Doctor Who: The Reign of Terror (2 page)

Susan, Barbara and Ian were gazing
through a gap in the trees at the rolling fields beyond the edge of
the dark forest.

'It's very warm, it must be
summertime,' Susan said eagerly. 'But why can't we see any lights or
anything?'

'Towns and villages can be quite far
apart, even in England,' Barbara pointed out, as if giving a
geography lesson.

The Doctor joined them. 'Are we going
to stand here gossiping all night?' he demanded, peering at the
silent landscape.

Next moment two noises like gunshots
rang out in the distance and the undergrowth behind the TARDIS
stirred and rustled.

Susan jumped and nudged Ian.

'All right. I saw it ... ' Ian
whispered out of the corner of his mouth. 'Keep talking, Susan.' Ian
moved away towards the mysterious thicket, his body tensed for
action.

'Did you see what it was?' Barbara
murmured into Susan's ear.

Before Susan could respond, the Doctor
turned to them sharply. 'I'm not deaf, Miss Wright!' he snapped.
'It's probably a rabbit or something,' he added nonchalantly, staring
after Ian. 'You know, young Chesterton's getting quite jumpy. Young
chaps like him shouldn't suffer from nerves.'

There was a shrill scream and a furious
scuffling in the bushes behind the police box.

'That rabbit of yours is putting up
quite a fight!' Barbara remarked caustically.

Next moment Ian appeared dragging a
struggling urchin of about twelve by the collar of his ragged blouson
shirt. The boy was fair-haired and freckled, his blue eyes wide with
panic at the sight of the fierce old man and his companions. He was
barefoot, with patched breeches flapping around his bony knees.

Ian, you're hurting him!' Barbara
protested.

'No, I'm not ... ' Ian retorted,
blowing on his bitten fingers and glaring at his kicking and twisting
captive.

'Come here, boy!' commanded the Doctor.
'Tell us where we are. Where do you live?'

'Grandfather, you're frightening him,'
Susan cried, running forward and putting her arm round the boy.
'We're friends. You needn't be afraid,' she told him gently.

The boy stopped struggling and stared
uncomprehendingly, his eyes still wild with fear.

'He's terrified of us,' Barbara
murmured, approaching slowly.

'Of us - or of something else?' Ian
wondered, glancing round warily. 'If those were shots we heard just
now ... '

'Answer my questions, boy!' the Doctor
ordered, striding over to him.

As the stern old man flourished his
silver-headed cane at him the boy cowered. Then he muttered something
in a hushed voice.

'He's speaking French!' Susan exclaimed
in surprise.

Ian thought quickly. 'We will not hurt
you ... ' he told the boy in passable French.

'No, of course we will not. We need
your help,' Barbara explained in much better French. 'We have lost
our way.'

The boy drew closer to Susan as Ian
relaxed his grip on him, but still kept silent.

Barbara tried again. 'Is this England?'
The boy frowned and shook his tousled head vigorously. 'England? No,
this is France,' he declared proudly.

The strangers all glanced at one
another in astonishment. 'France? How far are we from Paris?' Ian
asked carefully. The urchin pointed across the fields. 'Not far.
Twelve kilometres perhaps.'

The Doctor smiled smugly. 'Paris, eh?'
he muttered in English. 'Well a few hundred miles either way is only
to be expected. After all, it is a minute fraction of the distance we
have just travelled in the TARDIS.' He beamed approvingly across the
clearing at the dilapidated police box. 'Quite accurate, in fact.'

'Not bad at all,' Ian agreed
grudgingly. 'As long as distance is the only error.'

'Just what do you mean by that, young
man?' the Doctor shouted, his eyes blazing with resentment.

'A few hundred years either way ...
?' Ian mocked, nudging Barbara.

'Nonsense!' spluttered the Doctor. Til
have a word with the lad.'

The Doctor started to ask the boy a
question in immaculate French. Finding himself momentarily unguarded,
the urchin took advantage of the strangers' confusion. Wriggling out
of Susan's grasp, he took to his heels and vanished into the tangled
undergrowth like a rabbit.

'Grab him, Chesterton!' the Doctor
shouted, lashing out vainly with his walking stick. But it was too
late. The lad had disappeared into the twilight.

'We'll never catch him now,' Ian
mumbled shamefacedly.

'I wonder what he was so afraid of?'
Susan murmured, glancing apprehensively around the clearing.

'Did you notice his clothes?' Barbara
said thoughtfully. 'They were very old-fashioned.'

