Doctor Who_ The Turing Test Part 17

'No.'

'A doctor?'

'Sort of. You can call me Doctor if you like.'

'I'd rather not call you anything, if that's all right by you. I'd rather go and lie back in that bed and go right back to sleep,. I said, shrugging off the now-relaxed grip of the MP and marching back to the bed.

'But I need your help!' protested the Doctor, following me. 'At least think about it.'

'You haven't told me what it is you want me to do. And I'm sure it's bad. Anyway, I'm mad. Didn't they tell you?'

'Yes, but I didn't believe them.'

This was most definitely a bad sign. I was filled with new longings for escape, but they were likely to be frustrated, so I used my head, or, to be more exact, my mouth. I screamed.

It was a very good scream: long, loud, and yet hoa.r.s.e from the effort of previous screams of its type. Its timbre and resonance were exceptional. It was also filled with meaning: a deep, frenzied, rough hatred of death, of war, of people who had cla.s.sical, earnest faces and needed my help, which meant they probably wanted me to kill someone or risk my life, or more likely both at the same time. It was, I hoped, also filled with madness.

Unfortunately, it didn't fool the Doctor. He just smiled, and gave me a sly look. 'If you help me you'll be out of the war.'

'I'm out of it now.'

His expression darkened. 'n.o.body can stay mad long enough for that.'

'Quack, quack,' I told him. 'Quick, quick, quack, quack, quacketty, quacketty, quick-quickquack.' Loosely translated, this meant, 'Maybe not, but I intend to try.' However, I didn't intend to give the Doctor the translation.

He seemed to get it anyway. 'It won't work. They know you're not mad. You've got another week here at best.'

'Quack, quack, quick-quick, quaaaaawk!' Which meant, 'Oh, s.h.i.+t! You're not telling me they're going to make me fly again?'

Again the Doctor seemed to get the translation. 'Yes, they are.'

I decided it was time for outright begging. I leaned forward and breathed in the Doctor's face. He recoiled a bit, but not far enough for my liking. 'Look, Doctor.' I said. 'I just want to survive this war. I want to be a human being again, not a murderer. I don't want to die '

'I know. That's why I'm giving you this chance. If you give me what I want, you can go home afterwards. I've arranged it. All you have to do is steal a plane and fly me to Dresden.'

'Quack,' I said. 'Quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, and quack.' Which meant: 'No, no, no, no, no, no, and no.'

I think he knew that I meant it, because he left. And four days later, true to the Doctor's prediction, I was out of hospital, sitting in the c.o.c.kpit of a big silver bomber, rolling down the runway with death in front of me. Unfortunately, I wasn't on a mission for the Doctor. That was to come later, when I had been given many more reasons to be desperate.

In the next five months I flew fifteen more bombing missions. I opened the bay doors, bombs fell from my airplane and bricks, organs and bones shattered below. I risked death to spread death, death was everywhere, gore plating my dreams and my waking nightmares. When it got to five days without sleep, I landed my plane without the undercarriage down and broke the rear gunner's legs.

I had become genuinely insane, but after the cunning deception of June they wouldn't believe me. Now, when I should have been in a hospital ward, I was in a prison cell, dank, cold, with the smell of p.i.s.s and dead rats. That was when the Doctor appeared again, as shadowy and cla.s.sical as before prison visiting seems to have been a particular occupation of his around this time.

'h.e.l.lo Joseph,' he said, smiling gently, 'I think it's you that needs my help now.'

He was persuasive, you could give him that. You could also give him that he was strangely dressed, obsessive, twitchy, and half mad. He was probably a deranged scientist involved in a scheme to test a secret weapon, one that was supposed to bring about a swift and decisive end to the war, but would in fact bring the world to an end. I'd read about weapons like that, in Amazing Amazing, before the war. Back then, it had been a good story, but wildly improbable. Now, like many wildly improbable things, it had become the horrible truth. I didn't want anything to do with it, and I didn't want anything to do with this bright-faced man involving me in his malevolent plans.

Since I was in a prison cell, I couldn't run away: I thought it would be a good idea to spit at him, so I did. The spit landed in a big satisfying gobbet just under his left eye. He jumped back with a surprised expression. I got the idea that he was used to a different sort of response, but it was nice to surprise him. Surprise made his face seem less authoritative, and the gobbet of spit helped. He wiped it away with a large red handkerchief. If he had produced a flight of white doves from it, I wouldn't have been surprised.

