Part 15 (1/2)

'G.o.dd.a.m.n it!' shouted Crawhammer and stamped from the room.

The other white masks followed in slow procession.

The Doctor waited. The corridors beyond the doors became quiet.

He was practically asleep.

'Are you awake?'

He felt a pair of hands shaking his shoulders, and forced his eyes open.

Someone was unstrapping his restraints. He was being sat upright.

'Drink this.'

A cup of something hot was pressed into his hands and guided to his 79 mouth.

'Black coffee, very strong.'

The Doctor gulped it down.

'Best I could do, I'm afraid. I guess one of the medics could find something among this lot to perk you up...'

An American...

'You want another? There's not much time.'

Major Collins.

'How did you stop them?'

'I got a bogus message through to Hark, the surgeon' He grinned.

'Told him his wife and kids had been killed in a car crash.'

'Very inventive.' The Doctor tried unsteadily to sit up. 'You should go into counter-intelligence.'

'They're the ones who got us into this mess. Ours, theirs, yours...'

'Mine?'

'The Brits.'

'I'm from Gallifrey.'

'You're French?'

'No never mind... '

The Doctor shook his head to clear it and got to his feet from the operating table.

'I've got to get out of here...'

He scanned the room, wis.h.i.+ng he was more awake.

'There!'

He pointed to a row of narrow windows under the ceiling in one of the cellar walls.

'You'll never squeeze through those!'

'Oh, you'd be surprised what I can squeeze through when I've got a demented general and his pet surgeon at my back. Would you give me a leg up please?'

The cold, wet November afternoon hit the Doctor like a bucket of water as he slithered through the narrow gap onto overlong, sodden gra.s.s. His operation gown was soaked. Major Collins bundled his clothes after him.

'I'll stay put till I hear Crawhammer coming back, then I'll have to sound the alarm,' the Major said. 'Keep low, move fast and head for the trees on your left. The wall's just beyond them.'

'Thank you,' said the Doctor. He set off in the direction the major had indicated, waited a moment and doubled back. He had no intention of leaving without seeing the rocket.

He knew Major Collins would never tell him where it was, but 80 Drakefell might. The man was at the end of his tether and desperate to unburden himself.

The Doctor scurried up a low rise and lay flat on the top. Below him lay the house, half a ruin, and beyond it he could just make out the ranks of red-brick outhouses with corrugated tin roofs. Laboratories, workshops, probably dormitories, the Doctor surmised.

He saw no chance of getting back to Drakefell's office. He'd have to wait until he came out.

The sound of the alarm put paid to that idea. Suddenly there were troops swarming out of the house, out of the barrack blocks. He retreated down the rise, backwards on his belly, away from the house.

There was little cover. He strained to glimpse the trees Major Collins had advised him to make for. He could no longer see them.

He was desperately tired. He struggled to keep his vision in focus.

Human chemical preparations rarely agreed with him most were positively dangerous.

Running along the bottom of the slope was a high, thick, well-groomed hedge, with what seemed to be a break in it presumably a gate. He decided to make a run for it.

Gathering up his clothes, he sprinted erratically towards the gate actually just an abrupt, straight gap in the hedge and hurled himself through it.

He crashed into another, equally high hedge and sank to the ground.

He was in a narrow, dead straight canyon.

No there were further gaps in the inner wall.

'He went into the maze, Sarge!'

A maze! He was in a maze!