Doctor Who_ Toy Soldiers Part 1

TOY SOLDIERS.

by PAUL LEONARD.

Acknowledgements

If the last book was a bit of a team effort, this one has been even more so. I would never have made it to the end without: Jim Mortimore (plot construction, support and encouragement), Barb Drummond (intensive copy-editing, free meals), Mark Leyland (innumerable useful suggestions), Nick Walters (ditto, and drawing of the Rat of Doubt), Chris Lake (reading it twice twice, as far as I could work out, and many useful comments), Craig Hinton (Whoniverse support), Bex (editorial support and endless cheerfulness in the face of adverse plot developments) and Mother of course (moral support, and use of video).

Also thanks to Barb (again) and Chris (again), and Barb's friend Jim, for German translations; Bruce for useful suggestions about air battles; Andy Lane for career encouragement and use of louge for kipping in; Lyn O'B (moral support!); Anna (friendship, laughter); Sh.e.l.ly (tea and sympathy), and everyone else at BT and elsewhere who helped keep me sane (No sir, it needs to have a Recall b.u.t.ton...

Re call call not Re not Re dial dial... thank you).

This book is dedicated to the memory of Herbert Harrowing Herbert Harrowing 1913 1995 Musician and raconteur And a true and loyal friend

They called it the Recruiter.

It could have been so much more. It could have brought them statesmen, philosophers, poets, musicians, artists, them statesmen, philosophers, poets, musicians, artists, athletes, storytellers. It could have brought them jugglers and athletes, storytellers. It could have brought them jugglers and clowns, masons, bakers, farmers, foresters, wine-makers, clowns, masons, bakers, farmers, foresters, wine-makers, woodworkers, architects or inventors. woodworkers, architects or inventors.

But they only wanted soldiers.

Book One

Recruitment Parade

Chapter 1.

11 November 1918.

Someone was singing.

It was a tenor voice, hoa.r.s.e and out of tune: '...can't find your way... who's going my way?... can't - find - my - way - ho-ome!'

Dulled by mud, the words failed to echo along the trench, and were followed by silence. Lieutenant Charles Sutton listened to the silence for a moment, and thought he heard a sob. Reluctantly, he turned and walked along the sodden duckboarding that covered the mud at the bottom of the trench, until he could see the man, curled up on the boards above the hole in the ground that formed the entrance to the dugout. Beneath the mud-stained uniform and the clumps of earth in his hair Sutton recognized Corporal Holder, the youngest of his NCOs. On the opposite side of the trench, the remainder of his platoon - Sergeant Betts, Corporal Dale and a private called Stringer - were sharing a mess tin full of steaming potatoes. Betts caught Lieutenant Sutton's eye and made the smallest of shrugs.

Sutton kneeled down beside the trembling man and spoke gently. 'It's all right, Holder. You're going home. The Armistice came into effect an hour ago. It's all over now.'

Holder removed his hands from his face and stared at Sutton with wild, white eyes. His mouth opened, revealing cracked teeth, a black tongue. 'Who's going my way?' he sang. 'Can't - find - my - way - ' Then he broke off and started sobbing again, tears trickling sideways across his cheeks, leaving streaks in the grime.

Enough, thought Sutton suddenly. Enough. He got up and began to walk away from the voice. Let the MO take care of him. Let his mother take care of him. Let G.o.d take care of him, if there is one. Just don't expect me to do it any more.

The war's over now.

'Can't - find - my - way - ho-ome!'

Sutton began walking faster. The walls of the trench moved past, rotting planking pitted here and there with shrapnel. A smell of rot and excrement caught at his throat and filled his lungs. After a few hundred yards, the trench came to an end in a wall of broken wood; it had been flattened by sh.e.l.lfire a couple of weeks before and they'd never got around to repairing it.

Well, here's our chance now, thought Sutton. Whilst there's a bit of peace. Then he realized what he was thinking.

That he was making plans as if the war wasn't over, as if it were impossible for the war ever to be over.

'Who's going my way ...? Can't - find - my - '

Sutton shuddered.

Sod the trench, he thought. There's no need to repair it ever again. No need at all. Let it rot, let the poppies and the gra.s.s and the b.u.t.tercups grow in it in the spring ...

He felt the sob rising in his throat and didn't try to control it. He sat down on the last solid piece of boarding and put his head in his hands. Dead faces rose in his mind's eye: John Staunton, Edward Holt, Gregory Peters - and others, countless others. The images flickered like candle flames, so that he couldn't be sure of their features, but he knew that they were his friends, because they were singing 'Can't find my way ho-ome!'

