Doctor Who: The Reign of Terror (16 page)

In the secluded secrecy of the ruined
crypt, Ian hung from the iron shackles. His wrists were bleeding and
his whole body was racked with pain because of the awkward posture he
was being forced into - almost on tiptoe with most of his weight
suspended from his wrists. The two soldiers were sitting some
distance away, swigging rough red wine and munching crusty loaves.
Ian groaned in agony, his parched throat burning and his tongue
rasping against the dry roof of his mouth like sandpaper.

One of the bored soldiers got up and
slouched over. 'Getting impatient, are we?' he sneered. 'That's a
good sign. Citizen Colbert really knows how to make pigs like you
talk. Leave them alone. Let them suffer and have time to think ...
Now me, I'd use more instant methods ... ' The young bully raised
his musket butt aloft ready to bring it down in a savage swipe across
Ian's face.

Stop that!'

Leon Colbert emerged from the arches
and strode up, shoving the sadistic militiaman aside. He smiled
apologetically at Ian. 'I fear my men are rather impatient,' he
admitted quietly. 'I really do not want you to come to any harm,
Chesterton, but I know that you possess information that is vital to
the cause I believe in.'

Ian did his best to smile back despite
the pain. 'You are wasting your time with me, Colbert. I am very
small fry,' he retorted.

Leon folded his arms and shook his head
wearily. 'You really cannot expect me to believe that,' he protested.
'We learned about the existence of James
Stirling two months ago. We have been searching for him ever since.'

Ian gritted his teeth. 'We?' he echoed.

Colbert's face became almost friendly.
'I have been loyal to the Revolution from the very beginning,' he
explained. 'If you had known France six years ago - before the
Bastille - I think you would understand.'

Ian managed a pale smile. The irony of
his situation was almost comical. 'Oh, I do understand, Leon, believe
me,' he replied. 'But I cannot help you.'

'Or you will not help us.' Leon stared
into the sunlight pouring from a hole in the roof. 'France will never
be anything until we have purged her of these high-born leeches who
have sucked her life-blood for so many centuries ... ' he burst out
passionately.

Ian tried to ease the terrible strain
on his chafed and bloody wrists. 'I understand your mission, Leon,'
he repeated, 'but you must believe that I cannot help you.'

Colbert looked genuinely upset. 'Ian,
you can save yourself so much suffering if you talk. This is your
only chance.'

Colbert paused, waiting for Ian to
respond to his appeal. Ian stared back at him, mute and defiant.

'You realise that when I have finished
with you you will be guillotined?' Colbert continued in desperation.
'But if you co-operate then I have the power to free you.' Again
Colbert paused.

Ian tried to laugh and was racked with
a choking coughing fit. 'This is absurd ... ' he gasped when he
recovered. 'Jules must have told you all I know.'

Colbert drew closer to his victim. 'Ah
yes, what did Jules say?' he mocked. 'That Webster asked you to
deliver a vital message to James Stirling.'

Ian nodded readily. 'Quite right. I do
not know Stirling's identity. If I did, I obviously would not have
come here.'

Colbert smiled sardonically. 'But you
are here, Ian,' he said menacingly. 'You must know about their
organisation. Webster would never have trusted you otherwise.' He
thrust his face into Ian's, his eyes hardening. 'Now, who sent you
from England? How did you get to France? Who are your other contacts here? Be sensible, save
yourself from the guillotine ... '

Ian shook his head helplessly. 'You
would never believe my story,' he moaned, growing weaker.

'Let me be the judge of that! How did
you get to France?'

Ian licked his cracking lips and
struggled to take a deep breath against the pull of the shackles. 'I
flew here ... in a wooden box ... with three friends ... '

Colbert's face remained impassive, but
his fists clenched around the pistols in his belt.

'When I left England it was the year
1963 ... ' Ian continued recklessly, dissolving into a choking
laugh at the comical sound of his explanation in French.

With a savage oath Colbert stepped back
and signalled to one of the soldiers. Gripping his musket with the
fixed bayonet held firmly in front of him, the soldier marched
inexorably towards the helpless captive hanging against the pillar in
chains. Ian struggled pathetically for a few seconds and then steeled
himself for the dreaded slash of steel.

Just before the soldier reached him, a
shadowy figure suddenly emerged into a shaft of sunlight at the far
end of the crypt.

