Doctor Who_ The Forgotten Army - Brian Minchin [10]
The Doctor motioned for her to keep quiet, then made a complicated set of hand signals that left her baffled.
Are you trying to tell me that it'll follow our sounds?' she whispered.
Instantly, the mammoth was on to them, raising its big eyes to gaze at them perched on the window ledge.
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DOCTOR WHO
The Doctor nodded, then realised there was no point being quiet now. 'They can't see that well, all that hair in their eyes -
but just look at those ears!'
'How big do you think it is?'
'I'd say four metres high, probably weighs about ten tonnes, need to eat a lot to keep up that kind of energy.' He noticed Amy's reaction. 'I didn't mean to say the wrong thing about eating. They don't eat humans, far as I know, not that I've met one before, I'll just stop now, OK?'
Looking decidedly angry, and smashing a path through the seats, the mammoth was heading straight for their vantage point. Amy felt very exposed. They were in the centre of the mammoth's path, high and dry, with no way of escape.
Acting tough in the face of danger, Amy went on. 'A little beastie like that? You've fought off worse. In fact, I've fought off meaner-looking things in Leadworth. If the caveman can get rid of it, then surely we can?'
The Doctor looked straight at Amy Pond. He was half proud of her and half scared. Amy was confident beyond her abilities, ready to leap into any situation whatever it meant, and full of absolute trust in him.
'You are brilliant, Amy Pond,' he said, 'but there's a thing. A very important thing. A thing that's been troubling me for the last five minutes. This mammoth has survived two ice ages, the Stone Age, the Bronze
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THE FORGOTTEN ARMY
Age, the Iron Age, the nuclear age. So how has it managed that when almost nothing else has? Maybe it's because it's the most vicious mammoth in all of creation, so bloodthirsty it survived.
Or maybe it's because it's so wise and peaceful no one has ever wanted to harm it, and it has been kept safe and protected for thousands and thousands of years. Or, and I'm not making a speech this long again, especially halfway up a marble column, or - it's not a mammoth at all. Which leads me to think it's drawing the attention of the world to it, so maybe it's just a mistake? Or, or, or it could be a diversion and, while I'm here, Washington is being turned into a spa town for insect creatures.
Either way, we need to stop it before anyone else does...'
'Sshhh!' Amy was calm and focused.
The mighty mammoth was almost directly below them now.
She could hear its every breath and pant. Something in it was rumbling and growling, a noise so deep and so primal it would have stilled the assault of any predator.
The Doctor continued regardless. 'Whatever it is, it's trapped in a museum with five hundred innocent people, and we can't allow it to reach them. We need to get it out the door, where your new admirers can tranquillise—'
Amy interrupted him again. 'Before you do that, Doctor, would you mind telling me why it's safer up here?'
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The Doctor looked at Amy as if she was crackers. 'Safer?
It's not safer up here. We came up here to make it easier to get onto it.'
Amy was filled with horror. 'Onto it? Are you mental? I thought we were staying out of its way.'
The Doctor was calm and pragmatic. 'No, it would be far safer down there, here we're on its level.'
Only metres away from them, the mammoth raised its head, and its huge eyes looked right at them, its brutal tusks almost touching their legs.
Why did doing what the Doctor said ever seem like a good idea, Amy wondered. 'You know Doctor,' she said,
'I've never taken orders from a bloke before.'
The Doctor smiled. 'Ah, but then again, you never got to do this!' With a yell of: 'Geronimo!' he swung Amy off the window ledge, and the two of them landed straight on the back of the mammoth.
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Chapter
4
Digging his hands into the mammoth's thick white coat, the Doctor leant over and yelled in Amy's ear, 'Hang on! It's going to be