Four: The Punjab, 1849

[Sarah Jane]

‘Miss Smith’ was, in fact, biting her tongue at the preemptive ordering of her day. 'Five hours to prepare for dinner, was he serious?' She reluctantly set down her third restorative cup of tea and turned to her sombre hostess with an apologetic smile. The woman’s closed expression was hard to decypher. Maybe she’d had other plans for the afternoon as well, or possibly she was more used to this sort of thing.

“What an amazingly energetic gentleman! Still, perhaps one becomes accustomed to this heat after a while. Excuse me a moment while I send a note…. Do you wish to watch the innings a little longer Mrs Darlington, or shall we deal with millinery first and then explore Lahore a little?�


Jeremiah,

I will be with a Mrs Julia Darlington for the afternoon. We are invited to dine in the Officers’ Mess at 8pm. Dress code formal.

Look after the Doctor.

SJS   


Sarah Jane rapidly scrawled on a sheet of  headed notepaper and handed it over to a pavilion wallah for delivery with her best description of the distinctive Collector.

[Colonel Blood]

The wallah takes the note with a curt bow, eyes downcast, and steps from the room to seek the Collector. Immediately another Indian appears to waft air over the English in silent serfdom.

"Exploooore? Lahooooore?" Trills the aged woman after a few moment's thought. "What a frightful notion! Oh no I made that mistake when I first came here. It's an awful mess. They have monkeys worse than London sweeps. They throw... excretia! No, no, my dear we are safest here with our soldiery. Give me an Etonian and his two feet of willow, backed up with the five hundred of the best trained sepoys to take the Queen's salt, and I shall be happy. You don't know what manner of ill fellow is about these days!"

[GarrettPLC]

Turning around after shutting the bedroom door, the Collector found himself abruptly face-to-face with one of the locals.

"Ah! I was hoping you could tell me, er, where Miss Smith is?"

Rather than replying, the man thrust a note into his hands and left just as swiftly as he had appeared. The Collector read it quickly, folded it, and tucked it into a breast pocket.

"The Doctor," he muttered, "is eminently capable of looking after himself. I'll stay within screaming distance, shall I?"

He chuckled to himself, but quietly resolved not to leave the Doctor alone for long. Without him they'd both be stuck in the past, and he seriously doubted Miss Smith would be willing to help him escape if he let the Doctor snuff it. Trying to stay close to the bedroom, he began a cautious exploration of his surroundings---quickly, casually, and (he hoped) stealthily.

[Colonel Blood]

Just as the Collector turns to look out of the window a thought strikes him that the letter's seal had been broken. He's about to turn and question the Indian fellow when a garrotte slips over his throat and a garlic scented voice hisses in his ear: "Kali Ma!"


Sarah Jane has suffered worse on her adventures with the Doctor but just barely. The woman must have been a bore even to Victorians! Perhaps this was some weird revenge for ruining the cricket pitch? She breaks from her reverie to hear Mrs Darlington to say: "Governor! Such a pleasure to  see you!"

"Charmed as ever Mr Darlington," comes a familiar voice.



"Governor Charles Krept," he smiles warmly. "And you are?"


Edward grins broadly as Pilchard goes out for duck and kicks a divet out of the pitch. "Careful that man! Ungentlemanly conduct! Replace that divet would you Coxwell?"

The crease explodes, sending pieced of Pilchard and Coxwell all over the place, and completely ruining Edward's whites.

[ChrisC]

Surrounded by a chaos of screaming blood and smoke Edward struggled to clear his head from the concussion. Desperately he tried to figure out if the explosion had been a buried mine or a particularly well placed artillery shot. Unsure he filled time by doing want any good officer does when baffled - he issued orders.

His deep voice bellowed across the field cutting through the noise. “Bugler sound to arms�, “Caruthers take Mathews and Pindder to the gate and secure against attack�, “Fitzwilliam get you men mounted� , he looked over to Henderson’s wicket keeping position hoping the man was still alive and was gratified to see the big ox lumbering over to the wounded. “Henderson, leave that to the others, get the 13pdrs loaded and ready for action we may need counter battery fire�

That was better! People were moving purposefully and the world was back in order. Now he could pause to figure out just who was going to suffer horribly for the utterly unacceptable timing of this particular incident.   

[Sarah Jane]

If there’s one thing that Sarah Jane has learned, it’s that temporal confusion can cut both ways. If she was worrying about where in his timeline she was, he had to be worrying too. She arranged her expression into the amused disapproval of a Victorian lady requested to introduce herself.

“Yes Doctor, why don’t you introduce us?� she asked that Felixstowe chap hovering nearby.

As the ‘Governor’ turned around in, she would swear, some surprise to see who was behind him, she swept him to the ground with a koshi waza throw her ju-jitsu teacher would thoroughly approve of, and tried to pin him there.

