Doctor Who_ The Sea-Devils - Malcolm Hulke [11]
‘I hope so,’ said the Master, pouring himself a small whisky from the concealed drinks cabinet in his room, and not offering any to Trenchard.
‘That hypnotism wheeze really took them in,’ Trenchard went on. ‘Remember, I was watching them while they were watching you.’
‘Let’s hope you’re right.’ The Master raised his glass to Trenchard. ‘Cheers. Now, do you really think he came here to see me?’
Trenchard was puzzled. ‘Why else would he come?’
The Master tried to restrain his impatience with Trenchard. He regarded the prison governor as a fool, but had to be careful not to show it. ‘The sinking ships, of course.’
‘Oh, that,’ said Trenchard, as though the recent deaths of a great many mariners was of no importance. ‘He didn’t seem particularly interested.’
The Master studied Trenchard, forcing himself to hide his low regard for the man’s intelligence. ‘What do you mean, “he didn’t seem particularly interested”? Did he talk about it?’
‘He didn’t,’ said Trenchard. ‘But I did just mention it.’
‘You did what?’
Trenchard laughed foolishly. ‘Just to make conversation. No harm done.’
If any harm had been done, there was nothing the Master could do to stop it now. So curbing his anger, he tried to put a good face on it. ‘I suppose not,’ he said, finishing his whisky. ‘When am I going to get these Admiralty charts?’
Trenchard felt on safe ground again, and looked relieved. ‘They will be here this afternoon—absolutely for certain.’
‘Splendid,’ said the Master. ‘Time may not be on our side.’
‘I fully recognise the urgency of the situation,’ said Trenchard. ‘You’ve convinced me of that. Now if you’ll excuse me, I really must hurry along.’
‘I quite understand,’ said the Master. He put down his glass and returned to his rowing machine. As Trenchard was leaving, he looked up and said, ‘By the way, Trenchard, do congratulate Prison officer Wilson on his excellent performance during our little charade.’
‘I already have done,’ said Trenchard. ‘As a matter of fact, he confesses that you did in fact nearly hypnotise him. That would have been a laugh, what?!’
‘A big laugh,’ agreed the Master.
Trench ard hurried out and the door was closed. The Master thought for a moment and then smiled... Then he applied himself with vigour to his rowing exercise. For what he planned to do, he had to keep in first-rate physical condition.
* SEE DOCTOR WHO AND THE DAEMONS
3 The Vanished Ships
‘All three ships,’ said Mr. Robbins, the boatman, ‘they just vanished, like they never was there in the first place.’
The Doctor and Robbins were seated in the quayside cafe having a cup of tea while Jo was away looking for picture postcards.
‘I’m afraid that a lot of ships “just vanish”,’ said the Doctor. ‘On average seven ships vanish without trace somewhere in the world every year—they leave a port, and are never seen again.’
‘I don’t know about any of them,’ said Robbins, totally unimpressed by the statistic of marine losses. ‘But I do know about these three.’
‘Then why didn’t I?’ said the Doctor thoughtfully.
Robbins was confused. ‘Eh?’
‘Why didn’t I, and millions of other newspaper readers, know about them,’ said the Doctor.
Robbins at last got the point. ‘It’s all been hushed up, see?’
‘Why did they go down?’
‘That’s the mystery, isn’t it?’ said Robbins. ‘It was only the most recent that even sent a radio-message asking for help.’
‘Did they say why they were sinking?’
Robbins scratched his head. ‘It’s all garbled gossip what exactly they said, only I did hear they were screaming out “Bottom of ship ripped out—men pulled into the sea”. It sounded a lot of nonsense to me and the rest of the lifeboat men.’
The Doctor looked across the teacups at Robbins with renewed interest. ‘You are a lifeboat man?’
‘That’s right,’ said Robbins. ‘Almost every able-bodied man on this little island is in the lifeboat.’ He continued, ‘We went out, of course, but that ship had gone down so fast there wasn’t nothing of it left. Except for the lifeboat.’
Now the Doctor was confused. ‘Your lifeboat?’
‘No,’ said Robbins, ‘one of