Doctor Who_ Enlightenment - Barbara Clegg [5]
‘Where are we?’ Turlough wanted to know. ‘Planet Earth again?’
‘It looks like it,’ was the Doctor’s answer. ‘Edwardian England, judging by the uniform.’ His eye was momentarily distracted by the headlines: First British submarine launched, he read. ‘Yes – that would be about 1901, as far as I remember.’
Peering over the paper, Turlough realised that every man in the room, although pretending not to be interested, was in actual fact subjecting them to a covert examination.
He found it unnerving.
‘Why don’t they say something?’ he asked.
‘Sizing us up.’ The Doctor was unruffled. ‘A fo’c’s’le’s pretty cramped. It’s important to know what sort of men you’re going to be sharing it with. After all, we could be cooped up here together for months. If we were here for the trip, that is,’ he added, to Turlough’s great relief. He thought he had never seen a rougher collection than these sailors, with their unshaven faces and watchful eyes.
‘Shouldn’t we be getting back to the TARDIS?’ he suggested, trying not to sound too nervous. He was not reassured by the Doctor’s next reply. They were to stay until they found out why the White Guardian had sent them here. Worse was to come. The Doctor was murmuring something in a serious voice, something about preserving the peace and harmony of the Universe.
‘I hardly think that’s at stake, is it?’ Turlough whispered back, with what he hoped was squashing irony.
But when he looked round the faces of the crew again, he was not at all sure. They might not threaten the entire universe, but they certainly looked as though they could threaten Turlough’s particular bit of it, and that was all that mattered to him.
‘Just as well we didn’t bring Tegan with us,’ the Doctor reflected. ‘A woman below decks would have started a riot!’
A fo’c’s’le may not be a suitable place for a woman, but a hold is not very comfortable either, particularly when it is dark and there are rats. ‘And particularly when someone is following you,’ Tegan thought to herself. There was no sign of the young man who had fallen from the roof of the TARDIS, although she had shone her torch in every direction. The trouble was that every time she stopped walking and listened, the floorboards creaked behind her as though someone else had not quite stopped in time. She reached the pile of crates as the Doctor and Turlough had done and was shining her torch along, when out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of writing on one of them. Hungry for information, she swung her torch onto it. The word Striker leapt out at her in its beam. That was no help! Behind her, somewhere, the floorboards squeaked again.
‘Where are you?’ Tegan called out, goaded. Silence. She walked to the end of the line of boxes and stopped. Behind her, like an echo, were someone else’s footsteps. There was a clink of metal for a second. Quickly Tegan switched off her torch, slipped round the end of the crates and crouched behind one of them, holding her breath. Slithering, halting steps passed on the other side, paused, and then went on their way. Tegan stayed where she was, silent, crouched down in the gloom. There was a grating noise, and a dim shaft of light as the hatch was raised again. She could just make out feet disappearing up the ladder and then there was silence once more. Tegan waited another minute. Still nothing happened. With a sigh of relief, she switched on her torch, and was just about to get up when she caught sight of something that froze her to the spot. Next to her were a pair of feet in polished boots. Slowly she rose, shining her torch inch by inch up the figure standing there. The beam revealed well-pressed trousers, the brass button of an officer’s jacket, a wing collar, and then came to rest on a slightly averted face. It was the young man she had seen in the scanner. He was completely immobile: almost like a tailor’s dummy. Tegan was puzzled.
‘Hello –’ she quavered tentatively.
Immediately the officer took a quick step forward, trapping her with