Part One
[Garden centre]
(A retired couple are browsing amongst the flowering trees and shrubs for sale.)
DORIS: Alastair, Alastair?
BRIGADIER: Mmm?
DORIS: What about this one?
BRIGADIER: Oh fine, if you like it, Doris.
DORIS: Oh, show some enthusiasm. It'd look great by one of our azalea beds. What do you think?
BRIGADIER: Yes. I'll plant it when we get home.
DORIS: Oh, thank you.
BRIGADIER: The exercise will do me good. Now, where's that salesman got to? Typical lack of efficiency.
DORIS: Back in your soldier days, you just had to give an order and stand back.
BRIGADIER: Of course. Sergeant Benton, tree planting party, at the double!
DORIS: Sir! You don't regret it, do you?
BRIGADIER: What, giving up teaching?
DORIS: No, leaving United Nations Intelligence Taskforce.
BRIGADIER: No, my blood and thunder days are long past.
[Lake Vortigern]
(Somewhere in varying light levels, the red gem in the hilt of a large sword flashes. A Range Rover and a truck stop on a track overlooking the lake. They are UNIT vehicles. The Eastern European sergeant driver of the Range Rover uses the field telephone.)
ZBRIGNIEV: Come in, Salamander six zero. Over. (Static.) Come in Salamander six zero. Over.
RICHARDS [OC] :Salamander six zero reading you strength one. Over.
ZBRIGNIEV: Stand by, six zero. Brigadier, I've made contact with Lieutenant Richards. Six zero, the Brigadier is coming now.
BAMBERA: Salamander six zero, please clarify your situation. Over.
RICHARDS [OC]: Massive electrical disturbance. Over.
BAMBERA: Salamander six zero, you're breaking up. Over. (static) Salamander, do you copy?
(She gives up and walks round to the passenger side.)
BAMBERA: Get that vehicle on the road ASAP.
ZBRIGNIEV: They've gone.
BAMBERA: Must be the storm.
ZBRIGNIEV: I don't like this weather.
(They drive off, leaving the truck)
[Spacecraft]
(The sword is stuck into something at an angle which points the throbbing gem towards a skylight. There is a cylindrical console and a crystal ball)
MORGAINE [in ball]: At last, he is revealed to us.
(A lightning storm is visible over her face.)
[Tardis]
ACE: Professor, why is it dark in here?
DOCTOR: Quiet, Ace. I'm working.
ACE: Oh, is that why it's dark?
DOCTOR: Yes.
ACE: What's that noise?
DOCTOR: A cry in the dark.
ACE: A distress signal?
DOCTOR: A cry for help. Perhaps a summoning.
ACE: Where's it coming from?
DOCTOR: Earth. Rippling out through the cosmos, forward in time, backwards in time and sideways in time.
ACE: Sideways in time?
DOCTOR: Yes, sideways in time, across the boundaries that divide one universe from another.
ACE: Weird. This cry, who's it for?
DOCTOR: For? I don't know.
ACE: Perhaps if we went there? Where's it coming from again?
DOCTOR: Earth. A few years in your future.
ACE: It's giving me the creeps. What does it mean?
DOCTOR: We'll know in a moment, once we've deciphered it.
VOICE [OC]: Merlin. Merlin.
ACE: Wherever it is it's coming from, I don't think we want to go there.
DOCTOR: Too late. We've already arrived.
(The Tardis materialises by a sign post - Lake Vortigern 4 Km.)
[UNIT Range Rover]
(Brigadier Bambera tries the field telephone again.)
BAMBERA: Salamander six zero, this is Seabird one. Are you receiving me? Over.
(Static.)
ZBRIGNIEV: Brigadier.
BAMBERA: What now?
ZBRIGNIEV: Hitchhikers.
(The Doctor and Ace have their thumbs out.)
BAMBERA: Oh, shame.
(They drive straight past.)
[Track]
ACE: Don't stop, then! I don't care!
(Ace sticks her thumb out at another Range Rover coming their way.)
DOCTOR: I don't think this'll stop either.
ACE: Don't be such a pessimist, Professor.
(The Range Rover with Carbury Trust painted on the side stops and the driver calls over to them.)
WARMSLY: Where are you heading?
DOCTOR: North east.
WARMSLY: Right, climb aboard. Come to see the dig, have you?
DOCTOR: Ah, archaeological dig?
