Doctor Who_ Daemons - Barry Letts [11]
Yates hastily turned his attention back to the puzzle. The thought of the burly sergeant in white tie and tails doing an intricate twinkle-toe quickstep was nearly too much for him.
'She's been sewing those blooming sequins on her dress for over three months. Three thousand, four hundred and seventy-two of them.'
The door opened and Benton leaped to his feet.
'At ease, Sergeant,' said Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart, strolling in immaculate in full regimental Highland Dress. 'Everything in order, Captain Yates?'
Yates was also standing. 'Yes sir. No problems.'
'Right then, I'm off to this wretched dinner.'
' Reunion , is it, sir?'
'In a way. All the old codgers crawling back out of the woodwork and filling their bellies at the regiment's expense. A bore.'
'Good food though, sir?'
'Mm. Regiment rather prides itself on setting a good table...'
'Dancing, I suppose, sir,' said Benton .
'Heaven help us, yes,' replied the Brigadier. 'The wives expect it. Well, you know where to reach me if anything crops up.' The Brigadier turned and left. The unaccustomed aroma of an expensive after-shave lotion lingered in the air.
Mike Yates picked up his paper and sighed.
'All right for some, isn't it, sir?' grumbled Benton . 'The Brigadier tripping the light fantastic with the Colonel's lady. Doctor and Miss Grant swanning down to the country, and here we are, stuck with the telly and a plate of corned beef sandwiches...'
Can't we have the hood up?' asked Jo Giant, shrinking into her anorak for protection against the drizzle.
'It's only a shower,' replied the Doctor. 'It'll stop in a minute.'
Jo huddled gloomily down into her seat. Bessie was definitely a fair weather car. 'Just think, Mike and Sergeant Benton are all cosy and warm in the Duty Office. Probbly having a cup of coffee—and a sandwich.'
The Doctor ignored the hint.
'I never thought it would take so long,' she went on.
'We should be nearly there,' rejoined the Doctor skilfully zig-zagging through a series of double bends at a speed which would have put any ordinary car into the ditch.
Jo switched on a minute torch and peered at the swaying map. 'We'll be coming to a crossroads soon and that's the turn to the village. I should slow down a bit, if I were you, Doctor.'
'No time to be lost,' he retorted, as Bessie hurtled round another bend in the road, with Jo hanging on for all she was worth, and inwardly congratulating herself for having put on her safety-belt.
About half a mile ahead lay the crossroads. On a grassy island in the middle stood a signpost. 'Devil's End' it announced, pointing dumbly to the right. The sound of the Doctor's approach disturbed the tranquillity of the twilight.
Suddenly there was a fierce gust of wind, a wind as uncanny as the one which had assaulted P.C. Groom's placid mind. It was almost as odd in its effect, too. The signpost shivered, almost as if it had begun to come alive, and slowly turned, until its lone finger was pointing in diametrically the opposite direction. Its purpose apparently achieved, the wind died, just as Bessie came into view.
'There it is,' cried Jo. The Doctor abruptly slowed down. 'To the left. That's funny. Looks on the map as if to go to the right.'
'You probably had the map upside down,' said the Doctor, swinging the wheel and shooting the car up the side road.
'Cheek,' said Jo and disappeared inside her anorak hood.
'Here, at the Devil's Hump, the stage is set... no, no... here at the dig, the tension is intense. No, no, no. Can't say “the tension is intense”... sounds dreadful.'
Alastair Fergus, systematically chewing the nail of his left middle finger down to the quick, was pacing up and down the springy turf outside the entrance to the barrow rehearsing his opening remarks in a low and agitated mutter. Some little way away, Professor Horner watched him cynically while noisily sipping tea from a large enamel mug.
'Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, here we are again...! Huh! Sounds like a circus...'
Harry, doing the rounds, checking on the cameras, the lights and the hundred and one other