Doctor Who and the Crusaders (20 page)

The Doctor nodded to himself and eased his cramped legs slightly. It seemed he had lain like this for hours, enduring the
bitter cold of the night, dozing fitfully in the early morning sun. Now the heat of the afternoon poured down, bringing out beads of perspiration on his forehead, and his heavy monk’s habit felt damp and sticky. He crawled out from the camouflage of twigs and leaves and peered about – everything seemed quiet and deserted. He bunched up the front of his robe and started to run across the little clearing. At that moment the soldier wandered into view and with a shout of triumph charged forward and grabbed hold of the Doctor by the scruff of his neck. In a second the clearing was full of soldiers.

The Doctor never panicked in emergencies and stood quietly now, facing his enemies. The Earl of Leicester pushed his way through the ring of grinning soldiers, a look of triumph on his face.

‘I thought you would show yourself, traitor!’

‘I’m no traitor,’ said the Doctor calmly. ‘What do you want with me?’

Leicester scowled at him and put his hands on his hips.

‘First, I want the truth and then I shall rid this world of you.’

‘I will tell you the truth about this man,’ said a quiet voice. Leicester swung around.

Ian walked towards the group. Just visible behind him were two horses, and the Doctor could see Barbara slowly dismounting.

‘I am Sir Ian, Knight of Jaffa, charged by King Richard to intercede with Saladin on behalf of Sir William des Preaux and a lady who had fallen into Saracen hands.’

‘I remember you,’ said Leicester, ‘for I conducted you to the King on your arrival with a wounded knight. But as I recall the events you were this man’s companion.’

‘That is not true,’ said Ian. ‘We met in this wood and he
helped me carry the injured knight, de Tornebu, to Jaffa. But his smiles and willing hands were only a disguise to ingratiate himself. He desired nothing more than to worm his way into the confidence of the King.’

‘I thought so,’ roared Leicester, his face black with fury.

‘I have discovered he is worse than a spy,’ remarked Ian, moving nearer to the Doctor. Every eye was on Ian now, but the Doctor just caught a glimpse of Barbara stepping through the ring of bushes and disappearing out of sight.

‘He is a sorcerer,’ said Ian, dropping his voice.

There was a silence. One or two of the soldiers moved back slightly in superstitious awe, while Leicester’s hand fell on the hilt of his sword.

‘Then let us dispatch him and have done with it.’

‘My Lord of Leicester, I have travelled a long way with but one ambition.’

‘To watch this man’s execution?’

‘No, My Lord. To administer it.’

The Doctor stood silently, making absolutely no contribution to the conversation, his eyes staring steadily into Ian’s.

‘You would deprive me of a pleasure, Sir Ian,’ said Leicester doggedly.

‘But it was he who arranged the ambush on King Richard in this very wood,’ replied Ian. ‘It was he who was responsible for the lady, Barbara, being abducted. The greater debt is to me, My Lord, and it can only be met with his life and my sword.’

Leicester nodded. ‘This villainy knows no bounds. Do it, then, Sir Ian and we will ride back to the King and relate this story.’

Ian moved up to the Doctor. ‘Where will you meet your end?’

The Doctor shrugged.

‘Let it be a matter between the two of us,’ he replied quietly. ‘Behind those bushes.’

Ian nodded and drew his sword. He followed the Doctor to the ring of bushes and followed him through them.

As soon as the foliage covered them, the Doctor picked up his robe and ran for the
Tardis
, where Barbara and Vicki were waiting.

The Doctor produced the ship’s key from a cord round his neck, opened the doors and they hurried inside, Vicki’s excited breath of laughter echoing out as the doors closed behind them.

On the other side of the bushes the Earl of Leicester stiffened.

‘Did any of you hear another voice?’ he demanded. ‘A voice… that laughed?’

The men looked at each other nervously. Leicester drew out his sword and forced his way through the bushes, his men crowding in behind him. They stopped in alarm as they stared at the extraordinary spectacle of the telephone box. A light began to flash on the top of it, and with one accord they fell to their knees.

Then the box faded and disappeared in front of their eyes and in a second there was no evidence that it had been there at all.