“Mister Krept,� she panted, “you are under arrest! Her Majesty’s Special Protector would like more than a word with you.�

She looked up to appeal to the burly young men of the Blues and Royals, but at that moment the detonation from the cricket pitch reached them.

[Colonel Blood]

"Urk!" Says Governor Krept as he finds his head where his feet resided only moments ago.

"Well that's really not the sort of behaviour they would have encouraged at Lady Mowbray's School for Ladies!" Trills Mrs Darlington as the young turks of the blues and royals turn, hands reaching for waxed moustaches in modes of alarm.

"Fwar fwar!" Comes a hooting voice from the crowd.

The shutters blown in with concussive force. When the smoke clears Sarah Jane is still atop the Governor, Mrs Darlington is still in her sedan chair picking glass out of her sherbert dip, and the soldiers are running for guns, following shouted orders from outside the pavillion.

[ChrisC]

Edward scanned the field and the horizon looking for the source of the attack. ‘Surely it could not be another uprising? Duleep Singh had accepted the absolute defeat of the Sikh army in this very city only a few months ago.  Perhaps it was revenge; Gujarat had after all been a bloody business.’

His eye was caught by a movement near the centre of the crease and he watched in bafflement as one of the wounded rose into the air slightly. Through the clearing smoke he saw the body tossed up into the air by the casual flick of a monstrous hand. It rolled oddly in mid flight before falling back into the maw of the huge creature emerging from the ground.

He had always questioned the idea of building the fort out of the remains of that old temple, and it would appear that his concerns had been more than justified. At least, he thought to himself, the immediate enemy was now clear. He hoped Henderson was hurrying. They were going to need those 19pdrs.

[Sarah Jane]

When the Blues and Royals rushed blindly out of the pavilion, Sarah Jane had little time to ponder the advantages of being on top of a chain of command. Currently she was barely on top of an exceedingly irritated alien, and she didn’t think her elbow lock was going to hold him much longer. She cast around in desperation and brought the nearest piece of porcelain down on his head. It turned out to be a rather nice blue and white oriental plant holder. Now sadly in smithereens.

Sarah Jane brushed the remains of the rubber plant and the rich Punjabi soil off her linen trouser suit and looked around for a little assistance with her stunned captive. She rapidly dismissed Mrs Darlington as useless for anything other than target practise (a view  which she now firmly shared with the Lahore monkeys), and turned instead to the Indian staff.

“Excuse me,� she said politely, “is there anywhere we can secure this felon until things calm down? And does anyone know what is happening out there?�

[Colonel Blood]

"Ehey?" says Krept as his eyes roll back in his head and his favourite vase disintegrates before his eyes.

The Indian staff gape at Sarah Jane in horror. "You just knocked out the boss Mem Sahib!" Says the butler, a great bear of a man with a bushy black beard, waxed mustache, turban and dusty black suit. He carries himself like a fighter.

"You in deep trouble I think! But then so are we all!"

He points out of the window with remarkable calmness at a horrible creature only now beginning to pull its bulk from a previously perfectly good cricket pitch. Men in cricket whites cluck around trying to aim small cannons and mortars at it and arguing with each other, those who are not running away that is.

"The cellar I think. Leads into the old catacombs. This used to be a temple before the war." The butler heaves Sarah Jane up and then grabs the Governor, throwing him over his shoulder. He crosses the room and pulls a massive Khyber knife - more appropriately called a sword - out. He grins like the devil and says: "Follow Iqbal Afzaq you dogs!"

[Sarah Jane]

“Is that entirely wise?” asked Sarah Jane dubiously. “In my experience abandoned underground temples are never good news. And what exactly is that thing?”

She’d managed to catch a fleeting glimpse of a massive creature scattering huge lumps of masonry as it emerged above ground. And are those tentacles or arms waving around its neck? She had a bad feeling about where her little group were headed next.

“By the way, what is this bloodthirsty old fellow the Governor of?” she asked in all innocence.

[Colonel Blood]

"Better than being put in that mighty thing's gullet I suppose," shrugs Iqbal Ifzaq. "I know not what it is. You English bring many things to India but this is new even to me.

 "Him?" He hefts the woozy Englishman for emphasis. "He is temporarily in charge of Lahore, while things settle down after the Company annexation. The jewel was not the only spoil of war for your white queen. Now shall we go or would the Mem Sahib prefer to explore that monster's bowels and all the horrors that entails?"

[Colonel Blood]

[Sarah Jane]

"I suspect that thing is not native to anywhere on Earth," sighed Sarah Jane. "By all means lead on, and let us explore some other bowels."

She really had to get her brain out of poo-flinging mode. But damn; the Master in charge of the East India Company? That was a bloody bad combination in any era.

[Colonel Blood]

Edward is pleased to find his Sepoys have loaded their mortar within regulation time despite the presence of an unholy Indian animal causing an interruption of the good order of the camp. He is dismayed when the thing swallows the mortar shell whole to no ill effect and then eats his loader.