Doctor Who_ The Paradise of Death - Barry Letts [85]
‘Waldo!’ said Sarah again. ‘It’s Sarah! Wake up! Please!’
But her only answer was the heavy, stertorous breathing of the desperately wounded.
If anything, the Brigadier found it more difficult to hurry downhill than he had coming up. It was lucky that, thanks to Haban Rance, he was at least more or less dressed for mountain climbing, instead of still being in the uniform he had thought appropriate to his visit to Space World – only yesterday, was it? Ridiculous. Talk about the relativity of time.
The Doctor seemed to have got a second wind of some kind. All very well for some. The man had two hearts, hadn’t he?
His internal grumbling was cut short as the two of them arrived at the base of the steep slope.
‘There’s the creature’s cave,’ said the Doctor, indicating it with a nod. ‘But there’s no sign of Sarah and Jeremy...
No! There they are!’
But even as the Brigadier looked over and saw the two youngsters, each with one of the wounded man’s arms around their shoulders, supporting him, dragging him, he heard what he had been dreading to hear: the bellow of the Gargan as it crashed through the trees towards its lair.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Sarah wasn’t immediately aware of the imminent arrival of the Gargan. The dead weight of Waldo – for he was still utterly unconscious – made it impossible that they would be able to drag him very far. But as she looked up at the Doctor’s shout and saw him and the Brigadier, heedless of crossing the boundary of the Gargan’s domain, running towards her, she also saw, a way behind them, the fearsome figure of the creature itself, whipping its great snout high in the air to utter a bellow of triumph as it sighted its prey.
‘I can’t hold him any longer!’ she gasped as the Doctor arrived.
‘We’ll take him,’ said the Doctor. But as he seized Waldo’s arm, the Gargan came forward at a run, its long neck outstretched, its great mouth agape.
‘Hold on,’ cried the Brigadier, pulling out the gun.
As the animal came nearer, it slowed down and stopped, its neck rearing up in the air and swaying like a snake-charmer’s cobra as if it were puzzled by the embarrassment of riches laid out before it.
There was nowhere to run to; behind them was the cliff wall and the mouth of the cave. The Brigadier was aiming two-handed at the creature’s head, his arms swaying as he tried to get it in the sights.
‘Wait!’ said the Doctor, ‘I’ve got a better idea’
To Sarah’s astonishment, he started to sing:
‘Klokleda partha mennin klatch,
Aroon, araan, aroon.
Klokleeda mertha teera natch,
Aroon, araan...’
For a moment, it seemed as if it were going to work.
The Gargan stopped swinging its head and looked straight at the Doctor. But then, with a roar louder and more menacing than any they had yet heard, it drew its head back with the evident intention of attack.
The Brigadier pulled the trigger.
Oh, what a fall was there! If the Brigadier hadn’t skipped out of the way like a ten-year-old, he would inevitably have been crushed. The great head slammed down with a thud which shook the ground; the body, larger than two elephants, quivered momentarily, then sank down as the forelegs collapsed, rolled massively on to its side and came to a shuddering halt.
The forest, which had fallen silent at the last great bellow, came back to chattering squawking life.
‘Now you’ve done it,’ said the Doctor.
Sarah sat down on a rock, her legs giving way under her.
‘Is it dead?’ she said faintly.
The Brigadier cautiously approached the huge body. ‘It doesn’t seem to be,’ he said. ‘Not yet, at any rate.’
With Jeremy’s help, the Doctor laid Waldo onto the ground. ‘Captain Rudley! Can you hear me? Captain Rudley?’
There was no reaction.
He made a quick examination of the wound. ‘His scapula must be shattered,’ he murmured to himself, ‘but at least there’s no bullet in there. With an exit wound like that...’ He looked up and spoke aloud. ‘He’s lost a great deal of blood,’ he said.
Jeremy was fidgeting backwards and forwards as if he were about to take off into the trees.