CHAPTER 6

THE TRAIN NOW DEPARTING…

The Reverend Edward Carmichael stood looking down from the pulpit, frozen with shock and fear.

"Kill him!" the advancing congregation shouted again, this time almost in unison.

"Back! Get back!" bellowed the Doctor, springing up from the pew he was sitting on, then jumping up onto it and then, like some manic circus athlete, leaping from pew to pew forward along the length of the church and towards the vicar. Ace followed, stumbling over the awkward obstacle course as she did her best to follow her friend. The Doctor leapt from the front pew and into the crowd of villagers. He barged them apart and forced his way to the front.

"Get down!" he shouted to the vicar. The villagers became momentarily confused as the diminutive figure of the Doctor sprang forward, reached up and then pulled the vicar down from the pulpit steps, while at the same time making for the vestry door. Ace reached the Doctor, the vicar still in tow, just as they reached the heavy wooden door. The Doctor thrust a hand to the door handle and shoved the door open. "In!" he shouted, propelling the vicar and Ace inside, and a moment later the heavy oak door was slammed shut against the seething, demonic, crowd and the key that was, thankfully, already in the lock was turned.

"Wha…?" spluttered the Reverend as the Doctor looked wildly about him.

"Ah!" exclaimed the Doctor as he leapt towards the only other door in the small room. The key was in the lock of that door and he frantically scrabbled at the door handle. First the door would not open. Then he turned the key and removed it. Wrenching the heavy portal open, the Doctor peered sideways and up the narrow stone staircase that it revealed.

"Quick! Up here!" he snapped, beckoning urgently to his two fellow fugitives. Ace went first, then the vicar. The Doctor followed, slamming the door behind him and locking it from the inside. The group stumbled up the staircase in complete darkness.

"This ends in a hatchway into the bellchamber, Ace," wheezed the vicar urgently, "You'll have to stoop for the last bit. Put your hand above you."

"Got it! Here it is!" said Ace at length. All three of them came to a halt.

"Just push up hard," instructed the vicar. Light flooded down the staircase as the hatch creaked open. Ace gave it a final shove and the hatch hinged fully back and thumped back onto the floor of the bellchamber. The trio scrabbled up into the daylight in the two metre square enclosure. The low surrounding wall was surmounted with heavy wooden pillars supporting the roof canopy and the truss on which the bell was hung.

"Ah, good!" exclaimed the Doctor, "Unusual to have an open bellchamber on an English church. Just what we need." His alarmed companions stared at him as he peered out across the moss covered ridge tiles that extended from outside the bellchamber along the apex of the roof. "Here!" he said, thrusting the rusty key at Ace. Ace took the key.

"Good?" blurted Ace as she watched the Doctor speedily take the hat from his pocket, unroll it, and jam it onto his head, "We're trapped up here, Professor, and it won't take them long to bash those doors down!"

"We'll have enough time if we're quick," retorted the Doctor as he swung himself athletically over the wall and onto the line of ridge tiles. Still holding onto the bellchamber wall he looked at Ace and said, "You two stay here. I'll get down and draw them off. Then you go back downstairs and slip away. First get miles away from here as quickly as you can. Then circle back towards the woods. We'll meet at sundown at, er…" he glanced briefly at the vicar and then back to Ace, "at our picnic hut."

Ace nodded, knowingly. "Alright Professor." The Doctor turned round and opened his umbrella.

"You can't get down that way. You'll be killed!" protested the alarmed vicar.

"I've got to try or that fate will befall all of us," retorted the Doctor as he began his 'tight-rope walk' along the ridge tiles of the church roof, umbrella held upright in one hand, the other extended straight sideways. Ace and the vicar watched anxiously as the Doctor scuttled a little unsteadily along the roof's apex.

Despite her tension Ace could not suppress a chuckle. "He looks like Mary Poppins," she said.

"Eh? Who?" the vicar replied. Ace did not answer. When the clownish figure reached the end of the ridge, they saw him sit down and close up his umbrella. He disappeared from sight and they heard the faint clattering sound of something moving rapidly down the unseen sloping face of the roof. Ace and the Reverend Carmichael stared at each other numbly.

With the sound of crunching wood the vestry door gave in to the assault and it was wrenched open. The villagers surged through into the small chamber and a cry of manic fury filled the air as several of the villagers then started beating at the door to the bellchamber staircase. Others crowded round, with wild expressions on their faces like hunting animals closing in on their prey.

