The Night Witches (audio story)

When the TARDIS materialises north of Stalingrad in 1942, the Doctor, Jamie, Ben and Polly are captured by the Night Witches, an all-female unit of flyers tasked with disrupting the German forces nearing Moscow.

They suspect that the travellers are spies - part of the Germans’ Operation Barbarossa. Despite their pleas they are locked up while it is decided what to do with them.

Polly, however, is receiving strange looks from the pilots and clearly unnerving them. When the TARDIS crew discover why this is, it becomes clear that they’re about to get far more involved in the war than they could possibly have imagined.

Plot

Part one

Ben asks the Doctor if he can have a turn piloting the TARDIS and Polly and Jamie chime in as well. When Polly demonstrates that she remembers the procedure correctly, the Doctor lets her materialise at their intended destination of the Winter Palace in Russia in 1782. Polly gently lands the TARDIS and they go out to investigate only to discover they have landed near a base being invaded by German soldiers. Just then the tanks discover the TARDIS and prepare to fire at it but they are promptly wiped out by overhead planes. One of the planes is hit in the battle and crashes. Unable to get back to the TARDIS safely, they instead go to help the injured pilot of the crashed plane, who turns out to be a woman. She reveals her name to be Lilyana and panics upon seeing Polly before passing out. Jamie and the Doctor go out to find the base which she came from based on her directions while Polly and Ben follow while carrying Lilya. They are found by Nadia who reveals they have captured Ben and Polly and accuse them of being German spies. They are taken to see their friend when Lilya comes to and again expresses her disbelief again at seeing Polly. Just then a crash occurs outside. Jamie and the Doctor go to investigate the wreckage when in the burning remains they much to their disbelief see what appears to be Polly...

Part two

The woman greets Nadia and identifies herself as Tatiana Kregki and the Doctor, Ben and Jamie realise that Tatiana merely looks identical to Polly. Nadia turns on the three and again reverts back to accusing them of being German spies and they try to persuade her otherwise. Polly awakens and sees Tatiana for herself but before she can do much, Nadia takes her aside and questions her while Lilya asks Ben to help her fix her plane. The other women are not convinced that they are German spies and express this to Nadia who is still sceptical. Eventually the Doctor and Jamie are let free but Ben and Polly are still kept under watch in case. Polly and Tatiana bond in the tent while the Doctor and Jamie prepare to take a plane out of the base to find the TARDIS with Nadia in tow, who threatens them saying that if they really are German spies part of a trap, then she will have Ben and Polly executed. Ben and Lilya talk and he accidentally let slips that he travels in time, and Lilya hypothesises that Ben wants to leave because he knows what will happen and runs off, upset, having taken quite a liking to him. She talks with Nadia who reveals her real plan to dispose of the Doctor and Jamie, convinced they are German spies, against Lilya's wishes as she has grown fond of Ben. Nadia then talks to Tatiana to whom she says that they will use Polly as part of their plan by having her captured by the Germans and killed, and due to looking almost identical, it will seem like she (Tatiana) has risen from the grave when she will "miraculously" be seen the next time, instilling fear in the German hearts and cementing their position in the Russian air force as a top unit. Tatiana is unsure but unable to express her opposition as Nadia takes off. Lilya manages to find Ben and Polly in the medical tent eating the tree bark stew and warns them about Nadia's plan for The Doctor and Jamie but it is too late as the Doctor and Jamie see Nadia in the distance and begin to act according to their "plan" they had discussed with her earlier, except Nadia begins to drop bombs on them...

Part three

Ben, Polly and Lilya confront Tatiana about Nadia's plan but she denies having any knowledge and assures them Nadia is going to help them. Later, Polly asks Tatiana to fly her out in her plane and also talks with Tatiana and they tell each other more about themselves. They soon prepare to take off, but they see Nadia's plane incoming and wait and ask her what happened. Nadia explains that the Doctor and Jamie were killed in a confrontation with German panzers and although she did everything she could to help, they are gone. Ben and Polly are distraught. Polly gears up and prepares to seek out the TARDIS with Tatiana in her plane and they take off. Despite being told to stay grounded and not follow Polly by Nadia, Lilya comes clean to Ben and says that although she trusts him Nadia has other plans and they prepare to take off after Polly but Nadia shoots and kills Lilya for her betrayal and has Ben put under guard.

The Doctor and Jamie, meanwhile, managed to jump out just in time when their plane was hit and are now lost. The Doctor reconstructs a map from memory on how to get back to the TARDIS knowing now where they are relative to the base. Nadia finds Ben and apologises to him and demands his help against the German forces that will likely be arriving tomorrow. He is resistant at first but reluctantly agrees. As he digs trenches around the base, he thinks he hallucinates seeing Lilya. The figure turns out to be the real Lilya, who managed to survive being shot but is bleeding badly and Ben tries to find a way to sneak her to the medical tent, less Nadia find out and kill her as she suspects. Nadia hears a lorry outside and a German one with the TARDIS in the back pulls up, from which the Doctor and Jamie exit and confront Nadia about leaving them but they are thrown into a prisoner's tent. They find Ben and hatch a plan to escape. Polly, in the meantime, is told by Tatiana that she thinks Polly arrived for a reason, which is to let her escape the horrors of fighting and tells Polly her plan, then flies away leaving Polly behind on the ground...

