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rest and it too distorted and echoed and swelled and
boomeranged back at him. The plunging sounds destroyed
his balance, and he could no longer stand upright. He
reeled, and spun round and round in the severest pain.
Finally he managed to stagger into a pew beside the
pulpit. He half sat, half lay there, holding his ears. And the
wall next to the pulpit, beside his head, split asunder.
The noise was like a pistol shot. It cracked through the
Doctor’s inner ear and killed every other sound. Not far
from his face, the plaster on the wall bucked outwards. In
astonishment the Doctor watched it widen to a hole,
watched masonry come tumbling and dust fly as the wall
was punched wand harried and pulverised by something
forcing its way out from the inside.
Suddenly the Doctor realised that the other racket had
stopped altogether; the reverberations of battle had died
away as mysteriously as they had risen. Everything in the
church was still and silent again, and there was a tense
atmosphere, as if all attention was focussed on this bulging
and breaking of the wall. The Doctor gasped as something
probed jerkily through the spreading gap towards hirn.
Fingers.
Fingers pushing and scraping and bleeding, yanking at
the wall and tearing out the plaster with Feverish,
desperate movements. Suddenly the fingers became a hand,
and then the hand was clear of the hole and an arm
followed, and then a shoulder was through, and all at once
the wall gave way with a clatter, and a body burst out of it
in a shower of plaster and dust.
4
Of Psychic Things
Utterly perplexed by this development, the Doctor simply
gaped as the limbs bursting out of the wall finally became
still. A youth stood beside him, coughing and spluttering
and beating dust. out of his clothes.
These were genuine seventeenth-century garments – a
loose leather jerkin that had seen much better days, a shirt
of coarse grey homespun cloth, ragged trousers and heavy
buckled shoes. The body inside them was short and stocky,
topped by a round moon face wearing a truculent
expression. He was filthy dirty. His fingers bled from their
efforts at battwring masonry and the light dazzled his eyes.
He rocked on his heels, spitting grime from his mouth, and
looked belligerently about him.
When his eyes focussed on the astonished Doctor, they
opened wide in surprise. ‘What took ‘ee zo long?’ he
demanded, in a thick, antiquated burr. ‘I bin in thur for
ages!’ Then he noticed the Doctor’s clothes, and his voice
trailed away in awe.
Now the Doctor found his voice. ‘Who are you?’ he
asked, giving what he hoped was a reassuring smile.
Evidently it wasn’t, because the youth retreated with a
worried and uncertain look on his face. The Doctor offered
him an even more confident smile, and held out his hand.
‘I’m the Doctor,’ he said.
The youth withdrew some more. He backed right away
from the Doctor’s hand. ‘Doctor?’ he asked. ‘Doctor bain’t
a proper name.’ Then he cocked his head on one side and
said in a proud voice, ‘Will Chandler be a proper name.’
Encouraged, the Doctor moved towards him. The effect
was an immediate return to belligerence: startled and
aggressive, the youth stooped and picked up a stone to
defend himself. He had his back against the wall, and
could go no further.
‘Get ‘ee off me,’ he demanded.
‘I won’t hurt you.’
‘I won’t let ‘ee.’
The Doctor paused. He regarded this Will Chandler
very carefully, and with some uncertainty. After all, he
reflected, it isn’t every day that you see somebody come out
of a wall. His mind raced, forming theories and as readily
discarding them. There was one idea, however, which
would not go away; it steadily gained conviction in the
Doctor’s mind, even though he knew it was impossible.
Suddenly Will Chandler’s aggression left him; he
winced and held his right hand tenderly. ‘My hand’s
hurtin’,’ he muttered, all at once feeling sorry for himself.
The Doctor held out his left hand. ‘Show me,’ he said
firmly.
Tentatively, Will raised his arm. The Doctor took hold
of it gently and felt it all over, not just for breaks or other
injuries but to confirm for himself that this youth was
actually real. The arm was solid enough, and warm, and the
flesh yielded under his fingers. Apart from grazing and
bruising, it was intact.
The Doctor nodded towards the shattered wall. ‘What
were you doing in there?’
‘It’s a priest hole, ain’t it?’ Will said truculently. ‘I hid
from fightin’.’
The Doctor frowned. ‘What fighting?’
The question revealed ignorance of large proportions,
seemingly, or even stupidity, for Will’s face puckered up
into a disbelieving smile and he withdrew his arm from the
Doctor’s hand.
‘What fightin’? Ho, wur you been, then?’ There was
genuine puzzlement in his voice.
The Doctor felt that his idea was gaining ground, and
credulity. Casually he put his hands into his pockets, then
leaned down towards Will’s face. ‘What year is it?’ he asked
him.
Will reacted with a broad grin. ‘I knows that un,’ he said
in a pleased voice, as if he was answering a teacher’s
question in school. But despite his confidence he hesitated,
walking around the Doctor and getting his brain into gear,
making sure he got this right. ‘Year’s ... zixteen hunnerd
an’ forty ... three!’ He finished with a triumphant flourish,
but his hand was hurting again and he sat down in a pew
and nursed it, grunting with the pain.
‘Sixteen hundred and forty three, eh?’ The Doctor
looked at Will Chandler with much sympathy but, as yet,
not a lot of understanding. His idea had been valid, after
all. He was not really surprised, for each of the events
which had piled one on top of the other since they arrived
in
Little
Hodcombe
seemed
stranger
and
more
inexplicable than the last. This one, though, was a real
puzzle; what was happening in little Hodcombe was arning
our to be much more complex and intriguing than the
Doctor had first surmised.
Struck by a sudden thought, Will gave the Doctor an
apprehensive look. ‘Is battle done?’ he asked. His voice
shaking; he sat back and waited for the answer, terrified of
what it might be.
‘Yes,’ the Doctor answered gently, reassuring him and
wiping away his dread. ‘Yes, Will. Battle’s done.’
But the calming effect of his words was shattered by the
door being thrown open wide with a bang that echoed the
length and breadth of the church. Whimpering with fright,
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