Doctor Who_ Daemons - Barry Letts [12]
Alastair was exasperated. 'Of course I am! Why shouldn't I be all right, for Pete's sake? Of all the stupid questions...'
Harry, well accustomed to the varied symptoms of pre-performance nerves, grinned amiably. 'Well, I only asked,' he said.
Fergus grunted and wandered off into the night, feverishly muttering to himself.
Harry moved on.
'Everything okay, Professor? Won't be long now.'
Professor Horner looked up from his mug. 'Any sign of that fool woman?'
'Not so far.'
'Well, keep her out of my hair. I tell you, lad, I'll do her a mischief.'
'I'll do my best,' replied Harry. 'Now, you've got everything straight? We start with the intro from Alastair, then I'll give you a cue to launch into your spiel.'
'Spiel?'
'You know, the chat bit. Momentous ocassion and all. And then comes the big moment...'
'Oh aye,' growled the Professor.
'If you could manage to break into the burial chamber just as the first stroke of midnight sounds on the church clock, that would be absolutely super.'
The Professor regarded Harry for a moment from under his heavy eyelids. 'Righto, lad,' he said, 'I'll do my best to be absolutely super.'
Harry laughed and said, perhaps half-seriously, 'Look, Professor, what if something does happen?'
'Like?'
'Like a personal appearance of you know who.'
The Professor smiled maliciously. 'Use your initiative, lad. Get your chatty friend over there to interview him.'
Bessie's speed was now considerably less. The road had quickly become a lane and by now was little more than a cart track.
'This can't be right,' said the Doctor, changing gear yet again.
'You saw the sign. Oops!' said Jo as the car went over a particularly deep pot-hole.
'Maybe the sign was wrong.'
'And maybe I didn't have the map upside down. Oh well, at least it's stopped raining.'
Bessie ground to a sticky halt.
'What now?' groaned Jo.
'At a glance,' responded the Doctor. 'We appear to be stuck in the mud. Have a look at that map, Jo, and see if you can see a ploughed field. We're apparently in the middle of one...!'
The camera crew were quietly hying bets on the the evening. Ted, on Number One Camera, was 'Hundred to one on nothing being there at all,' he said, looking up into his viewfinder, where Alastair Fergus could be seen, a charming smile glazed onto his face, waiting for his cue to start the programme.
Suddenly a shout from Harry, 'Right, quiet please! Lots of lovely hush. QU-I-ET!'
A moment of dead silence. Alastair glanced at his reflection the camera lens, licked a finger, and smoothed his eyebrows into a yet more perfect shape.
'Stand by,' went on Harry, listening hard to the instructions coming through his earphones. 'On the Studio announcement now...' He raised his hand.
Alastair Fergus licked his lips, watching from the corner of his eye. The hand dropped and he slid smoothly into action. 'Here, at the Devil's Hump, the excitement is intense. The stage is set. What shall we see when the curtain rises?'
The momentous broadcast had begun.
Tom Wilkins was feeling a lot better with a couple of pints inside him. He glanced at his watch. Better get down there. Already he was cutting it a bit fine. Trouble was, an exit now might be a bit obvious with the bar so quiet, watching the TV programme.
At that moment a diversion was provided. The door crashed open and in came a tall man with a shock of nearwhite hair and a cloak, followed by a girl.
'Sorry, sir,' said Bert, 'it's long after time.' After all, though everyone knew that old Percy Groom was safely out of harm's way up the Goat's Back, a licence was a licence, and this was a stranger, a foreigner.
'We don't want a drink,' said the Doctor. 'Will you please direct us to the Devil's Hump?'
'Where the dig is,' explained Jo.
'No need to go all the way up there,' said Bert. 'You can see it on the telly,' and he gestured to the set on the bar, where Alastair could be seen in full flow telling yet again the history of the Devil's Hump.
'It's extremely urgent,' said