Doctor Who: Combat Rock (13 page)

‘She dead already then,’ the leader replied immediately.

‘Or worse...’

The Doctor and Jamie swapped horrified glances. A sunset-coloured bird was laughing at them from the branches of a tree above.

Darkness was creeping in over the jungle.

Victoria was sipping a glass of wine, having just finished an excellent meal.

The officer was courteous and charming. And even though she knew she was a virtual prisoner, she could think of far, far worse captors. The cruiser ride from the jungle had only taken an hour or so, and although she had been full of trepidation and concern over her friends, the officer, who had informed her his name was Agus, had assured her a squad would be sent out first thing the next morning to look for them.

Wameen was a shanty town full of squalor, and animal markets run by naked Papul men with strange penis gourds and lined faces, old before their time under the harsh Papul sun. Victoria’s cheeks had burned as the cruiser descended outside the barracks near the market square and the local men stared impassively at her through the windscreen. But the officers’ quarters were a haven of civilisation and decorum by contrast.

Agus was watching her now, relaxing in a chair opposite her as darkness fell outside the window. She felt another blush rise in her cheeks. He was obviously attracted to her. But how could she be thinking of such things when the Doctor and Jamie were so far away in the jungle. And especially as this man was a... well, he was a foreigner, wasn’t he? (An
alien!
) Not for the first time she felt shamed by her closeted Imperialist upbringing. Hadn’t the Doctor opened her mind to a whole new universe of cultures and beliefs outside her straitjacketed Empire world-view, after all? Still, childhood prejudices and impressions were difficult to shake, even though she had made monumental strides to do just that since entering the TARDIS for the first time. Then again, she’d never been one to adhere to the norm in the first place.

Agus was handsome and dashing, and above all, intelligent. She finished her wine and listened to him talk of Empire, and despite the vast distance in space and time between herself and her beloved Victorian period on Earth, she felt curiously at home.

‘We are not murderers, Victoria,’ he was saying slowly, his dark eyes fixed on her unwaveringly, with all the conviction of a man who knows he is fighting for the right side. ‘The Indoni Republic has brought about harmonious integration with Papul. We have not forced them to concede to our wishes. We bring rationality and civilization to a wilderness.’ He poured Victoria and himself another glass of wine as he spoke. Victoria’s gaze shifted from his handsome features to the portrait of the Indoni President on the wall behind the officer. The marked contrast between the two made her confused: Agus was the epitome of apparantly sincere chivalry; the President looked gnawed by avarice and compromised by his own cunning. She thought momentarily of commenting on the distinctly unsavoury-looking appearance of the officer’s revered leader, but Agus’s words were sweeping her away, taking her back to a time of cosy security on her father’s lap beside the fire while he told tales of derring-do and British Integrity in barbaric climes.

‘You have seen the Papul yourself. Penis gourds, bows and arrows, grass huts. The indigenous people are little more than barbarous savages... and I do not mean that in a denigrative way at all: He leaned forward to emphasize that point. ‘They are a good, honest people; just desperately in need of enlightenment. Cannibals and headhunters. When we arrived here, we were met with storms of arrows and naked savages who wanted to eat us.’

Victoria winced and Agus smiled apologetically.

‘We offer them education, employment, technology, finance – all the trappings of a modern, cultured world. Is that so wrong?’

‘Then why do they fear you so much?’

The officer sat back, a look of disappointment on his face.

‘You’ve obviously been talking to seditionists. These people cannot embrace enlightenment and a controlled economy that benefits all. They only want to make profit for themselves and keep Papul in turbulent anarchy. Strong leadership and direction will always upset the few.’

Victoria thought of Wemus. His heart-warming infectious grin, his humour and good nature. She sipped her wine and frowned. Agus smiled charmingly, while President Sabit smirked from over his shoulder. Victoria’s frown deepened.

Agus looked thoughtful for a moment, and then stood up as if reaching a decision. He finished his wine with a single swig and signalled for Victoria to do likewise. ‘I want to show you something,’ he said, and there was a gleam in his eye.

He led her from the officers’ quarters and into the central courtyard of the barracks. Featureless grey blocks surrounded them on all sides. A few soldiers were smoking lazily in one corner, but jolted to attention when they saw Agus. He ignored them, leading her out through the main gateway and past the line of parked cruisers.

