Doctor Who_ The Paradise of Death - Barry Letts [88]
Sarah looked at the wooden platter piled with choice pieces. What was the use of even trying? The first (and only) bit she’d put in her mouth had been chewed a thousand times and still wouldn’t go down. She’d bad to surreptitiously remove it and hide it in a clump of grass.
‘My belly’s almost full already. It’s super. Sort of melts as you chew it,’ said Jeremy. He leant over and spoke quietly. ‘Do try a bit, Sarah. You must eat, you know.’
She gave him as much of a smile as she could manage.
Poor old Jeremy. Everybody was always getting at him, but he wasn’t so bad really.
Suddenly she became aware of a distant noise which cut through the sounds of jollity – even through the piping of the wooden flutes and the rhythmic chants. A cold whiteness flooded her; her skin tightened. It couldn’t be, could it? ‘Listen!’ she said sharply.
The Doctor heard her and spoke quietly to Kaido, who stood up and held both hands in the air, calling for silence.
The chattering and laughter on the fringes went on, but enough villagers obeyed to make it possible to be certain, even though the squealing roar was still a way off.
‘The Gargan, by jiminy!’ said the Brigadier.
‘Even angrier – and hungrier,’ said the Doctor.
‘He’s after Waldo Rudley,’ said Onya with a glance at the Doctor.
‘He’s after us all,’ the Doctor said.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
‘You all went into his territory?’ Sarah heard again the anger – or was it concern? – in Onya’s voice.
‘We had no choice,’ replied the Doctor. He got up and walked away from the group; he was staring at the hill, so brightly lit by the twin Parakonian moons, down which the Gargan must come, as if he were trying to work out what it was going to do when it arrived.
Jeremy was also starting to move away, for quite another reason. ‘Well, come on,’ he said in a high-pitched voice,
‘what are we waiting for?’
This time Sarah, even as frightened as she was, did recognize the note in Onya’s voice. It was anger – but it was the anger of a mother with a toddler who had run into the traffic. It was no good running away, she reiterated, the Gargan would just follow their scent, just as it had done to find them now. Even when the Brigadier told her of his Big Idea, she dismissed it as useless. The creature was far too intelligent to be fooled by such an elementary trick.
‘We’ll just have to finish him off then,’ said the Brigadier.
‘No!’ said Kaido in a powerful voice.
‘If you want to save your lives, that’s the last thing to do,’ said Onya, grimly.
‘But we can’t just hang around waiting to be eaten,’
wailed Jeremy.
‘Got it!’ said the Doctor, turning back; and he demanded from each of them a piece of their clothing: a sock, a piece torn off a shirt, the scarf Sarah was wearing –
anything at all.
‘Of course!’ said Onya. ‘Well done, Doctor.’
‘Would you be so good as to get me a piece of Captain Rudley’s clothing, Onya?’ said the Doctor briskly, as he started wrapping a sizable lump of meat in the large handkerchief he’d taken from his pocket.
‘I’ll go,’ said Sarah, but Onya was already running towards the bridge. Nevertheless, she took off after her. As she ran over the water, she could hear the squeal of the Gargan, much, much closer. Suppose the Doctor’s idea didn’t work? How could she leave Waldo all by himself, unconscious and utterly defenceless?
As she reached the row of huts, Onya came out at a rush, clutching Waldo’s bloodstained shirt, and ran back across the bridge.
When Sarah got inside it was to see that though Waldo had moved – he was no longer lying so straight and his arms were outside the disarranged covers – his eyes were closed.
She sat down beside him and took his hand. ‘Waldo!’
she said. ‘Can you hear me?’
The Brigadier watched the Gargan coming down the hill, its nose to the ground (reminding him irresistibly of Mickey Mouse’s dog, Pluto), stopping every so often to thrust its snout into the air, opening its gargantuan mouth and once more threatening the world. Behind him he could hear the Kimonyans, crowded round their leader, joining in an incomprehensible