WARMSLY: Yes, actually. Oh, sorry, Haven't introduced myself. I'm Peter Warmsly. I'm site manager for the Carbury Trust Conservation Area.
[Carbury Range Rover]
(The Doctor gets into the passenger seat and Ace gets in the back.)
ACE: I'm Ace, and this is the Doctor.
WARMSLY: The dig, as a matter of fact, is a hobby. A battlefield.
ACE: What battlefield?
(Something dives towards Earth. There is a whoosh overhead.)
PETER: I hate that sound, don't you. Sometimes at night I lie there listening, thinking it might be..
DOCTOR: The beginning of something terrible.
(The object crashes into the side of a small hillock. BOOM!)
ACE: What was that?
PETER: The military use the area as a firing range. Never understood why.
DOCTOR: Blowing the occasional chunk out of the earth keeps them amused.
ACE: It didn't sound like a shell.
(What looks like a knight in full armour rises from the crash site)
[Overlooking the lake]
(Bambera gets out of the UNIT Range Rover and surveys the scene by the lake. There are several trucks with camouflage netting on them, and UNIT soldiers running around)
BAMBERA: Oh, very good. Why not drive the missile into the lake?
(They drive on and Warmsly stops in the same place. The Doctor and Ace get out and Warmsly drives on. The Doctor then checks the wind direction with his finger and gets out a gizmo with an antenna with a large knob on the end.)
ACE: Professor?
DOCTOR: Yes. The transmission's definitely coming from over there.
ACE: Professor. (Ace turns the Doctor around and the beeping from his gizmo gets faster.) It's a missile convoy.
DOCTOR: A nuclear missile convoy.
ACE: How do you know?
DOCTOR: It has a graveyard stench.
[Convoy]
(As two more space knights dive towards the Earth, Warmsly is haranguing a soldier.)
WARMSLY: Warmsly's the name and I demand to see to somebody in charge.
(Bambera and Zbrigniev walk past the convoy truck, which has knocked over a Carbury Trust sign.)
BAMBERA: What was that?
ZBRIGNIEV: Low flying jet?
BAMBERA: Not this far south. Raise Division. Get them to check flight paths.
ZBRIGNIEV: I'm sorry sir but we cannot get a signal out.
BAMBERA: Well, see what you can do, Zbrigniev. All this noise is making me nervous.
(The soldier comes up to Zbrigniev and salutes.)
SOLDIER: There's a Mister Warmsly who wants to speak to an officer.
ZBRIGNIEV: Brigadier! There's a Mister Warmsly who wants to speak to somebody in charge.
BAMBERA: You talk to him, Zbrigniev. I've got enough troubles.
(Bambera goes inside a mobile command post. The Doctor and Ace duck under a barrier across the track as something crashes to earth nearby.)
ACE: Didn't sound like a shell. More like a couple of rockets.
DOCTOR: Close. (They hide from running soldiers.) What we need is something to help us.
(He searches his pockets.)
DOCTOR: Wait a minute. Ah yes, of course! I never thought I'd need these again.
(The Doctor takes a pair of passes from his hat and gives one to Ace.)
DOCTOR: This should remove a few obstacles.
ACE: Who's Elizabeth Shaw? I don't even look like her.
DOCTOR: Oh, never mind. Just think like a physicist.
(The knight, who is carrying a large gun as well as wearing a sword, walks away from its crash site)
[UNIT Mobile Command post]
DOCTOR: Now, what seems to be the problem?
BAMBERA: Excuse me?
DOCTOR: Well, you've had an explosion in your electronics, haven't you?
ACE: An electro-magnetic pulse effect.
BAMBERA: Make yourself at home.
DOCTOR: Caused by?
ACE: A nuclear explosion, usually.
BAMBERA: I think I would have noticed a nuclear explosion.
DOCTOR: Yes, well, they are conspicuous.
ACE: Well, if there was no nuke, where did the energy pulse come from?
DOCTOR: Exactly.
BAMBERA: All systems failures were the result of a minor technical difficulty. (Bambera holds up the UNIT passes.) I don't know where you got these from, but I intend to find out. Show these two out.
DOCTOR: I'd just like to say three things.
BAMBERA: What?
DOCTOR: Yeti, Autons, Daleks. Cybermen and Silurians!
[Outside the Mobile Command post]
(The Doctor and Ace come outside.)
ACE: That was five things.
DOCTOR: She didn't even notice. Among all the varied wonders of the universe, there's nothing so firmly clamped shut as the military mind.
