Dr. Who - BBC New Series 25 (3 page)

It was her own fault really, Donna thought. She supposed she should have known better.
Wherever
she went with the Doctor she usually ended up running away from something. He was the sort of man who could find

danger in a boxful of kittens.

She was doing her best to put one foot in front of the other as fast as she could, but it wasn’t easy; her sandals were in constant danger of flying off. The Doctor was virtually pulling her arm out of its socket as he urged her to run faster, but it was all right for him. He had a snazzy alien metabolism –
and
he was wearing trainers!

Eventually the inevitable happened – she slipped. As her feet went in opposite directions, she lost her grip on the Doctor’s hand. She managed to stay on her feet, but next thing she knew someone was barging into the back of her. Even as she was swept up in the crowd and carried along as if by a fast-flowing river, she heard the Doctor shouting her name.

‘Donna!’ the Doctor yelled again as the fleeing crowd caught up with them. He tried to make his way through the throng towards her, but the people were too tightly packed, and too panicked by the galloping horses and the crack of gunfire to allow him access. For a few seconds longer he glimpsed Donna’s distinctive red hair, and then it became submerged in the mêlée. The Doctor decided the best thing for now was to go with the flow and pick up the pieces later.

He was being carried along by the crowd – which reminded him of the time he had become caught up in the shanghorn-running ceremony on Ty – when he heard a cry of shock or pain behind him. Next second, somebody fell against his back, almost knocking him over. He glanced behind him to see a young Indian man in white shirt, black trousers and black tie sprawl headlong on the dusty

ground. The man was holding a brown leather doctor’s bag, which was accidentally kicked out of his hand by a panicked member of the passing crowd. Someone else jumped over the man as he tried to rise and caught him a glancing blow on the forehead. The young man went down again, dazed, like a boxer hit by too many punches.

People flowed around him, trying not to trample him as he lay on the ground. Behind the stragglers, the Doctor saw that the horse being ridden by the bewhiskered major was heading straight for the stricken man.

The Doctor knew that if he didn’t act quickly the horse would trample the man, possibly even kill him. Without hesitation, he darted back through the crowd, slipping between oncoming bodies like a two-legged eel. By the time he reached the man, the horse was no more than a dozen feet away, a galloping wall of solid muscle. The Doctor bent down, grabbed the man under the armpits and dragged him clear – just as the massive charger thundered by in a cloud of dust.

The Doctor bent double, coughing. The young man let out a groan.

‘What happened?’ he muttered.

‘I did,’ said the Doctor.

The man raised his head and looked groggily around.

The crowd and the pursuing horses had passed now, leaving nothing but hoofmarks, dust, a few trampled turbans and the brown leather doctor’s bag, now very much the worse for wear.

‘Did you save my life?’ the man said with a kind of wonder.

‘Suppose I did, yeah,’ said the Doctor. ‘But you don’t have to go over the top about it. I do it a lot. And one display of undying gratitude is very much like another.’

The man looked bemused, either still dazed from his experience or because he wasn’t sure how to respond.

To move things along, the Doctor thrust out a hand.

‘I’m the Doctor. What’s your name?’

‘Gopal,’ said the young man.

‘Nice to meet you, Gopal.’ Then the Doctor withdrew the hand and clapped it to his head. ‘Oh no!’

‘What is it?’ asked Gopal, alarmed.

‘I’ve lost my sun visor,’ the Doctor said. He looked stricken. ‘Aw, I really loved that sun visor. Ginger Spice gave me that.’

Cameron Campbell was bored. Bored, bored, bored.

There was nothing to do and no one to do it with. Mother and Father would no longer let him out of the house to play with his friends, claiming it was too dangerous to wander the streets; his sister Adelaide seemed to spend all her time over at that stupid camp or asleep in her bed; and his brother Ronny was either too busy with his engineering projects or talking about dull things with their father to ever want to do anything fun.

Mother had always told Cameron that he was God’s precious gift, that he had come along at a time when she and Father had thought they had done with that sort of thing. That was all very well, but there were times, like now, when Cameron didn’t
feel
precious. Instead he felt like a yapping dog who his parents wished would just be

quiet and keep out of the way.

He never thought he would say it, but he was actually looking forward to going back to England. Cameron had been born in India and considered it his home, and at first Father’s news that they were packing up and heading back to ‘Blighty’ had filled him with horror. All Cameron knew of England was that it was cold and dreary, that they didn’t have bananas and mangoes, and that the only animals were boring things like cats and dogs and sheep.

He had initially thought that having to live there would be awful, but now he was starting to change his mind. At least in England he wouldn’t be a prisoner in his own home, and Mother had told him that they would have the seaside to visit, and London, and that there would be children his own age to play with.

He would miss his friends here, of course, especially Ranjit… though he hadn’t seen Ranjit for a while. That was partly because Mother and Father disapproved of him, and partly – Cameron guessed – because Ranjit had been too busy recently, with his uncle going missing and everything.

In the past, he and Ranjit had always met in secret –either outside the gates of Cameron’s school or at the bazaar. But lately, because of the ‘troubles’, the Campbells’ snooty head servant, Becharji, had been taking Cameron to and from school every day, and the bazaar, like almost everywhere else, had been labelled strictly out of bounds.

Sighing, Cameron reached under his bed for his tin of soldiers, intending to set them up for a battle. It wasn’t

much fun playing on his own, but at least it would while away the half-hour before dinner.

He was pouring them onto the wooden floor when something clattered against his window. He looked up, wondering if it was one of the big flying beetles and whether he could catch it. Then there was another clatter, and this time Cameron saw a number of small stones strike the glass and fall away.

