Aftermath
Napoleon watched the horrifying spectacle dispassionately.
You could almost see him dismissing the submersible as a factor in his battle with the British fleet.
'Unfortunate,' he said. 'But this is war, and in war men die.'
He went over to discuss the rest of the morning's programme with his entourage. The sideshow was over.
Serena moved close to the Countess. Her usual detachment had totally disappeared. 'You've killed the Doctor! Somehow I'll make you pay for this.'
'Nonsense! The Doctor killed himself through his own incompetence. He installed the new drive system and clearly he botched it. Believe me, my dear, I'm as distressed as you are.'
'I very much doubt that.'
'It's true, I promise you. I was quite fond of the little fellow, despite all the trouble he caused me.'
Serena had the oddest feeling that she was sincere in her way. The feeling did nothing to diminish her own sense of rage and grief.
The Countess shaded her eyes and peered out to sea.
'There's something floating out there. Wreckage, perhaps. Or a body.'
'Whatever it is, it's moving,' said Serena, following the Countess's gaze. 'Moving towards us.'
She turned and ran to the little group by the coaches, snatched a telescope from under the arm of an outraged admiral and ran back to the beach. She focused the telescope on the distant shape and saw that it was not one form but two, one towing the other.
As the two shapes came closer she saw that one was the Doctor, towing Fulton in a lifesaver's grip.
She turned to Labiche and Lapoint, Fulton's two workmen, who were still standing on the jetty.
'Don't just stand there! Take a boat out and help them.'
She pointed to a dinghy with oars, moored at the end of the wharf.
The two men scrambled into the dinghy, cast off and rowed out to sea.
The Countess and Serena watched from the shore as the dinghy reached the two men, Labiche and Lapoint hauled them on board and turned and rowed back to shore. It was a hard pull in the choppy seas with the tide against them, but they reached the beach at last. The two men jumped out of the boat and dragged it up the shingle. Serena ran up to it and saw Fulton stretched out in the bottom, spluttering and semiconscious, and the Doctor crouched dripping on the seat.
The Doctor jumped out of the boat and turned to the two workmen. 'Don't just stand there! Get Mr Fulton into the workshop and out of those wet clothes. Wrap him in a blanket by the stove and give him some hot coffee. Rum too, if you've got any.'
Labiche and Lapoint heaved Fulton out of the bottom of the boat and carried him towards the workshop.
Serena turned to the Doctor and hugged him.
'Steady,' said the Doctor. 'You'll get soaked.'
The Countess came up to them and surveyed the Doctor's soggy form with mild amusement. 'Well, Doctor, you win again. I suppose I should congratulate you.'
'I don't know what you mean,' protested the Doctor. 'The whole thing was an unfortunate accident, I was lucky to survive.'
'Accident be damned,' said the Countess, eyes flashing.
'You sabotaged the Omega drive and blew up my submarine.'
'It was a beautiful machine,' said the Doctor regretfully.
'But it had no place in this century. Neither have you. Won't you give up all these mad schemes now, and let Earth work out its own destiny? Human history is quite bloody enough without your intervention.'
'No, Doctor, I will not give up,' said the Countess furiously.
'And you needn't think you've won.'
'Haven't I? The British will win at Trafalgar now, and England won't be invaded.'
'Perhaps so. But the last battle has yet to be fought. When it is over Napoleon will be master of Europe. Soon after that, we shall be masters of the world.'
'And how do you propose to achieve that?'
'That's the fascinating thing about this Game. Remove one piece from the board and the consequences are catastrophic.
It has to be an important piece, of course. Now, I think I'll join the Emperor for the day.' She turned away. 'I should get out of those wet clothes, Doctor. Even a Time Lord can catch cold.'
'What about Mr Fulton?' called Serena. 'He half killed himself trying to help you. Don't you want to see how he is?'
'Mr Fulton is of no more use to me, and of no more interest.'
The Countess joined the little group by the coaches and was soon surrounded by a crowd of admirers. The Doctor and Serena made their way to the workshop.
'Did you really sabotage the drive system?' asked Serena.
'I had no choice. I couldn't let the Countess turn an effective submarine loose in this time period. I had to stop her even though it meant risking your life.'
'It was your duty, Doctor.'
'My only hope was that you would escape as you obviously did or that I'd be able to rescue you in time. How did you get away?'
Serena explained her use of the TARDIS. 'It's in a little wood nearby, disguised as a tree. Wasn't sabotaging the drive terribly dangerous for you?'
