Doctor Who_ The Devil Goblins From Neptune - Keith Topping [78]
'We've got them worried now, sir,' said Sergeant Hutton, a tough Yorkshireman who had served with the Brigadier in the Scots Guards. 'They don't know whether to ram us or shoot us!'
The Brigadier laughed as much as the rest of the men. It was just what the situation needed, having the whole thing brought down to earth. 'How's the wife, Harry?' he asked, kneeling beside the man and checking his Browning.
'Just fine, sir,' said Hutton as he aimed another shot at the leading APC. 'Damn.' he said, as the shot pulled to the right. 'The driver's that German git from relief watch. I owe him one.' He looked at Lethbridge-Stewart with a gleam in his eye. lust like old times, eh?' he said.
For a moment there was nothing that the Brigadier could say. He had, almost certainly, condemned these men to at best dishonourable discharge and at worst traitors' graves.
'Who's got the radio?' he asked, and was told that young Laverre was the man in charge. 'Can you raise HQ?' he asked.
'Yes, sir,' said the terrified youth.
'Right. Get me somebody, anybody, who outranks Hayes.
And a bit sharpish,' He turned back to Hutton with a wry grin.
'Aden was never like this, was it?'
'No, sir,' replied Hutton. 'You saved my life there, sir. You and Johnny Benton and that coloured lad we used to have with us, remember?'
The Brigadier fired another shot at Hayes's car, but it missed, the lorry rounding another sharp corner. 'Yes, Harry.
You've never let me forget it.'
'What was that lad's name?'
'Hartfield,' said the Brigadier.
'Aye, that was him. Jacob Hartfield. Jamaican, wasn't he? Quiet lad. I remember Johnny Benton and some of the others getting him drunk in Al Mukalla and trying to have him tattooed. He fought like a lion that night, I can tell you!'
Lethbridge-Stewart heard someone calling for him and turned to find Laverre holding out the radio handset towards him.
I've reached someone, sir. Called him out of a meeting.'
'Good man,' said the Brigadier. He grabbed the handset.
The risk, of course, was that the officer was also tainted by the conspiracy.
But it was their only hope. 'Sorry to interrupt you, sir -'
Suddenly the lorry swerved violently to the left, lurching out of control.
'They've hit the tyres!' cried Houghton as the lorry pitched over on to its side.
FIFTH INTERLUDE:
THE FOUR SYMBOLS OF THE SAUCER PEOPLE
They had camped on the ridge of Knighton Down, with Salisbury Plain sprawled out before them. At sunset the previous night they had knelt and prayed to Jesus-from-Venus to come in a halo of light and groove with them. Big Tye from Glastonbury had even produced a battered old Philips tape recorder and stuck on his cherished fourth-generation copy of Cosmic Sounds' 'The Zodiac' to usher in the second coming of the age of Aquarius, or Scorpio, or something.
Nothing happened, other than that the sun died awesomely on the far horizon over Stonehenge, and Mad Paula, who'd been on a concentrated diet of cheap blotter-acid and Tizer in the van ever since they'd left the south coast, had experienced a divine visitation or (more likely) a bad trip.
It was four days to the summer solstice, and in Wiltshire that meant pilgrimage time. Just like Chaucer's ragamuffin army of everymen, so the Venus People found themselves with strange bedfellows. There was the Wicca crowd (mostly a bunch of reformed football hooligans from the North who said they were into peace, but were really looking for love).
Then there were the itinerant Christian mystics, who were pleasant enough, but seemed absorbed in their own private trip. And the Anarchists kept themselves to themselves, seemingly incapable of trusting anyone outside their group.
And there were others. Thousands of lost individuals, seeking kindred spirits, all gathering around the outskirts of the plain. Waiting.
One of the Venus People had become tired of 'The Zodiac', so