Doctor Who_ Just War - Lance Parkin [17]
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Benny went straight home. She had to dodge only one Nazi patrol on the way back to St Peter Port, an armoured personnel carrier that had been heading for the crash site.
Air-raid sirens were blaring, and carefully orchestrated drills were being performed. Every dog on the island seemed to be barking. Everyone on the island would have been awoken by the explosion, fearing that it was an air-raid. The only planes flying overhead were German, though, heading for England.
Benny clambered over the high garden wall of the guest-house, and let herself in through the unlocked back door.
Home security was lax in the 1940s and burglary was hardly a major problem on a Nazi-occupied island. She’d found that she could come and go almost as she pleased. She quickly secured the blackout curtain behind her and went straight to her room.
Once she had bolted her door, Benny moved over to the dresser. She fished what looked like a radio out from the hidden compartment. A couple of months ago, the Germans had confiscated all the radios they had found. She might have guessed that listening to German military transmissions was not allowed, but it was a criminal offence just to listen to the BBC, although most people still did it. If the Germans had discovered Benny’s radio, though, they would be preoccupied with how technically advanced it was. The Germans led the world in magnetic tape-recording, yet they were years from producing anything so compact. A German scientist would find it almost impossible to explain even in the broadest terms how the radio receiver or the tuning mechanism worked and would have a few questions to ask her. How could such a high-quality speaker be manufactured? Where was the battery? Benny often took the Spatio-Temporal Alarm Beacon on her field-trips: it was her link with the Doctor and it allowed her to monitor local transmissions. She looped the headphone over her ear and flicked it on. The BBC World Service came up with the usual blend of made-up and heavily censored stories, concentrating on the one battle the British had won, making no mention of the twenty they had lost. The war sounded so much more heroic on the radio than in real life. She flipped open a small panel on the side and punched in a code number. A second later the ‘message sent’ LED lit. Benny glanced at the LCD clock on the side: 00:52.
It was late, and she was exhausted. It had been a long day — technically it was already tomorrow. Rationing was so tight now that most islanders couldn’t summon up the energy to walk very far, and Benny had just made a five-mile round trip. She unbuttoned the dress and shrugged it off before towelling herself down. She slipped into bed and was asleep within minutes.
Outside a man was walking up the sandy beach, straight from the sea. No one saw him arrive, and so no one saw that as he strolled up the beach he left no footprints in the sand.
For the first time in months, Benny slept through the return of the German bombers. She woke as the door handle jerked downwards. She was instantly alert, reaching under her pillow. With her other hand she grasped the mattress, without really knowing why. They always came when your guard was down.
The door opened. She had bolted it.
She tensed. To have come so far... It was a friend, it was her only real friend. He raised his hat, closing and bolting the door behind him with his free hand.
‘Good morning, Miss Doras. That is your name, isn’t it?
How are you?’
Benny relaxed again, sinking back into the sheets. She smiled too, her first real smile for far too long. It was good to see him again, to hear his voice.
‘Mustn’t grumble.’
She saw the Doctor’s eyes flicker with pride.
‘Sorry I took so long, but I had to stop off on the way for your milk, and I took a bit of a wrong turning. Anyway, I thought you could do with a good night’s sleep after all you’ve been through.’ He handed her a plastic bottle of semi-skimmed milk, a litre not a pint. The use-by date was