Doctor Who_ The Sea-Devils - Malcolm Hulke [26]
‘Then send ships out to patrol the area,’ said the Doctor. ‘Somehow ships must be kept away, to avoid further sinkings.’
Suddenly Jo let out a little shriek from her place at the window. ‘Doctor! Quickly! Come here!’
The Doctor turned. ‘I know this discussion may be boring you, Jo—’
‘It’s the Master,’ she cut in, looking down at the concrete roadway below. ‘Please come and look.’
The Doctor leapt over to the window and looked where Jo had pointed. ‘Where is he?’
‘You’ve missed him. He turned that corner.’ Jo pointed now in the direction of the car-park, but from the window the car-park was not in sight.
From his desk Captain Hart asked: ‘Do you two mind telling me what you’re talking about?’
‘A very dangerous criminal,’ said the Doctor, ‘loose in your base. I suggest you order a full security alert.’
‘Doctor,’ said the captain, with as much authority as he could muster, ‘it is one thing when you tell me about intelligent reptiles destroying ships—’ As he spoke the ’phone rang, and Jane Blythe quietly took the call—‘but when you start blabbering about dangerous criminals roaming about in this base, I start to question whether I should ever have listened to you at all!’
‘Sir?’ said Jane, putting down the ‘phone.
Hart turned abruptly. ‘What is it?’
‘Chief Petty Officer Smedley, sir,’ she said, ‘... he’s been found knocked unconscious in the sonar supplies store.’
Trenchard drove his landrover slowly through the Naval Base towards the main gates. Before starting he had seen by the size and shape of the mounds of rugs and blankets in the back that the Master was already on board. Chief Petty Officer Beaver was still on duty at the gates, and opened them immediately he saw the familiar landrover. To Trenchard’s surprise, however, as the landrover neared the open gate C.P.O Beaver raised his hand for Trenchard to stop. He came round to the driving window,
‘Anything wrong?’ enquired Trenchard, trying to conceal the terror in his mind.
‘I think there may be, sir,’ said the Chief. He leant right inside the cabin, and looked at the mound of rugs and blankets. ‘Collecting for a jumble sale, sir?’
Trenchard tried to keep his nerve. He smiled, rather weakly. ‘No. Just a few odds and ends. Ought to clean out this old bus sometime.’ He licked his parched lips. ‘You say there may be something wrong, Chief Petty Officer?’
Beaver leant close to Trenchard’s ear. ‘The old chopper was out today, brought three people in from that there oil-rig. You know, the one where there’s been all the trouble with the machinery and that.’
Trenchard sighed with relief. Beaver was a well-known gossip. ‘Air-sea rescue, eh?’
The Chief nodded. ‘Of course, they don’t tell us anything. But one of the people they brought in was a girl. I didn’t know they had girls on them oil-rigs.’
Trenchard put on a little laugh. ‘Anything to keep the chaps out there happy, what?’
At this point alarm sirens started to wail from every corner of the base, and through his rear window Trenchard saw sailors wearing webbed gaiters falling in for emergency security stations, some of them with rifles.
C.P.O. Beaver, however, took no notice.
‘Well it’s funny goings on if you ask me,’ said the Chief.
‘Yes, very funny,’ said Trenchard, his foot poised on the accelerator to make a dash for it. ‘Those sirens,’ he asked, as if he did not know, ‘do they mean something?’
The Chief looked up at the siren wailing loudly on top of his gatehouse. ‘Emergency test of security, I suppose,’ he concluded. ‘Your pal Captain Hart likes to keep us on our toes. Anyway, you’d better be on your way, sir. By rights, the moment those sirens go I’m not supposed to let anyone ashore or on board.’ (He used the Naval terms for going out and coming in.) ‘So the sooner you’re gone, I can get these gates closed up.’
‘Right you are,’ said Trenchard. ‘Well, nice to have had a chat.’
Although desperate to get away at high speed, Trenchard