The Doctor swung himself, hand to hand, along the cast iron gutter towards the cast-iron drainpipe. His precious umbrella was hooked into his jacket pocket and swung like a pendulum, while his feet trod fresh air. Beads of sweat glistened on his wrinkled forehead in the strong morning sunshine. He heard the sound of splintering wood and felt the guttering begin to move as its support bolts began to pull out of the wooden facia board.

In the bellchamber Ace was standing upright again, having just crouched down by the hatchway. "I can hear them bashing at the door. They'll be through and up these stairs in a moment," she said.

"Oh dear! Oh dear!" replied the vicar. "You had better close the hatch. The darkness might slow them down at least." Bending over, Ace lifted the hatch and let it thump shut over the hatchway. As she stood upright again she looked at the vicar. He was mopping his brow with a large handkerchief. She could see in his face that the comforting blanket of numbness that first comes after a shock was beginning to wear off.

The Doctor felt the movements in the guttering increase sharply. It was about to give way completely. Just in time, he got to the drainpipe. He unhooked his umbrella and let it drop to the ground. He watched its long fall with a shudder as he was reminded of the great fall that had cost him one of his lives.

Still, he was determined that this should not be the case this time. With an athleticism and skill that would make even a seasoned cat-burglar proud, he shinned down the pipe, falling for only the last couple of metres when his tiring grip failed.

Gasping, he scrabbled to his feet, picked up his umbrella, and dusted himself down all in one rapid motion. He ran the short distance around the building to the church entrance but then paused at the great doors. Looking wildly about him for inspiration, the fingers of one hand drummed on his chin.

"Ah!" he exclaimed and he broke into a run out through church gate and towards a parked open-top car. The Doctor did not stop to admire the classic look of the old, bottle-green, MG roadster with its spoked wheels and chromium plated exhaust pipes. Instead, he threw open the door and dived across the seat. He peered up into the space behind the instrument facia near the steering wheel. After a brief moment's study he wrenched down a couple of wires and twined their ends together. Hauling himself back upright, his eyes rapidly flickered over the controls and then pulled out the choke control knob. Then the starter. He breathed a sigh of relief as the starter motor whined and the engine spluttered unsteadily to life. He pushed the choke control back in until the engine ran more smoothly. Then he sprang out of the car and ran towards the church.

In the bellchamber Ace said to the sweating vicar, "Didn't the Professor explain it to you?"

"Er, yes, well, er, oh!, I don't know! I can't remember!" He screwed his eyes shut as he again dabbed at the sweat that trickled down from his forehead.

"Don't worry, Rev, it'll be alright, you'll see," comforted Ace as she moved up and put an arm around his shoulder. She looked nervously down at the hatch. "Come on Professor! Come On!"

"Evil! Terrible evil! Fight it! Fight it!" bellowed the Doctor through the vestry doorway. The babbling crowd fell silent for a moment as everybody turned to face the diminutive clownish figure.

"Fight it!" the Doctor bellowed again. The villagers gave a loud, hideous, animal-like roar and surged towards the vestry door. In a peculiarly comedic gesture the Doctor briefly lifted his Panama hat, pulled a wide goofy grin, then swivelled on his heels and broke into a high-legged run. With one hand keeping his hat in place and the other clutching his umbrella, he ran down the aisle and rushed out into the sunlight. The angry crown were in hot pursuit - or at least most of them were.

By the time the first of the villagers were emerging from the church, the Doctor had leapt into the waiting car. He wrenched at the gear lever. There was a harsh grinding of gears and a 'clang!' - and the car's engine stalled!

The Doctor let out a yell of frustration as he grabbed again at the starter button. The car engine roared noisily to life once more and the car jerked into motion just as the fastest of the villagers - a young dark-haired man - leapt from the pavement and made a grab at the passenger side of the car. As the car swerved away from the advancing crowd the Doctor thrust the point of his umbrella at the chest of the unwelcome passenger. The man involuntarily let one of his hands go from the car door to grab at the umbrella tip. Then the Doctor sharply moved the steering wheel and the man fell from the car as it swerved in response.