[UNIT Mobile Command post]
BAMBERA: Well done, Zbrigniev. Two civilians waltz up with a pair of antiquated pass cards and you let them in. Why?
ZBRIGNIEV: Sir.
BAMBERA: You know something. What is it?
ZBRIGNIEV: Off the record, sir.
BAMBERA: Off the record.
ZBRIGNIEV: When I served under Lethbridge Stewart, we had a scientific advisor called the Doctor.
BAMBERA: The man outside.
ZBRIGNIEV: No, sir, but...
BAMBERA: But?
ZBRIGNIEV: He changed his appearance, several times.
BAMBERA: A disguise.
ZBRIGNIEV: No, sir. The word was he changed his whole physical appearance.
BAMBERA: His whole appearance.
ZBRIGNIEV: And his personality.
BAMBERA: How could he be the same man if his appearance and personality have changed?
ZBRIGNIEV: I don't know, sir.
BAMBERA: What do you know, Zbrigniev?
ZBRIGNIEV: Just that whenever this Doctor turns up...
BAMBERA: Yes?
ZBRIGNIEV: All hell breaks loose.
[Lethbridge- Stewart's garden]
(At home in Fulmer, Buckinghamshire, the Brigadier is planting their newly purchased flowering tree. Doris answers the cordless phone on the garden table.)
DORIS: Alistair! Telephone for you.
BRIGADIER: Who is it?
DORIS: Hello, can you tell me who's speaking? Okay, fine. thank you. Geneva!
BRIGADIER: Oh, probably just another peace conference. Tell them I've retired. Tell them I'd decided to fade away.
DORIS: No, I'm terribly sorry, I'm afraid he's unavailable. Okay, yes, I will. Thank you. Bye, bye. Alistair, that was the Secretary General.
BRIGADIER: Doris, I don't care if it was the King. I'm still retired.
DORIS: He said something about the Doctor being back. Alistair, who is the Doctor?
(The Brigadier looks at his newly planted three.)
BRIGADIER: I wonder how high it will get?
[UNIT Range Rover]
(Bambera drives past the Tardis, which has a knight hiding behind it)
DOCTOR: We could have walked to the hotel, you know.
BAMBERA: No problem. I thought you'd like to see Vortigern's Lake.
DOCTOR: Vortigern. That's an interesting name.
ACE: Yeah, fascinating.
DOCTOR: What's your name, by the way?
BAMBERA: Brigadier Winifred Bambera.
ACE: Winifred?
DOCTOR: There are many secrets in names. Vortigern is old British for High King.
ACE: Your convoy's stranded by the lake of the High King.
(Another knight, this time with a visible chin, examines a fallen sign saying MOD Firing Range - Keep Out.)
[Gore Crow Hotel]
(Played by Hambleton Old Hall, Rutland. Bambera stops next to a 2CV outside the hotel entrance. A young woman of Asian extraction gets out of it and the Doctor raises his hat to her. Bambera drives off again. The Doctor and Ace go inside to the bar, where a woman is reading a Braille book. A man is clearing glasses from a table.)
PAT: Can I help you?
DOCTOR: Yes. I'd like to book a room. One for myself and one for my young friend here.
PAT: Yes, sir. Long journey?
DOCTOR: Er, quite a distance, as it happens.
PAT: Then you'll be having a drink, sir.
ACE: Yes, please.
DOCTOR: Why not. What do you have?
PAT: What we have, sir, is possibly the finest beer in the area, even if I do say so myself. Perhaps the best in the country.
DOCTOR: Really?
SHOU: He makes it himself in a converted barn at the end of the garden.
PAT: It's in the CAMRA guide. We call it Arthur's Ale.
SHOU: Vodka and coke, Pat.
DOCTOR: Glass of water, please. Ace?
ACE: Oh, vodka and..
DOCTOR: Ace?
ACE: Lemonade, please.
SHOU: Good choice.
ACE: Lemonade?
SHOU: Anything but the beer.
DOCTOR: Hello, I'm The Doctor, and this is my friend..
SHOU: Ace.
PAT: There we are, sir. Five pounds, please.
ACE: How much?
DOCTOR: Remember, we are in the future. (The Doctor tips a bag of various objects onto the counter.) There, a five pound piece.
PAT: Thank you, sir.
(Shou picks up a thing with moving legs.)
DOCTOR: Do you mind? It's a very valuable piece of coinage.
