Doctor Who_ The Green Death - Malcolm Hulke [0]
AND THE GREEN DEATH
By MALCOLM HULKE
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Based on the BBC television serial Doctor Who and the Green Death by Robert Sloman by arrangement with the British Broadcasting Corporation
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1 ‘Wealth in Our Time!’
In his forty years as a coal miner Ted Hughes had never seen anything like it. He stood in one of the deserted mine’s main galleries, not believing his eyes...
Llanfairfach Colliery, in a mountainous part of Wales, had been closed for some time. No one in the village saw the sense of this—particularly the miners who had spent their lives hewing coal from the pit. There was still ample coal down there, enough for another hundred years of mining. But government economists in London had ‘proved’ it was better business to buy oil overseas than to mine coal here in Britain. So, Llanfairfaeh’s coal mine had been closed and its miners put out of work. But just in case it should ever be needed again, a handful of older miners were kept on to make monthly inspections. Today it had been Ted Hughes’s turn to put on the traditional helmet with its miner’s lamp, and to descend alone the 500 yards into the mine...
The inspection followed a set pattern. He walked along one gallery after another, checking the props that held up the roof, checking water levels where water seeped in, pausing from time to time to listen. Sometimes he would hear a faint creaking sound—the mine talking, as he and his mates called it. If the sound was soft and gentle, like a woman murmuring in sleep, the mine was safe. But if the sound was ever harsh and sharp, it warned of danger, and the possibility of a gallery roof collapsing. In his forty years as a miner, Ted had known four major roof collapses; men had been crushed to death or left trapped to die of suffocation. And the minor accidents—chunks of rock falling from the roof, breaking an arm or leg, injuries which left a man crippled for life—were too numerous to remember.
After two hours of walking the galleries and checking the props, Ted sat down for a ten-minute break. He had a thermos flask of tea and some cheese sandwiches that his wife had made for him. As he pourecl himself some tea the old sadness came over him. He looked up and down the section of gallery where he was sitting, thinking back on the old times when the mine had been worked and was full of his friends. There was no one to talk to now. Economists in London had made a calculation, and the friendly world of Ted Hughes had been brought to an end.
He finished his sandwiches and was just about to start on the next part of the inspection when he noticed the green phosphorescent glow. It was coming from the far end of the gallery.
There is no natural light in a mine. The only light is artificial, and comes either from bulbs along the galleries or the lamps on the helmets of the miners. Ted’s first reaction, therefore, was that he was no longer alone.
‘Hello,’ he called, ‘who’s down there?’
Pleased at the prospect of human company, he walked down the gallery towards the green glow. Then it struck him as odd that anyone should bring a green light into a coal mine.
‘Hello?’ he called again, pausing this time. ‘Who’s down there?’
Again no answer, but this time a faint bubbling sound. Ted hurried forward. He still could not see the source of the light. It was apparently round a corner of the gallery, and he was eager to know what caused it. If anyone had been given permission to come down into the mine, Ted should have been told. But he couldn’t think of a reason why anyone would want to.
Finally Ted reached the corner of the gallery, and then he saw it. Green glowing sludge was pouring in from a crack in the roof, cascading down a wall and forming a pool on the floor. The pool of sludge was already two or three inches thick in some places, and it bubbled as though alive.
Ted moved forward cautiously. Instinctively he wanted to touch it, but common sense told him to keep his distance. He backed away. Then, as he turned to go, a crack appeared in the ceiling above him. He looked up in time to see green