Ian nodded grimly and turned to the
Doctor. 'So, we know where we are, Doctor. But do we know when?'

Not far away, in a hollow in the middle
of the fields, stood a derelict farmhouse half-hidden in a small
copse of tall poplars. The crumbling stone building formed an 'L'
shape enclosing a paved yard with a similarly shaped group of
adjoining barns and outbuildings. In the shadow of the nearby trees,
the grimy cobweb-festooned windows stared out like sightless eyes.
The yard itself was strewn with rotting straw, broken tiles and
glass, and tall weeds sprang up everywhere between the uneven
cobbles. Rusting and decaying items of farm machinery were heaped in
corners. In the centre of the yard was a deep dark well, its broken
winch roofed with ravaged thatch. The well looked like the entrance
to some goblin's subterranean kingdom in a fairy tale.

Suddenly the humid silence was
shattered by the shrill squeak of rusted hinges and the huge farmyard
gate swung open and banged against the archway between the barns and
the stables. The young boy from the forest ran across the yard and
over to the porch and peered through the filthy panes in the
worm-eaten front door. Inside, a faint yellow candle was burning in
the murky darkness. Glancing furtively over his shoulder, as if
fearful of being followed, the boy banged on the door in a series of
staccato beats, like a sort of code. A few seconds later the door
opened with an eerie groan. The boy gave a final look round and then
darted inside, slamming the door behind him.

A little later the candle was blown out
and the house waited, lifeless and dark among the forbidding trees.

The four travellers stood at the edge
of the fields, peering through the gloom at the blank windows of the
farmhouse among the clustering trees.

'Human habitation at last,' the Doctor
announced, pointing with his walking stick.

'What do you make of it, Barbara,'
asked Ian without enthusiasm. The farm hardly looked very
welcoming after their epic journeys in the TARDIS.

'Looks deserted,' Barbara replied. 'You
know, I'm convinced we've landed some time in the past.'

The Doctor grunted non-commitally but
said nothing.

Ian looked distinctly uneasy as he
glanced up at the darkening sky. 'I'm beginning to feel we should get
back to the TARDIS while we can,' he confessed.

'Nonsense!' snapped the Doctor. 'It was
your idea to explore, Chesterton. It could be rather interesting.
Besides, the walk will do us all good.' Swinging his stick like an
eager hiker, the Time Lord set off across the field at a cracking
pace, whistling merrily and recklessly slashing at the long seedy
grass stalks.

Susan followed her grandfather after a
momentary hesitation. 'Gome on, you two,' she called over her
shoulder. 'We don't want to lose each other in the dark, do we?'

'Don't worry, we're right behind you .
. . ' Ian answered reluctantly, as he and Barbara tailed along at a
more leisurely pace.

Barbara stared disapprovingly at the
Doctor's fast-receding back. 'We're still nowhere near home,' she
complained bitterly.

Ian shrugged resignedly. 'At least the
Doctor tried. We must be grateful for that, I suppose.'

'So we're staying with the TARDIS after
all?'

Ian shrugged again and grinned. 'Well,
it's cheered Susan up if nothing else,' he said amiably.

Barbara shot Ian a puzzled sidelong
glance. 'You seem quite keen to stay all of a sudden''

Ian shrugged a third time. 'I could
change my mind,' he laughed. 'It all depends on when we are!'

Suddenly they heard Susan's urgent
calls from the trees around the farmhouse. 'Ian ... Barbara ...
Come quickly!'

'Here we go again ... ' Ian muttered
ruefully. 'Come on, Barbara.'

Susan peered over the Doctor's shoulder
as he squinted through the cobweb-encrusted panes in the
farmhouse porch. 'They're just coming,
Grandfather,' she whispered.

The Doctor wiped the filthy window with
his sleeve. 'It seems to be utterly derelict,' he murmured. 'I wonder
if we can get inside.'

The farmyard gate shrieked and made
them jump.

'Have you found anything interesting?'
Barbara asked breathlessly, running up to them.

Susan shook her head. 'Grandfather
wants to get inside.'

'Does he now!' Ian exclaimed
doubtfully, striding into the porch.

The Doctor pushed him towards the
window. 'Chesterton, take a look. Your eyes should be sharper than
mine.'

Stilling a protest, Ian pressed his
face to the blank window. 'I don't think anyone's lived here for
years,' he said, brushing the dirt from his cheek.

But the Doctor was already hopping
mischievously inside. 'We're in luck!' he crowed. 'The front door's
unlocked.'

