Doctor Who: The Reign of Terror (5 page)

Footsore and sweating from their
exhausting trek, Susan, Barbara and Ian looked forward to the chance
to rest, even though it was within the walls of the dreaded
Conciergerie where prisoners for immediate execution or for quick
token trial were taken for their short sojourn before death. At the
gates, several toothless old women cackled heartily and waved their
knitting needles with taunting spite as the victims were marched past
into the courtyard.

'The famous tricoteuses ... Barbara
muttered with a shiver. 'Later on today they'll be sitting around the
guillotine dipping their wool in the blood.' She couldn't resist a
macabre smile to herself at the thought of an English schoolteacher taking pupils on a tour
of real historical events.

Susan clung to her arm and turned aside
with a shudder as the soldiers shoved them roughly through the gates.

The prisoners were taken to a small
room on one side of the courtyard where a fat judge dressed in a
black robe and a white tabbed collar was sitting in an ornate chair
at a small table covered in papers. The grey wig perched askew above
his porridgy face looked filthy. Across his chest he wore a huge
tricolour sash covered in foodstains. Several soldiers stood guard
behind the captives and the lieutenant handed some documents to the
wheezing and perspiring judge. There was a long pause while the judge
perused the papers, occasionally writing with a scratchy quill.

'Are we to be allowed to tell our
story?' Barbara eventually asked in respectful French.

The judge glared at her over his
cracked pince-nez glasses. 'The accused are not required to speak,'
he snapped, flourishing the papers. 'I have the charges and the
evidence here.' He scanned the papers again and fixed the prisoners
with cold, shortsighted eyes. 'You were found in the hideout with
Rouvray and d'Argenson ... royalist counterrevolutionaries.'

Ian opened his mouth to speak, but the
judge's baleful stare silenced him.

'I am satisfied as to your guilt,' the
judge announced harshly. 'You are all sentenced to immediate
execution.'

The fateful words rang in the bare
stone room as the judge signed the execution order. The three
companions stared aghast at one another. Ian thought for a moment of
making a desperate attempt to escape.

'We demand the right to speak,' Barbara
declared defiantly.

'You have no rights!' the judge shouted
disdainfully. 'You will be guillotined as soon as it can be
arranged.' He gestured to the guard with his quill. 'Take them to the
cells immediately.'

As the time-travellers were manhandled
across to the cells in the basement of the Conciergerie, they passed
a huddle of dishevelled but fashionably-dressed victims being
herded towards a red-painted tumbril waiting
by the gates. Their hands were tied behind their backs and the
women's hair had been crudely cut short at the back to keep it out of
the way of the guillotine's relentless blade.

'I'm beginning to feel like Marie
Antoinette ... ' Barbara murmured in Ian's ear as they were pushed
down some worn stone steps into a low, dark vault with cells along
both sides.

The vault was lit by flaming torches
fixed to iron brackets on the mould-covered walls. Sinister narrow
passages led off into the gloom. One of them began as a small
room-like alcove which contained a rough wooden table strewn with
execution lists. Seated at the table and drinking casually from a
large bottle of cognac was the chief gaoler. As they approached, he
staggered sleepily to his feet and picked up a huge metal ring loaded
with heavy keys.

The gaoler was a short stocky man with
ruddy, battered features, black teeth and a huge shapeless red nose.
He wore a filthy frock-coat, an open shirt, stained breeches and a
pair of collapsed stockings which were full of holes. On his small
bullet head was perched a moth-eaten tricorn hat complete with the
obligatory tricolour rosette. Without saying a word he slouched over
and unlocked a cell door. Two of the prison guards thrust Ian into
the cell and the gaoler slammed the door and locked it again. Then he
grinned slyly at Susan and Barbara, rattling the key ring in his huge
fat hands.

Susan broke away from her escort and
ran across to peer through the small window in the door of Ian's
cell. 'Ian ... Oh, Ian ... ' she cried, tugging uselessly at the
lock with her frail fingers.

'Get back, you traitor!' the gaoler
snarled, jangling the keys in her face and banging them against the
metal lock with sadistic savagery. 'Keep hold of her, you idiots!' he
shouted at the guards, hurling Susan back against the wall. He
gestured to them to take her down to the other end of the long low
vault. As she was dragged away, the gaoler sidled up to Barbara and
started whispering confidentially into her ear. 'A lady like yourself
shouldn't be kept in a pig-sty like this ... ' he said slyly,
winking suggestively.

