Doctor Who_ Island of Death - Barry Letts [44]
You‟ll be finished. For good. Do you understand?‟
Hogben blinked at him blearily.
„Do you understand?!‟
Hogben smiled and licked his lips. „Get knotted,‟ he said.
The Brigadier nodded. He‟d expected some such reaction.
Right! In for a penny... Though of course he‟d lay odds that the man wouldn‟t remember a thing in the morning.
„Sorry about this,‟ he said, with a glance round. Good.
Nobody was looking his way.
Taking hold of the CO‟s collar, he hoisted him to his feet, and delivered the short jab uppercut that had won him the Public Schools Middleweight Cup in his last year at Fettes.
„Dear me,‟ he said loudly as Hogben‟s legs gave way, and the Cox‟n hastily averted his gaze. „He seems to have passed out.‟
„Are we going to die?‟
The Doctor didn‟t answer straight away. „It‟s possible,‟ he said.
Sarah thought she‟d long since come to terms with the knowledge that one day her life would inevitably come to an end. Like others who have had a near-death experience, she knew that there was nothing to fear. But she had taken it for granted that she‟d have something like another fifty or sixty years before she had to take the idea seriously.
Was she really going to end her life here, in the middle of the ocean?
As night fell, the waves had taken the hint and settled down. It was over an hour now since sunset. There was still a considerable swell, but at least they were cradled in a relatively gentle rhythm that was very different from being hurtled up and down twenty feet at a time.
At first, the darkness made their predicament seem all the more frightening. But then the moon, enormous on the horizon, showed her familiar face. It was impossible not to feel comforted.
„I didn‟t know there were so many stars!‟
The sky was now quite clear, the velvet depths of its black-ness studded with a myriad of jewels.
The Doctor looked up. „Yes, it‟s quite a sight, isn‟t it. But you know, you can only see a few thousand. You see the Milky Way?‟
Yes, there it was, the splash of light across the sky behind the stars. You could never see it properly in London, because of all the street lights.
„We‟re looking into the heart of our galaxy. Billions of stars, too far away to make out. And there are billions of galaxies in the universe. And for all we know billions of universes.‟
He paused for a moment.
„I wonder why we all think we‟re so important,‟ he said.
„Do you hear there? Do you hear there? Able Seaman Blackmore to the bridge. Able Seaman Blackmore. At the double.‟
Bob Simkins‟ voice echoed throughout the decks, the flats and the cabins.
By the time the Captain‟s steward had arrived and - with the signalman, Bert Rogers, to help - had carted the Commanding Officer back to his cabin, the First Lieutenant had given the order, and HMS Hallaton was back doing her uncertain dance towards the south-south-west.
By now it was almost completely dark.
„We have three searchlights,‟ said Pete to the Brigadier.
„We‟ll rig all three on the upper bridge, and have every spare man on lookout up there. You may care to join them. I shall have to stay with the ship. But I must be honest, sir. The likelihood of our finding them now is just about nil. The current and the waves have been carrying them away from us, so that we have to catch them up. There‟s no hope of accurately retracing our steps. And even if we did, we could pass them within twenty yards and not see them.‟
This was the last thing the Brigadier wanted to hear. Had he risked court martial for himself and Andrews for nothing?
No! If they weren‟t to try, the thought that Sarah and the Doctor were somewhere out there, and that this was their only hope, would be unbearable.
* * *
It was starting to get colder. Sarah‟s feet seemed to have disappeared, and the lack of feeling in her fingers made her grip on the Doctor‟s shirt more and more difficult to keep up.
„Doctor,‟