Doctor Who_ Autumn Mist Part 2

'Theirs or ours, Charlie?'

'Ours. Looks like the 14th Cavalry.'

'You'd think if they couldn't warn us, they'd at least wave goodbye on their way past show us some common decency.'

Sam shook her head, gritting her teeth in frustration. She looked out of the window, in case any of them misunderstood the look on her face and started thinking she was in favour of the enemy. The sky was beginning to lighten with approaching dawn. Under other circ.u.mstances the view outside might actually have been pleasant, but not with smoke among the trees, or ghostly movement on the road. Sam's eyes widened as she realised what she was seeing. 'Look!' she hissed to the soldiers.

Charlie and Kovacs peered out through the curtains. 'Paratroopers,' Kovacs murmured. 'Charlie, get on that field wire and raise some artillery fire on that column.'

'I'm trying, Sarge, but regiment says they can't give us any.'

'Can't give ' He s.n.a.t.c.hed the field telephone from the other man. 'Gimme Russ,' Kovacs barked into the phone. 'Yeah... It's Kovacs. I need covering fire...' Sam couldn't hear what the person at the other end was saying, but she could take a guess from the rising colour of Kovacs's face. 'Listen, I don't give a d.a.m.n how wide a front they're opening. All I know is I'm sitting in a rat hole in Lanzerath, with a G.o.ddam parachute division marching down the Losheim road. Now get me some fire I don't care whether it's howitzers or mortars or G.o.ddam arrows otherwise I might just give them a map to your billet before I get the h.e.l.l out of here!'

He handed the radio back to Charlie and gestured to the nearest private. 'Get back to the dugout and pa.s.s the word for the guys to get their things together we're bugging out under cover of the barrage. We'll fall back to Bucholz Station, and take the broad with us.' He turned to Sam before she could protest. 'Don't thank me yet, and keep the h.e.l.l out of the way, OK?'

Thank him? He was practically abducting her, she thought. She could understand why, but she didn't like it.

'But the Doctor ' Sam began to protest.

'Look, lady,' Kovacs said, 'I got a responsibility to get these guys through this war in one piece, and I got half the German Army coming down that road to try to stop me. What I don't got is either the time or the inclination to send out search parties for stray civilians. If your friends are smart enough to keep their heads down, they might get through this. If not, then they're screwed, but I ain't gonna lose any sleep over it, and I ain't gonna lose any of my men over it, either. You got that?'

'Yes,' Sam said stiffly. 'I've got it.'

The Doctor and Fitz were whistling 'Colonel Bogey' and harmonising together as they walked down the road in search of another bridge. If he hadn't been getting shot at earlier, Fitz reckoned this would have been quite fun.

'You reckon Sam is all right up there?' Fitz asked.

'I've no idea,' the Doctor admitted, 'but I feel that she is. You get an instinct for danger after so long, and the village seemed quiet enough.'

'Nice line of bull,' Fitz said conversationally. 'Think you might convince somebody someday?'

'Until we find a bridge, there's not much else we can do than try to stay as optimistic as possible. Sam can take care of herself, the same as you can.'

'That's me: laughing at danger and not fazed by anything... Not very rea.s.suring, is it?'

The Doctor looked sidelong at him without stopping. 'Wonderful,' he marvelled. 'Humans have such a great capacity for both selling themselves short and being overconfident. Sometimes I'm not sure how you keep things straight in your heads.'

'Sometimes we don't.' Fitz thought a little harder. 'Is that supposed to be an insult, or am I missing something?'

'You're missing something.' The Doctor suddenly halted and pulled Fitz to the hedge at the side of the road. 'Luckily I don't miss much. Listen.'

Fitz held his breath, which had seemed deafening after all that exertion, and could make out an engine approaching. 'Is that good or bad?'

'Let's wait and see.'

In a few moments, a jeep emerged out of the dawn half-light, with its headlights blacked out. Four American GIs were holding on as it bounced along the road. 'I'd call that good,' Fitz opined, and stepped out into the road, waving.

He heard a sigh from behind him. 'Haven't you heard of looking before you leap?'

'It's OK, they're Allied.'

'They don't know we are.'

Fitz's guts clenched as he realised what the Doctor meant, but it was too late. The jeep stopped beside them. 'Who are you?' the driver demanded. 'Don't you know this is a combat zone?' He didn't sound very American to Fitz. More like Australian or South African or something. Fitz knew that those nationalities served with the British Army in the war, but wasn't sure if they had also served in American regiments.