Instead he produced a brilliant smile. 'Oh, well,' he said. His English accent was very strong. 'I'll just have to ask the colonel to kill you. He wants to, you know.'

He didn't seem as if he were serious, but, just in case he was, I stood up and hit him. He went away after that, nursing his spit and his new bruise. He looked over his shoulder and winked at me, which I took as a bad sign.

Chapter Twenty.

I've never mentioned the court martial before. It's not the kind of thing you tell to kindly biographers, and a fortunate accident happened to the military records (I wonder how, Doctor). Kurt Vonnegut knows I told him in one of those alcohol-driven, G.o.dlike, literary moments at about 3 a.m. in 1956 but he'll keep it quiet.

However, since I have no intention of allowing anyone to see this crazy ma.n.u.script until I am, as Greene so neatly puts it, 'safely dead', I'll tell you about it now. Just to make the story complete. But, whatever you do, don't breathe a word to anyone in the spirit world: I don't want my afterlife (in the unlikely event I have one) to be plagued by ghostly reporters knocking at my ghostly door. I've had enough of that here and now.

So, on to the court martial. It was a marsupial of the finest nature, big-haunched, pot-bellied, with evil animal eyes and a pouch concealing dark things which could not be mentioned in public. It was held in a Roman room, or perhaps mock-Roman, stony and mosaic-laden, domed as if it had swallowed me. Apart from the two MPs guarding the door, there were four people present: myself; my commanding officer, a long, thin-faced colonel with a slight resemblance to a blood-drenched praying mantis, who was more than half mad and wanted me dead; the major in charge of the proceedings, who was a man with a brick-red face, a handlebar mustache and a broad Texas drawl, wearing a slightly shabby uniform and a bewildered expression, as if he'd been drafted in at the last moment; and, of course, the Doctor.

The bewildered major read the charge to the Doctor, probably because he was standing in an area of mosaic roped off from the courtroom, perhaps to preserve its archaeological sanct.i.ty from the tread of military boots. The Doctor listened solemnly as he was accused of violating standing orders, willfully damaging US Air Force property, cowardice in the face of the enemy, and desertion. He nodded and sighed. 'Guilty on all counts, I'm afraid. But I'm not the prisoner.' He winked and nodded toward me.

The major looked at the mad colonel for guidance. The mad colonel jabbed a finger at me, with hatred on his face. 'That's the one!' he hissed in a stage whisper.

I was trembling a little, and sweating rather a lot, although the high Roman room was cool. I knew that the mad colonel hated me, and wanted me shot. Probably the most serious charge he had on me was nothing to do with cras.h.i.+ng the plane. It was that I wanted to write about him. Worse, I wanted to write the truth. Still worse, I was planning to publish this truth in a newspaper. With the benefit of hindsight I can see that I must have been far gone indeed to use the words 'truth' and 'newspaper' in the same sentence, much more so to speak that sentence in the Officers' Mess, where it had been overheard and duly pa.s.sed on.

Now the mad colonel had me over a barrel. It was a small uncomfortable barrel, rotting in places. It didn't have any beer in it, and it was adrift, barely afloat, in the middle of the Mediterranean, or perhaps the Atlantic. I felt seasick as I stared across the big, dark, damp, winter courtroom at the mad, bewildered men who wanted to kill me.

The Doctor gave his evidence, which was that I'd hit him, but also made a plea for mitigation. 'I need this man,' he said. 'And the world needs him. If you have him shot, you'll regret it.'

The bewildered major was even more bewildered. 'But we weren't going to shoot him!' he said.

The mad colonel glared at him and made a hissing sound. He looked like a praying mantis about to strike.

'Or perhaps we were,' finished the bewildered major, going even redder. I began to like him. Despite his evident willingness to kill me, he seemed a decent, honourable man.

'Look here,' said the Doctor, 'I can see that you're a decent, honourable man, Major. Captain h.e.l.ler here hasn't done anything terribly wrong. There isn't a mark on me '

'There's still the question of Gunner Heedle's broken legs,' the mad colonel pointed out.

'That was an accident,' said the Doctor. 'As you both know perfectly well.'