‘Witchcraft!’ muttered Leicester hoarsely. ‘Poor Sir Ian! Brave fellow. Spirited away by fiends and black arts.’

He stood up then looked commandingly at the trembling men around him.

‘We will not speak of this. Let this story die here in this wood or we’ll be branded idiots – or liars.’

The men scrambled to their feet and crashed through the bushes, intent on putting as much space as they could
between themselves and the accursed place. Leicester stood silently for a moment, clutching his sword just beneath its hilt and holding it straight out in front of him.

‘Poor Sir Ian,’ he repeated. ‘What dreadful anguish and despair you must be suffering now.’

At that very moment, Ian and the Doctor were trying to quell the bubbles of laughter that threatened to burst their blood vessels. The Doctor puffed and panted out his pleasure at the way Ian had used his wits and fooled Leicester, while Ian held his side and endeavoured to control himself. The two girls sat side by side on the couch smiling happily.

Finally, the two men recovered, knowing it was more the extent of their relief than any genuine humour at the situation which caused the outburst. They sat around as they were; the Doctor and Vicki in their monks’ habits, Ian in his motley costume, half Saracen guard, half English knight, Barbara with the red cloak wrapped around her, the flimsy transparent coverings on her arms and legs bearing the travel stains of her escape from Lydda. They related their adventures to each other, matching this action with that happening, describing one character, revelling in another; passing from incident to incident and adventure to adventure until the stories met and ended with their last fortunate meeting in the wood.

Then Ian and Barbara went off to their rooms to bathe and change, leaving the Doctor to fuss around his controls. Vicki sat on the couch for a while, silent with her thoughts.

‘Richard the Lionheart never recaptured Jerusalem, did he, Doctor?’ she said eventually.

‘No, but he came very near to it, my child,’ he replied, his fingers brushing gently over his beloved switches and levers, conscious of the healthy hum of the controls, sure that his Time and Space machine was responding accurately to every impulse.

Finally he turned and leaned against the control column, smiling at Vicki. He thought of his granddaughter, Susan, for a moment, who had sat in that exact position so many times before.

‘He faced the Holy City, and then shielded his eyes,’ he said.

‘Yes, I remember reading that somewhere. But why? He had come so far… why didn’t he do what he’d set out to do?’

‘Frankly, I think Richard knew he could conquer the city but couldn’t hold it. I believe he estimated what the capture of Jerusalem would do – arouse a shout of praise and hope throughout the Christian world. But against this he had to put the dreadful shock it would be to his world’s morale when Saladin recaptured it again. People always remember the last battle, my child. No, Richard was right to do what he did.’

Vicki stood up and moved nearer the Doctor, staring fascinated at the lights that flashed and the wheels that spun, a constant source of never-ending delight to her.

‘And where do we go now, Doctor?’

He smiled and shook his head, the only answer he would give.

And the
Tardis
flashed on its way, hurtling through the galaxies of Space, spinning through the barriers of Time, searching for a new resting-place on a fresh horizon.

Born in April 1928, David Whitaker started his career in the theatre – writing, acting and directing – and was commissioned to adapt one of his plays for television. He was subsequently invited to join the Script Department at the BBC, writing scripts for plays, comedy, and series.

Whitaker’s enthusiasm for
Doctor Who
was immense. As the first Story Editor (a position later called Script Editor) he was responsible for finding and commissioning writers then working with them to deliver final scripts. It was Whitaker as much as anyone who defined the narrative ‘shape’ of
Doctor Who
.

In addition to this work, Whitaker wrote for the
Doctor Who
annuals, novelised the first Dalek story and his own script of
The Crusade
, and worked with Terry Nation on various Dalek-related material including the hugely successful comic strip
The Daleks
, which appeared in the Gerry Anderson magazine
TV Century 21
.

Whitaker’s own scripts for the programme, in particular his two Dalek stories for the Second Doctor –
The Power of the Daleks
and
The Evil of the Daleks
– are remembered as being amongst the very best of
Doctor Who
.

David Whitaker died in February 1980.

