Doctor Who_ Human Nature Part 14

'Oh my G.o.d!' Alexander yelled. 'Quickly, the back door!'

They ran through the museum and Alexander swiftly unlocked the door.

Benny put a hand on his shoulder. 'Calm down. Don't run.' She stepped to a window, and took a quick glance around the frame. The backstreet was empty.

'Now I really wish Ace was here. I should think they're firing some sort of heavy weapon from the field opposite. If we pop down the street and along the hedge, we might be able to get up to the forest without being seen.'

A trail of dark smoke was already drifting from the upstairs rooms. 'How do you think they found you?' asked Alexander, the door handle gripped in his hand.

'Probably a tracer of some kind. Beyond your ken, Alex.'

'Excuse me,' asked Constance. 'Do I take it that we are being fired upon?'

'Yes.' Benny grinned at her over her shoulder. 'Sorry. Happens to me every other week.'

'What an exciting life you must lead.'

'I have considered learning to type. All right, Alex, let me go first. Constance, when I say go, run as fast as your bloomers will carry you.'

Alexander opened the door and Benny hopped through it, glancing quickly left and right, the pistol up to her cheek. The little cobbled backstreet ended in a rough track that ran along the edge of a field. Big hedge, luckily. Behind it, she could see the glint of metal.

A purple sphere rocketed from the field and burst through an upper window of the museum with a tremendous flammable thump. 'Go!' Benny called. 'Quietly!'

Alexander and Constance ran with her to the hedge, and, crouching, they raced up the muddy track.

Benny had that familiar sick feeling in her stomach again, imagining bullets snickering through the hedge and slicing them up. She really hated combat, hated the people who did this for a living and got close to enjoying it.

Well, there were exceptions, of course. She'd been too cold with Alexander.

Despite, no because, he was in the same boat as her. Except he'd only lost a friend.

They ran flat out for a hundred yards, hedge to the left, backyard walls to the right, and broke out, thankfully, into a small copse at the edge of the woodlands. A chalky path wound upwards into the hills, and they followed it for a while, finally collapsing behind an uprooted tree trunk. Through the trees down-slope, a tiny length of fence was visible. In the field beyond it, strange figures were attending a silver cylinder. 'Another two of them,' Benny muttered. 'I wonder who they are?'

'You mean you don't know?' Alexander glanced behind them and forced a smile. 'I say, look, we're not alone on the barricades. It's Mrs Redfern's cat. Wolsey, isn't it?'

Wolsey was staring at the three humans from behind a tree. He had something in his mouth. Constance looked at him nervously. 'Do shoo it away,' she said. 'I can't stand cats. Now, Bernice, shall we find this object of yours, now we are free? Who is it that has it? Some friend who is keeping it safely?'

Benny sighed. 'I haven't been clear about what I've got you into, have I? I thought that the two who attacked me had got hold of it. I was planning to nick it back off them. Unless the ones with the cannon are a different bunch, then they still must think that I've got it.'

'What is that in your mouth?' Alexander asked, holding out a hand to the cat.

Wolsey stepped forward, watching Constance as he came. He dropped the thing in his jaws as he rubbed his head along Alexander's hand.

Alexander picked the muddied sc.r.a.p up. 'Bit of lace collar.' He glanced up at Constance. 'Just like yours.'

'Goodness, so it is!' Constance turned to look, slipped the pistol from her pocket, pointed it at Wolsey and fired.

The shot just missed, and the cat leapt away, bounding off into the forest.

Benny jumped to her feet, but Constance jumped with her, shoving the revolver into her neck. 'd.a.m.ned cats,' she muttered. Then she whistled.

From higher up the slope, two armed figures appeared, running quickly downhill and covering Benny and Alexander with their weapons.

'Allow me to introduce August and Hoff,' the being that had been Constance told the others.

'You're -' Benny shook her head in frustration. 'I should have realized.'

'Not at all,' said Greeneye. 'I thought we were getting on rather well. Resolving as a dew and all that. Tell me, do you prefer me as a man or a woman?'

'Do you do amphibians?'

Alexander looked between the three aliens. 'If this is a disguise, what have you done with the real Constance?'

