The Doctor had a new assistant. Forgive me for going on about her, but she was easy on the eyes: slim, brunette and vivacious. Sarah Smith. There were various indelicate sweepstakes running at Aylesbury about her. Inevitably I had to meet her face-to-face for non-romantic reasons.
She had turned up in the wake of an investigation mounted by the Doctor into missing scientists, appearing with him in London during the Great Dinosaur Invasion. Quite what she and he made of that madhouse is anyone's guess, arriving literally in the middle of it. I still had problems believing it despite being there from the start.
'Hello? Anyone home?'
The Doctor's laboratory. I knew he was at home, since his big blue police box, code-name TARDIS, sat in a corner of the lab.
'Hello there!' came a cheery female voice from away in a corner. Miss Smith stood up and gave me a hearty hello. 'Who are you?'
'Lieutenant John Walmsley. And you are?'
The Doctor put in an appearance, emerging from his big, blue unearthly box of tricks.
'Oh, hello John. Have you met Sarah Jane?'
'Yes, Doctor, I have. I also need to get her details for the Index. Now, Miss Smith, you are – that is, what is your profession?'
Sarah looked at me with an utterly open countenance.
'Freelance journalist,' she proudly declared.
Pretty obviously my jaw descended as my eyebrows rose.
'A. Journalist. Freelance journalist.' I managed to burble, feeling as if someone had just thrown a bucket of cold water over me.
'Is there a problem?' asked the Doctor, running cables into his TARDIS from the power sockets along one of the walls. 'Anything in particular?'
For long seconds I stood, watching Sarah Jane Smith. She returned the favour, becoming uneasy.
'Doctor, do you know what happened to the last journalist who got in here!'
'My dear chap,' he replied, which is his way of implying you're an idiot. 'Sarah here cannot and will not make any embarassing revelations about you and your little tin soldiers.'
Miss Smith gave me a cheeky salute.
'Promise?' I asked them both. The Doctor nodded. Knowing him, he might well have hypnotised her not to blab. I didn't have much choice.
'Only gathering material,' explained Sarah, brightly. 'I know it'll have to be approved by the D-Notice committee and UNIT Geneva.'
'Does the Brig know about you?' I asked, another suspicion dawning.
'Really, Lieutenant Walmsley!' snapped the Doctor. 'Miss Smith is under my recognisance. That should be quite sufficient!'
'What did happen to the last journalist to get in here?' asked Miss Smith, unable to let well alone.
I explained …
Having rotated back to Aylesbury after being over at Haylings House, I was shaving before dinner and luxuriating in the plentiful hot water. Haylings' hot water never gets more than tepid thanks to the Victorian plumbing system. Captain Beresford was OC whilst the Brig went to Geneva and Captain Received English was a stickler for officers looking neat and tidy.
Good job it was a safety not a cut-throat, because an ear-splitting howl began to shriek in the corridor outside my room, the alarm siren going for God knows what reason. I dropped the razor, wiped the foam off with a towel, dived for my cabinet and got the .45 in it's holster.
Once in the corridor outside, I witnessed Lieutenant Munroe go off down the stairs like a greyhound. I'd never seen him move so fast. The guard detail on duty were already pounding outside, sending gravel off the driveway everywhere.
I stepped into the Guard Room, where two nervous squaddies were watching the remote camera system, all in bright green thanks to night-vision infra red.
'What the bother?'
'Perimeter breach, sir. South fence, mid-way along. We spotted some berk climbing into the grounds.'
Into?
I nicked one of the duty Sterlings and went outside, just as a furious Captain Beresford came hurtling out of the building. Clearly he wasn't happy at having his evening meal interrupted. He was followed by at least a dozen other officers and men in varying states of dress.
'Lieutenant Walmsley!' he shouted as his eye fell upon me. 'What the bloody hell is going on!'
Good job I'd asked.
'Perimter breach, sir. The guard detail are off to check it out.'
'Then get some of these shirkers to help as well. And - why are you frothing at the mouth?'
Whoopsy-daisy. Shaving foam.
'You three!' I shouted, pointing at three slightly non-plussed squaddies floating around the Captain. 'Check the fence internally, clockwise from the gate. You three behind – check the fence externally, counter-clockwise.'
'Certainly, Lieutenant,' agreed Mike Yates, one of the rear three, smiling sardonically. 'Come on, let's do as the officer says.'
Another whoops.
'Rest of you, come with me.'
We double-timed across the lawns, and witnessed Sergeant Horrigan driving out through the gates with Nick Munroe hanging onto the Browning HMG on the pintle, looking for intruders to shoot. Personally I just hoped Nick would be careful; he's a bit too fond of letting fly with a great swathe of bullets.
The intruder lay spread-eagled on the lawn, under the guns and watchful eyes of the guard detail, who were pointing their SLR's with perceptible dislike. A camera was being emptied of film by Corporal Higgins.
'I said -' began the man.
'Shut your effing bunghole!' shouted Private Ely with cheery contempt. That figured. Ely had an uncanny sense of direction and could have caught this character blindfolded in fog.