'That's enough, Leon. Let him go!'

The soldier froze. Ian's half-closed
eyes snapped open to see Jules Renan advancing cautiously towards him
behind Leon Colbert, with a pistol covering his captors. Next moment,
the other soldier sitting by himself levelled his musket at Jules.
But before he could shoot, Jules swung sideways and fired at his
head. Leon's hands flew to his pistols, but Jules hurled his
discharged weapon into his face with deadly accuracy. Leon shrieked
and fell backwards with blood spurting from a deep gash between his
eyes. Meanwhile the soldier nearest Ian had managed to cock his
musket and swing round to aim at Jules.

Summoning the last vestiges of his
strength, Ian threw all his weight onto his lacerated wrists, lifted
his feet high in the air and swung his legs in a scything arc. He hit
the soldier on the side of the head and knocked him sideways. As he
fell, the soldier fired his musket and the ball zipped past Ian's
head, missing him by millimetres. Ian caught sight of Leon scrambling
to his feet and drawing his weapons.

'Jules! Look out!' he yelled.

Jules grabbed the toppling soldier and
spun round using him as a shield. Colbert fired both pistols
simultaneously. The soldier's body jerked horribly and Jules let him
slump to the ground.

' Trailor!' Jules gasped, gaping
incredulously at Leon. 'So it is you who has been betraying our cause
... '

Colbert stared contemptuously back at
him. 'Traitor?' he mocked. 'Not I, Jules. The traitors are you and
your cronies who work against the government of the People ... '
Colbert had noticed the undischarged musket lying beside the soldier
that Jules had killed, and he was slowly backing towards it keeping
his eyes on Jules.

Jules reached unobtrusively into his
coat pocket and drew out a second pistol. As Colbert turned and dived
for the musket there was a flash and a bang from Jules's hand.
Colbert sank to his knees with a look of surprise on his bloody face.
For several seconds he knelt in front of Jules like a priest in front
of an altar. Then he toppled forward onto his face in the rubble and
weeds.

Jules hurried across to release Ian
from his iron bonds. 'We must move quickly ... ' he muttered, using
the pistol barrel to lever open the links of the chains.

Ian was almost crying with relief. 'I
thought I was dreaming or going mad when you appeared ... ' he
stuttered, sick with shock. 'What made you come here?'

'Bad news, Ian. Your fears were
justified. Barbara and Susan have been arrested at the physician's.
I came for you at once.'

Ian looked utterly distraught. 'We must
get after them immediately!' he cried, tugging at the
chains with renewed vigour.

Jules shook his head as he eased Ian's
bruised hands out of the forced shackles. 'No. First we must return
to the house.'

'But the soldiers will probably be
waiting for us,' Ian objected.

Jules tore his clean handkerchief in
two and helped Ian wrap a couple of makeshift bandages round his
wrists. 'I think not,' he said. 'I feel sure that Leon would have
relished the satisfaction of arresting me himself. Anyway, we shall
have to risk it,' he insisted.

Jules led the way back to the house
through the side streets constantly making detours and doubling back
to confuse anyone who might be tailing them. As far as possible they
avoided the small bands of militiamen and sans-culottes which roamed
the city taking the law into their own hands on the slightest
suspicion.

'I wish I knew what has happened to the
Doctor,' Ian muttered as Jules helped him along a dark alleyway. 'He
would know what we ought to do for best ... '

Susan lay on the lumpy iron bed in the
dungeon staring at the mould on the glistening ceiling and listening
to the hypnotic drip-drip of the water and the intermittent squeaking
and scuttling of the invisible rats. She felt a little better
physically and even her blisters had stopped hurting, but her spirit
was utterly broken, and she felt that there Was now no hope at all
for herself or her friends. Soon she expected to find herself back in
the dreaded blood-coloured tumbril with Barbara and Ian, rumbling
through the jeering crowds to the guillotine. As for her grandfather,
she doubted . whether he was even alive any longer.

Suddenly she caught sight of an eye
blinking at her behind the spyhole in the dungeon door. Her stomach
heaved with revulsion as she imagined the slimy, squat little gaoler
ogling her in her misery. 'What is it? What do you want?' she mumbled
wearily, levering herself up onto her elbows.

'Susan ... Susan can you hear me?'
whispered a familiar voice.