Part four

Polly, left behind by Tatiana begins looking for the TARDIS, unaware of it already being in the Doctor's possession back at the Night Witch's base. The Doctor, Jamie and Ben break out of the base and prepare to try and find Polly. Polly finds the German base and steals a radio and keeps going through the blizzard-filled night but realises she needs to find shelter soon less she die in the cold. Nadia, however, corners them and demands the Doctor help them lay traps. They secretly, however hatch plans, with Ben wanting to go save Lilya while the Doctor insists they find Polly. Polly finds a cave to hide in and tries to radio for help. A plane crashes into the Night Witch's base which Nadia realises is Tatiana's and they go to help her. Polly, devoid of hope, notices writing on the cave wall and realises it's the Doctor's handwriting and he has drawn a map to get back to the Night Witch's base. In the meantime Tatiana, disguised as Polly, is found and brought to the medical tent and manages to fool Ben and Jamie and seemingly the Doctor. Nadia questions Tatiana (pretending to be Polly) about what happened to Tatiana but Tatiana reiterates that she simply wants to go home, and the Doctor, Ben and Jamie prepare to take her and leave, Nadia's plan to use Polly as a decoy to Tatiana having been revealed.

Polly manages to find the base while the Doctor, Ben, Jamie and Tatiana (whom they are convinced is Polly) enter the TARDIS but Tatiana slips up a bit which the Doctor catches and begins to suspect her of what's really going on. Nadia finds Polly who explains everything and they hurry to get to the TARDIS to stop it from taking off. The Doctor, suspicious, tries to get "Polly" to repeat the procedure he taught her earlier using the TARDIS fine temporal coordinate modulator but "Polly" claims she's too tired and Jamie and Ben tell the Doctor to lay off her but he's not convinced. Polly starts banging on the door but cannot be heard and to make matters worse, the Germans arrive in their oanzer tanks and begin bombing the Night Witch's base. When asked about WOTAN, something only the real Polly would know, Tatiana slips up and her real identity is revealed. The Doctor opens the door and the real Polly steps in, however followed by Nadia, enraged at Tatiana's betrayal at trying to run away and attempts to shoot both of them. Polly and Tatiana, however, speaking identically, confuse Nadia in an attempt to escape. Nadia takes them outside at gunpoint and prepares to shoot them both when she herself is shot dead by Lilya. Inspired by her courage and bravery, Tatiana tells Lilya she will resume command of the Night Wtiches and will get her treated right away for her injuries, and they thank the TARDIS crew and the two groups part company. Polly asks if they can do anything for them but the Doctor sadly declares they cannot, but promises that he will try take them to Spain for a holiday.

Cast

Polly Wright/Narrator - Anneke Wills
Jamie McCrimmon/The Doctor - Frazer Hines
Ben Jackson - Elliot Chapman
Tatiana Kregki - Anjella Mackintosh
Nadia Vasney - Wanda Opalinska
Lilya Grankin - Kristina Buikaite

Crew

Cover Art - Tom Webster
Director - Helen Goldwyn
Executive Producers - Nicholas Briggs and Jason Haigh-Ellery
Music and Sound Design - Toby Hrycek-Robinson
Producer - David Richardson
Script Editor - John Dorney
Writer - Roland Moore

Worldbuilding

The Doctor uses smelling salts from Ritalo III to wake up Lilya (and later Jamie), colloquially known as the "Stinking Planet". Ben notes that they smell awful.
Nadia explains that the Germans were the ones who gave them the name the "Night Witches" because they arrived so quietly in the night to drop bombs that they were compared to witches riding broomsticks.
Tatiana calls Lilya a "love-struck teenager".
The Doctor mentions that Zaragoza, Spain reaches temperatures as warm as 44 degrees centigrade in 2015.
Some Russian dialects omit the definite article in speech, which tips the Doctor off as to Tatiana likely pretending to be Polly.

Gallery

Original CD cover
illustrated review by Jamie Lenman in DWM 518

Notes

This story was recorded on 12-13 April 2017 at the Moat Studios.
Anneke Wills was originally going to be the main voice of Tatiana before she expressed doubts about her ability to put on a convincing Russian accent. (BFX: The Night Witches) She does voice Tatiana when the character is impersonating Polly.
This is the second story in The Early Adventures to place the Second Doctor, Jamie, Ben and Polly in World War II during 1942. The first is The Forsaken, which is a pseudo-historical story set in the Pacific War. The same team also travelled to occupied France in 1944 in Resistance, part of The Companion Chronicles. A fourth such story, The Home Guard, followed in 2019, although its overall relation to the war was more distant.
This is a "pure historical” story.
This story was reviewed in DWM 518 alongside The Silurian Candidate and Time in Office, and received an illustration from Jamie Lenman.

Continuity

The Doctor is teaching his companions how to fly the TARDIS, and they recall their previous adventure on New Houston. (AUDIO: The Yes Men)
Ben compares the winter weather to the South Pole in December 1986. (TV: The Tenth Planet)
The Doctor recalls a previous trip to Russia in 1812. (AUDIO: Mother Russia)
The Doctor compares the standoff in the TARDIS to a gunfight in the Wild West. (TV: The Gunfighters)
Polly recalls how she worked for Professor Brett and WOTAN, and how she met Ben in the Inferno nightclub, at the same time that she first met the Doctor and Dodo Chaplet in July 1966. (TV: The War Machines)
When Polly asks if there was anything they could do to help the Night Witches before leaving, the Doctor reaffirms his non-intervention policy. The Doctor was originally a firm believer in not changing history. (TV: The Aztecs et al.) However, he would later relax this stance and intervene more often. (TV: The Fires of Pompeii et al.)
The Doctor is told that if people meet their doppelgangers, one of them is destined to die. He would later meet someone looking strikingly similar to him that would meet this fate during his adventures with Victoria Waterfield. (TV: The Enemy of the World)

External links

Official The Night Witches page at bigfinish.com