'No it wasn't, I did it deliberately.'

The major stared at me.

'I just didn't mean to break his legs,' I added.

'You deliberately damaged thousands of dollars' worth of US Air Force property, and compromised the war effort? And you're admitting admitting it?' asked the bewildered major, evidently more bewildered than he had been up to now. it?' asked the bewildered major, evidently more bewildered than he had been up to now.

'I was mad,' I said. 'Or, I should say, I am am mad. Flying sixty bombing missions has driven me mad. In particular, flying sixty bombing missions against Italians who aren't even the enemy any more in a war that could have ended at the end of last year, thus forcing me to murder innocent civilians over and over again for no sane reason ' mad. Flying sixty bombing missions has driven me mad. In particular, flying sixty bombing missions against Italians who aren't even the enemy any more in a war that could have ended at the end of last year, thus forcing me to murder innocent civilians over and over again for no sane reason '

'Those views are treasonable, soldier!' snapped the mad colonel.

'No,' I said. 'They're mad.'

'Treasonable, mad, there's no difference' He muttered something in the bewildered major's ear. It ended in, 'now' (I heard that part), and was probably, 'I want him shot, now now!'

I have to admit that the bewildered major's real strength of character shone through at this moment, because his response was that of a true American. 'But shouldn't we hold a vote first?'

The mad colonel smiled. 'Sure. I vote to find Captain h.e.l.ler guilty.'

The bewildered major fiddled with his fingers for a moment, then muttered something.

'Sorry,' said the Doctor politely from his roped-off mosaic. 'I didn't catch that.'

'I abstain,' muttered the bewildered major.

'Right! That's a verdict!' snapped the colonel. 'Soldier!' (This to one of the MPs at the door.) 'Take this man outside and shoot him!'

He meant it. I could tell, because when the soldier at the door didn't move he snapped, 'Come on, man! If you haven't got the guts for it I'm gonna do it myself!'

His hand was on his gun, and he was fondling it with urgent, masturbatory movements. I felt my knees weaken and my bladder twitch.

'Hold on a minute.' It was the Doctor. 'You haven't taken my vote yet, nor Captain h.e.l.ler's.'

'h.e.l.ler doesn't get a vote!' The colonel's face flushed a deep purple. 'And as for you, you're not even in the army '

'Air Force,' corrected the major mildly.

'In fact you're not even a G.o.dd.a.m.ned American, are you?'

'Nonetheless I vote to find Captain h.e.l.ler innocent,' said the Doctor quietly, stepping over the red rope barrier around the ancient mosaic. He looked at me, and winked. 'Captain, your vote, please?'

I knew what he was asking. It was the same question he had asked in the hospital ward, and in the prison cell. He wanted my help. Except that now the alternatives were clear: go along with him, or be shot, right now, by the mad colonel.

I did think about it. I thought about it for almost two seconds. Then I decided that, whatever the Doctor wanted, it had to be one better than being dead.

'I'll go along with you, Doctor,' I said. 'I vote to find myself innocent.'

'You can't,' said the mad colonel.

'You can't,' echoed the bewildered major, now very bewildered.

The Doctor stepped forward and muttered something to the colonel in a low voice. And no, I didn't hear it, and no, I don't know how he did it, except that I guess he appealed to the core of livid self-interest that lay beneath the bloodthirsty surface of the mad colonel. What I do know is that six months later, after six months of a glorious desk job watching my friends fly off to kill people and return in b.l.o.o.d.y tatters, if at all, and all for no reason, and with my sanity hanging by a thread thinner than one of those bits of cotton they use to hang up the b.a.l.l.s on a Christmas tree after six months of that, on the last day of January 1945, a telegram arrived.

need a lift to germany stop meet me at specified airbase in france stop see good colonel for further instructions stop the doctor ends It was handed to me by the mad colonel himself, while working on a late radio s.h.i.+ft in the cold light of a cold office, with a cold view of the cold tarmac outside. I could see a single, silver plane, like a huge, senseless insect, the blind eyes of its c.o.c.kpit waiting.

The colonel hadn't lost his resemblance to a praying mantis. He hadn't lost his bloodthirstiness, or his anger. But he managed a smile, as tense and false as that of a ham actor playing Iago. But never mind.

