He wasn"t in the least surprised when the Doctor and Ace appeared out of the night, toiling up the mountainside. It was almost as if he was expecting them. He opened the door and called out to the suspicious sentry to let them in.
Once they were inside, Hitler nodded jovially at the glowing lantern in the Doctor"s hand. "You come to bring me light, as usual, Herr Doktor?"
"I hope so," said the Doctor sombrely. "How goes the war?"
If the Doctor was grim, Adolf Hitler was cheerful, confident, totally in command of events. "Very well, Herr Doktor, very well indeed." He led them to a wall map and picked up a pointer. "Poland is ours, of course.
Holland and Belgium have been overrun and in France my armies have encircled the enemy and reached Abbeville, here. Boulogne and Calais have already fallen, and General Guderian"s Panzer Division is about to cut off the only remaining port, some little place called. . . " He peered at the map. "Dunkirk."
The Doctor heaved a sigh of relief, and breathed a little prayer of thanks to the TARDIS.
"A magnificent achievement," said the Doctor heartily. "And the credit is Yours - all yours."
"Mine - and that power within me, Doctor. The power which you taught me to harness and control."
"You are too modest," said the Doctor. "The credit is yours all yours. This so-called power is nothing beside your towering genius."
He"s laying it on with a shovel, thought Ace. What"s he up to?
Hitler started to look tense, uneasy, haunted. "No, no, Doctor. The power within me must have its due."
"What power?" said the Doctor scornfully. "Some pathetic ghost, wandering the universe, looking for a free ride. I know all about her. The Timewyrm, she calls herself. Well, the worm bit"s accurate enough, burrowing for safety into the mud of this pathetic planet. She"s nothing." He held up the glowing lantern to illuminate Hitler"s face. Suddenly Hitler went rigid. His eyes glowed brightly with a strange silvery light. "Nothing Doctor? You dare say "I" am nothing?" It wasn"t Hitler"s voice. It was the voice of the Timewyrm.
"Nothing and less than nothing," said the Doctor. "Still, I suppose you"ve found your level, risen to the top like the cosmic sc.u.m you are."
The eyes burned brighter. Hitler"s whole body began to glow.
"But then, what are you after all?" said the Doctor rhetorically. "A tame witch doctor serving a petty human warlord, helping him to rule his mudball of a planet."
Adolf Hitler"s body glowed even brighter and it began to change. It became a pillar of light, and from that pillar emerged a metallic feminine form. It was a good seven feet tall, cla.s.sically beautiful and totally terrifying. It was the Timewyrm, manifested in all her evil glory. Ace shuddered, remembering the clutch of icy metal fingers in her heart.
The Timewyrm didn"t even see her. "A servant?" she shrieked. "I turned this pot-house politician, this street-corner ranter into a man who could rule a country!
Now, if I choose, I will give him a world, a galaxy! I will rule through him!
Rule and destroy!"
"You pathetic cosmic poltergeist," said the Doctor scornfully. "Go and smash a few cups, slam a few doors, frighten old ladies in the night. You"re not a power, you"re just a petty nuisance. You bore me."
The Timewyrm hissed with rage.
The Doctor held up his lantern to the tall silver form. "You"re trapped in the mind of a madman and you know it. Soon you will burn him out. As he grows older and madder and eventually dies, you too will wither away." He paused, then said with elaborate indifference, "Of course, if you were to be housed in the mind of a Time Lord. . . "
"Do you offer me an alliance, Doctor?"
"I offer you a fair fight - here, on your own ground, away from the TARDIS. I can free you from this human"s mind."
"And then?"
"My mind is yours - if you can take it."
"Very well, Doctor. I accept your challenge."
Holding up the lantern, the Doctor stared deep into the Timewyrm"s burning eyes. "Then come out of your hiding place and fight, Timewyrm!"
There was a long, long pause. The air pulsated with psychic energy.
Suddenly the Timewyrm gave a shriek of triumph.
"I am free!"
She swept towards them, leaving the crumpled body of Adolf Hitler behind her on the floor. " So you dare to challenge me, Doctor? Do you know who I am, little man? I am the Timewyrm. I am invincible! I shall swallow your mind, take over your TARDIS - and then I shall be the supreme power in the universe!"
As the Timewyrm bore down on the Doctor she grew and grew until she filled the room.
The Doctor touched a control in the base of the lantern and it burned with the fierce brightness of a star. As the Timewyrm swooped down on him he thrust the lantern full into her face. She lashed her tail angrily, battering at the globe of brilliance - then she exploded in a sudden burst of light, vanishing with a last terrible howl . . .
Suddenly everything was quiet.
There on the floor crouched Adolf Hitler, sobbing.
The Doctor lifted him into a seat.
"The power has left me, Doctor," whispered Hitler. "What must I do? Tell me."
The Doctor leaned over him, staring into the terrified eyes, speaking in a calm positive voice. "You must let the British Army go! Even though you are at war with the British, you respect them, you admire their Empire. Let their army go home, postpone your invasion plan and eventually they will make peace with you. They will become your allies against the Bolshevik hordes, your real enemy."