'We're just pa.s.sing through,' the Doctor said hurriedly. Fitz had known him long enough to spot the looks that crossed his face, though he doubted the men in the jeep would have even noticed. 'When the sh.e.l.ling started, our transport was stuck on the bridge along there and now it's at the bottom of the river.' The GIs exchanged glances. 'We were just hoping to find another bridge so we can get up to the village there and meet a friend of ours.'

'A friend?' the driver asked.

The Doctor nodded. 'Man called Jochen. You know him?' What the h.e.l.l was he talking about?

The driver grinned suddenly. 'Of course. You had me worried for a moment. So, the bridge is definitely down, then?'

'Very,' Fitz said firmly, not showing any sign of his puzzlement.

'Good.'

The Doctor nodded. 'Have the proper bridges been secured?'

'There's one about half a mile back that way. You can make contact there.'

'Thanks. Come on, Fitz, we have to be go ' There was a silent flash from above and Fitz looked up instinctively. A flare was drifting across the sky. He looked away, blinking green and purple spots from his eyes.

'They're Germans,' the Doctor muttered out of the corner of his mouth. 'Operation Greif; fifth columnists. You should be old enough to remember this from newsreels...'

'What?' Fitz gaped. There was no answer; the Doctor was already hurrying towards the jeep, only the faintest hint of a shadow preceding him, and Fitz thought he might be imagining even that. Fitz followed, his shadow stark and black against the snow.

A dozen or so Americans real Americans? were jogging out of the dimness. 'What the h.e.l.l?' the jeep driver demanded. 'You tricked us!' He aimed his carbine at the Doctor, while the others started shooting at the approaching troops.

Fitz dived through the hedge, trying to get his head round what was going on. He could hear the Doctor shouting something, then the slippery ground underfoot gave way and he plunged into the freezing river.

Chapter Two.

Call to Arms.

Kovacs was lagging behind the main body of his platoon, making sure there weren't any stragglers. Three small support trucks were waiting for them on the road south of Lanzerath and he was dead set on getting to them before the Germans did. It wasn't that he much cared about his own skin, but it was his job to look after these guys.

And one girl, he reminded himself. Sam Jones was looking around frantically as they ran south, probably hoping that her friends would miraculously show up just in time to ride out with her. Kovacs knew they wouldn't, because he knew the world simply didn't work that way. Not in real life.

He had the nagging feeling that he should be more suspicious of her for some reason, but couldn't think why. He distinctly remembered being satisfied with her credentials. That made him frown he couldn't remember what they were. Still, whatever, he supposed it must have been all right and proper.

Besides, he had more important things to think about right now. He caught a vague glimpse of Daniels helping Sam into one of the trucks, just before he reached the cab of another himself.

Kovacs hauled himself aboard. 'We all set?'

'Had to leave some of the equipment, but we're all here,' the private in the driver's seat answered.

'OK. Let's move.'

The sound of shooting drew Wiesniewski to alert. It didn't sound that far away and there was always the possibility that it was some of his men in a skirmish. Perhaps they had followed him.

His Tommy gun was gone, but at least he still had a pistol. Drawing it, Wiesniewski stumbled through the woods, towards the source of the sound. In a few moments he reached the edge of the trees and saw two groups of GIs facing off. He couldn't imagine why this would be the case until an oddly dressed civilian in a long dark-green frock coat pointed to the jeep and yelled something about the occupants being Germans.

The man in the green coat disarmed the driver, who was trying to shoot him, while another civilian fell into the river in the process of diving for cover.

The remaining three men from the jeep scattered, running for the woods. One of them almost ran straight into Wiesniewski. The GI raised his rifle, cursing in German. Wiesniewski was almost too stunned to shoot him. Almost.

The fake GI tumbled back down on to the road, his comrades ignoring him. The other soldiers, who Wiesniewski presumed were real Americans, pursued the three survivors into the woods.

'You OK, sir?' one of them paused to ask.

Wiesniewski nodded. 'I'm OK; you keep on after them.' The soldier followed the rest of his troop into the woods, while Wiesniewski came down on to the road and rested against the jeep.

'Thank you,' the civilian in the green coat said. He sounded English. 'You and your men were '

Wiesniewski shook his head, trying to get his breath back. 'Not my men.' Which reminded him: where were were his men? his men?

'No? Well, thanks anyway.'

Wiesniewski waved the words aside. He was sure there was something very important he should be remembering. It would have to wait there were more immediate problems at hand, like the thought of Germans in US uniforms. 'How did you know those guys were Germans?'

'Have you ever seen more than three GIs in a jeep?'

'Well, no, but I could imagine how it could happen...'

The guy in the green coat shrugged. 'The jeep also had blackout slits and none of them were wearing the same unit insignia. It's at times like this that I wish Fitz would think more carefully about what he sees. These things are quite well doc.u.mented. Or will be,' he added, in response to Wiesniewski's blank look.