The others followed warily as the
Doctor ventured into a dark low-ceilinged room sparsely furnished
with a few broken chairs, a rickety table and an old wooden trunk
with brass corners. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust
and hardly any daylight penetrated the cracked and grimy panes. On
the table, a pair of tarnished but ornate candlesticks looked oddly
out of place in such humble surroundings. Susan gasped and drew back
in horror as a huge feathery cobweb wafted against her cheek in the
doorway.

The Doctor unearthed a small tinderbox
from a drawer and after a few unsuccessful attempts, he finally
managed to produce a good enough spark to light one of the stumps of
candle. 'Good,' he cried triumphantly. 'I'll search upstairs.
Chesterton, you take a look down here.'

Ian held back uneasily as the Doctor
started to climb the narrow, dark stairs leading up from the corner
of the room opposite the door. But as the old man's footsteps
receded, he pulled himself together and set about lighting the second
candle. It sputtered intermittently for a few seconds and then gave a
steady, if smoky yellow flame.

'Where's the Doctor gone?' asked
Barbara, edging nervously into the room behind Susan.

'Exploring upstairs.' Ian held out the
tinderbox. 'What do you make of this, Barbara?' he whispered, so that
Susan, who had started rummaging in the old trunk in the corner,
would not hear.

'It must be hundreds of years old,'
Barbara murmured.

They both jumped as Susan emitted a
loud sneeze from the dust getting up her nose. 'Look at these,' Susan
exclaimed, holding up some old clothes she had found folded in the
trunk.

Barbara picked up a very full-skirted
dress in faded brocade material and held it against herself. 'It's
all eighteenth century stuff!' she gasped in astonishment.

'Look at this one,' Susan said
excitedly, unfolding a lowcut dress with frilly elbow-length sleeves,
decorated bodice and billowing full-length skirt. It was almost
exactly her size.

Barbara rummaged in the trunk and
pulled out several more outfits, both women's and men's, from the
same period. 'There's a complete wardrobe here ... Different sizes
too'

Ian brought the candlestick over. 'Look
at these little bundles.' He unearthed several oddly shaped packages
and proceeded to undo them. They contained bottles of wine and lumps
of stale grey bread.

Under the clothes, Barbara had
discovered some ornate daggers, several rolled-up maps and a bundle
of documents. Ian scanned the documents by the feeble flickering
candlelight. 'These look like letters of authority,' he murmured.
'The names of the holders are still blank. I think they're passes of
some kind,' he said, showing the papers to the girls.

Susan sneezed mightily again as she
tried on the dress with the pretty bodice.

'Yet nobody seems to live here now,'
Barbara pointed out. 'Just look at all the dust.'

'Perhaps the house is some kind of
refuge,' Ian suggested vaguely. 'These could be supplies for some
sort of escape route.'

'How romantic!' Barbara teased as he
unrolled a fresh batch of documents. Then her face became deadly
serious as she read the elaborate copperplate handwriting over Ian's
shoulder. 'This one's signed by RobespierreV she gasped, clasping Ian's arm. 'And look at the
date, Ian: Deuxieme Thermidor ... ' Barbara's mouth fell open and
she gaped at Ian in disbelief. 'It must be the French Revolution!'
she finally managed to say.

Ian stared back at her. 'You mean the
Doctor's dropped us bang in the middle of the French Revolution?' he
said incredulously.

Barbara took the document and examined
the date again. 'The Second Thermidor ... That's July, 1794'... '
she said in a strange hollow voice. 'If I'm right, the Doctor's
dropped us bang in the middle of the Terror!'

The Doctor had crept cautiously up the
narrow creaking staircase and along a cramped and dusty passage
leading off the landing on the upper floor. His flickering candle
flame showed several doors leading off on either side.

He tried the handles and discovered
that one or two were locked, but most swung open with a squeak and a
shower of choking dust to reveal an empty little room or a room piled
with broken bits of furniture. It was obvious that the farmhouse had
been deserted for many years. Raising the candlestick high, the
Doctor peered into the cobwebby shadows and every few paces he
stopped and listened. Once or twice he fancied he could detect the
sound of heavy breathing, but soon he decided that his imagination
was playing tricks. He was about to give up his search for something
interesting and retrace his steps downstairs, when he suddenly heard
a sinister creaking noise at the other end of the long passage.
Grasping his stick firmly in one hand and the heavy candlestick in
the other, he advanced towards the source of the ominous noise, his
eyes darting from side to side and his wiry body tensed, ready to
defend himself against attack.