Doctor Who: Ghosts of India

India in 1947 is a country in the grip of chaos – a country torn apart by internal strife. When the Doctor and Donna arrive in Calcutta, they are instantly swept up in violent events.

Barely escaping with their lives, they discover that the city is rife with tales of ‘half-made men’, who roam the streets at night and steal people away. These creatures, it is said, are as white as salt and have only shadows where their eyes should be.

With help from India’s great spiritual leader, Mohandas ‘Mahatma’ Gandhi, the Doctor and Donna set out to investigate these rumours.

What is the real truth behind the ‘half-made men’? Why is Gandhi’s role in history under threat? And has an ancient, all-powerful god of destruction really come back to wreak his vengeance upon the Earth?

Mark Morris is the author of fourteen novels, including two previous Doctor Who books, and numerous novellas, short stories, articles and reviews, which have appeared in a wide variety of anthologies and magazines. He was born the year that Doctor Who began, but his earliest Who memory, from 1967, is of the Yeti ambling down the mountainside to attack the Det-Sen monastery in The Abominable Snowmen.

Ranjit made his way cautiously through the densely packed neem trees and the green-blossomed champale. He was trying to make as little noise as possible, because he didn’t want the monkeys to hear him.

He didn’t like the monkeys. Sometimes they pelted him with fruit – rotten mangoes or poisonous berries. When that happened, Ranjit would throw stones, and the monkeys would scatter. He was afraid, though, that one day they might realise he wasn’t so tough, and that although they were smaller than him, they were stronger, faster and more numerous.

In spite of the monkeys (not to mention the snakes, and the jackals that he sometimes heard baying out on the plain), Ranjit still preferred sleeping in the old temple to sleeping at the camp. The camp was full of sick people, crying women and hungry babies. It was a place of misery and despair, and he went there for three reasons only: to get food, to see Miss Adelaide, and to find out whether his Uncle Mahmoud had turned up.

In his heart of hearts, Ranjit didn’t think he would ever see his Uncle Mahmoud again. Since his parents had died of cholera six years earlier, when he was five, Uncle Mahmoud had been his guardian. Ranjit knew his uncle was not the sort of man who would abandon him, which could only mean that something terrible had happened.

Terrible things were happening all over India just now. Every day more people were being killed in the violence that was sweeping the country. Calcutta was a war zone, which was why Ranjit could not go back to the house he had shared with his uncle. Thousands had already fled their homes, and no one seemed to know when it would all end. Some people seemed to think things would settle down once the English had gone home. But others claimed this would only make things worse, that without the English to govern the country, India would descend into civil war.

All Ranjit knew was that he was tired and needed to sleep. Slipping through the trees and the long grass, he came at last to the temple. It was a small temple in the Dravida style, with a squat porch supported by pillars. The tower was constructed of progressively smaller storeys of pavilions, and gave the impression of different-sized squares stacked in order, the largest at the bottom, the smallest at the top. Though the stonework had been elaborately carved, the building itself was long abandoned. It was festooned with vines, which were slowly forcing their way between the ancient, crumbling stones. Birds and insects had made their homes in the temple’s nooks and crannies, and of course the monkeys used it as a playground. It wasn’t much, therefore, but it was shelter. Plus it was quiet – if you ignored the rustling of beetles and cockroaches, and the distant cries of the owls.

It was stiflingly hot tonight. And the vast dark sky was full of strange, swirling colours – greens and purples and oranges. But at least the heat seemed to have driven the monkeys away. They were probably sleeping, conserving their energy. Ranjit didn’t dare hope that they might actually have found a new home elsewhere.

He was walking across the clearing when he noticed the light in the sky. It hung above the temple, yellow as a firefly. At first Ranjit thought it was a firefly, even though he knew immediately that there was something odd about it. He craned his neck. How high up was it? A hundred feet? A thousand? A million?

Then he blinked. Was it his imagination or was the light getting bigger? A few seconds ago he hadn’t been able to see the corona around it, but now he could. It looked like a great fiery mane.

He stared at the light for a few more seconds. Yes! It was getting bigger! It was as if a hole was opening in the night sky, behind which a brilliant light was blazing.

Ranjit swallowed. Could he hear a soft roaring or was that the blood rushing through his head? He didn’t know, but what he couldn’t hear was the chirrup of insects in the undergrowth. Eerily, all the night-sounds he was used to had ceased. It was as if every living creature had suddenly become aware of the descending light and had stopped to look up at it.

All at once Ranjit felt very scared and alone. Something was happening. Something bad. The light was as big as a dinner plate now, its glow touching the top of the tower, turning it from black to gold.

Thirty seconds later, and Ranjit had to shield his eyes against its glare. Another thirty, and he had to close his eyes and slap his hands over his ears as the soft roar of the thing’s descent rose to a thin scream, and then to an unbearable shriek.

The ground started to shake, as if about to split apart. Ranjit felt his bones shaking too, and curled up on the ground like a caterpillar, trying to block it all out. But it was no use. The light and the hideous shrieking were overwhelming. They poured into his body like water into an empty bottle, and he blacked out.

How long he remained unconscious he had no idea. When he came to it was dark, and the insects were back, trilling softly in the night.

He sat up, feeling weak and sick. His ears throbbed, and his eyes were sore, but already the discomfort was fading. He looked up at the sky, and saw blackness studded with the white glints of stars. He blinked the soreness from his eyes, rose shakily to his feet, then turned and faced the temple.

