Doctor Who_ The Awakening - Eric Pringle [27]
Jane let out the breath she had been holding ever since Sir George appeared, and relaxed enough to look curiously at the dirty, queerly-dressed youth who was ducked down beside her. For his part, Will was staring open-mouthed after the running men. He was disturbed and excited by their clothing. ‘Them be troopers!’ he cried.
The Doctor regretted having to disillusion him. ‘No, Will,’ he said softly. ‘Those are just twentieth-century men, playing a particularly nasty game.’
The small, square box-room high up in Ben Wolsey’s farmhouse was bare of furnishings, except for a single chair which stood like a sentinel in the middle of the rough, hoarded floor. Light glared in through an uncurtained window.
Willow pushed Tegan into this featureless prison so violently that she staggered clear across the room to the window. He stormed in after her, carrying a green and white, old-fashioned dress over his arm.
‘Change into that,’ he growled, and threw the dress over the chair.
Tegan turned round and faced him squarely. She was fed up with being pushed around, and her face expressed her anger. But it showed fear, too, because there was something extremely nasty about Willow, a viciousness which showed itself especially strongly when he was dealing with people weaker than himself. He had all the hallmarks of an out and out bully.
‘Why?’ Tegan demanded. She looked at the dress with distaste, hoping to talk him out of it, but Willow was in no mood for a discussion. He marched back to the door. ‘Just do as you’re told,’ he snarled. ‘Unless...’ he paused in the doorway and leered at her: – ‘you want me to do it for you?’
Leaving that possibility hanging like a threat in the still air of the room, he went out and locked the door.
Attempting to escape, Tegan realised, was a non-starter: one glance out of the window at the distance to the ground was enough to convince her that the only way she was going to get out of here was when Willow decided to let her out. He would only do that if she put on this ridiculous garment.
Eventually she picked it up, unwillingly and without enthusiasm. She looked at it and felt a little surge of fear, as she wondered what the point of it could be, and what role she was being commanded to play in this dangerous charade.
Far below Tegan, in the dark passage underneath the farmhouse’s foundations, the Doctor, Will and Jane Hampden had just considered it safe to emerge from their hiding place under the staircase when they heard the footsteps corning back and had to dive out of sight again.
The troopers emerged from the tunnel at a trot, shielding the flickering candles with their hands. Sir George was close behind them. He was annoyed and impatient and, as always when he was agitated, he gripped the black spongy ball and worked it ceaselessly with his fingers. He was a man of volatile disposition, always easily aroused, but Jane had never seen him as disturbed as he was now. The agitation which convulsed his mind also racked his body and made his movements seem disjointed, so that he turned this way and that like a puppet.
‘She won’t get far,’ he said as he entered the chamber,
‘the village is sealed.’ He turned to one of the troopers. ‘Get me Sergeant Willow,’ he ordered. ‘I must see how the preparations are going.’ Then he spun round on his heel and snapped at the other man, ‘And see that my horse is brought round immediately.’
He was like a man whose nerves were quickly being drawn to their ultimate tension. Without warming he jerked round again and with a wild look in his eyes raced up the stairs and out of sight, with the worried troopers breathing hard at his heels.
In their hiding place under the stairs Jane listened to the departing footsteps and breathed another sigh of relief.
Yet she still could not believe they were going to get away with this. Leaning close to the Doctor she whispered, ‘It’s not like Sir George to give up so easily.’
‘Be grateful,’ the Doctor replied. He