The crowd poured onto the green but then stopped as they watched the green MG roadster round the green, gears loudly crunching, and then turn off down one of the country lanes that led away from the village square. Just before the car disappeared from view the villagers saw the Doctor's Panama hat once again raised in a defiant, if comic, farewell.

Ace and the Reverend Carmichael were watching the spectacle from the bellchamber. "Nice one Professor! Come on Rev, now's our chance!" pressed Ace urgently. She leapt forward and levered up the hatch once more. Ace scuttled down the staircase with the portly vicar in wheezing pursuit.

At the foot of the stairs, Ace noticed that the lock was already beginning to separate from the splintered wood. She knew that a second or two longer and it would have given way altogether. She turned the old iron key and slowly started to push the heavy door open. The Reverend Carmichael stood, wheezing and sweating, at her shoulder. Ace peered through the opening gap.

Suddenly the door was wrenched fully open by an unseen hand, while others pulled Ace and the vicar into the room. The vicar exclaimed and Ace shrieked.

"Le'go, you creeps!" shouted Ace as she was dragged into the middle of the vestry, held between Mary Huggett and a male villager. The spindly form of Ena clung tightly to one of the stupefied vicar's arms while a large, burly, man held the other twisted behind the vicar's back. The burly man's other free arm was hooked around the vicar's neck.

The only other person in the small room, Fred Huggett, advanced slowly towards Ace clutching a large and obviously heavy alter candlestick. Fred had the haggard look of a man in torment at being forced against his will to do something terrible. Like an automaton Fred slowly began to raise the candlestick. Ace struggled violently.

"Fred, No! No!" bellowed the vicar, "In the name of God, no!" Fred hesitated. His will was not entirely subjugated. Part of the human side of Fred's consciousness still fought back.

"Go on, you pathetic man, do it! Do it!" shrieked Mary Huggett. Ace took her chance. She lashed out, punching and kicking at Mary Huggett and the man holding her. Ace somehow shook them off. She lunged towards the vicar as Mrs Huggett crumpled to the floor. Fred raised the candlestick again and brought it down – but across the head of the man who was once again trying to grab Ace. Ace kicked Ena in the groin and the wiry woman sprawled backwards onto the floor. Fred and Ace grappled with the man holding the vicar. In a whirlwind burst of activity, the vicar was freed.

"Get free! Go on! Run!" shouted Fred as he continued to fight the burly man. Ace and the vicar ran out through the door of the vestry, and down the aisle of the church to the great doors to the outside.

In the vestry Fred was punched and wrestled to the floor by the burly man. The other man and Ena and Mary regained their feet. With a wild and inhuman look in her eyes, Mary Huggett picked up the fallen candlestick.

Fred looked up at her. "Mary! Don't! N…" Fred's protestations were extinguished as Mary repeatedly brought the base of the candlestick down across his forehead. As blow after blow rained down and the splits in the skin of Fred's forehead welled blood, Ena and the others in the vestry began cackling with a shrill and maniacal laughter.

Now outside the church, the vicar locked the great doors and replaced the key in his cassock pocket.

"Quick thinking, Rev!" Ace complimented as he stooped down to do his best to stay out of sight beside her, "The others might be back in a moment, though. We'd better get away from here fast." Ace was too intent on watching the activity out on the village green to notice the stress displayed on her ally's face. Some of the villagers were standing in a group in the middle of the green, while several others moved towards two of the motor cars and the motor bike parked on the far side of it.

"C'mon, Rev!" Ace led the way. Both scuttled furtively on all fours from bush to bush in the old church grounds, and then from headstone to headstone in its graveyard. Meanwhile several villagers had returned to the entrance of the church and angrily thumped on the locked doors.

Sweat dribbled down over the vicar's face and his breathing was laboured and wheezing. "Are you alright, Rev?" whispered Ace as they crouched behind a row of headstones, near the graveyard's low outer wall. The Reverend Carmichael nodded but the mottled red and purple look to his blubbery skin, the blue pallor of his lips, and his deeply stressed expression told the real truth. Ace peered cautiously over the top of the headstone.

"Nobody's around this side, yet. They'll be looking for us by now, though. We'd better slip over the wall, now, while we've still got the chance." Again the wheezing vicar nodded. A moment later Ace had rolled herself over the wall and she was helping the cumbersome parson to do the same.

