The Night Witches (audio story)

The Night Witches was the first story of the fourth series of The Early Adventures, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Roland Moore, narrated by Anneke Wills and Frazer Hines and featured the Second Doctor, Polly Wright, Ben Jackson and Jamie McCrimmon.

Publisher's summary
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.

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 skeptical. 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...

to be added...

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

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)