Wiesniewski was momentarily puzzled, but then remembered the civilian who had fallen into the river. 'I hope he can swim. I also hope you can drive.' He nodded towards the jeep 'Because you're going to have to.'

The strange civilian seemed to focus his mind back from some distant plane. 'I'm so sorry, I was miles away. What were you saying?'

'You have to drive,' Wiesniewski repeated. 'I sure as h.e.l.l can't do it.' Not the way he felt; both from the throbbing pain in his head, and the sick sensation at having lost his men and his way. And you don't want to be around when they get here.'

'I had two two friends with me, and now we're all separated. I have to find ' friends with me, and now we're all separated. I have to find '

Wiesniewski drew his pistol, and aimed it, in the loosest possible sense of the word, at this stranger. He didn't want to force this guy, but he had bigger things on his mind than a couple of lost civilians. 'Look, mister; I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. You have have to drive.' Wiesniewski tried to put as much fire into his voice as he could, hoping it would distract the stranger from noticing how shaky the hand with the gun was. to drive.' Wiesniewski tried to put as much fire into his voice as he could, hoping it would distract the stranger from noticing how shaky the hand with the gun was.

The stranger sighed. 'Well, if you put it that way...' He abruptly twisted the gun out of Wiesniewski's grip, removed the magazine, then handed it back. 'If I was going to threaten someone at gunpoint, I think I'd at least take the safety catch off first.'

Wiesniewski tried not to let the strain show, but he couldn't do anything about the way the sky was tilting back and forth, or the ground trying to swallow him up.

The Doctor caught the lieutenant neatly. He grimaced. 'Oh... What am I supposed to do with you, hmm?'

'Leshy...' the officer mumbled. He was still no more than semiconscious, but something was clearly troubling him.

The Doctor leaned in closer. 'Leshy?'

'In mist... Leshy in mist...' The soldier fell silent again, his head lolling. Now the Doctor noticed that the back of the man's head was matted with dried blood. He looked over his shoulder to where the German impostors' jeep was sitting. With a sigh, the Doctor hoisted the unconscious man over his shoulder, and deposited him in the back of the jeep.

Then he rushed over to the riverbank, and carefully pushed through the hedge. He had no intention of duplicating Fitz's mistake in order to find him. By now, however, there was no sign of Fitz, and the river was flowing quite fast. He could be a mile downstream by now. There were plenty of logs and branches floating past, which had been knocked down by the lighting somewhere. There was no reason to a.s.sume that Fitz hadn't been able to grab one and use it for flotation.

Either he had been washed quite a way downstream, or he had drowned. The Doctor hoped it was the former, but he had enough sense to know that either way, there was no good he could do standing around here with a wounded man.

He returned to the jeep. If Fitz had managed to reach the sh.o.r.e, their best hope of meeting up would be to follow the road along the river as far as possible. If he hadn't found Fitz by the turning for Bullingen, he'd just have to come back and look later.

Something wet was. .h.i.tting Wiesniewski's face, and, as his mind cleared, he realised it was mud and dampness being churned up by the jeep he was in. The stranger in the velvet coat was driving, just on the right side of maniacally. He seemed to be enjoying it, and was singing to himself. The singing worried Wiesniewski more than anything else.

'What the...?'

'Welcome back to the land of the living,' the stranger said. He glanced at Wiesniewski and looked relieved. 'I was worried about you for a minute there.'

Wiesniewski put a hand to the back of his head and felt a field dressing there. He didn't even remember being injured, but he supposed it would explain a lot. There had been a lot of wood and stone flying around during the sh.e.l.ling and presumably a chunk had bounced off his skull. For once Wiesniewski was glad of what his mother had always called a hard head. 'Look, mister '

'Doctor!'

'Doctor?' Well, that explained the field dressing, too. 'Where are we going, Dr...?'

'Just Doctor will do. Bullingen, as requested. I think. Hard to tell, since I don't actually know where we were, but it seems logical to head away from the Germans and hope for the best.'

'I thought you wanted to look for your friends.'

'I did, but they can look after themselves, you know You've got a bad concussion that should be looked at in proper medical care. Besides, when you collapsed you said some interesting things. Right now they're probably more important.'

'Military things?' Wiesniewski asked guiltily.

'No. Not that it would have mattered if you did.' The Doctor held out a hand without taking his eyes off the road. 'John Smith, 55583. You can check from your headquarters if you really want to; drove an ambulance at El Alamein several lifetimes ago.'

'Lifetimes? I guess the war changes you, all right,' Wiesniewski agreed.

'That too.'

Dawn finally broke, as dull and grey as any prison wall in Fitz's imagination.