen. ‘Evil must be fought,’ he remembered himself saying. The other Time Lords could probably never understand. He smiled to himself. These two humans, cheerful in adversity, weren’t so very different to himself.

  It was a sobering thought.

  ‘How did you get lost, Lieutenant Carstairs?’ asked the Doctor.

  ‘I’m serving as aide to General Sir John French at his Headquarters at St Omer,’ said Carstairs. ‘He sent me to Boulogne with despatches. I got a lift back on a supply convoy and we got ambushed by a German patrol. There was a bit of a scrap, and the convoy crashed on through. I was fighting a bit of a rearguard action and somehow I got left behind.’

  ‘Frightfully bad luck,’ Lady Jennifer offered.

  The Doctor suspected Carstairs had sacrificed himself so that the convoy could get away, and was too modest to say so.

  ‘Well, Doctor, as Lieutenant Carstairs here knows, I’m making for St Omer too,’ Lady Jennifer continued. ‘I’ve been to Boulogne to pick up medical supplies from the supply depot. Is St Omer all right for you, Doctor Smith?’

  ‘Fine, fine,’ said the Doctor. ‘If my party’s not there, I’m sure someone will know where they are. Er, how long before we arrive?’

  ‘It’s a matter of “if” rather than “when”, Doctor,’ said Lady Jennifer. ‘To be honest with you, we’re pretty thoroughly lost. I’ve an idea we took a wrong turning some way back – the signposts have all been messed about with. We need someone with local knowledge, or a definite place-name so we can get our bearings. Until then, your guess is as good as mine.’

  ‘Never mind,’ said the Doctor cheerfully. ‘What is it they say? To travel hopefully is better than to arrive!’

  He beamed affectionately at them both.

  Suddenly they heard a faint droning sound on the road ahead.

  ‘There’s a car in front of us,’ said Lady Jennifer. ‘Maybe we can catch them up and ask directions.’

  She pushed the old ambulance forward, and soon a dark shape loomed into view.

  ‘Looks like a staff car,’ said Carstairs. ‘Some bigwig on his way to see the General at St Omer, I expect. He’ll know where we are – or at least his driver will.’

  The road led past a clump of trees. Just as the staff car passed by it, there was a stuttering of machine-gun fire. The car lurched off the road, ran into the ditch and overturned. More shots came from the dark wood.

  They saw a bulky uniformed figure struggle out of the wrecked vehicle, crouch down behind it and begin returning fire.

  ‘It’s another ruddy ambush!’ said Carstairs indignantly. ‘Better stop, Lady Jennifer, you don’t want to drive right into the middle of it!

  The ambulance jolted to a halt and, drawing his revolver, Carstairs jumped out. ‘You two wait here,’ he instructed. ‘I’ll go and see if I can help.’

  The Doctor was reminded of Jamie and his habit of heading straight for any promising fight, and felt a bitter pang of resentment at the Time Lords for taking away his old friend.

  As Carstairs ran off, the Doctor turned to Lady Jennifer. ‘I suppose I’d better go as well. He seems to be rather an impetuous young man, doesn’t he!’

  ‘I’m coming too,’ said Lady Jennifer spiritedly. She began rooting about under the dashboard. ‘I’ve got a service revolver here, somewhere. We’re not supposed to carry arms, but I thought, just in case…’

  ‘Please, do stay here,’ said the Doctor. ‘It’s your duty to look after this ambulance – and don’t forget, you’re our way of getting out of here!’

  Lady Jennifer leaned forward, peering anxiously into the gloom. Shots crackled between the wood and the wrecked staff car as the Doctor and Carstairs ran towards danger.

  CHAPTER TEN

  AMBUSH

  AS CARSTAIRS RAN up, the man behind the car swung round, covering him with his revolver.

  Carstairs got a quick impression of a thickset figure in army officer’s uniform, of a round, pugnacious face with a jutting jaw, and eyes blazing with the light of battle.

  ‘It’s all right, Major, I’m on your side,’ gasped Carstairs.

  The Major took in C
arstairs’ uniform and relaxed. ‘A welcome reinforcement,’ he said solemnly. ‘I don’t suppose you happen to be accompanied by a platoon of infantry?’

  ‘Afraid not, sir. Just me!’

  ‘Well, we must contrive as best we can. The fellows attacking us are concealed in that wood. I think there are only two or three of them. Unfortunately, they appear to be in possession of a machine gun.’

  There came another stuttering of fire from the wood. Bullets ricochetted off the upturned staff car and sang over their heads, as if to reinforce his words.

