Chapter Ten

'If you need some shut-eye, Doctor, I can keep watch.'

The Doctor shook his head, smiling. The Brigadier had seen the Doctor sleep from time to time over the years, but he remembered those long vigils in the UNIT labs where the Doctor would spend thirty, forty, fifty hours at work, without even a tea-break, discovering the cure for a plague or assembling some magical gadget from household junk. When they'd been setting up his lab, the works department had put a little bunk in the corner. The very next day it had been piled high with computer parts and components from a car engine.

'We've been here before, Doctor. The aliens have landed, they've tried to destroy the world and we beat them. The only difference is, back when I was in charge, we always managed to keep it a secret.'

'And they didn't even make you a general,' the Doctor chuckled.

Lethbridge-Stewart looked down at his half-full glass of vodka. Mrs Summerfield might be able to knock back her drink, but he was taking it easier these days. 'No. Office politics.'

The Doctor was watching him. 'General William Lethbridge-Stewart came down from Scotland with King James.'

The Brigadier perked up a little. 'Yes, yes, I know. Have you met him on your travels?'

The Doctor shook his head.

'They arrived at London in 1603 to a glorious parade, a magnificent spectacle, according to family legend. It was seen as the glorious union of the English and Scottish crowns. James the Sixth of Scotland would become James the First of the United Kingdom. The English aristocracy fell over themselves to greet their new master. And do you know what? When King James spoke, not a single one of them could understand his accent. For the first few months he needed a translator.' The Doctor laughed out loud, and Alistair found himself chortling.

'There was a General Lethbridge-Stewart at Naseby and at Waterloo. My father died in the Sahara, fighting Mussolini alongside Montgomery. A dozen generations of fighting men.'