Doctor Who_ Last of the Gaderene - Mark Gatiss [79]
‘Fisher! Dodds! Get upstairs. I want your rifles trained on the attackers.’
He looked worriedly at the Doctor. ‘We may have no choice, Doctor.’
The Doctor nodded. ‘We’ll see.’
He raised the first of the milk bottles into the air as Jo and Noah appeared in the doorway. ‘Are you ready?’ he cried.
‘For what?’ asked Jo.
The Doctor looked affronted. ‘Chuck ’em, of course!’
He hurled his bottle in a wide arc and it smashed in front of Ted Bishop. It was immediately followed by two more.
Almost at once the heavy, sickly-sweet smell grew stronger.
Ted Bishop staggered slightly and then something extraordinary happened. He began to laugh. A strange, high giggle rolled out from his distended face, building to an almost hysterical pitch. Then, just as suddenly, his dark eyes rolled over white and he fell to the ground, unconscious.
The Doctor’s eyes, the only part of his face visible beneath his wet handkerchief mask, sparkled with triumph.
‘Doctor –’ began Jo.
‘Don’t just stand there!’ cried the Doctor. ‘Throw!’
He grabbed the bottles from Jo’s hands and threw them into the crowd of villagers. One after another they stumbled and fell, convulsed by hysterical, frightening laughter.
Noah hurled his bottles at his uncle’s feet. The glass shattered into shards and Max Bishop fell to the roadside, arms flailing. In seconds, he had blacked out.
‘Doctor...’ gasped Jo. ‘What... what’s going on?’
The Doctor watched the chaos with satisfaction. ‘Nitrous oxide, Jo,’ he said above the chorus of insane giggling coming from close by. ‘I isolated the nitrates in the fertiliser and heated it with the iron filings. Now we know it works, we need to produce as much as we can.’
He grinned as Jo suddenly fell down flat on her backside, giggling. ‘Nitrous...’ she gasped.
‘Oxide,’ said the Doctor. ‘Of course, there are lots of impurities in it, the way I knocked it up. Causes some side effects. You probably know it better as laughing gas.’
He helped her to her feet and pushed her back inside.
‘You two had better stay in there. We don’t want you affected too.’
The Doctor shut the door firmly behind him as he re-entered the cottage. He raced up the stairs towards Benton.
‘All right, Sergeant. That should keep them unconscious for a while. We’ve done all we can here. I think it’s time we helped the Brigadier out.’
None of them noticed that Noah Bishop had slipped outside and was running towards the unconscious body of his father.
Whistler pulled against the ropes that bound him to the chair.
He cursed and tugged again, the harsh fabric cutting into his wrists. He had let himself down. Badly. That Master fella had bamboozled him into revealing his secret. Though quite what they wanted with his good-luck charm, he couldn’t begin to tell. The point was he had failed as an officer and a gentleman.
And now it was up to him to make amends. The first thing to do was get the hell out of the aerodrome.
The ropes were refusing to budge. Whistler struggled to his feet and lifted the chair bodily. Just across the room, the crescent shape of Bliss’s desk still glowed with light.
He shuffled closer to the desk, his gaze flicking over it for any sign of something useful. In turning itself over, the crescent of the desk had exposed what appeared to be quite a sharp metal surface. The old man made straight for it, grunting with effort as he carried the bulky chair behind him.
He banged against the desk and swore as he cracked his wrist against it. Then he manoeuvred himself so that the ropes which bound him were flush with the sharp edge of the half moon and began to rub them swiftly against it.
With agonising slowness, the fibres of the rope began to unravel.
Whistler bit his lower lip. Sweat dripped from his forehead at the combined effort of keeping the chair off the ground and leaning against the desk. Just as he felt one hand coming free, the door opened and Captain McGarrigle stood there,