'Sir. Got this bugger on the ground, going to start frisking him.'
'Very good. Carry on.' And something went crunch under my foot.
'My glasses!' moaned the man on the ground, despairingly.
'Worry about yourself, mate, not your glasses,' warned Corporal Higgins, getting the man's wallet and riffling it's contents before passing the film reel to me.
This didn't seem right. Why would anyone want to break into Aylesbury? And how did this article get inside the perimeter fence?
'I'm a journalist!' gasped the intruder.
'Shut it!' snapped Ely, turning to look at Higgins, who had a torch and was checking the wallet.
'Bloody hell! True enough, sir, here's his NUJ card. NAME EXCISED FOR LEGAL REASONS.'
Captain Beresford caught up with us, so I gestured for Ely to lift the prisoner off the ground.
NAME EXCISED FOR LEGAL REASONS. The name sounded familiar. Left-wing bolshy stuff, I seemed to remember. Oh dear, oh dear, hopefully Captain Beresford wouldn't know –
'You!' barked the Captain, recognising the prisoner instantly. Mister Investigative Journo assumed an air of injured innocence, whilst Captain Beresford went purple with rage. These two seemed to have a shared history, and not a happy one.
'Shall I escort the prisoner indoors, sir?' I asked.
'Eh? "execute" him?'
'No, sir, escort him.' Lord above,a revealing slip or what!
The guard detail frog-marched the prisoner back to the Guard Room, while the Captain and I looked around.
Bap-bap-bap, went the flat, percussive sound of a fifty-calibre Browning, nearby.
'That's Munroe, isn't it? He'd better not have shot another damn journalist. That's all I bloody need.' He sent off the other soldiers with him to find the landrover and see who had been shot.
I continued to look around. There were no cuts in the fence, nor any ladders nearby. Beresford stopped me and pointed overhead.
'The Late Ladder.'
A rope, knotted at regular intervals, hung from the branch of an elm tree on the road side of the fence. It finished six feet above the ground and enabled a person to swing over the strip of raked sand and pressure sensors inside the fence. A piece of engine block had been tied to the end of the rope.
I'd overheard one or two of the squaddies referring to the Late Ladder without knowing what it was.
'The other ranks use it to get back inside after being AWOL or back too late. The idea is to shin down it, then toss it back up onto the branch.'
That explained the engine block, giving the rope enough mass to be thrown. The squaddies wouldn't be happy at losing their private way back into barracks; no wonder our prisoner got treated roughly.
'I'll get it cut down tomorrow, sir,' I replied with enthusiasm. 'I take it you know that journalist?'
'Do I!' bristled Beresford, with less intensity than before. 'Muck-raking Commie rogue – bah! Yes I do, from my Intelligence Corps days. He loves to criticise the Army. Never mind the opposition or the Provos or the Russians, no, oh no, just us.'
He simmered into an angry silence.
We met the returning landrover at the gate, with a grinning escort of soldiers walking alongside, Tom Horrigan driving and trying very hard not to laugh, and a very chastened Nick sitting in the passenger seat.
'The body's in the back, sir,' explained one of the soldiers. Both Beresford and I exchanged looks of alarm and peered in the back of the landrover.
'Don't. Just don't,' grated Nick through gritted teeth when I tapped on his window, a big smile on my face. Captain Beresford said nothing, but his grim expression had lightened.
NAME EXCISED FOR LEGAL REASONS had been transferred to a makeshift cell, a hastily emptied broom cupboard. We discussed what to do with him in the Guard Room.
'Sergeant Horrigan spotted a pile of cigarette butts in the grass by the roadside, sir,' explained Nick. 'A couple were still warm. Signs a car was parked there.'
'He didn't walk all the way out here. That must have been his driver.'
'Panicked and ran when the sirens went,' I suggested. Captain Beresford shook his head.
'No. No, the way it works, the driver will assume his passenger has been captured, then head for the nearest phone box and ring – oh, probably the New Statesman. They in turn will wake up a few lawyers, who will ring the MoD, who will eventually admit Aylesbury belongs to UNIT. I think Darling Duncan will be here with us for a few hours at least.'
The big question then became what did we do with him? The next-biggest question was why he wanted to break into Aylesbury. Swafham Prior, with all it's relics, would be a better target.
'You can't do this to me!' he shouted angrily through the keyhole of the broom cupboard, provoking sniggers from the two men guarding him. 'I'm a journalist! I've got rights!' to more sniggering. 'And you can't lock me up in a cupboard!' with an air of injured dignity.
'A nine mill to the back of the head, then bury the remains under a rosebush?' suggested Nick.
'Thank you! Lieutenant Munroe. I have calmed down, as you may have noticed.'
'We could strip search him, burn his clothes, issue a set of fatigues, see what's on his film,' I suggested.
'Take him into the gym and shout at him?'
'John – sort out the film. Corporal Higgins, we're going to take the prisoner to the gym. And get a spare set of fatigues ready.'