Sutton clenched his fists, clenched them so tight he could feel the muscles of his arms trembling with the strain.

'Don't let it destroy you, not now when it's so nearly done with.' Who had said that to him? - Oh, yes, his mother, in her last letter. He thought of the clean white quiet of the house in Bristol, of his sister Carrie's laughter, of little Manda's pale face and the teddy bear under her arm, and felt sanity slowly seep back into him. There was a reserve of strength there, he thought: even though they hadn't been here, couldn't understand, still somehow the thought that they were alive, safe and well, had comforted him through the four appalling years. And now at last it was over, now he could think of them and know that he would see them again, see them soon, not just on a hasty two weeks' leave but for ever - 'Sir!' Sergeant Betts's voice. Footsteps on the duckboard, running. 'Sir!'

Sutton looked up, his whole body jumping to attention at the tone of the man's voice. The sergeant ran up to him, his thin face white, his grey eyes staring. 'Are you all right, sir?'

Sutton 'quickly wiped away the tears that still stood on his face and got up. 'I'm fine, Sergeant. What's wrong?'

The sergeant hesitated. 'Fritz, sir. Three or four of them, up top.'

'Germans?' Sutton was bewildered. 'But under the terms of the Armistice - '

There was the sound of a shot. Sutton and the sergeant looked at each other, set off at a run.

They saw Holder propped up on the sentry's ladder looking over the lip of the trench, with a rifle in his hand.

Beneath him, Corporal Dale was standing on the duckboards.

He had also picked up his rifle, and was pointing it at Holder.

Stringer was still sitting on the crate, eating his potatoes.

'Stop that!' shouted Sutton.

Holder looked down at him, wordless, his eyes wild.

Then he turned back, fired the rifle again. From outside the trench, there was a scream, followed by the crack of a rifle. A bullet whizzed over the top of the trench.

'I said stop that!' Sutton was almost screaming. 'Do you want to start the war again? Do you want to start it all again? Do you want to start it all again? ' '

Holder fired another shot.

Sergeant Betts started up the ladder, caught hold of the man's legs, tried to pull him down. The gun went off again, then Holder suddenly went limp, and he and the sergeant both fell off the ladder into the mud. For a moment Sutton thought that Holder had shot himself: then he saw the rolling white eyes, the insane smile.

'... can't find your way ... who's going my way ...?'

Sutton glanced at the sergeant, who was picking himself up, black mud smeared over his chin and the front of his jacket. The man shrugged, picked Holder's rifle out of the mud, clicked the safety on and slowly put it away behind the crate where Stringer was still sitting, watching the proceedings with an expression of bemus.e.m.e.nt. Sutton started towards the bottom of the ladder. 'I'm going up to take a look.'

'Be careful, sir.' Dale still had his rifle out.

Sutton drew his revolver, climbed the ladder one-handed.

The rungs were unevenly s.p.a.ced, so that you never quite knew where the next one was going to be. Concentrating on keeping his balance, Sutton found his head above the parapet before he knew it. He saw a sodden, sh.e.l.l-pocked field sloping up in front of him, dark against a misty November sky. The barbed wire that protected the trench lay loosely coiled across the bare earth, drops of water beading some of the spines. Behind the wire - Behind the wire was a young man in a torn, mud-spattered German uniform, pointing a rifle directly at Sutton.

Sutton swallowed, aimed his revolver. 'Under the terms of the Armistice -' he began.

'Please -' interrupted the German. His voice quavered: he was little more than a boy, Sutton realized. Seventeen, perhaps eighteen. His face was thin and starved, his expression desperate. He looked over his shoulder, a rigid and mechanical gesture, like an exaggerated nervous tic.

'Please - ' he began again. ' Sie mussen uns helfen Sie mussen uns helfen. Sie Sie mussen uns in den Schutzengraben kommen la.s.sen mussen uns in den Schutzengraben kommen la.s.sen.'

Sutton shook his head. 'I don't understand you,' he said, then added slowly, 'You should not be here. You are in breach of the Armistice.'

As he finished speaking, a second young German stood up, wearing only a trench coat and trousers. He appeared to be unarmed, and seemed even younger than the first. He was holding his left arm with his right; a red stain marked the sleeve, and Sutton could see blood dripping to the ground.

