• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

The Brigadier and the UNIT soldiers were making slow progress on their way out of the caves. Every foot of the field telephone cable had to be wound back on to the drum, and this slowed them down.

'We couldn't just leave the cable, could we, sir?' asked Sergeant Hawkins.

'Government property,' said the Brigadier.

'But hanging about like this, sir,' Hawkins persisted. 'We could get trapped again by a roof-fall.'

'If we are trapped again,' said the Brigadier, 'that is something I could explain to my superiors. But if I lose one foot of that wretched telephone cable, there will be an investigation into the waste of public money.'

The two soldiers winding the cable back on to the drum worked as fast as they could, and the little group of UNIT men moved forward down the passageway. Then Sergeant Hawkins stopped, and pointed his torch on to the cave floor.

'Look, sir,' he said. 'I'm sure that wasn't here before.'

The Brigadier looked down at a perfect footprint of one of the reptile fighting animals. He felt very worried about the sight of it.

'We may have to forget that wretched telephone cable after all,' he told the Sergeant.

Even as the Brigadier spoke, his words were drowned by the roar of the fighting animal which had appeared a couple of hundred feet down the passageway. Its mouth had huge pointed teeth, bared now as it advanced towards the soldiers. To the animal, these humans were food.

'Shoot for the head!' shouted the Brigadier, himself taking cover behind an outcrop of rock. All the soldiers dived for the sides of the passageway. 'Fire now!'

The soldiers opened up with a rain of bullets at the monster.

The Brigadier could see bullet holes appearing in the monster's thick scaly hide, but even so the monster continued towards the soldiers, roaring and baring its long pointed teeth.

'We need explosive bullets for this,' said Hawkins, as he fired round after round at the oncoming monster.

The Brigadier saw one of the soldiers reach for a hand grenade to throw. 'No grenades,' he shouted. 'You fool —you'll bring the roof down on top of us!'

All at once the monster stopped in its advance. 'Hold your fire,'

called the Brigadier. 'And put out the torches.' They all snapped off their torches. There was total darkness. Through the darkness came the heavy breathing of the monster. 'The torches were attracting it,'

said the Brigadier, just loud enough for everyone in the confined space to hear.

'But we can't see how close it is now, sir,' said Sergeant Hawkins. 'It's got the advantage.'

'We can listen,' said the Brigadier.

The heavy breathing continued. Then they heard the monster move its feet. 'I think it's going away,' said the Brigadier. 'Keep those torches turned off until we can't hear it.'

The men waited, hardly daring to move. Eventually there was no sound of the monster. The Brigadier switched on his torch. The passageway ahead was empty. He straightened up. 'Torches on,' he said, and the other men switched on their torches. 'Now let's get out of these caves as quickly as we can.'

'What about the cable, sir?' said Sergeant Hawkins.

'That's right,' said the Brigadier, 'what about it?' He grinned at the Sergeant. 'For once, let's forget about government property and look after our own necks!'

The Brigadier and the soldiers ran as fast as they could down the passageway towards freedom.

Major Barker found himself lying on his back on the floor of the great cathedral-like cave. Daylight filtered in from the opening up near the roof of the cave. He sat up and tried to remember what had happened. Everything was rather confused. He could remember the man-trap that caught him by the ankles, and those horrible reptile faces advancing on him. Then he was a prisoner for some time, held in a cage like an animal. There was another prisoner, that Doctor fellow, but one of the reptiles took him away.

Now his memory started to come back. The Doctor had been a traitor, and had wanted to help these lizards.

Perhaps they had taken the Doctor away to kill him. No decent person liked traitors.