Doctor Who_ Just War - Lance Parkin [95]
Mostly, though, the landscape was still made up of apple orchards and fields of hops. The trees were just coming into bud; the land was renewing itself after a harsh winter.
Every so often the train would slow down and come to a stop in a tiny village. The names of the stations had all been removed, presumably to confuse any Nazi train-spotters in the event of an invasion. All the towns looked the same anyway: pretty affairs with village greens, crammed full of brick houses with large gardens and tiny corner shops. There was an air of tranquillity here, something entirely missing from Guernsey, even though the two places looked superficially similar.
‘Excuse me, madam.’ An inspector leant over her, wanting to see her ticket. He used the form of address reserved for married women who ought to be at home looking after the children.
Trains were unofficially reserved for military use, and unnecessary civilian travel was frowned upon.
Benny reached into her pocket. ‘What time is it, please?’
she asked.
‘Nearly five o’clock, madam. Soon be there: we’re coming up to Orpington.’
She had stopped off in Canterbury, picked up money, a ration book and identity papers from the house at Allen Road.
While the building looked the same as it always did, perhaps a little less overgrown, it felt so different without anyone else there. She hadn’t wanted to stay, and knew that she had to get to London. She wrote a note and pinned it up on the noticeboard in the kitchen.
Dear Doctor (past or present) — It is now just before four o’clock on the afternoon of 6 March 1941. If it isn’t too much trouble, please come and rescue me.
(signed) Bernice Summerfield XXX.
PS: There’s no milk. Please bring some with you.
He hadn’t come. A quick search revealed that while one wardrobe in an otherwise bare room was full of fur coats —
real dead animal fur! — and mothballs, there was no clothing stored anywhere else in the house. She had found a pair of sunglasses, which covered up the bruising around her eyes.
A gold brooch and wide-buckled belt discovered in a shoebox full of electrical components softened the effect of her uniform blouse and skirt, and she’d bought a new pair of shoes in the town on the way back to the station. It had added about an hour to her travel time, but everything else was going to plan.
The inspector clipped her ticket, and handed the stub back to her. She tried to take it from him, but found it difficult to focus.
‘Are you all right, madam?’ He clearly thought she was drunk. If only.
The train began slowing down. Rather more disturbing, so did the inspector’s voice.
There was a flash on the sea beneath them.
‘Pull hard right!’ blurted the Doctor. Chris did as he said, the plane banking. Almost as he did so, an artillery shell hurled past them. A second or so later, its sound caught up with it.
‘German frigate.’ Chris saw it now. It was quite a small vessel, but it had brought at least three antiaircraft guns to bear. At this distance it looked like a model, surrounded by little puffs of smoke.
‘They’ve called in reinforcements,’ the Doctor noted quietly. He had been monitoring German radio transmissions.
‘What I want to know is, how they can see us?’
‘Transponder?’ Chris wondered.
‘Too early for that. It might be something similar, though.
Of course...’ The Doctor began looking around his instrument panel. ‘Have you got a screwdriver?’ he asked.
Chris hadn’t. The Doctor began picking at the panel with his fingernails. ‘There must be a test signal — if you think about it, that’s the only way that the Germans could track the plane during their air trials. You can’t clock the speed of a plane if you can’t see it or track it on radar. The radio signal has either been left on, or they can activate it remotely. This plane isn’t invisible if you know exactly where to look.’
The Doctor had prised off a piece of metal. He began tugging wires out and