Ace noted with some relief that they were now in an area of scrubland. It was just the sort of cover they needed. As they both lay still at the foot of the wall, Ace looked at the breathless vicar with concern on her face. "Let's rest here for a moment," she said, though in reality she would have preferred to get away from the church grounds as quickly as possible.

The vicar slowly shook his head and, still panting, whispered "Why? Why? I don't understand what is happening here?" He stared at Ace and the pain expressed in his eyes made her inwardly wince.

"Don't worry, Rev. It'll be alright." Ace put a comforting hand on the vicar's shoulder. "I'll try and explain as best as I can but we'd first better get away from here." The Reverend closed his eyes and let out a wheezing sigh.

For more than an hour Ace and the vicar had been slowly moving through the scrubland. All the time the rather overweight parson had been looking increasingly hot and sweaty in the growing heat of the sun-baked day. Despite frequent long pauses for rest in the shades of large bushes and trees, his breathing was becoming increasingly laboured and his face betrayed his growing exhaustion. Even the young and robust Ace was also now feeling the effects of the fierce heat. They rested again at a gorse bush near a barbed-wire fence at the edge of an expanse of flat and open farmland.

As the vicar slumped down in the shade of the bush, Ace peered cautiously at the small group of farm buildings about half a kilometre away. She glanced at the vicar, who was breathing heavily and was using his handkerchief to dab the sweat from his glistening brow. "Look Rev, I'll see if I can get us some water to drink over there. Will you be alright here for a while?"

The Reverend Carmichael looked distractedly up at Ace. "Yes," he wheezed, "Actually I really could do with a bit of a rest now". Then his face clouded. "You will be careful won't you, my dear. If you see anybody…" he tiredly waved his handkerchief in her direction as he laboriously drew another breath, "they might be affected too."

"Yeah! No worries, Rev. I'll be back soon." Ace pulled a friendly grin at the vicar. She noted that the smile he returned was very strained and weakly.

Moments later the Reverend was craning his dead sideways from his vantage point behind the large bush as he watched Ace carefully negotiate her way through the wires of the fence. Then she moved out of his sight and was gone. Plucky young girl, he thought.

The Reverend Carmichael suddenly felt very alone. More alone than he had ever felt in his life. He was used to his bachelor lifestyle but he had his ministry and that made him feel part of the whole village community. He had felt that he belonged. His mind wandered to thoughts of coffee mornings and fund raising events, weddings, christening, funerals, social calls and all the variety of other activities that formed part of his life as a village parson. He also thought of his many friends, especially those local fellow railway enthusiasts who used his home as the centre for their meetings. He reflected on the fact that in the space of a couple of hours that morning all that had been destroyed. All those good things had been savagely blown away, as if my some unseen but deadly bomb. All the good was now gone, leaving a horrible icy vacuum permeated only by evil.

Could his two new friends, Ace and the Doctor, help restore humanity and normality to his beloved village and to his own life? He reflected grimly that they seemed pretty strange themselves. The girl seemed oddly unfettered by the normal manners and codes of conduct of most young ladies. She dressed, moved, and spoke in such an astounding way herself. As for the Doctor - or should that be Professor? - he was even more peculiar.

He tried to remember…Government agents Ace had told him. Yes, that was it. Government agents. The Doctor was a scientist employed by the Government. Somehow the Government knew about this threat to the Earth that was approaching from space. Still, though, the Reverend was not sure. Not sure at all. Why could he only half remember what the Doctor had told him that morning before he got ready for the church service?

He tried to understand the reason for his uneasiness. Perhaps it was because, in the Doctor, he had sensed something strange, something powerful, something almost unearthly even. He felt unconvinced by Ace's explanation. Yet, for all of that he was sure that in Ace and the Doctor he had allies. For all of their peculiarity, he felt that Ace and the Doctor were essentially good people. He told himself that he could trust them. Indeed, who else could he trust?

The Reverend reflected on his own rôle in all of this. Perhaps, he thought, the Almighty might have chosen to operate through him, and perhaps through Ace and the Doctor, for the purpose of vanquishing this horrible invading evil. Then he chided himself for his arrogance. Who was he to presume what the Almighty might do with him? It was time to pray. The Reverend Edward Carmichael prayed very hard.

