Gatiss - Last of the Gaderene

Ten Little Aliens

Stephen Cole

Dreams of Empire

Justin Richards

Last of the Gaderene

Mark Gatiss

Festival of Death

Jonathan Morris

Fear of the Dark

Trevor Baxendale

Players

Terrance Dicks

Remembrance of the Daleks

Ben Aaronovitch

EarthWorld

Jacqueline Rayner

Only Human

Gareth Roberts

Beautiful Chaos

Gary Russell

The Silent Stars Go By

Dan Abnett

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First published in 2000 by BBC Worldwide Ltd.

This edition published in 2013 by BBC Books, an imprint of Ebury Publishing.

A Random House Group Company

Copyright Mark Gatiss 2000, 2013

The Author asserts his moral right to be identified as the author of the Work in accordance with Sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

Doctor Who is a BBC Wales production for BBC One.
Executive producers: Steven Moffat and Caroline Skinner

BBC, DOCTOR WHO and TARDIS (word marks, logos and devices) are trademarks of the British Broadcasting Corporation and are used under licence.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

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For Jesus said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit.

And he asked him, What is thy name?

And the man answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many.

Mark 5:8

The womans eyes were as brown as the Bakelite wireless on the high shelf behind her head.

The song coming from the wireless was muffled and crackly, as though the singer were far away. But the voice still managed to sound sweet, wistful and achingly melancholy all at the same time. There would be blue birds over the white cliffs of Dover, the singer promised, her sweeping tones washing over the crowded bar.

A stocky young man with a neatly clipped moustache leant on the bar, his lively eyes sparkling with good humour.

He watched the woman as she looked around the room, which was a blur of blue serge. She hitched up her skirt a little and tugged at her stocking, but she was careful that other men surrounding her, their faces flushed with high spirits and too much beer, didnt see. Such things were for his eyes only.

The young man pushed his officers cap back on his forehead and forced his way through the crowd, four pints of bitter clutched precariously in his hands, his handsome face wreathed in smoke from his pipe. He moved the pipe from side to side between his clenched teeth and navigated a careful path through his fellow airmen to a red-leather upholstered seat.

The slim and rather beautiful woman watched his approach and a delighted smile lit up her round face. He felt a little thrill of joy dart inside him. Perhaps hed ask her now. There was nothing to lose. And so much to gain. In his imagination hed always seen them walking arm in arm through some sunny glade, not jammed behind a little table in a bar. But the war made everything much more urgent.

The young flyer pushed two of the pints across the table towards his friends and then settled down next to the woman. She thanked him and took a sip of the foaming beer.

Are you sure thats what you wanted? he asked, tugging the pipe from his mouth.

She nodded and pushed a stray strand of long chestnut hair from her eyes.

He rubbed his chin nervously and tried to think of the best way of saying it.

Theyd been thrown together by the war almost literally. An incendiary bomb had gone off just outside the shelter where hed been hiding and the young woman had rushed inside just in time. The sweat was standing on her forehead and her eyes were bright and frightened. But, at the sight of him, she had broken into a broad grin.

He looked at the pint of beer on the table in front of him.

Well, I suppose if youre going to be my wife, youll have to get used to this grog.

Her pretty eyes disappeared into half-moons as she smiled. She sipped at her pint and then almost choked on it. She span round in her seat.

What did you say?

He feigned innocence. When?

Just now.

Oh, he took a great draught of his pint. You mean about marrying you?

She looked suddenly vulnerable and terribly pretty. He leant over and kissed her.

Oh, Alec she mumbled. After a while, she pulled away, grinning happily. OK, mister. Ill marry you.

Good show, laughed the flyer.

On one condition.

He frowned. Oh?

She cradled his face in her hands and smiled a little sadly.

Get through all this alive, wont you?

He nodded, beaming, and embraced her. He glanced around the room, taking in the ceiling blackened with smoke where men had burnt their names and squadron numbers into it with candles; the knots of young flyers in their blue uniforms, the fug of smoke and laughter. He thought of the nights he and the girl had spent together since that first meeting in the air-raid shelter. Her funny laugh. The time he had flown his aeroplane over the factory where she worked and looped the loop just to impress her.

He lifted her hand from her knee, squeezed it and then pressed it tenderly to his cheek.

Distantly, there was a low, rumbling drone.

His senses were immediately alert. Whirling round, he looked up at the ceiling, her hand still in his. A few of the airmen had heard it too.

He opened his mouth to speak; to tell the wonderful girl by his side to get down or to run for it. It was a buzz bomb. Had to be. But the sound was different somehow. A stuttering, shattering roar. Then the sound stopped and silence fell.

A moment later, the room exploded into white nothingness.

It was some days later that the young man found himself wandering over the devastated ground where the bar had stood. Soft cotton pads covered the severe burns he had sustained to his cheek, and one arm was painfully supported in a sling. He had been lucky.

The beautiful girl with eyes like Alice Fey; the girl hed waltzed around the Pally one night; the girl hed asked to marry him; she had not been lucky.

The young man in the blue officers uniform took his cap from his head and tucked it under his uninjured arm. Ahead of him, the ground was little more than a blackened hole. Mud was churned up in a wide crater and fragments of debris glass, chair legs, even a girls handbag were scattered around the rim.