"Yes, yes, you are right," said Hitler feverishly.
The Doctor handed him a field-telephone. "You are the Fuehrer. Give the order."
Hitler took the phone, and managed a shaky version of his old commanding tone. "This is the Fuehrer. Send this message to General Guderian immediately. There is to be no further advance on Dunkirk. No further advance."
"That"s the idea," said the Doctor. "Remember, no advance on Dunkirk, postpone the invasion of England... Come on, Ace, we must go."
Hitler looked up in alarm. "You are leaving, Doctor? But what will become of me?"
The Doctor paused for a moment in the doorway. "You will fulfil your destiny," he said.
The Doctor and Ace disappeared into the night.
The Fuehrer is terribly nervous. He seems frightened by his own success, and he is unwilling to take any risks. He keeps trying to hold us back.
This order to halt before Dunkirk is utter madness...
The secret diary of General Rommel In Dunkirk the long lines of weary soldiers were filing out to sea where the little ships waited to ferry them from the beaches to the waiting destroyers.
The howling Stukas dive-bombed the men and the ships, but the encircling n.a.z.i armies still held back.
In seven days over three hundred thousand men were evacuated. We British said it was a miracle and at home in England, it was hailed as a great victory.
But, as Winston Churchill was quick to remind us, wars are not won by evacuations. Mere was much to be done, and our task was only beginning.
But at least we had survived to continue the fight...
"Reminiscences of World War II" General Popplewell
2: BITTER VICTORY.
"Okay, Professor, talk," said Ace.
They had made their way safely back to the precarious mountain ledge where the TARDIS had landed. Now they were back in the control room, and the TARDIS was once again in flight.
The Doctor seemed gloomy and cast down. "Talk? What about?"
"The magic lantern for a start. What was it?"
The Doctor brightened a little. "A telepathic relay. I used it to extend the TARDIS forcefield. I tapped the power of the TARDIS to help me to free the Timewyrm from Hitler"s brain. When she attacked me I boosted the power of the forcefield and it blew her away."
"So she"s destroyed?" said Ace hopefully.
"Well, you might say she"s gone all to pieces," said the Doctor. He checked the time-path indicator. "You see, nothing. No reading."
"So where is she?"
"Swirling round the void in an unfocused storm of anger. But her will to survive is enormous. She"ll get herself together again."
"So we haven"t heard the last of her?"
The Doctor sighed. "I doubt it. I couldn"t even do that properly."
"Look, what"s the matter with you, Professor?"
"It"s all such a mess!"
"What is?"
"Your b.l.o.o.d.y human history. You mangle yourselves quite enough if you"re left alone. But this! War Lord interference, Timewyrm interference, and now my cack-handed interference on top of all that."
"You did your best, Professor."
"And look what came of it! I not only got one of the most terrible wars in human history back on the road, I freed the Timewyrm in the process!
Trapped in Hitler"s mind she might have withered away and died. Now she"s still out there roaming the cosmos, and the whole job"s got to be done again."
"Well, at least you put history right."
"What"s right about it?" said the Doctor gloomily. "History"s been mucked about so much, who knows what"s true and what"s false. And who cares anyway?"
"Come off it, Professor, we know what"s supposed to happen."
"Six years of war," said the Doctor savagely. "Everything from the Holocaust to Hiroshima, with Dresden along the way! And I made sure it all happened on schedule!"
"Where does Dresden come in to it?"
"Oh, it was just a pretty little historical beauty spot, hammered into rubble for no good reason at all."
Ace frowned. "Hang on, Dresden"s in Germany, the n.a.z.is wouldn"t do that."
"They didn"t. Your lot did."
Ace nodded sombrely. "Our side did Hiroshima as well - and Nagasaki . . .
But none of it"s your fault, Doctor. All you did was put things back the way they were. So the n.a.z.is lost in "forty-five, and Adolf s Thousand Year Reich fizzled out after twelve. Opening the way for a future which produced wonderful things like perestroika, a united Europe and me."
"Ah, but did it? The fabric of time was badly torn, Ace. You can"t st.i.tch it up like repairing an old shirt. Suppose I made things even worse?"
Ace looked worriedly at him. She"d never seen the Professor so down.
Drastic measures were needed.
"Well, let"s go back and see."
"Where?"
"Where we came in."
"1951? Are you sure? If history"s been even more radically altered, it might not have produced you at all - you could disappear the minute we leave the TARDIS!"
"I"ll risk it," said Ace cheerfully. "Anything"s better than travelling through time and s.p.a.ce with a depressed Professor. Let"s get back to that soggy festival."
EPILOGUE: A St.i.tCH IN TIME.
The TARDIS landed on the South Bank in the pouring rain.
The Doctor and Ace emerged. The Doctor looked at the Skylon. No swastika marred the slender, impractical tower. He looked at Ace. She was still there.
"Well, you did it, Professor," she said. "You put a st.i.tch in time."
The Doctor beamed. "We did it, Ace."
Ace nodded. "This time we definitely done good!"