Doctor Who_ War Games - Malcolm Hulke [42]
‘And help people like your new friends to conquer the galaxy? Never!’
The War Chief sat back again in his comfortable chair.
‘Not people like that, Doctor. People like us. I intend to become the supreme ruler. Would you not like to share power with me?’
With dawn the resistance fighters at the château buried their dead and counted the wounded. The German soldier came down from the attic room where he had spent most of the night keeping watch on the surrounding land.
‘Ze mist is still there. All soldiers are gone.’ He slumped onto the floor, his back against the wall, exhausted. ‘I see Sergeant Russell coming with Mexican man.’ He fell fast asleep.
‘My goodness,’ said Lieutenant Carstairs. ‘I wonder just how many wars they have going on in this place?’
During the night, search parties had been sent out to seek more resistance fighters. With the aid of Zoe’s remarkable memory they had drawn up a list of people they wanted to contact.
Sergeant Russell arrived at the french windows with the Mexican. The newcomer wore a sombrero; his huge frame was bedecked with cartridge belts, knives, hand grenades and two holstered pearl-handled revolvers. In his fist he clutched a rifle.
‘Arturo Villar,’ Russell announced. ‘He is holding two of our people outside the grounds as hostages in case this is a trick. His troops are surrounding the place.’
‘Not troops,’ said Villar in a strong Mexican accent.
‘Bandits!’ He grinned.
‘Jolly glad to meet you,’ said Lieutenant Carstairs.
‘What war were you taken from?’
‘Mexico,’ said Villar. ‘In Mexico is all war. The soldiers kill the peasants, we kill the soldiers. You wanna be my friends, huh?’
‘We want you to be our friend,’ said Zoe.
Villar looked at her, astonished. ‘What kind of men are you? You let a girl speak for you.’
‘She’s one of us,’ said Jamie. ‘A fighting member of the resistance.’
At the sight of Jamie, Villar bellowed with Jaughter. ‘A man in a woman’s dress! You got no trousers to wear?’
‘Tell me, Mr Villar,’ said Carstairs. ‘How many men can you contribute to the army we are creating?’
‘Is secret. But plenty. All dirty fighters. Take no prisoners.’ Villar ran his finger across his throat and laughed again.
‘Are they a disciplined force?’ asked Carstairs, persevering,
‘Sure. They don’t do what I say, I strangle them with my bare hands. They are plenty disciplined.’
‘I think we’ll find them useful,’ said Sergeant Russell.
‘We need everyone we can get. Perhaps we could tell Mr Villar our plan.’
‘It’s quite simple,’ said Carstairs. ‘We intend to make a mass attack on the base of the terrible people who have brought us all here. During the attack there is someone there that we must rescue.’
‘Okay,’ said Villar. ‘You tell me where is this base, we go kill everyone.’ He poised himself in the french window ready to go the moment someone told him where.
‘It’s not so simple,’ said Carstairs. ‘We can only get there in one of these boxes that appears and disappears. We know this château is one of the landing points, but we are surely under observation here.’
‘There’s another landing place we know,’ said Jamie. ‘In a barn that’s by a wood. We could assemble any number of soldiers under the cover of those trees.’
‘I know that place,’ said Boris Ivanovich Petrovich of the House of Trebetskoy. ‘It’s true—an army could hide there.’ He sat on the floor nursing an arm wounded in last night’s battle.
‘This base,’ said the French soldier. ‘It will be well defended?’
‘We have a plan to overcome that,’ said Zoe. ‘Lieutenant Carstairs, I think it’s time you explained what we’re going to do.’
The Roman officer stepped out of his tent, drew his cloak around him, and looked across the wide valley to the hill on the other side. Somewhere beyond the crest his human specimens should be slaughtering Ancient Britons; if not, the Ancient Britons were slaughtering the legionaries. It did not really matter. Only survivors interested him, humans who would soon form the War Lords’ great army.