Doctor Who: The Sea-Devils (8 page)

Once Trenchard’s footsteps had gone out of earshot, the heap of rugs and blankets started to move, and the Master cautiously reared his head. There was no one about, so he climbed out of the landrover and paused to brush down his smart-looking Naval officer’s uniform. Amused, he looked at the bands on his cuffs—the theatrical costumiers had made him into a commander, which was pretty high-ranking. He straightened his cap, and marched across the car-park, returning the salutes of two passing lower-deck ratings.

Captain Hart had now heard the Doctor’s story for the second time. He said nothing for a while because he wanted to give his mind time to consider the idea of intelligent beings living somewhere on, or under, the sea-bed. Finally, he looked up. ‘Let us say, Doctor, that I accept your theory about the existence of these Sea-Devils. What would you want me to do?’

The Doctor was emphatic. ‘We must devise some means to make contact with them!’

‘Whatever for?!’ exclaimed Captain Hart. ‘These things are sinking ships.’

‘These things, as you call them,’ said the Doctor, ‘are an intelligent form of life. I’ve already explained that they used to be the masters of this planet—’

There was a knock on the door, and W.R.N. Writer Jane Blythe looked in. ‘Excuse me, sir. Mr. Trenchard would like a word with you.’

Hart looked up. ‘Didn’t you tell him I was busy?’

‘He said he’d only be a moment, sir.’ Jane lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘He’s just outside, behind me.’

Captain Hart tried to put a good face on it. ‘All right. Wheel him in.’

Jane stepped to one side, and ushered in Trenchard. He advanced on Hart with outstretched hand. ‘Got a minute, old chap? Just wanted to talk to you about the golf tournament—’ He stopped as he saw the Doctor and Jo. ‘I’ll be blowed! I thought you two left the island yesterday.’

‘We got delayed,’ said Jo.

‘Taking a look round the island, eh? Charming place, what there is of it.’ Trenchard returned his attention to Captain Hart. ‘Look, John, I don’t want to butt in, but about next weekend: we are rather relying on you to play, you know.’

‘I’ll do my best,’ said Captain Hart. ‘But if we happen to get a sudden flap on...’ He left the rest of the sentence in mid-air.

‘Then I’d better arrange to have a reserve standing by,’ said Trenchard. ‘What sort of player is that fellow Griffiths?’

The Doctor listened patiently while the two men discussed the relative pros and cons of various local golf players. He noticed how Hart seemed to be trying to get rid of Trenchard, whereas Trenchard was almost deliberately prolonging the conversation. It occurred to the Doctor that Trenchard seemed extremely nervous, and he wondered why.

While Trenchard played for time, the Master was busily helping himself to sonar spare parts in the Naval Base’s store-room. It was a long hut containing rows of metal shelves. In this one place there was almost every electronic spare part he would ever need for the apparatus that he intended to construct back in his room at the château. By good luck he had found a small duffel bag in a corner of the store-room, and he was carefully filling this when Chief Petty Officer Smedley happened to come in. Smedley was more than a little surprised at the spectacle of a commander who was literally getting his hands dirty.

‘Excuse me, sir,’ enquired C.P.O. Smedley, ‘but should I know you?’

The Master, quite unperturbed, continued with his work. ‘You most certainly should. Haven’t you been informed that I was coming?’

‘I’m afraid not, sir,’ said Smedley.

‘Special audit,’ said the Master, stowing an expensive ohm-counter into the duffel bag, ‘Ministry of Defence.’ He looked further along the shelf and selected a low-voltage relay unit. He was about to put this into the bag when he paused, pretending only now to have noticed that the Chief Petty Officer was still standing there. ‘Well, carry on, Chief.’

Smedley was very worried. Years of naval training had taught him to respect officers without question, and this visitor was a very high-ranking officer indeed. But he just could not believe what he was watching. ‘If I may be permitted to ask, sir,’ he said, trembling slightly, and with visions of very shortly becoming an able seaman once more, ‘may I see your pass?’

‘Captain Hart’s preparing it now,’ said the Master. ‘He’ll be here with it in a moment.’

‘Captain Hart is coming
here
with your pass, sir?’ Smedley could not understand this at all. If a pass was to be sent, and that in itself was odd enough, the captain would have it sent by one of the ratings. ‘If it is all the same to you, sir,’ said Smedley, ‘I shall have to double-check that, sir.’ He had now shown enough insolence to a commissioned officer to lose him his chief’s hooks, if not actually to have him confined to a naval prison. He turned to the wall telephone and lifted the handpiece.

The Master came up behind the C.P.O. ‘Turn round,’ he said in a firm, strong voice.

Smedley turned. ‘Sir?’

‘You will obey my orders, Chief Petty Officer,’ said the Master, his piercing hypnotic eyes staring straight into those of Smedley’s. ‘Replace that telephone.’

