Doctor Who_ Bunker Soldiers - Martin Day [0]
MARTIN DAY
Published by BBC Worldwide Ltd,
Woodlands, 80 Wood Lane
London W12 0TT
First published 2001
Copyright © Martin Day 2001
The moral right of the author has been asserted Original series broadcast on the BBC
Format © BBC 1963
Doctor Who and TARDIS are trademarks of the BBC
ISBN 0 563 53819 8
Imaging by Black Sheep, copyright © BBC 2001
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Mackays of Chatham
Cover printed by Belmont Press Ltd, Northampton
Dedicated to Mum and Dad and Nan –
and everyone else who’s helped
Contents
Prologus - Separatio
Codex I - Cecidit de coelo stella magna
I - Tempestas ex oriens
II - Labyrinthus
III - In truitina mentis dubia fluctuant contraria
IV - Eripe me de inimicus meis
V - Confutatis meledictis, flammis acribus addictis
VI - Rosa rubicundior, lilio candidor, omnibus formosior,
semper in te glorior
VII - Mortus in anima
VIII - Lamenta
IX - Terra firma
X - Laqueus
XI - Libertas
XII - Sors immanis et inanis, rota tu volubilis, status malus
XIII - Dies irae, dies illa, solvet saeclum in favilla
XIV - Quid sum miser tunc dicturus, quem patronum rogaturus,
cum vix justus sit securus?
XV - In flagrante delicto
XVI - Somnus ex sanitas
XVII - Insania
XVIII - Via lata gradior
XIX - Pestilentia
Codex II - Est hic finis fabulae?
XX - Deus absconditus
XXI - Oblationes et holocausta
XXII - Lux aeterna luceat eis
XXIII - Bellum gerens in caelo
XXIV - Auditui meo dabis gaudium et laetitiam
XXV - Libera me de sanguinibus
XXVI - In extremis
XXVII - Deus ex machina
XXVIII - Angelus
XXIX - Orbis
XXX - Memento Mori
Epilogus - Sic itur ad astra
Afterword - [in English, thank goodness]
About the Author
Prologus
Separatio
Every day he asked the same question, and every day the answer was the same.
‘I would like to see my ship, if I may.’
‘Very well. I will arrange an escort.’
Sometimes I accompanied him. Sometimes I declined, for I could not bear the anguished look on his face, and I preferred my own company to his tortured introspection. Either way, the same procession of cloaked figures would make their way into the same expansive chamber, where the wind made the torches throw grotesque shadows on to the cold stone walls. And, in the centre, was the same blue box, the same ‘ship’, as the Doctor called it. Our escape route, our home – our TARDIS.
The last time I saw it, there was a fine patina of dust visible on the glass windows (or, rather, over that part of the exterior that resembled glass – few things about the Doctor’s ship are entirely as they appear). It was a stark reminder of the length of our enforced stay, of the impasse engineered by two polite but utterly intractable wills.
The Doctor would stand and stare, a faraway yet precisely focused look in his eyes. Were it not for his white hair, and the cane he occasionally lent on for support, he would perhaps have resembled a serious-minded student in an art gallery or a museum, where one exhibit unexpectedly takes the breath away and demands close attention. The fervour in his gaze was that of a religious missionary in a strange land, staring at the object of his remembered faith.
Seeing the ship brought him some comfort, a pinprick of light in the darkness, yet its very existence was enough to remind him of what he had lost, what he was separated from.
I came to realise that, to the Doctor, the TARDIS was more than a means of conveyance. How else could I explain the daily ritual, the contradictory look of pleasure and pain that gripped his angular features? Dodo and I, of course, wanted nothing more than to escape from this benighted city, to leave in the TARDIS and return to that which we had left behind. We had, together, hatched numerous plots and plans, ruses and subterfuges. All had failed. ‘Never let your enemy realise the true value of that which is important to you,’ the Doctor noted, and he was right. Our biggest mistake was in drawing our captors’
attention to the craft. Whether or not they believed it really could allow us to escape, they