She felt a thrill of joy shoot through
her exhausted body. For a few seconds she feared that she might have
become delirious with fever, especially when the eye at the spyhole
suddenly winked roguishly at her. 'Grandfather ... ?' she murmured,
scrambling to her feet and running to the door. 'Grandfather, is it
really you? What happened to you? How did you escape from the
farmhouse?' she blurted out, her words tripping over one another in
her excitement.

'I can't explain all that now, child,
there isn't time,' replied the Doctor in an undertone, putting his
mouth to the spyhole. 'I've got to work fast.'

'Barbara's here somewhere ... ' Susan
whispered, trying to control herself.

'Yes, yes, I've already taken care of
her. She should be well away by now,' the Doctor interrupted
urgently. 'Now, listen, my dear, I have to go away for a little
while. But I'll be back, never fear. And then I'll get us both safely
out of here.'

Susan stood up on tiptoe to see more
clearly through the spyhole and make sure she was not dreaming or
imagining things. 'Do be careful, Grandfather,' she pleaded, tears of
relief welling in her eyes.

'Yes, yes, child. Now don't fuss and
don't worry ... '

The mouth abruptly vanished from the
spyhole and Susan heard the Doctor's footsteps receding on the
flagstones. Trembling with anticipation, she lay on the bed again and
tried to remain calm, scarcely daring to breath for fear of somehow
giving her grandfather away.

The Doctor bumped into the gaoler by
the alcove.

The gaoler looked at him thunderstruck.
'Citizen! I thought you ... Didn't you take some guards and follow
the released prisoner?' he squawked, his eyes bulging.

The Doctor stared down his nose at the
quaking ruffian. 'Certainly not!' he retorted icily. 'I naturally
assumed that you were going to follow her.' He shook his plumes
imperiously. 'I am hardly suitably attired to go chasing after
escaping prisoners, am I?'

The gaoler clutched his tousled,
bandaged head in disbelief. 'But, Citizen, I can't leave the prison .
. . ' he whimpered.

The Doctor clicked his tongue sternly.
'Well, well, and what do you suppose Citizen Lemaitre is going to
say?' he snapped. 'He's bound to want to know whose idea it was.'

The gaoler sank into his chair, his
blotchy face a mask oi sheer misery. 'It was my idea,' he mumbled.
'Citizen, you must help me ... Please help me ... '

The Doctor frowned gravely. 'I'll do my
best,' he promised generously. 'Now, the way I see things ... The
young girl in the dungeon is also tied up in this business. We'll let
her go and I personally will follow her and arrest the lot of them.' The Doctor shot out his
hand. 'All I require from you is the key to the dungeon.'

But the gaoler looked aghast and
gripped the key ring tightly in his podgy fists. 'Citizen Lemaitre
was very clear in his instructions,' he protested. 'Before he left he
told me that if that door is opened, I will lose my head,.

The Doctor waved his arms
contemptuously. 'Lemaitre ... Lemaitre ... Good heavens, man,
can't you ever work on your own initiative?' he scoffed. 'I order you
to open the child's cell immediately!'

But the gaoler shook his head
adamantly. 'To lose one prisoner is bad enough,' he mumbled. 'To lose
two would be the end of me. Citizen Lemaitre will be back soon.
You'll have to ask him. Until he says otherwise, that door remains
locked.'

The Doctor was almost purple with
outrage, but he realised that argument was futile. With a snort of
exasperation he stalked off muttering darkly to himself.

Maximilien Marie Robespierre looked
thinner and more drawn than ever as he paced ceaselessly to and fro
in his tall, gloomy study hands twisted nervously in a knot behind
his back. From time to time he paused to gaze down through the long
windows into the courtyard below thronged with deputies and
deputations, visiting provincial officials, representatives of the
militant and cantankerous Paris Commune and all manner of
petitioners, plotters and complainants.

All at once the double doors were flung
open and Lemaitre was shown in by a soldier. Robespierre rushed
forward to greet him. 'At last, Lemaitre!' he cried thankfully. He
waved the soldier away with orders that he and his visitor must not
be disturbed under any circumstances. Then he ushered Lemaitre into a
chair and resumed his restless, haunted pacing. 'The news is
extremely serious, Citizen,' he confided. 'We have very little time,'