  Carstairs and the Major returned fire with their revolvers, but it was hard for them to see who they were shooting at.

  ‘The revolver is a weapon of limited use in modern warfare,’ said the Major calmly, his words punctuated by gunfire. ‘It served well enough against swords and spears in the Sudan, but even against the rifles of the Boers…’

  He looked round as the Doctor came running up.

  ‘And who is this?’

  ‘This is Doctor Smith, sir,’ said Carstairs. ‘He’s travelling with us in the ambulance back there. Oh, and I’m Lieutenant Jeremy Carstairs, sir.’

  ‘Our little army grows apace,’ said the Major, a gleam in his eye. ‘We already have a Major and a Lieutenant – and now a medical officer and an ambulance!’

  ‘And a WVS nurse sir,’ said Carstairs. ‘She’s back in the ambulance.’

  ‘Better and better! All we need now are some troops!’ He turned to the Doctor. ‘Would you oblige me by taking a look at my driver, Doctor? He was hit in the first burst of gunfire, and I fear the poor fellow is in a bad way.’

  The Doctor nodded uncertainly. ‘Well, I’m not… I’ll do what I can, of course. Maybe we can get him back to the ambulance.’

  Crouching low to avoid the hail of bullets from the woods, the Doctor worked his way to the front of the staff car.

  The driver, an army private, lay sprawled half-out of the driving seat. The lower part of his body was pinioned under the over-turned car, and the front of his tunic was soaked with blood.

  As the Doctor felt the faint pulse in his neck, the man’s eyes fluttered open. He gazed unseeingly up at the Doctor.

  ‘It’s all right, old chap,’ said the Doctor gently. ‘We’ll soon get you looked after.’

  The man’s eyes widened. ‘Mutti,’ he gasped. ‘Mutti…’

  His head fell back and the Doctor felt the pulse beneath his fingers die away. The Doctor looked down at him, both puzzled and sad. Then he dodged back to the others, who were still returning fire.

  ‘Too late, I’m afraid, the poor fellow’s gone.’ He frowned. ‘It’s odd… he said… well, it doesn’t matter now.’

  ‘We must work out some plan for dealing with those fellows in the wood,’ said the Major. He turned to Carstairs. ‘If you hold them off while I work my way around behind them, we can catch them in a cross-fire. If we can dispose of that machine gun…’

  ‘Good idea, sir,’ said Carstairs. ‘Only I’d better do the working around behind them part. I mean…’ He broke off.

  ‘You mean, Lieutenant, that you are not only younger and more agile, but will present a smaller target?’ the Major inquired lightly. ‘That is undeniable. Very well! Let us see if we can eliminate these fellows.’

  ‘Do you have to kill them?’ asked the Doctor, his face drawn in pained disapproval.

  Lieutenant Carstairs looked shocked. ‘Really, Doctor…’

  ‘You are a man of peace, Doctor, as befits your profession,’ said the Major. ‘Believe me, I am no advocate of slaughter, I have seen too much of it. But I must confess, in the heat of battle I am perfectly prepared to kill anyone who is trying to kill me!’

  ‘I’ll go with Lieutenant Carstairs,’ said the Doctor, dabbing his forehead with a handkerchief. ‘If we get behind them and make enough noise, they may think they’re outnumbered and run.’

  ‘Their flight will serve our purposes equally well,’ said the Major cheerfully. He took a handful of shells from his pocket and reloaded his revolver, then passed some to Carstairs who did the same.

  ‘I wish you both good fortune,’ he said. ‘I’ll give what covering fire I can.’ Almost immediately, he began firing into the wood, one careful, aimed shot after another.

  The Doctor and Carstairs slipped away into the gloom.

  They made their way around to the edge of the wood, deliberately moving in a wide circle so as to come up behind their attackers.

  Carstairs moved swiftly and silently. He had been on patrol in No Man’s Land before. He was surprised at how quickly and quietly the Doctor moved beside him, slipping like a ghost between the trees. From time to time they had heard the stuttering roar of the machine gun. Now they heard it again – only this time it was somewhere ahead of them.

  They moved cautiously forward.

  At last, they came in sight of a little clearing in the wood. In it crouched a handful of men. One of them lay flat behind a machine gun on a tripod. The rest were clustered around him, firing an assortment of rifles and revolvers.

  A narrow lane in the trees gave a clear field of fire to the wrecked staff car.

  ‘That’s a British machine gun!’ whispered Carstairs indignantly. ‘What’s it doing firing at us?’