‘Where are we going?’ Victoria asked. The tall officer gave no answer, leading her down an alley lined with stalls and souvenir shops filled with exotica culled from the jungles, ready to be sold to eager Indoni and offworld tourists. They were all locked now, the street emptied by curfew. The alley ended in a brake of wind-bent palms, and Victoria could hear the shush of waves on a beach.

The most desolate beach she had ever seen.

Crimson sand, similar to the beach at Batu, dunes piled in weird formations like fat bodies huddled on the shore. A shore which disappeared in either direction far, far into the night. It was like the last beach – she was about to say ‘on Earth’ and stopped herself. The wind blew warmly upon her face with a tang of salt and weed. Stars peeped down from unfamiliar constellations, sprinkling their glitter into the dark sea. No moon, and Victoria guessed it was hidden under clouds – if there was one at all – and surely there must be. Did it matter?

Agus was watching her, his face grey in the starlight, eyes twinkling. He took her hand gently, and she accepted, awed by the strangeness of the beach.

They walked for a while, saying nothing, and despite the loneliness of the place, its solemnity filled Victoria with a sense of peace. She realized she had not thought of Jamie and the Doctor for quite some time.

Agus was pointing at dark shapes ahead of them on the beach, and for a moment fear returned. She could hear a moaning, keening sound, and it was coming from the squat shadows. Had the Indoni led her here for some horrible purpose?

He led her closer, and reluctantly she followed. She trusted him, and she did not know why.

The dark shapes gradually revealed themselves to be hulks of twisted metal half-buried in the sand. Rusting turrets jutting from submerged vehicles, buckled and twisted by fire or detonation. Ancient military tanks, sinking into the beach over the centuries, like the carcasses of once vicious beasts. The sound that had scared Victoria had stopped now, but the dread it had kindled remained with her.

‘The Earth-Indoni war...’ Agus said quietly, watching the tanks with pride and patriotic fervour. ‘You probably didn’t know a lot of it was fought on the beaches of Papul. You see, the Indoni have a glorious history of fighting for what they believe in. This island is ours by right; we have shed blood on these sands, defending its people from your armies. We are more than ready to defend this land again – this time from the savagery within that would consume it’

A low sighing lifted from nowhere as if to echo his words.

It was the sound that had frightened her earlier. She stepped back, pulling on the officer’s hand. The sigh was from the opening of one of the turrets.

The officer’s teeth gleamed in the starlight. ‘You are not the first to be afraid here. The ghosts of the long dead can have that effect. But maybe they are singing with us: with our cause’

‘Ghosts?’ Victoria glanced at him with trepidation despite the scepticism such proclamations automatically aroused in her.

‘Spirits of the men who died in those tanks, and who inhabit them still...’ His words tailed away as the eerie keening came again from the rusted turret. The ssshhing of the waves was a mournful backdrop, and were those figures moving across the darkened beach towards them?

She squeezed Agus’s hand until he smiled again. But there was nobody approaching; it was merely the weird formations of sand that decorated the beach, not moving at all.

The wind played again through the wrecks sinking into the beach, and Agus’s smile was unreal, somehow made grotesque by the darkness.

The buckled but perfectly operable military cruiser had lifted off as darkness fell. It had taken Jamie and half the guerrillas with it. The Doctor was informed they would be stopping off at a rebel outpost for more weapons and reinforcements before storming Wameen, but that hardly made him feel any better.

Now he was separated from both his companions.

They had moved away from the crash site to find somewhere to camp for the night; obviously the leader had not been joking about the continued threat of the Snatcher –

whatever it was – in the area. The Doctor, Santi, Wina, Budi, Drew and Ussman were escorted unerringly by their captors through the darkness to the banks of a river frothing through a jungle ravine, and here they spent the night. The guerrillas proved experts in erecting makeshift shelters fashioned from saplings and palm leaves and when the morning brought with it another pummelling of rain that lasted for maybe an hour, the hostages were very glad of their captors’ adeptness.

The Doctor emerged from his canopy early to find glorious sunlight filling the canyon below. He considered bathing in the foaming water that powered along between the steep banks, but the speed of the water and guilt over what might be happening to his companions deterred him.