'It was a bit tricky. I half suspected the Countess would make me go on the trip, so I activated the Omega drive's self-destruct circuit with a built-in time delay. As soon as the alarm sounded I warned Mr Fulton the drive was going to blow and we abandoned ship. Unfortunately, he couldn't swim! Good job I took my Gallifrey Lifesaver's Certificate at the Academy.'
They went into the workshop and found Fulton sitting by the stove with a blanket around him, sipping hot coffee from a tin mug.
'I guess I owe you my life, Doctor.'
'The least I could do,' said the Doctor, a little guiltily. 'I'm sorry about what happened.'
'Not your fault, Doctor. I never trusted that damn drive of hers. Should've stuck to steam. I'll work something out for my next submersible.'
The Doctor accepted a mug of coffee laced with rum from Labiche. 'You know what I think, Mr Fulton? Why don't you abandon submersibles, at least for a time, and concentrate on surface craft? A steam-driven boat would be really useful, particularly back in America. Lots of rivers and lakes there, you know!'
'I guess submersibles are a bust here in France right now I might try the British. Anyway, I'll think about it, Doctor.
Don't you want to get out of those wet clothes? I'm sure we can find another blanket.'
'I think I'd better be on my way,' said the Doctor. 'We've got transport nearby. Goodbye Mr Fulton and good luck.'
The imperial coaches had gone when they came out of the workshop. In another bay, further down the coast, cursing troops were climbing in and out of flat-bottomed barges, watched by an increasingly gloomy Napoleon.
'What was all that about steam?' asked Serena as they walked along the coast road towards the little wood.
'Just giving history a nudge in the right direction. Mr Fulton built a new submarine and tried it on the British, but they wouldn't bite either. So he went back to America and built one of the first reliable steamboats, on the Hudson river.
He built lots more steamboats after that, ended up rich and famous.'
'Nice to know there's a happy ending for someone,' said Serena.
Very soon they came to the little wood. Shortly afterwards a musical humming filled the air, and one of the trees disappeared.
The Doctor and Serena were sitting in their little salon at Rue Chantereine. The Doctor was dry, the servants had returned, and the longcase clock was back in its place in the corner.
They were discussing their next move.
'Doesn't that depend on the Countess?' asked Serena.
'Until we know what she's planning to do...'
'Surely she made that pretty obvious,' said the Doctor.
'She was boasting about it the last time we saw her in Boulogne.'
'She said the last battle had yet to be fought,' said Serena remembering. 'When it was over Napoleon would be master of Europe. Then she and her friends would be masters of the world.'
The Doctor said, 'The last battle has got to be Waterloo.'
'She was going to make sure Napoleon won by removing one important piece from the board.'
'Waterloo was a very close-fought battle,' said the Doctor.
'It could have gone either way. As for the one important piece that ensured Napoleon's defeat, there's only one candidate.
She's going to have another go at assassinating the Duke of Wellington.' He rose, and began pacing about the room. 'But when? Where? How?'
'We'll just have to find out, won't we, Doctor?'
The Doctor stopped his pacing. 'Well we won't find out here and now. We must move on.'
'Where to?'
'Not where but when. Waterloo doesn't happen for another ten years 1815.'
'Ten years?' said Serena. 'Nothing simpler.' She rose and headed for the longcase clock.
'Steady on,' said the Doctor. 'I must visit the bank, make arrangements to resign the tenancy, pay off the servants and the coach hire and the bills. Don't want to leave any loose ends...'
Some time later they were entering the TARDIS control room.
The Doctor watched Serena move over to the TARDIS console. He was already beginning to get the hang of the new controls. As Serena had said, it wouldn't be too hard to master them if he put his mind to it. On the other hand, it was rather nice to be chauffeur-driven.
'Hold on a minute,' he said, 'I've been thinking. There's only one way to discover what the Countess intends to do, and that's to let her do it.'
Serena looked baffled. 'Say that again, Doctor.'
'Don't you see? It's only when she actually does it that we'll know what she's done!'
'So what are you suggesting?'
'Take us to Paris in mid July July 1815, a month after the battle. If things are as they should be, we'll know the Countess failed. If they're not then we'll have a chance to find out where they went wrong.' 1815, a month after the battle. If things are as they should be, we'll know the Countess failed. If they're not then we'll have a chance to find out where they went wrong.'
'If you say so, Doctor. But what about the Blinovitch Limitation Effect? If the Countess has already changed things, will we ever be able to put them back on their proper course?'
The Doctor considered, tapping his finger against his chin.
'When you play for high stakes, you have to take some risks,'