Barbara grimaced with disdain and tried
to follow Susan and the guards. The gaoler stopped her and jangled
his keys.

"Of course, Madame, I have these .
. . ' He winked again.

Barbara's face softened a little and
she showed a flicker of interest.

'It wouldn't be too difficult to leave
a few doors open now would it?' he continued.

Barbara hesitated and then shrugged
hopelessly. 'I suppose not. But I'm afraid I have no money. I could
not pay you.'

The gaoler edged closer and Barbara
forced herself to ignore his bad, drink-sodden breath. 'You see,
Madame, the soldiers in this place are no better than peasants,' the
ruffian continued in an undertone. 'It gets very lonely for an
intelligent man like myself, very lonely indeed.' He slipped his
podgy arm round Barbara's waist. 'Now, if we were to be friends ...
' he breathed, his blubbery lips brushing her ear.

With a cry of revulsion, Barbara
struggled free and backed away down the passage. Breathing hard, the
gaoler advanced on her once more, arms outstretched and keys rattling
menacingly. With a sudden movement, Barbara slashed her assailant
across the face with the back of her hand. A ring she wore tore a
livid gash in the gaoler's cheek.

He stopped in his tracks, staring at
her in disbelief. 'You'll regret doing that, Madame, I promise you .
. . ' he snarled savagely. Then he grabbed her arm and propelled her
down the passage to join Susan, who had been watching everything in
horrified silence in the custody of the guards. 'Lock them away!' the
gaoler bellowed, throwing his keys to a soldier. 'No ... In there!'
he added, indicating a narrow, low door round a corner at the end of
the vault. 'That's where I accommodate my very special guests ... '
he sneered, making a low bow.

While the soldiers flung the girls into
the dungeon, the gaoler wandered back to his alcove, chuckling and
dabbing his bleeding face with his sleeve. Throwing himself into his
chair, he uncorked the cognac bottle and drank several deep gulps.
Then he picked up the sheaf of execution schedules and studied the
endless lists of names, his face grinning like a gargoyle in the
flickering torchlight.

The door to the dungeon shut with an
echoing clang of doomlike finality. Barbara and Susan gazed around
their small dark prison with sinking spirits. A meagre patch of
daylight entered through the barred grille high up in one wall, but
the dungeon was airless and humid. The rough, flaking walls glistened
with condensation and there was a constant drip-drip-drip of water
trickling in a narrow stream across the stone floor between drainage
holes set at the bottom of opposite walls. Dirty trampled straw
covered the rest of the floor. The only furniture was a narrow
metal-framed bed with a stinking old flock mattress and a few ragged
blankets.

Barbara gasped at the appalling stench
of urine and rotten food. 'It reminds me of the last time we were
imprisoned ... in prehistoric times,' she muttered, utterly
dejected.

Susan nodded, screwing up her nose in
disgust. 'Except there's one important difference,' she said.
'Grandfather and Ian were with us then.'

Susan's manner seemed less downcast,
more realistic than Barbara's. She was a little distant, as if she
were less affected by their predicament. The teacher glanced
enviously at her former pupil, almost resenting Susan's ability to
detach herself from the frailty of mere humans at times, however grim
the circumstances.

'Perhaps we can see where we are ...
' Susan suggested, climbing onto the end of the rickety bed and
trying to pull herself up by the bars to see out of the grille. 'I
can't reach, Barbara. You'll have to help me.'

There was no response. Barbara was
standing motionless, lost in her own thoughts.

'Barbara ... '

'What? Oh, I'm sorry Susan ... '
Barbara linked her hands and made a kind of stirrup to support
Susan's foot.

'I ... I can't see much ... ' Susan
reported, craning over the ledge. 'Just the courtyard ... near the
ground. The cart's taken those poor people away.'

Barbara sank down on the lumpy mattress
and dropped her head in her hands. 'I wish we knew for sure that the
Doctor was safe,' she murmured.

Susan jumped down and sat beside her.
'Oh yes,' she said, with a strange smile. 'Yes, he would have got out
of the house all right, Barbara. I know he
would," she said bravely. Barbara looked at her optimistic,
almost perky expression and smiled bleakly. She squeezed Susan's
hand, plainly far from reassured, and tried to work out what on earth
to do now.