[Track]
(The UNIT Range Rover comes down the track and past the Tardis.)
SOLDIER [OC]: Assume maximum alert. If the Doctor is involved, look out for a police telephone box.
(The Range Rover comes to a sudden halt.)
BAMBERA: Look out for what? (She reverses back to the Tardis and gets out.) Oh, shame.
(She draws her pistol and starts to go around the Tardis, then steps back and turns. The knight with the full helmet has a large weapon pointed at her. Just then, three other knights with visible chins appear and draw hand weapons. One shoots and his shot hits the Tardis. Bambera dives for cover as the first knight turns and shoots him, then fires her pistol. The first knight and another then use their swords. She fires again at the third knight. A second knight joins in the sword fight, and the first one dodges so that they crash into each other, knocking themselves out. He picks his large weapon and leaves.)
[Gore Crow Hotel]
SHOU: So you've met Peter?
DOCTOR: Mmm. Very knowledgeable fellow.
SHOU: Hmm, it's one way of putting it. He's got this thing about King Arthur. Digs things up out of the ground by the lake.
DOCTOR: Well, he is an archaeologist.
SHOU: Can't see it myself, all that patient scraping about. You know, I get the urge to bung half a kilo of TNT down the hole and bring it all up in one go.
ACE: Now you're talking!
DOCTOR: The point of archaeology is to carefully recover the past, not disintegrate it.
SHOU: Wouldn't make much difference. The only half decent thing Peter's ever found is that scabbard.
(An old brass-edged scabbard hanging by the fireplace, which has 1684 carved into it. The Doctor goes over to examine it.)
ACE: You could use something with more brisance.
SHOU: More brisance? Than trinitrotoluene? Like what?
DOCTOR: How remarkable.
ACE: Tell you outside.
SHOU: Why outside?
ACE: He gets upset when I talk about explosives.
(Ace and Shou leave. The blind woman speaks.)
ELIZABETH: Interesting, isn't it?
DOCTOR: Yes.
ELIZABETH: I wish I could see what it looks like. I can feel its presence sometimes. Touch it.
(The Doctor touches the scabbard.)
DOCTOR: My, it's hot. No, no. Now it's cold.
ELIZABETH: Every so often I get the strangest feeling about it.
DOCTOR: What kind of feeling?
ELIZABETH: Oh, that it's waiting for something. Stupid, really.
DOCTOR: Waiting for something, or someone.
[Track]
(The two stunned knights get up and run off. Bambera comes out from behind the Tardis and goes to the Range Rover. The rear nearside tyre is burning.)
BAMBERA: Oh, shame.
(She takes the field telephone from the vehicle and starts walking)
[Lethbridge- Stewart's garden]
(The Brigadier comes out of the house wearing his old Army uniform and carrying a briefcase)
BRIGADIER: I'm surprised it still fits.
DORIS: I should have thrown it out while I had the chance. (The briefcase contains the Brigadier's service revolver and 35 rounds of ammunition.) And that, too. You could have said no.
BRIGADIER: I could have, Doris, but I still have my duty.
DORIS: This isn't duty. You want to go. I mean, do I? All this means so little to you.
BRIGADIER: I will be coming back.
DORIS: You don't need to go. You don't need to go on playing soldier any more.
BRIGADIER: I'm not playing.
[Spacecraft]
(Morgaine watches in the crystal ball as the four knights converge on each other.)
MORGAINE [in ball]: There is the enemy. Kill him.
(They start shooting at each other. The lone knight's big weapon fells a small tree)
[Gore Crow Hotel]
(Bambera walks up the drive as Warmsly drives past and parts in front of the hotel and storms inside. Elizabeth is cleaning the bar)
WARMSLY: Elizabeth! Ah, I need to use your telephone. The one in my car isn't working. (She pushes a candlestick phone to him. He speaks at it.) Yes. Call. External. Sedgewick. Carbury Trust.
DOCTOR: Mister Warmsly, just the person.
WARMSLY: There's a convoy just off the road by the lake with a nuclear missile in.
TELEPHONE: There is a fault on the line. There is a fault..
WARMSLY: Yes. Off.
DOCTOR: This scabbard.
WARMSLY: The line's dead.
DOCTOR: This scabbard. Where did you find it?
WARMSLY: Here, locally. Why?
DOCTOR: Where?
WARMSLY: For the scabbard's worth..
BOTH: Ten of the sword.
