Free Doctor Who: The Green Death by Malcolm Hulke

stave into the slime, finding the floor again, and gave another mighty heave. The coal tub was gathering speed now, and soon was travelling fast through and out of the pool of slime.
    ‘We’re in the clear,’ the Doctor grinned. ‘Next stop Euston Station.’
    The tunnel was now running very slightly downhill, and with only an occasional prod with the stave the Doctor was able to keep up quite a speed. After a quarter of a mile the tunnel started to go uphill, slowing the coal tub. Then the little track ended, and the tub ground to a stop. By now so far from the green glow of the slime, they had both switched on their helmet lights. Jo looked about herself, then pointed ahead.
    ‘Look, Doctor. That could be the old shaft.’
    An aperture in the mine wall some yards ahead opened onto a smaller tunnel that went up at a steep angle.
    ‘Let’s hope you’re right,’ said the Doctor. ‘Here’s where we start climbing.’

6
The Sluice Pipe
    A little crowd of villagers watched as Bert Pritchard was carried on a stretcher into the waiting ambulance. Once the doors of the ambulance were closed, the Brigadier turned and went back into the pit head office. Dave Griffiths was sitting there, head in hands. With him was Professor Clifford Jones.
    ‘At least he’s still alive,’ said the Brigadier.
    ‘But if Bert dies,’ said Dave, ‘I don’t know how I’ll face myself.’
    ‘It was their decision to go down the mine,’ said Professor Jones. ‘You can’t count it as your fault. You did a marvellous job to carry him out.’
    ‘You did indeed,’ agreed the Brigadier. He turned to the professor. ‘Have you any idea why his flesh turned green?’
    ‘Not specifically,’ said the professor. ‘If I did we might know how to treat it. But there’s one thing that’s obvious to me. It’s got something to do with Panorama Chemicals.’
    ‘Come now,’ said the Brigadier, ‘you have no proof!’
    ‘Did you know,’ said the professor, ‘there is no proof that smoking cigarettes can cause lung cancer?’
    ‘Whatever are you talking about? There’s a direct relationship between cigarette smoking and the incidence of lung cancer. I encourage all my men not to smoke.’
    ‘Exactly,’ said the professor, ‘a direct relationship. But nothing you can prove in a laboratory. It’s the same with the green death and Panorama Chemicals. We know that no one in Llanfairfach, or anywhere else, went green and died before Panorama Chemicals arrived.’
    What the professor said made sense, but the Brigadier doubted he could make the case to higher authorities. ‘Anyway, we haven’t time to talk now. I must get down that mine to save the Doctor and Miss Grant.’
    Dave Griffiths looked up. ‘That’s exactly what the Doctor said you shouldn’t do. Too dangerous, he said.’
    ‘I think I should be best judge of that,’ said the Brigadier, moving to the door.
    ‘On what is your judgement based?’ asked Professor Jones.
    The Brigadier paused. ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘How can you be the best judge of the situation down there when you haven’t been in the mine?’
    ‘Good grief, man, you don’t think going down a coal mine is going to frighten me!’
    ‘I am sure that you’re an exceptionally brave soldier,’ said the professor. ‘But the Doctor sent an order that no one should go down into the mine after him. Now why don’t you do what you’re told and stay up here on the surface? Show a bit of obedience and discipline, man!’
    The Brigadier gave thought to that. It certainly made a lot of sense. The Doctor had been in many tight scrapes before, and had managed to save himself usually un-aided. Above all, if the Brigadier went down into the mine he had no idea where to start searching. ‘Perhaps you have a point,’ he agreed. ‘But in all conscience, I can’t stand around and do nothing .’
    ‘There is something you can do,’ said Professor Jones. ‘Go and ask Panorama Chemicals what they’re really up