The Doctor opened his eyes, winced and
promptly shut them again. The sunlight was blinding. His ears were
filled with the sound of birds. Was he dreaming? Eventually he opened
his eyes again, screwing them up against the glare. Suddenly he was
racked by a spasm of nauseous coughing, as if his lungs were turning
inside out. His mouth filled with bubbling acid mucus from the huge
quantity of smoke he had inhaled and he rolled his head to one side
and spat it out. Then he felt his head being gently lifted from the
hard ground and a bowl of cool water was put to his lips. He drank
gratefully and then coughed up more mucus. Turning aside he spat it
out and then greedily drank again until the bowl was empty. With an
enormous effort he struggled into a sitting position and blinked his
smarting eyes. He found himself face to face with the young peasant
boy from the forest, who was kneeling beside him with a frown of deep
concern.

'Thank you, my boy . . . Most
refreshing . . . ' he croaked, managing a feeble smile. The
boy looked utterly at a loss. The Doctor grunted at his own stupidity
and repeated his thanks, this time in impeccable French. 'And where
are my three friends?' he added, glancing anxiously around the
deserted farmyard. His eyes took in the smouldering
blackened shell of the house and the outbuildings. He sighed and a
look of profound despair spread over his severe, pale features.

'The soldiers set fire to the farm,'
the boy explained timidly. 'They took your friends to Paris, to the
Conciergerie. I think they will go to the guillotine,
sir.'

The Doctor's nostrils flared ominously.
'The Terror ... ' he muttered to himself. 'My favourite period.'
Throwing back his head he stared down his beaklike nose. 'I see,' he
replied gravely. 'You are a very brave boy. How can I ever begin to
thank you?'

The Doctor bowed his head and took
several deep breaths to clear his lungs. Then he hauled himself
unsteadily to his feet.

The boy sprang up and supported the old
man's arm. 'There were two men hiding in the house,' he continued.
'One of them knocked you on the head. Then the soldiers came. They
killed the two men and arrested your friends.'

The Doctor stared at the burnt-out
ruins. 'A tragic business,' he said, shaking his head sadly. 'Who
were the two men hiding in there?'

The boy hesitated, as if trying to
decide whether to reveal all he knew. Finally he shrugged. 'I can't
say, sir.'

The Doctor groaned, suddenly aware of
the bad bruising his body had suffered from being dragged down the
stairs and across the yard by his plucky little rescuer. 'But you got
me out of there,' he said with respectful admiration, ruffling the
boy's hair.

'You can still escape, sir,' the boy
suggested eagerly. 'My mother will give you food. Our farm's quite
near. It's on the way to Paris.'

The Doctor wiped his grimy, sweating
face with his handkerchief which was still tightly gripped in his
hand. 'Quite right. I must try and rescue my friends.'

The boy's freckled face frowned with
alarm. 'No, you mustn't risk that, sir. You'll be caught and sent to
the guillotine!' he warned.

The Doctor smiled. 'You saved my life.
I must try to save theirs.'

The boy thought for a moment. 'Yes . .
. ' he murmured. There was a pause. 'I could go with you,' he said.
'But since my father was taken away ... He made me promise to look
after my mother.'

The Doctor was deeply touched by the
boy's courageous honesty. 'So you are the head of the household now,
eh?'

The boy picked up the Doctor's walking
stick and offered it to him. The Doctor took it. 'Thank you for all
you have done,' he said, shaking the boy's scratched and dirty hand.
'What is your name?'

'Jean-Pierre, sir.'

The Doctor nodded and then walked a few
steps towards the gateway. Stopping, he turned
and spread his arms vaguely. 'Paris?' he inquired.

The boy pointed past the forest towards
the south-east.

The Doctor raised his stick in solemn
salute. 'I shall always remember you, Jean-Pierre,' he called, his
voice breaking a little. 'Aurevoir, mon capitaine.'

Barbara and Susan lay huddled together
on the lumpy, rusty bed apparently asleep. The cover over the
spyhole in the dungeon door slid aside and the gaoler leered
lasciviously through at Barbara's shapely figure in the
closely-fitting lowcut dress. He watched them for a while, licking
his lips and breathing heavily. Then he snapped the spyhole shut and
shuffled away, jangling his keys tauntingly.