The rebels were stirring the others into grudging wakefulness. The Doctor declined some hand-rolled tobacco from the leader, but seized upon this moment of hospitality to build a better rapport with the man.

‘Perhaps you’d like to tell me your name?’ he pressed. ‘I mean, we haven’t been properly introduced, have we?’

The leader ignored the Doctor’s outstretched hand, and squatting, lit his cigarette, machete tucked in his belt for once.

He obviously believed the Doctor posed no threat to him, and was not foolish enough to try to escape.

‘Names are dangerous in these jungles,’ he replied dramatically, but seeing the Doctor’s disconsolate expression, relented. ‘Tigus. I suppose it no longer matter. Indoni already know me. And will kill me if they can.’

‘Well, Tigus, where do we go from here?’

The guerrilla smoked a little more without answering, and then gestured across the river.

‘Across there?’ the Doctor said dubiously, eyeing the tubulent rapids. ‘How do you expect us to do that?’ The others were collecting behind him now. Santi and Wina looked none the worse for wear after their first night in the jungle, although Drew looked grumpy and tired, his long blond hair tangled and straw-like. His weaselly moustache had some grass caught in it. Budi looked more self-assured and was trying to comfort Santi, who didn’t look as though she needed it, a defiant frown facing the world from under her luxuriant black hair. Wina was grooming her own hair with a nonchalance towards their situation that obviously amused Ussman, who had regained a little of his mischevious twinkle. Kepennis and Wemus had started a game of cards and were arguing over tobacco like a couple of children. Kepennis looked a lot more relaxed now, despite the ordeal of the preceding day. It became apparent to the Doctor that he and Wemus were inseparable friends and in many ways were both as childish as each other. Although Kepennis seemed to exude more authority, it was clear that Wemus didn’t hold any respect for it, and the two bickered and teased each other as if they really were on a holiday outing and not the captives of hostile guerrillas. The morning sunshine had filled everyone with fresh hope it seemed.

Tigus ignored the Doctor’s question, drawing hungrily on his cigarette, as if that were far more important to him. But the Doctor was not to be deterred so easily ‘Tell me about the Krallik,’ he said, placing his hands together and assuming a very shrewd and interested expression. ‘Who is he, a king or chieftain of some sort?’

‘He is just a man,’ Tigus replied, face hardening with suspicion at the Doctor’s line of questioning. ‘Like any good man, he fight for right.’

‘But why does he wield so much power over your people?’

Kepennis looked up from his game of cards and answered for Tigus. ‘Because he has suffered more,’ he said simply.

‘His child shot, his wife raped and murdered. He captured and tortured before escape and hide in woods.’

Tigus leapt up and kicked the guide’s cards from his hands in an unexpected burst of fury.

‘You speak for us? You
dare
? What you know of Krallik with your greed and your treachery?’ In his anger he continued to speak in English, his eyes blazing, hand straying towards his machete.

Kepennis looked down at the cards scattered in the grass.

‘Everyone know the story in Papul,’ he said defensively, like a scolded child. ‘He is hero to us too, even you think we no good. We just try survive how we can. And it is difficult enough with Wemus’s cooking.’

His attempt at humour was so incongruous that the leader was momentarily speechless. It looked as though he was going to gut Kepennis with his machete for a second, then be actually smiled. Wemus smiled too, somewhat gratefully.

‘Why everyone pick on me?’ he said plaintively.

Kepennis calmly collected his cards and continued dealing.

‘So he formed the OPG?’ the Doctor hypothesised, addressing Tigus to prevent any further confrontation.

Tigus grunted. ‘Eight rain seasons ago this happen. Live jungle since. Deep in swamps. Deep, deep, where only Anibal and strange beasts live. Mothers tell children tales of Krallik to scare them to sleep. Fathers would throw away their lives for him. I not say truth before: I hear he is more than man. His hate make him more. His experience change him. He live only to secure freedom for Papul, by whatever means. No-one ever see Krallik – he is mystery, that how he work. When recruit men, always mask, safer for him, more mystery. The Papul fear him too, yes.’ And now he grinned, almost savagely and raised his voice for the benefit of Budi, Ussman and the two girls. ‘But the Indoni fear him more...’ Then, as if angry at having said maybe too much, he rounded on his men and with guttural commands ordered them to break camp.