'There's a plane in Bay 3,' he said, gesturing out the window, as if I had somehow missed it. 'It's all fueled up and ready to go. The mission was cancelled you know how it is, soldier, at the end of the war.'

He paused. I nodded, obediently.

'You're not authorized to go anywhere near that plane, soldier. You understand?'

I nodded.

'In particular, you're not authorized to fly it to Soissiers Air Base in France. Any attempt to do this will result in the most serious consequences, you understand? For a breach of discipline of that order we may even have to transfer you away to the continental United States. You'd be out of the war, soldier, if you did something like that. You understand me?'

I understood him. I had been expecting to understand him for six long months. My heart leaped with joy, rather like Turing's did, but not at the thought of the return of the Doctor to my life. I have to admit it: I didn't give a d.a.m.n about that.

But afterwards, I would be going home.

You might think I flew the Doctor into Germany right away after that, but life doesn't fly in straight lines: it ducks and swerves like a bomber escaping flak. Life with the Doctor is p.r.o.ne to more dodging and ducking than most, as you've seen from Turing's and Greene's accounts. Turing thinks it's good, because he's a boring, unadventurous, stuck-up English prig: Greene thinks it's bad, because he's p.r.o.ne to swift, emotional judgments, and therefore judges most things to be bad. I just think it's dangerous to be in the firing line all the time, and I'm sure everyone would agree with that, without having to make a study of my character.

So, I didn't fly the Doctor into Germany straightaway. First I 'stole' the plane, under the cover of darkness and the watchful eye of the CO I was stealing it from, and flew it to France. Then I hung around for several days, and the Doctor tried to make the crossing by land, an attempt that ended with blood on the snow and three people dead. That was when I got the call at Soissiers and had to fly to another air base near the Swiss border to pick him up, together with three neatly wrapped corpses. We met on the tarmac, sheltering from the wind under a wing of the plane. The metal made the ticking sounds that metal makes as it cools. It was dark: we could have been in any air base, anywhere in the world. There was the same smell of air fuel, the same wind, the same darkness, the same sense of despair engendered by vast machinery used for the purpose of destroying lives.

He told me what had happened, and what was in the small French military truck behind us. I asked him what he wanted to do with the corpses.

He gave me a dark look. 'I don't know,' he whispered, with guilt written all over his face. 'I'd hoped you would be able to arrange something.'

I told him that my kid sister was good at arranging flowers, but that none of our family had ever had the knack of arranging corpses. To his credit, he didn't laugh. But he didn't offer to do anything about the corpses either.

I asked the Doctor why he thought I would be able to do something about them. 'Why don't you ask the colonel?' I asked. 'He's an expert at hiding stuff that no one wants to see.'

The Doctor jumped. 'Colonel Elgar? He's in Germany, I hope.'

'No, not him. My commanding officer,' I said. The one you made the deal with.' I wondered how many other colonels the Doctor knew, and how many of them looked like praying mantises, and how many of them were mad.

'What makes you think I have any influence with him?'

'One, you were there at the hospital. Two, you were there at the air base. Three, you were there at the court martial. Four, you had the colonel's permission to blackmail me. Five, it worked and I have stolen a plane for you with my commanding officer's permission. Six ' I'd run out of fingers, but the gist should have been obvious.

The Doctor smiled sweetly. 'I told him I was your friend.' He looked around, then added in a whisper. 'I told him I could stop you making trouble.'

I was appalled at this casual admission of his duplicity. It implied that as well as being duplicitous he was stupid, a fact that would decrease my already slender chances of survival. Suddenly the agreement at the court martial didn't seem like such a good deal. I was going to die anyway.

'I want to go home,' I told the Doctor.

'I understand,' he said. His tone of voice implied that he understood, and that he wanted me to know that he understood, and furthermore that I would, if I was a right-minded person, think that it was a privilege that I was understood by such a being as the Doctor. It was in this instant that I knew how good my air force training had been, because it had told me how to run and dodge under fire, jump over fences, and even how to navigate in darkness, and these were all skills I was going to need in the next few hours. I turned and walked away into the cold wind, wondering how near to the Swiss border I was, and how long it would take me to walk there.

The Doctor called after me. 'You can't always run away.'

'Why not? You've just told me you've killed three men and you want my help burying the bodies.'

'They were killed by German border guards! The colonel '