WARMSLY: Said Merlin. Yeah. Hey, careful with it. It was found here, at the dig by the lake.
(The Doctor takes the scabbard from the wall.)
DOCTOR: What period?
WARMSLY: Does it matter? 8th century AD.
(Warmsly hangs it back up.)
DOCTOR: No, no, no. It's been waiting around longer than that.
WARMSLY: Waiting for what?
[Spacecraft]
MORGAINE [in ball]: Waiting for me!
[Lethbridge-Stewart's garden]
(A helicopter lands on the beautifully striped lawn. Doris comes out of the house with his swagger stick.)
DORIS: Alistair, I found this. You'd forgotten it.
BRIGADIER: Oh, thank you.
DORIS: You will be careful.
BRIGADIER: Of course. I've always been careful. Don't worry. I'll sort all this out and then come home.
DORIS: Okay. They're waiting for you.
[Hotel garden]
ACE: Well, it was obvious I was never going to be the world's greatest artist. Anyway, Mrs Parkinson, the art teacher, asked me what it is, right, so I told her it was a lump of school plasticine. Well, I couldn't tell her what it really was.
SHOU: The home made gelignite.
ACE: So, we're in the school corridor by now, and Mrs Parkinson asks me to put what she thinks is school plasticine back in the art room.
SHOU: So what did you do?
(One of the warring knights takes out a hand grenade and pulls out the pin with his teeth.)
ACE: I tossed it over my shoulder, like that.
(The knight throws the grenade.)
ACE: Landed right in the middle of class one C's prize winning pottery pig collection.
(The grenade lands at the sole knight's feet.)
ACE: And boom!
SHOU: Boom?
ACE: Boom!
(The grenade goes BOOM, throwing the sole knight into the air.)
SHOU: It's hit the brewery!
(There is a smoking hole in the barn roof.)
ACE: We'd better get the Doctor.
(The Doctor comes out of the hotel.)
DOCTOR: Good idea. Did you see it?
ACE: Yeah.
DOCTOR: And?
ACE: It looked like a bloke.
DOCTOR: A bloke, flying through the air?
SHOU: And then through a wall.
[Outside the brewery]
DOCTOR: You two, stay here.
ACE: Be serious, Professor.
SHOU: What's going on?
ACE: You'd better ask the Professor.
SHOU: What's going on?
DOCTOR: Shush.
[Brewery]
(It is dark inside. There are a few aluminium kegs by the door.)
ACE: Doctor?
DOCTOR: Yes.
ACE: I can't see anything.
(Groan.)
SHOU: What was that?
(The Doctor finds the light switch. The knight in the full helmet is sitting against a vat.)
ACE: Is it an android?
(The Doctor touches it carefully.)
DOCTOR: No, it's a human.
(The Doctor takes off the helmet to reveal a blond man, who opens his eyes and stares.)
ANCELYN: Merlin. Against all hope.
(Doris sighs as the Brigadier takes off in the helicopter.)
SHOU: Merlin?
ACE: You've got it wrong, mate. This is the Doctor.
(Ancelyn removes his plate armour to reveal chain mail.)
ANCELYN: Oh, he has many faces, but in my reckoning, he is Merlin.
DOCTOR: You recognise my face, then?
ANCELYN: No, not your aspect, but your manner that betrays you. Do you not ride the ship of time? Does it not deceive the senses being larger within than out? Merlin, cease these games and tell me truly, is this the time?
DOCTOR: Time for what?
ANCELYN: Thou dost not know? Truly?
ACE: Do you think he'd be asking if he did, tin head?
ANCELYN: Why, the answer to Excalibur's call. The time of restitution. The time when Arthur rises to lead the Britons to war.
DOCTOR: Vortigern's Lake, of course. Can you walk?
SHOU: Can someone answer a simple question?
ACE: What's wrong, Doctor?
SHOU: Can someone tell me what on Earth is going on?
DOCTOR: Well, if my hunch is right, the Earth could be at the centre of a war that doesn't even belong to this dimension.
(Bambera enters with a sub-machine gun.)
BAMBERA: Freeze! Everyone stand nice and easy.
DOCTOR: Listen, Winifred. We've got to be somewhere urgently, so please get out of the way.
BAMBERA: You're all under arrest. You and your freaky friends.
ACE: Who are you calling freaky?
DOCTOR: I can sort this out. Look, if I can just explain.
(Boom! and the other group of knights enter.)
MORDRED: Kill them! Kill them now.