Smedley slowly hung back the telephone handpiece, presenting his back to the Master. The Master’s hand flashed as he delivered an almost fatal blow to the back of Smedley’s neck. His victim fell heavily to the floor. The Master got back to his work of rifling the naval stores of all that he needed.

By now the Doctor had heard about the golfing abilities, and weaknesses, of a man called Spiecer, a retired Merchant Navy captain called Higgs, the island’s vicar, the publican, and a financier who had his own yacht and.wasn’t very sociable. For a man who had said that his visit would only take a minute, George Trenchard had by now indulged himself with a full twenty-five minutes.

Always a gentleman, Captain Hart had at no time hinted he was in a hurry to get on with the discussion that Trenchard had interrupted. Completely bored with the two-handed conversation, Jo had gone and stationed herself at the office window where she could watch the seagulls. Now, at last, Trenchard seemed ready to leave.

‘Now I don’t want you to worry,’ he was saying to Captain Hart. ‘If you can’t play in the tournament, we’ll find someone else. Although, goodness knows, that isn’t going to be easy.’

For a ghastly moment the Doctor thought Trenchard was going to recapitulate on
why
it wasn’t going to be easy to replace Hart on the golf course. Perhaps Hart also feared that, for he quickly said, ‘I haven’t definitely said that I won’t be there, George. Could we agree to cross that bridge when we come to it?’

‘Of course,’ said Trenchard. He looked at his watch. ‘My goodness, I’d better be on my way. I realise how busy you are.’ He moved to the door, which Jane Blythe quickly opened for him. But there he paused and turned to the Doctor. ‘Staying on the island much longer?’

‘That,’ said the Doctor, ‘depends on how long it takes me to conclude my business. Goodbye, Mr. Trenchard.’

‘What? Oh, yes. I mustn’t hold you up.’ He turned to Jo at the window. ‘Goodbye, Miss Grant. A great pleasure to see you again.’

Jo said goodbye from the window.

‘Well,’ said Trenchard, ‘must be off.’ And so, finally, he left them in peace.

Captain Hart smiled at the Doctor. The deadening personality of George Trenchard had formed a bond between them. ‘You were saying, Doctor?’ he said.

‘I believe all shipping must be kept away from this area,’ said the Doctor. ‘That’s for a start—’

But Hart raised his hand to stop the Doctor continuing. ‘Doctor, these are major shipping lanes. In any case, you know what happens in the English Channel when there’s a dangerous wreck. Half the foreign ships simply ignore the Trinity House marker buoys.’

‘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 drove his landrover in his usual slow manner. A lifetime as an army officer had taught him that he should always keep his nerve. As the landrover went away, Chief Petty Officer Beaver closed and locked the gates, then waved to Trenchard. Trenchard did not wave back.

The Doctor, Jo, and Captain Hart crowded round Chief Petty Officer Smedley’s bunk in the sick-bay, the base’s Medical Officer watching on.

‘He was taking equipment, sir,’ said Smedley, trying to lie to attention while addressing his commanding officer.

The Doctor asked, ‘What did this officer look like?’

‘About my height,’ said Smedley. ‘And he had a beard.’

‘You see,’ said Jo. ‘The Master!’

Captain Hart signalled Jo to be careful what she said in front of the others. He turned to Smedley. ‘All right, Chief. I’m sure you’ll be better for a rest in the sick-bay.’

The captain walked away from the bunk, and gestured for the Doctor and Jo to follow. Out of earshot of Smedley, he turned.to Jo. ‘You referred to “the Master”, both in my office and here. Are you talking about Mr. Trenchard’s prisoner?’

‘That’s right,’ said Jo. ‘That’s why we came to the island in the first place. To visit him.’

Captain Hart clearly wasn’t convinced. ‘But we all know about the security measures at the château,’ he said. ‘It’s common gossip on the island. I saw the Master’s pictures in the newspapers at the time of his trial, and I’m sure that any swarthy-looking fellow with a beard could be mistaken for the Master once he was dressed up in naval officers’ uniform.’

‘But I know his walk,’ Jo protested. ‘I’d know the Master anywhere.’

‘I think,’ said the Doctor, ‘the question that’s really perplexing Captain Hart is how the Master could be both a prisoner at the château, and raiding the sonar stores supplies here at the same time.’ He turned to the captain. ‘I’m afraid there’s only one answer to that, Captain. Trenchard brought him here.’

With little conviction the captain said, ‘George Trenchard is a personal friend of mine. I simply cannot believe it.’

The Doctor pressed his case. ‘Mr. Trenchard arrived just before Chief Petty Officer Smedley found the man in the stores, and he left just a few moments ago. All that talk about who would play in the golf tournament, didn’t it strike you as a little long-winded?’

Captain Hart smiled. ‘Old Trenchard’s always like that.’ He paused to think. ‘But I grant you, it was a bit odd the way he carried on and on today.’