  ‘Look at their uniforms,’ said the Doctor quietly. ‘Or rather, the lack of them. Look at their condition.’

  The men were grimy and unshaven, wearing a tattered assortment of different uniforms. They looked wolfish and half-starved.

  ‘They’re not regular soldiers at all,’ said Carstairs wonderingly. ‘Some kind of renegades…’

  He took careful aim at the man behind the machine gun.

  ‘Wait!’ whispered the Doctor. ‘Aha! Here they are.’ Searching frantically through the pockets of his shabby frock coat, he produced a handful of strange-looking objects.

  Peering down at them, Carstairs saw long thin cardboard tubes, folded back on themselves in a kind of recurring Z-shaped pattern, each with a blue fuse at the end.

  ‘What the devil…’

  ‘Fireworks,’ said the Doctor happily. ‘Chinese firecrackers to be precise. I always carry a few about with me in case of emergency. They make a lot of noise and they don’t really hurt anyone.’

  The Doctor fished a large red-topped match from another pocket.

  ‘Now, Lieutenant, when these things start to go off, fire your revolver in the air and yell as loudly as you can. With any luck they’ll think we’re the entire Brigade of Guards!’

  ‘All right, Doctor, we’ll try it,’ said Carstairs dubiously. ‘But I warn you, if anyone shoots at me, I’m shooting back!’

  ‘It may not be necessary at all,’ said the Doctor hopefully. ‘I’ll just light the blue touch paper – and, with any luck, our foes will retire immediately!’

  Striking the match on his thumb-nail, the Doctor lit the first firecracker and tossed it close behind the men.

  He lit and threw another, and then another…

  Suddenly, with an amazingly loud bang, the first firecracker went off. It produced a whole series of astonishingly loud explosions. So did the second firecracker and the third, a whole fusillade of bangs, all merging with each other.

  At the same time the Doctor bellowed, ‘Up Guards and at ’em! Get ’em lads, we’ve got them surrounded!’

  Carstairs joined in at the top of his voice. ‘Number One Platoon here to me. Number Two Platoon enemy’s left flank, Number Three take the right. Charge!’ He fired his revolver in the air.

  With shouted military orders and explosions all round, and the crack of Carstairs’ revolver alarmingly close, the illusion of an attack in force was complete. The terrified renegades panicked and fled into the darkness of the woods, leaving the machine gun behind them.

  Carstairs pointed to the abandoned weapon. ‘Shall we take it with us?’

  ‘Certainly not!’ said the Doctor.

  Carstairs reloaded his revolver and fired a couple of shots into the machine gu
n’s loading mechanism, and then stamped on the barrel, bending it out of shape.

  ‘Well, your scheme worked, Doctor!’

  ‘A famous victory,’ agreed the Doctor happily. ‘And nobody dead!’

  ‘Come along,’ said Carstairs. ‘We’d better go and tell the Major it’s all over.’ Cupping his hands he shouted, ‘Don’t shoot, Major, it’s only us! The Doctor has put the enemy to flight!’

  They walked down the lane of trees towards the overturned staff car, and the Major rose from behind as they approached.

  ‘Well done, gentlemen! How did you do it?’

  Carstairs told him, and the Major roared with laughter.

  ‘A brilliant tactical use of deception and the element of surprise, Doctor! You are a born general. Even from here, it sounded as if help had arrived in force.’

  Suddenly they heard the click of a rifle bolt.

  They turned and saw that one of the ragged renegades had followed them from the woods. He was standing only a few yards away, his rifle at his shoulder. Clearly, he had realised how he had been tricked and had come to take his revenge.

  Carstairs and the Major raised their revolvers – but the rifle was already aimed and level, pointing directly at the Major.

  The renegade bared yellow broken teeth in a mocking grin.

  The crack of the two revolvers was joined by the deeper note of a rifle-shot… The renegade staggered and fell, his weapon firing harmlessly into the air.

  Cautiously, Carstairs and the Major went over to the body. It lay face down, with a spreading stain between the shoulders.

  ‘Shot in the back!’ said Carstairs wonderingly. ‘So it wasn’t either of us who did for him.’

  The Doctor came over to join them. ‘The shot was fired from the forest,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Whoever fired it saved my life,’ said the Major.

  The Doctor said, ‘It appears you have unknown friends, as well as unknown enemies, Major –’ he broke off. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t think I know your name…’

  ‘I’m afraid I find scant time for social formalities in the midst of battle,’ said the Major. ‘However, now that we have peace… permit me to introduce myself. My name is Churchill, Doctor. Major Winston Churchill.’