Free Doctor Who: The Sea-Devils by Malcolm Hulke

you everything!’
    ‘It’s all right, Jo,’ said the Doctor. ‘Captain Hart’s quite right in wanting to be sure that we are telling the truth.’ Slowly, and carefully, the Doctor started to tell Captain Hart once more about the events on the oil-rig.
    Trenchard drove his landrover carefully along the road leading to the Naval Base. From time to time he glanced at the heap of rugs, travelling blankets, and his golf bags, which made a mound on the floor behind his driving seat. He had already committed one major crime—allowing his prisoner to leave the prison without authority from the Prison Department. Now, as he approached the gates of the Naval Base, he was about to commit yet another—he was going to delude a representative of the Lords of the Admiralty into believing that he, Trenchard, was the only occupant of the landrover.
    At the gates he stopped, and their Lordships’ representative, in the person of Chief Petty Officer Beaver, came up to the driver’s window and saluted. ‘’Afternoon, Mr. Trenchard. Want to see the captain?’
    ‘If I may,’ said Trenchard, always polite to lower-deck ratings. ‘I was just passing.’
    ‘I think he’s got visitors,’ said C.P.O. Beaver, ‘but I imagine he’ll have time for you.’ He opened the gates to admit the landrover. As Trenchard went by he called out cheerfully, ‘How’s the Master getting on?’
    Trenchard almost jumped out of his driving seat. ‘Very well, thank you,’ he said, ‘considering...’ He realised Beaver’s question had no point behind it; it was just a pleasantry. After all, everyone on the island knew about the château and its celebrated prisoner.
    Usually when Trenchard visited Captain Hart he parked his landrover right outside the main administrative block. It was his little way of showing that he was a cut above the other people who parked in the base’s car-park. Today, however, he decided it was wise to follow the custom of the common herd. He headed his landrover into the car-park at the side of the main building, and stationed it unobtrusively between two other vehicles. He stopped the motor, carefully pocketed the keys, and noted that his heart seemed to be pounding very fast. Without looking round to the mound of rugs and blankets behind him he said, ‘We are now in the car-park. I shall be gone for about twenty minutes.’ There was no reply.
    Trenchard slowly got out of the landrover. His legs felt unsteady, as though his knees had turned to soapy water. Then he tried to remember that he was, first and foremost, a soldier, and soldiers must be brave. He knew, or hoped he knew, that what he was doing was right. He was trying to save England from her enemies. The difficult thing about it, though, was that in order to do the right thing he had to do so many wrong things. He was a very, very worried man as he walked, a little unsteadily, from the car-park in the direction of the administrative building.
    Once Trenchard’s footsteps had gone out of earshot, the heap of rugs and blankets started to move, and the Master cautiously reared his head. There was no one about, so he climbed out of the landrover and paused to brush down his smart-looking Naval officer’s uniform. Amused, he looked at the bands on his cuffs—the theatrical costumiers had made him into a commander, which was pretty high-ranking. He straightened his cap, and marched across the car-park, returning the salutes of two passing lower-deck ratings.
    Captain Hart had now heard the Doctor’s story for the second time. He said nothing for a while because he wanted to give his mind time to consider the idea of intelligent beings living somewhere on, or under, the sea-bed. Finally, he looked up. ‘Let us say, Doctor, that I accept your theory about the existence of these Sea-Devils. What would you want me to do?’
    The Doctor was emphatic. ‘We must devise some means to make contact with them!’
    ‘Whatever for?!’ exclaimed Captain Hart. ‘These