Doctor Who_ St. Anthony's Fire - Mark Gatiss [17]
‘Where was he found?’ he barked, pulling at the cloth with rubber‐sheathed claws.
‘Eastern section, sir. Near to the dirigible plain.’
Maconsa harrumphed, his gaze taking in the numerous weeping wounds on the boy’s hide with little interest. ‘Shrapnel, I suppose.’
The orderly said nothing. Maconsa looked up. ‘Well?’
‘I can’t say, sir. There were fragments of something all over him.’
‘Let me see.’
The orderly wheeled over a steel trolley. A variety of small, discoloured objects had been arranged on a square of dirty cloth. Maconsa looked at them carefully.
‘Stones?’
The orderly shrugged.
Maconsa picked up a pair of forceps and inserted them into the largest of the soldier’s wounds. There was a muffled scream from the prostrate boy.
‘Any more gas?’
The orderly shook his head. ‘We’re being restricted to emergencies only, sir, I’m afraid.’
‘Well, never mind, never mind.’
Maconsa bent down so he was level with the soldier’s fluttering eyelids. ‘Cheer up, son. We’ll have you out of here in no time.’
He dug the forceps deeper and the soldier moaned in pain.
Eventually, after a series of frustrated grunts, Maconsa drew out the forceps and held aloft a sharp, bloodied fragment of stone. It was difficult to make out much in the dim gaslight. Blood splashed from the stone to the table.
Maconsa placed the fragment on one side and set to work on the next wound. As he operated he looked up at the orderly. ‘Have there been any others like this?’
‘Yes, sir. I took some similar stuff out of two troops only yesterday.’
‘Survive?’
‘No, sir.’
Maconsa grunted and plucked another stone from the soldier’s hide. ‘If this one does, try and get him to remember how it happened.’
He frowned briefly and then threw the fragment onto the trolley where it landed with a loud clatter.
* * *
Dusky light bled slowly into the Doctor’s eyelids, revealing a letter‐box view of the Betrushian jungle. His sight suddenly blurred sickeningly as he was swung back and forth by reptilian arms in black cloth uniforms. A pattern of jungle and mud swam before his eyes. He was being carried upside‐down.
A sparkling golden light in the indigo sky seemed to be the first suggestion of the ring system creeping into luminescence but the Doctor was too aware of the terrible, dull pain in the back of his neck to care. Feeling his hair matting in the sticky black mud, the Doctor closed his eyes and sighed. Captured. Again.
He had some vague memory of reaching the TARDIS, finding Bernice gone, turning back to see where she’d got to, and then something heavy had come down onto his head and he had slid silently onto the marshy ground.
How long he’d been unconscious he couldn’t tell, but his wrists and shins has been expertly tied together and a long wooden pole slid through his bonds. The smell of sap from the newly felled wood was overpowering.
There was a large fire somewhere nearby which crackled and spat damply, as the reptiles crowded around, warming their necks and upper bodies in a curiously catlike fashion.
The Doctor opened his eyes fully, ignoring the pain in his head, and began to struggle against the ropes which bit into his flesh. Vainly, he tried to remember every muscle relaxation technique he had learned over the centuries, but his mind seemed fuzzy and unfocused.
He clamped his eyes shut as he felt himself being hoisted in the air and carried towards the fire. The downy hairs on his cheeks seemed to retreat into his skin as though afraid of the flames. There was a lurching movement and he was dumped onto the ground once more, mud splashing into his face.
There were soft footsteps in the undergrowth as someone else approached. The atmosphere changed palpably as the two reptiles standing over him stiffened to attention. Their boots creaked by the Doctor’s prone face. He looked up cautiously.
A creature with one eye and wearing a pristine black uniform had approached, his claws behind his back. The other soldiers fell silent. He leant down to examine the