'Stew,' August told him. He clapped Greeneye on the shoulder and took the revolver off him while Hoff disarmed Bernice. 'Now, since it seems that neither of us have the prize we're after, I think you ought to come back to our base with us and have a little chat, don't you?'

Chapter Seven.

Friends and Other Lovers

Rocastle stood in the middle of the rear playing field, his back straight, his chest proudly inflated, his swagger stick tucked under his arm. He wore his old uniform, the one he'd worn in the Transvaal, his campaign medal ribbons on the breast.

The boys stood before him in a square, at attention. Hutchinson, Merryweather and the other Captains stood at the front, their OTC uniforms neatly pressed and clean.

The outfits were a light tan. n.o.body would mistake them for the real thing, but they did give the lads a soldierly air. 'All present and correct, Captain Merryweather?' he asked.

'One absentee, sir. Dean, sir.'

'Does anybody have a reason for Dean's absence?'

Inwardly, Anand flinched, but he kept his gaze straight forward, not saying a word.

When the house had woken that morning, there had been no sign of Tim. He suspected that he'd run away, which was jolly well the right thing to do in the circ.u.mstances. If it wasn't so far, he'd have gone, too. He had written to his father explaining the circ.u.mstances of his misery last night, and expected him to arrive next week to take him away.

After a moment's silence, Phipps blurted out, 'He's still ill, Sir!'

'Very well then. He's going to miss out on having a go at the Vickers gun then, isn't he?' Rocastle was pleased at the smiles of antic.i.p.ation from the boys. 'The Regiment has kindly lent us one such weapon for the next month. Now, stand by for inspection.'

Rocastle slowly walked along the rows, noting an undone b.u.t.ton here and an unpolished rifle there. This was the part he enjoyed most.

Timothy had spent most of the night in the tree in the orchard, the one he'd been sitting under when he'd got the Pod. He thought he knew why that had happened, now, because he'd actually been up this particular tree quite a few times before, tapping the wood with his fingers, getting a rhythm going, trying to be a ragtime drummer. The tree knew who he was, and had trusted him with what it contained.

Or at least, that was what the Pod said. Since he'd died and come back to life, Tim had been even more certain that his prize talked to him, told him things. Told him he could do things.

It was with him while he sat in the crown of the tree that night. As the hours went by, he watched snails unfold and struggle across the gra.s.s and bats flicker through the trees. He heard the distant rustle of badgers in the darkness and the sharp cries of foxes mating.

He wasn't cold. The burns on his neck had healed and vanished. As well as watching the world around him, he was watching himself and trying to understand all he was. He kept looking at his hands, marvelling at what complex things they were, how much time was inscribed on them. Every now and then, he felt a burning desire to find a mirror and see his face. He knew that it was the same, but he also knew that it would seem different.

He wasn't just here in the tree, either. He was wandering over the fields and watching the others in their beds, walking down the aisle between them. He was a baby lying in the arms of a woman who was the nearest thing he had to a mother, with stubby limbs that he could barely move. He was a slender enchanted sword, he was the rain in the air, the light of the stars, a word on a page in a book that he also was.

He found himself speaking words that he had both read and invented: 'I lived as a warrior before I was a man of letters. I wandered, I encircled, I slept in a hundred islands, I dwelt in a hundred forts.'

The words seemed good to him. Definitive. He put his hands to his chest and felt the beat of his hearts.

Timothy twice born. Timothy two heart. Dead and then recovered.'

He had stepped down from the tree towards dawn, shaking the dew off of his shoulders.

There was a whole world to explore.

[image]

'Charge!' bellowed Rocastle, and the boys set off across the field, bayonets fixed on the end of their (fortunately unloaded, because at least five of them were squeezing the trigger as they ran) rifles.

They impacted the stuffed sack targets, each tied into the shape of a man. Most of them carried through very well. A few made a cursory stab then ran off again, and a few got carried away, attacking the stuffing again and again. That wouldn't do in battle. While that was going on, another man would be on them.

Alton, for some reason, had spun his rifle and slashed his target across the head.

Remarkably agile, but still not quite the thing. He'd have to take him down a peg for that.

He took a moment to glance at his watch. Where had Smith got to? The man had made a promise to be here. Do his standing in the eyes of the boys a power of good.

'And halt!' he shouted. 'Now then, let's see what we can do with that Vickers gun, shall we?'