' Sie mussen uns heruntersteigen kommen la.s.sen Sie mussen uns heruntersteigen kommen la.s.sen,' said the young German. ' Sie sind ja ganz hinter uns. Sie sind ja ganz hinter uns. ' He looked over his shoulder again. Sutton involuntarily glanced up at the ridge above the field, but saw nothing other than barbed wire and sky. ' He looked over his shoulder again. Sutton involuntarily glanced up at the ridge above the field, but saw nothing other than barbed wire and sky.

He didn't need to understand the words to realize that the two young men were being pursued - but by whom?

Were they deserters? But why desert now, when there was peace? And if they were deserters, what should he do?

Leave them to be shot by their own army?

'Please,' begged the young man again, perhaps the only English word he knew. ' Sie sind Baren mit Pistolen. Sie Sie sind Baren mit Pistolen. Sie haben viele von uns weg genommen haben viele von uns weg genommen. Please.'

He had lowered the rifle; Sutton risked a glance down into the trench, saw Sergeant Betts standing, looking up at him with a frown on his face. He had wiped some of the mud from his chin and held a filthy cloth in his hand.

'Need any help, sir?' asked Betts quietly.

Sutton shrugged, shook his head. 'Don't think so.'

There was a shout from the Germans, and the rifle cracked. Sutton whirled round, almost losing his grip on the ladder. He saw the young man crouching, firing away from the trench towards the ridge. Sutton looked up, saw men in strange brown-and-green uniforms running across the ridge, rifles at the ready - Not men.

Too big for men. And their faces were covered in s.h.a.ggy brown fur.

Bears? thought Sutton wildly. Bears with guns? Trained bears - some kind of special German thing? But they don't look like bears - the heads are too wide, and the legs and arms are wrong. But in that case, what are they? what are they?

On the other side of the barbed wire, the German was struggling with his rifle, which must have jammed or run out of ammunition. ' Hilfe! Hilfe! ' he screamed. ' he screamed.

Sutton levelled his revolver, fired at one of the strange figures.

Missed.

He looked down into the trench, saw Sergeant Betts already climbing the ladder, Dale behind him. Stringer was half-standing, a fork with a steaming potato an inch from his mouth.

'Stringer!' Sutton shouted to the private. 'Up here! Now!'

Stringer hesitated, then dropped the potato and started after Dale.

Sutton looked back at the battlefield and saw that the bearlike things had advanced to within a few yards of the two Germans. Three of them were wading through a sh.e.l.l-hole half filled with water, their legs making loud splashing noises; the others were spread out in a line, approaching the coils of barbed wire. Some had swung their rifles to cover Sutton.

Sutton scrambled up the last few rungs of the ladder and out on to the muddy field. Sergeant Betts came up beside him, stared at the newcomers. Sutton thought about running, telling his men to run, leaving the Germans to their fate, but knew he couldn't do it. 'Give me cover,' he snapped to Betts, and ran forward, crouching down, weaving as best he could in the slippery mud.

Only when he reached his side of the barbed wire barrier did he realize that the Germans had gone. The bearlike things were standing in front of him, three of them side by side in their green uniforms. They held guns in furry, three-fingered hands, and the guns were pointed at him. He struggled to raise his own gun, but his arm refused to move.

Behind him, he heard the crack of rifle fire and a scream of pain. His men were fighting and perhaps dying there, but he couldn't turn, couldn't go back. His body simply refused to obey him.

Behind the motionless figures, the sharp edge of the ridge blurred, began to show red and blue edges as if he were looking at it through damaged binoculars. As Sutton watched, the images separated, stretched, until all he could see was a rainbow smeared out all around him, and the sharp, clear figures of the bears.

I've gone mad, he thought. Mad, like Holder. I didn't make it after all.

But it didn't feel like a delusion. The bearlike things were solid and, despite their strangeness, real. Mud matted the coa.r.s.e fur on their faces and the lower part of their legs, below their grey-and-green trousers. He could smell a musky odour, could hear the faint, growling sound of their breathing.

And something else.

The whistling of sh.e.l.ls.

The crash of explosions.

The rattle of machine-guns.

The light changed again, lost its colours, became dull and brown. The ground shifted slightly under his feet. He looked down, saw mud, thick and dark.

But different from the French mud, somehow. Thicker.

Heavier. Worse.

The ground shook with the familiar sound of an exploding sh.e.l.l. Sutton swallowed, looked around him. Saw smoke, dirt, men running.

Not men. More of the bearlike things.

He looked up at his captors, who still held their guns, opened his mouth. 'What - ?'