Doctor Who and the Crusaders
by David Whitaker was first published in hardback by Frederick Muller Ltd in March 1966, almost twelve months after the serial on which it was based – ‘The Crusade’ – had been broadcast on BBC television. On TV, the Doctor, companion Steven Taylor and new arrival Dodo Chaplet were facing the Monoids in ‘The Ark’.

The first
Doctor Who
novel,
Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks
, also by David Whitaker, had been released in November 1964, with a paperback edition following in October 1965. Its success prompted Frederick Muller to publish a second novelisation,
Doctor Who and the Zarbi
, adapted from his own scripts for ‘The Web Planet’ by Bill Strutton, and then a third. Like its predecessors,
Doctor Who and the Crusaders
again featured internal illustrations (used in this edition), this time by Henry Fox. It would later be one of the three reprinted titles that launched Universal-Tandem’s range of
Doctor Who
books under the Target imprint on 2 May 1973, with a new cover by Chris Achilleos.

This new edition re-presents that 1973 version. While a few minor errors or inconsistencies have been corrected, no attempt has been made to update or modernise the text – this is
Doctor Who and the Crusaders
as originally written and published.

This means that the novel retains certain stylistic and editorial practices that were current in 1966 but which have since adapted or changed, including paragraphing conventions that are quite different from current usage.

Most obviously, all measurements are given in the then-standard imperial system of weights and measures: a yard is equivalent to 0.9144 metres; three feet make a yard, and a foot is 30 centimetres; twelve inches make a foot, and an inch is 25.4 millimetres. Haroun ed Diin is described as ‘just over six foot’, meaning six feet (1.83 metres).

More significantly, there is one very clear sign of the times in which this book was written. During his philosophical discussion with Saladin in Chapter Seven, Ian says, ‘The little Negro child will say his prayers and imagine his God to be in his colour.’ The third and eighth chapters feature a ‘huge Negro’ guard and ‘a tall Negress’. The word ‘Negro’ has its roots in the Latin word
niger
, meaning ‘black’, and was widely used for several hundred years. Over the last forty years, of course, the term has become more or less obsolete and is now widely considered offensive. On television and in this book, David Whitaker maintained an unusually non-partisan approach to his tale of the English Crusades, especially in his careful depictions of the English King and the Great Sultan – casual offense was clearly far from his intention.

Although the first three novels would eventually lead to a range of more than 150 novelisations (and, later, inspire more than 300 original novels), in 1964–1966 Whitaker and his publisher were careful to produce novels that stood alone as independent works of fiction. For
Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks
, Whitaker had written an extensive new opening in place of
Doctor Who
’s first four television episodes.
Doctor Who and the Crusaders
begins in similar fashion with its prologue relating an entirely new scene. The prologue introduces the four lead characters, while also exploring a debate on the extent to which the Doctor is able to influence historical events. This expands on ideas first touched on in the television story ‘The Aztecs’. The last pages
of the final chapter also present a scene invented to close the novel, although the Doctor’s little history lesson here is actually adapted from a scene from the fourth TV episode that is absent from the book.

There are a number of televised scenes which don’t make it into the novel, among them King Richard’s admission that he knows the Doctor is innocent of betraying his plan to Joanna, and the King offering a solitary prayer for victory against the Saracens. The Doctor is not banished from the court at Jaffa, but the King does advise him to leave for the nearby town of Acre and await a later summons.

Many more scenes are heavily amended and extended in the novel. On television, the Doctor and Vicki both go into Jaffa to find clothes, and the Doctor ‘borrows’ them from Ben Daheer after causing the collapse of a table full of robes and materials, rather than taking advantage of Ferrigo’s arrival. The Earl of Leicester makes a much later appearance on screen, absent from the court until the third episode. Sir William de Tornebu and Vicki both support efforts to persuade Richard to send an envoy to Ramlah, but their lines are all given to Ian and the Doctor in print. The King’s refusal, unusually, is toned down from the broadcast version: ‘Understand this! This woman can rot in one of Saladin’s prisons until her hair turns white before I’ll trade with the man that killed my friends!’