By the time I returned from the darkroom with a single developed photograph, a cluster of officers and men were busy going through the motions with our prisoner. He sat on a bench in the middle of the gym, looking dwarfish in a set of fatigues far too large for him, squinting short-sightedly at his captors thanks to my careless big feet.
'What did he photograph?' asked Captain Beresford, eager to learn.
I showed him. A single, not very well-framed or focussed shot of Aylesbury from a vantage point about thirty feet above ground level: the Late Ladder viewpoint.
'A better writer than photographer, eh?' commented Yates.
'The public has a right to know,' said NAME EXCISED FOR LEGAL REASONS. Still sullenly defiant.
'The public have no right to know, not until the UN decides. That's the United Nations who decide: not you, not me, not the Army, not the British Government or the Civil Service. The United Nations. Until then you and your stories are going to get sat upon.' Captain Beresford at his most correct. I was glad he'd calmed down, the sight of him going crimson with anger was hugely unusual and rather unsettling.
Nick asked what most of us wondered.
'The public have a right to know just what, exactly?'
NAME EXCISED FOR LEGAL REASONS squinted up at the lieutenant.
'About the monsters you've created! The fake monsters and the fake dinoasaurs and fake terrorists and fake attacks that allow you to declare States of Emergency at the drop of a hat. You behave as if you ruled the country, with your "OSAEPPA" paperwork and planning. Anytime the government runs into trouble you declare an emergency and put up a smoke-screen and keep it up – keep it up – until things – until - ' He began strongly and with vehemence, but tailed off when he saw the incomprehension, incredulity and malicious amusement on the various faces around him. Nick and Yates openly laughed at him.
'What an utter twod!' declared Yates, plainly amused at the prisoner's getting things completely wrong.
'Textbook definition of arse-over-tit logic,' sniggered Nick.
'Those damn dinosaurs again,' I muttered.
Captain Beresford stared at NAME EXCISED FOR LEGAL REASONS with an expression of bewildered astonishment.
'You think that we create crises to – to – to divert attention from government problems!' and his mouth flapped a few times like a stranded fish.
Our stalwart prisoner might very well have steeled his conscience and will to resist if we had beaten him bloody, or set dogs on him, or put a bucket over his head and pounded it with a hammer, but being ridiculed by people who were genuinely scornful took the wind out of his sails.
'Look, Mister NAME EXCISED FOR LEGAL REASONS,' I intervened. 'There are no monsters here. If the Captain so permits - ' quick glance at Beresford, who looked quizzical but interested ' – I can escort you around the premises, show you anywhere you want to go, prove that you've been sent on a fool's errand.'
He agreed, and said afterwards that he didn't dare refuse a suggestion from someone so angry they were frothing at the mouth.
It took an hour, with CSM Benton and Captain Yates in attendance, to show our prisoner around Aylesbury. By the time we finished he seemed shrunken within himself, rendered unsure and uncertain. It had been a slight gamble, I judged, worth taking.
Our little tour party ended up in Captain Beresford's office, where a re-heated dinner sat on the desk.
'Satisfied?'
NAME EXCISED FOR LEGAL REASONS looked defiant again.
'Well, there's nothing here, that's certain. Our information was wrong about the location.'
Hmm. Perhaps I'd underestimated our prisoner's determination to find fault with UNIT.
CSM Benton, demonstrating sound common-sense, put in a suggestion.
'Sir – we can't detain him indefinitely. He's not convinced that we aren't hiding something. Why not take him to Swafham?'
Initially Captain Beresford dismissed the idea, reacting with horror. After a moment's contemplation, he got a nasty amused look on his face, which I mirrored.
Oh yes. Oh yes indeed. Show NAME EXCISED FOR LEGAL REASONS the truth, about the very real monsters that UNIT had faced. See what he made of conspiracy theories after that. UNIT helping the government by manufacturing crises indeed! No, it went the other way round, actually.
Before he left I apologised for stepping on his glasses, and gave him an indent to sign for a replacement pair.
'I shouldn't have let Tariq talk me into it,' he sighed. 'I'm not a damn cub reporter any more. Nor do I have a head for heights.'
The upshot of NAME EXCISED FOR LEGAL REASONS visit to Swafham Prior was – nothing. Which was good. He didn't print anything about UNIT, and in fact avoided any mention of us ever after. I suppose physical proof of what we did is persuasive.
That was the story I retailed to the Doctor and Sarah.
'Yesss, well, he refrains from comment until the Zircon satellite affair,' commented the Doctor, rubbing his cheek with one finger.
"Zircons"? They weren't in the UNIT Bestiary. Another lot of evil alien invaders, no doubt.
'And the Brig found it highly embarassing when he got back from Geneva, having to make an explanation,' I finished.
'I should think so too!' said Sarah, with vim, her feeling for a fellow-journalist coming out. 'Arresting a member of the press and tormenting him like that!'
I looked at her curiously.
'No, I don't mean that. I refer to him having to explain to the RSPCA as to why an officer on his strength had wilfully used a heavy machine gun to kill a badger!'