Doctor Who_ The Sea-Devils - Malcolm Hulke [35]
Crawley patted his shotgun. ‘The governor says she’s got to be stopped.’
The men went on their way, towards the outer walls. Jo waited, then emerged from the outhouse. She started to walk round the wails of the château itself. Soon she came to a window with bars across it. This, surely, was the Master’s room. Curious, she looked in. Instead of seeing the Master, she saw the Doctor, alone, manacled to a chair, unsuccessfully struggling to free his hands. As soon as she had recovered from her surprise Jo decided that it wasn’t fair to raise the Doctor’s hopes at this stage, so she crept further along the wall of the huge building. Then she found a little door, no doubt left open by the prison officers who had come out to hunt for her. She quickly ran back to the barred window and tapped on it. The Doctor turned and smiled and at the same time shrugged to show that he was helpless.
Jo had already decided on her plan. First, she pointed to the closed door, put on an angry face and pretended to shout without making a sound. Then she pointed to the Doctor, and then pointed to her own mouth. The Doctor seemed puzzled by this, then got the idea and nodded his head. Finally, Jo pointed to her own wrist watch and held up five fingers—five minutes.
From the moment Jo vanished from the window, the Doctor started to count the seconds. Each time he got to sixty, he held out straight one of his fingers. When all four fingers and the thumb of one hand were fully extended, he started to shout very loudly.
‘Is anyone out there? Can you hear me? I said is there anyone out there?’
The door opened and a prison officer looked in. ‘What’s all the noise about?’
‘The way I’m being kept here is disgraceful,’ protested the Doctor. ‘You could at least feed me. I’m starving.’
‘You’ll be fed when the time comes,’ said the prison officer, ‘so belt up!’
‘Please do something about these handcuffs,’ said the Doctor, ‘they’re cutting my wrists.’
The prison officer came across to the chair and looked at the Doctor’s wrists. It was at this moment that Jo slipped in from the corridor and hid behind the door.
‘There’s nothing wrong with them,’ said the prison officer.
‘You’re not wearing them!’ retorted the Doctor.
‘If you don’t stop giving trouble,’ said the prison officer, ‘you’ll be wearing leg irons as well.’ He went out, slammed the door and locked it.
‘Over there,’ the Doctor whispered to Jo, indicating the direction by nodding his head, ‘the Master’s tool-box.’
On the floor by the table was a box of tools that the Master had been using to construct his black box calling device. Jo found a little file, and after ten minutes of hard work she had filed through one of the links of the handcuffs. The Doctor stood up.
‘How do we get out of here?’ she asked.
‘First,’ said the Doctor, going to the tool-box, ‘I want to pick these locks,’—this because the cuffs were still heavy on his wrists. He selected a nail, bent it with a pair of pliers, and used the bent nail to pick the mechanism of the bracelets. ‘Get behind the door again,’ he whispered, then sat back on the chair and put his hands behind it. ‘Help!’ he shouted, ‘I’m in agony.’ He groaned convincingly. ‘Will somebody please help me!’
The door was flung open. ‘What’s wrong now?’ said the prison officer aggressively.
‘The same as before,’ said the Doctor, his face contorted in pain. ‘These handcuffs are so tight... it’s stopping my circulation... I’ll get gangrene, lose both my hands...’ The Doctor slumped forward as though in a faint.
The prison officer crossed to the chair, got out his keys, and bent down to loosen the handcuffs. Suddenly, the Doctor’s hand whipped out from behind the chair and delivered a Venusian karate chop. He gently lowered the unconscious prison officer to the floor, then hurried from the room with Jo.
Ten minutes later the Master was brought back to his room by a prison officer. He had been contemplating all sorts of interesting ways to kill the Doctor, mainly slowly, after the Doctor had finished being of use to him. Instead, he found himself looking