Curious, he walked over to the window. From it he could see the top of the porch, which ran along the side of the house. Yellow light spilled from the porch, illuminating a stretch of hard-baked earth the width of a single-lane road. On the far side of this was a thick clump of bushes, which looked almost black in the encroaching darkness.

At first Cameron saw nothing, and then the bushes parted and a face peered briefly up at him. It was Ranjit!

No sooner had he started thinking about his friend than here he was.

Ranjit made a beckoning gesture, and Cameron held up a finger to indicate he would be down in one minute.

Soldiers forgotten, he ran out of his room and down the stairs. He could hear Mother, Father and Ronny talking in the drawing room, and crept past the door. Crossing the corridor, he entered the dining room, in which the lamps had been lit and the table set for dinner. He hurried to the back of the room and opened the floor-length glass doors and the screen doors beyond just wide enough to squeeze through.

‘Ranjit,’ he hissed, standing on the porch and peering

into the bushes, ‘are you there?’

For a moment he heard nothing but the whirring of cicadas and the gentle croaking of frogs. Then there was a rustle and Ranjit emerged.

Immediately Cameron saw that there was something wrong with his friend. His kurta was grubby and torn and there were dark circles under his eyes, as if he hadn’t slept properly in days.

‘What’s wrong?’ Cameron asked.

Ranjit glanced around as if wary of being overheard.

‘I’m very afraid.’

‘Why?’ asked Cameron.

‘I believe…’ Ranjit raised a hand to his cheek and Cameron saw that it was trembling. ‘I believe the world is ending.’

Cameron might have laughed if his friend hadn’t looked so serious. ‘Why do you believe that?’

‘You remember the old temple? The one we play in sometimes? With the monkeys?’

‘Yes.’

‘I was there last week. I went there to sleep, because it is too dangerous in my uncle’s house in the city…’

Haltingly Ranjit told Cameron about the light in the sky and what he had seen in the temple.

For a few moments Cameron simply stared at him.

Then he said, ‘Are you sure you weren’t dreaming?’

‘Of course I wasn’t,’ Ranjit said angrily.

‘Maybe it was someone dressed up then? Someone playing a trick.’

Ranjit shook his head. ‘It was nothing like that. If you

had seen it, you would not be saying these things.’

He seemed to sag a little, and Cameron noticed how thin his friend had become.

‘I believe the gods are angry because we are fighting amongst ourselves,’ Ranjit said. ‘Perhaps Shiva has come to destroy us and start the world anew.’

Cameron thought of the big war that had ended two years before, the war in which his brother, Ronny, had fought. A lot of people they knew had died in that war.

Cameron thought if Shiva or any other god was going to destroy the world, he would have done it then.

‘I’m sure everything will be fine,’ he said. ‘Why don’t I come to the temple with you tomorrow, and we’ll see if Shiva’s still there?’

Ranjit looked more hopeful. ‘Would you do that?’

‘Of course.’

‘What time shall we meet?’

Cameron thought about it. Mother had been watching him like a hawk lately. ‘Can you be here at dawn? Say, five o’clock in the morning?’

Ranjit nodded, and at that moment the screen doors behind them flew open.

Cameron spun round. Becharji was standing there, immaculate as always in his crisp white jacket and turban.

His thin face was like thunder, dark eyes blazing.

‘What is going on here?’ he demanded.

‘Nothing,’ said Cameron. ‘We were just talking.’

Becharji looked at Ranjit with disdain, his nostrils flaring. ‘This boy is an untouchable. You should not talk to such creatures.’

Cameron knew that Becharji was of the Vaisya caste of Indian society, and that he regarded the lower castes as ‘untouchables’ and not to be fraternised with.

‘I don’t care about that!’ Cameron retorted. ‘Ranjit’s my friend!’

But Becharji strode forward, making shooing motions, as if Ranjit was a stray chicken which had wandered in from next door. Ranjit backed away, but not quickly enough for Becharji. To Cameron’s horror, the servant stooped and picked up a rock. He drew back his arm.

‘No!’ Cameron shouted. ‘You mustn’t!’

Becharji threw the rock. Ranjit ducked and it sailed past him, into the bushes. The Indian boy turned and fled.

He crashed through the bushes and ran towards the stone wall that encircled the Campbells’ property.

He had scrambled up the wall and was straddling the top when Becharji threw his second rock. This time it hit Ranjit on the side of his head and he disappeared over the wall with a yelp of pain.

‘You’ve hurt him!’ Cameron yelled, his face red with fury. ‘You might have
killed
him!’

Becharji regarded him coldly. ‘I hope so,’ he said. ‘It will prevent him from returning.’

‘I hate you!’ Cameron shouted

Before he could say more a voice behind him demanded, ‘What’s all this noise?’

Cameron turned to see his father standing behind him, his face flushed. ‘Becharji threw a rock at my friend!’ he wailed. ‘It hit him on the head!’

Sir Edgar scowled. ‘Becharji did what?’

Silkily Becharji said, ‘A local urchin was trespassing on your property, sahib. I simply threw a rock to drive him away.’

‘He threw two rocks!’ Cameron cried. ‘And the second one hit Ranjit on the head!’

‘Well… where’s this boy now?’ Sir Edgar asked.

‘He has gone, sahib,’ said Becharji smoothly.

‘Yes, well,’ said Sir Edgar, ‘no harm done then. I’m sure Becharji was only acting for the best.’

‘Just so, sahib,’ said Becharji, bowing slightly and pressing his hands together.

‘But Father—’ Cameron protested.

‘Let’s hear no more about it!’ Sir Edgar snapped. ‘Now go and spruce yourself up, boy. Dinner will be ready in two ticks.’