Ace looked about her as she strode towards the farm buildings. She could see nobody else about. That was good. However, she couldn't shake off her uneasiness in walking across that flat and open field. She felt very prone. She also felt very hot and tired. If she met anybody what would be their reaction? How widespread did the influence of the alien entity extend? Would the people who lived and worked at this farm also be affected? If she encountered any trouble she hoped that she would be able to summon sufficient energy to overcome the heavy and lethargic feeling pervading her body and would be able to make her escape.

She spied a stand-pipe just outside a large and dilapidated old shed near the picturesque small farm cottage. The chickens in a nearby pen became agitated and started cackling loudly as she picked her way across the small yard towards the stand-pipe. Glancing about her nervously, she swung the ruck-sack from her back and squatted down by the pipe. After a moment she had the ruck-sack opened and drew out a small plastic canteen. She opened its top and held it under the outlet, while her right hand struggled to turn the tightly closed tap. After a moment there was a loud 'crack!' and she was able to turn the tap. Nothing came out of it.

"Oh, come on! Come on!" she angrily muttered to herself as she started banging the stand-pipe with her right hand.

"Oi!" bellowed a loud voice from behind her, "What the hell do you think you're doing?" She gasped, jumped up, and swung round all in one rapid movement. A burly, sour-faced, young man of about her own age was striding rapidly towards her.

Despite her shock and fear, Ace's hackles immediately rose. "No need to shout! I'm not deaf, cap-head". 'Cap-head' was the only insult that came to Ace's mind in that moment, inspired by the rather comically over-large flat cap the young man wore. The young man's face darkened with fury and, before Ace could react, he lunged at her and grabbed roughly at her arm. Ace felt his powerful fingers dig into the muscles of her upper arm and she cowered as she saw him raise his other hand ready to strike her.

"Johnny! You just dare!" boomed another, deeper, voice. The lad froze with his hand in mid air and they both looked towards the grey-haired man who had rounded the corner of the farm cottage and was know purposefully marching towards them, his walking stick being swung in an almost militaristic style. This new arrival on the scene wore an old and rather dirty and threadbare twill suit, also surmounted by a large flat cap.

Both Ace and the young remained motionless as the older man approached. "Let go of her!" the older man demanded. The young man slowly lowered his upraised hand but still clung on to Ace's arm. Without warning the old man whirled his walking stick sideways, bringing the end of it into a thwaking contact with the side of the young man's thigh. The youth yelped in pain and let go of Ace.

"You'll do as is say and as soon as I say it!" the man roared at the youth he had called Johnny, "You're not too old for a good hiding and don't you forget it!" Johnny rubbed at his thigh and dropped his gaze to the ground, bitterness further darkening his already sour look. The elder man swelled his chest and stood imperiously looking in turn at Ace and Johnny. Ace was recovering some of the confidence which was, uncharacteristically for her, blown away by the lad's threatened attack.

"Well, now, missy," began the man, who Ace could see by the likeness was the young man's father, "what are you doing here, eh?"

"I just wanted some water, that's all," replied Ace, then giving Johnny a dark look.

"That's all very well, child, but you are trespassing. You've no right to be anywhere near here."

"I'm sorry," began Ace squirming with discomfort, "but I want it for the Rev as much as for me."

"Who?"

"The Rev, the vicar. Reverend Carmichael. He's over there just outside your field," replied Ace pointing, "We were out walking but the heat has got to him a bit, so I saw this place and I thought I would come to find some water. That's all."

The farmer's gaze dropped down to her ruck-sack and the opened plastic water-canteen laying at the foot of the stand-pipe. He leant on his walking stick and pursed his lips thoughtfully. Looking up he gruffly said, "Alright missy. I believe you - but you should have come and asked. You won't get any water out of that, anyhow." He turned slightly to address the young man. "Johnny, get in and tell your mother we have a couple of guests and for her to put the kettle on and get out some of her cake and biscuits."

Johnny shamefacedly turned, avoiding looking at either Ace or his father, and strode sulkily towards the cottage. The farmer glared at his son for a long moment and then turned back towards Ace. Ace was surprised to see a kindly smile on his wrinkled and leathery face. "Now missy, you pop across yon and fetch the Reverend. I'm sorry about Johnny. He gets a bit above himself at times. I keep him in order though!"

Ace did not doubt that.