Smith and Joan were lying back in the suns.h.i.+ne, elbow to elbow, looking into each other's eyes.

'I have to ask you,' said Smith, 'about Rocastle. You said there was some other problem with him. What was it?'

'Oh, nothing terrible. He only asked me to marry him.'

'What?'

'Yes, early in our acquaintance, he thought that he would take the burden of widowhood from my shoulders. I told him that it was a very charitable thought, but that I could never love another.'

'Do you still feel the same way?'

'Of course.'

'Oh...'

Joan looked at him seriously for a moment. Then she burst out laughing. 'Your face!'

Smith's frown left him and he returned a nervous smile. 'So you were lying to Rocastle?'

'Of course. He's hardly love's young dream, is he? And I had to let him down very gently, because he could have declared that it was too embarra.s.sing for both of us and sacked me on the spot. As it turned out, he became very n.o.ble and left with a terribly brave and tragic look on his face. You could have cut b.u.t.ter with his chin.

He turned at the door and told me that he thought my love for a departed hero was quite admirable, and that he would gladly sacrifice his own happiness for it. I do believe the man is looking to sacrifice himself for something continuously. I had to stuff a handkerchief in my mouth to stop myself giggling until he was out of earshot.'

Smith had been staring at her. 'You're brave.'

'They say that about people who are dying. Like them, I do not see that I've ever had any choice to make.'

Smith folded her into his arms and kissed her.

A shadow fell over them. Joan opened her eyes, then suddenly jerked away from Smith, frantically brus.h.i.+ng down her blouse. Smith looked up.

Timothy was standing there, smiling down at them.

'Ah, Timothy, we were just' - Smith looked at Joan, who was looking away, quickly munching at a sandwich again - 'having a picnic...' he finished weakly.

'I saw you here. I wanted to ask you something,' said the dishevelled boy. 'They're learning how to be soldiers, back at the school.'

'Shouldn't you be there?' Joan asked, relieved that the boy seemed not to have noticed the kiss.

Timothy sat down, his legs crossed, on the edge of the rug. 'That's what I wanted to ask about. I wanted to ask, don't most soldiers get killed? Especially when there are machine-guns involved? Isn't this a bad thing to teach them, in that case?' His blue eyes stared at Smith, who fumbled with his tie awkwardly.

'Questions like that, they're too big for us...' he muttered.

'You see, my father said I would be a soldier, but I think that means I shall die. Or worse, that I shall kill other people. I don't want to do it. What should I do?'

'There's a pa.s.sage in Henry V Henry V that I could recommend. It's not a sin to kill people if your sovereign's ordered you to do it, because the decisions of war are between him and G.o.d. It's not your fault if you're obeying orders.' that I could recommend. It's not a sin to kill people if your sovereign's ordered you to do it, because the decisions of war are between him and G.o.d. It's not your fault if you're obeying orders.'

'So the murders are his fault?'

'Well, in war it's not exactly murder. There are bigger things involved. King and country, duty to your fellows. That sort of thing.' Smith glanced at Joan, only to find that she was looking at the sheep in the next field, ignoring him. 'Perhaps you could ask the vicar for some more help?'

'Perhaps,' sighed Timothy. 'I think I know what he'll say, though. He'll say I have to be a soldier.'

'Well, that's not true, is it?' Joan interrupted, her voice sharp. 'There are lots of things you could do. You don't have to be a soldier.'

'I don't have to be a soldier.' Tim rose to his feet, nodding. 'Good. Thank you.' He turned and wandered off again, vanis.h.i.+ng back into the forest. Smith stared after him, impotently raising a hand with a half-formed intention of telling him to go back to school. Finally, he turned back to Joan. She was still avoiding his gaze.

'That might have been the wrong thing to say.'

'Oh, might it?' There came a distant rumble. Then another, a moment later. 'That sounds like thunder. Perhaps we should pack up and go, Dr Smith.'

'There aren't any clouds. Perhaps it's Rocastle playing soldiers.'

'Playing soldiers?' Joan hadn't yet made any move to begin packing. 'Well, that is a fine turn of phrase from somebody who seems so fond of the military. Or perhaps you have one word for me and another for the rest of the world?'

'What? No...' Smith bit his lip in frustration. 'What else could I tell him?'