The Reverend Carmichael felt calmer now. Praying had helped. Now fear was being replaced by torpidity. As he lay on the ground staring at the cloudless azure sky. His head and chest were in partial shade but the strong sunshine washed over the rest of him. He felt hot and sticky and more than a little thirsty but tiredness was rapidly becoming the overwhelming sensation. He closed his eyes and quickly drifted off to sleep.

"C'mon Eddie put yer back into it, mon!" yelled Gareth Hughes, the driver of the 0-6-0 pannier tank, in his strong Welsh accent, "We're nearly at the steepest bit, isn't it!" Edward Carmichael wiped the sweat and smuts from his face as he thrust the end of his shovel into the pile of coal. As he turned, lifting the shovelful, the footplate of the engine lurched, nearly throwing him off balance. He heard the wheel flanges squeal as the engine rounded a gentle curve and he saw Gareth haul the throttle out to its fullest extent and then wind the valve gear handle fully forward. Edward took note of the sharp barking of the engine, echoing from the sides of the valley as it struggled up the one in forty gradient towards Fochriw, and the occasional squeaks of the driving wheels slipping on the wet track that dark and rainy April evening of 1936.

As Edward shot the coal from his shovel into the hungry firebox of the engine he felt his back twinge. He knew that it would be aching badly by the following day but he didn't mind a bit. This was a dream come true for him; a trip acting as fireman on the Newport to Brecon train. He didn't have time to reflect on the peculiar circumstances that gave him this chance in his spring break from his ecclesiastical duties. Instead, he turned back to the coal pile to collect another shovelful. Bathed in the orange glow from the firebox door and the dingy yellow glow from the small oil lamp swinging from the cab's roof, he savoured the clashing mixture of the raw and damp evening air and the oily hot air swirling round the lurching and rattling cab of the locomotive.

"Hey! Look you yon!" yelled Gareth, leaning and pointing out of the cab window. As Edward looked out of the window on his own side, he saw the faint glow of a lamp being swung from side to side ahead of them. He continued to look ahead into the darkness and felt, more than saw, Gareth close the throttle and operate the Westinghouse brake. The 'thump-thump' of the engine disappeared to be replaced by a 'tick-tick' mixed with a loud hissing as the engine and its three trailing carriages slowed.

Edward saw the lamp move to the side of the track on his side of the engine. The train groaned to a halt with the owner of the lamp, a small man wearing a Panama hat and a paisley pattered scarf, standing by the cab and looking up at Edward. Somehow Edward was sure that he new this man. The man held up the metal lamp and a flickering light shone from its round glass windows. Edward could see the drizzling rain illuminated by the glow close to the lamp. He looked at the man's eyes. They seemed to be very dark and deeply set. Edward no longer heard the noises of the engine. The man opened his mouth to speak. "I've an important message for…"

"Wake up! Rev! Wake up!" The dream disintegrated and the Reverend Edward Carmichael was once again laying in the hot sunshine. The dark silhouetted image of the young lady leaning over him sharpened in response to him blinking his eyes.

"Oh! Goodness, er, Ace, er, oh dear!" he wheezed as he levered himself up into a sitting position. "Oh, goodness me, I think I nodded off!" He looked up at Ace again. She had a grim look on her face. "Er what…?" he said.

"Did you dream?" Ace said the words slowly.

"What? Er…" began the vicar. Suddenly the horrible memories of that day's events flooded back into his mind. He remembered what Ace had explained to him about the evil influence getting a hold on people by first invading their dreams. "Oh, yes, I remember, my dear. Don't worry. I did have a dream but it was a nice one. It was a dream I often have about being a fireman on a 5700-class pannier tank on the Brecon and Merthyr line in Wales."

Ace's worried look was driven from her face by an explosion of relief and good humour. "I might have guessed it would have something to do with trains!" she said, chuckling.

He smiled back at her. "It seems to be based on something that actually happened many years ago. Mind you, this time there was one difference."

"Oh?"

"Yes. This time the train was flagged down before it reached Fochriw - and the person that flagged it down was none other than your friend the Doctor!" Ace's eyes widened.

The Reverend continued, "I think that he said something but I can't quite remember what it was. I think that it was at that point you woke me up."

Ace recalled her own experience and wondered about the significance of the Doctor appearing in the Reverend's dream.

"The people at the farm are OK and they've invited us for tea and cakes," she said at length.