Instantly he realised that the light had not gone, after all. Instead it had been swallowed by the temple. It was now streaming from the open porch and the cracks in the weathered stonework, pulsing bright, dim, bright again, like a glowing heart.

For a few seconds Ranjit stared, wondering what to do. He was apprehensive, but no longer frightened. Now that the light had fallen to earth, it was not shrieking, nor blazing like angry fire. In fact, there was something almost comforting about it, something inviting.

He found himself walking towards it, as if in a trance. He passed between the pillars of the temple, into the porch, and felt himself embraced by its radiance. Ahead was the antechamber, and beyond that the central shrine. Could he see something in the shrine, a dark shape, blurred by the dazzling illumination around it? As if dragged by invisible wires, he walked through the antechamber and into the shrine itself.

For an instant the light blazed brighter than ever, and the shape in the centre seemed to shimmer. Then the light settled into a soft, pulsing glow, and Ranjit saw clearly what it had been concealing.

Sitting cross-legged upon a golden throne was a vast figure cloaked in a tiger skin. The figure had three eyes, and on its head it wore the moon like a crown. Four arms jutted from the wide shoulders, two of which were at rest, hands folded in its lap, and two of which rose behind it, swaying slightly, like cobras preparing to strike. The figure’s chest was bare, but around its neck coiled a serpent and a garland of human skulls. The figure looked down at Ranjit, impassive and serene.

Ranjit recognised the figure instantly. This was Shiva, the Lord of Sleep, the Fathomless Abyss. Shiva the Destroyer; Shiva the Howling of Storms; Shiva the Lord of Songs and Tears.

He began to shake with fear. He was unworthy to look upon the face of the Divine. He was committing a terrible trespass by being here.

He bowed his head and thought about asking for forgiveness, but his mouth was as dry as a desert and the words would not come.

In the end, utterly terrified and certain that he would be struck down at any moment, Ranjit turned and ran.

‘WHERE NOW?’ THE Doctor said. He was like a kid at a funfair, trying to decide which ride to go on next. He stood poised, waggling his fingers, his face glowing green in the light from the TARDIS console.

Donna thought he looked like a string bean in a blue suit. A string bean with trainers and sticky-out hair.

‘Dunno about you,’ she said, ‘but I could do with a breather.’

‘A breather!’ he said, aghast.

‘Yeah, we’re not all Martians, you know. Us humans need a little sit down and a nice cup of tea every so often.’ All at once her eyes widened. ‘You know what I’d really like?’

‘Astonish me.’

‘A curry.’

‘A curry?’

‘Yeah, I could murder a curry. I’m starving.’

The Doctor looked at her as if she was a prize pupil who had handed in a sub-standard piece of work. Then inspiration struck him, and he was off again, bouncing round the console, slapping and poking and twiddling things.

‘Curry, curry, curry,’ he muttered. ‘If I can just… yep, there we go.’ The grinding bellow of the TARDIS’s engines started up and the Doctor straightened with a grin.

‘Donna,’ he said, ‘prepare yourself for a taste sensation.’

In a narrow alley between two tenement blocks, dust began to swirl. The trumpeting groan of ancient engines rose out of nowhere, and as they built to a crescendo the faded outline of an old blue London police box began to solidify. No one saw the box arrive except for a famished yellow cat, which ran for its life. For a few seconds the box stood, immobile and impossible, dust settling around it. Then the door flew open and the Doctor sprang out, still in his blue suit and trainers, and now also wearing a red plastic sun visor on a piece of black elastic.

‘Come on, Donna,’ he shouted. ‘You were the one who couldn’t wait to stuff your face.’

‘And you were the one who said I should dress for a hot climate,’ she retorted, emerging from the TARDIS in a flowery long-sleeved sundress, sandals and a wide-brimmed hat. She looked around. ‘Where are we?’

‘Calcutta,’ he said, ‘1937. Brilliant city, full of bustle and colour. Still ruled by the British Raj, but it’s the heart of India. Centre of education, science, culture, politics—’

‘What’s that smell?’

She was wrinkling her nose. The Doctor sniffed the air. ‘That,’ he said, ‘is the scent of burning cow dung. Bellisimo. Come on.’

He strode off, Donna hurrying to catch up. She looked around at the shabby tenements with their peeling shutters and corrugated iron roofs. The ground was hard-packed earth. Flies buzzed around her head.

‘Not exactly salubrious round here,’ she said.

‘Well, we don’t want to be ostentatious. Don’t want to frighten the goats.’

He grinned and she smiled back, linking her arm with his.

‘So where you taking me?’

‘Select little eatery. Belongs to an old mate of mine – Kam Bajaj. Helped him out once with an infestation of Jakra worms.’

‘Wouldn’t have thought pest control was your kind of thing,’ Donna said.

The Doctor shot her one of his sidelong, raised-eyebrow looks. ‘Jakra worms are from the Briss Constellation. They’re eight-foot-long carnivores. Imagine a Great White Shark sticking out of a hairy wind sock and you’ve pretty much got it. Anyway, old Kam said any time I fancied a free dinner…’

‘Oh, charming,’ said Donna. ‘Cheap date, am I?’

‘That’s one advantage, yeah,’ the Doctor said, smirking, ‘but the food is out of this world. Macher jhol that melts in your mouth, beguni to die for, kati roll, phuchka. And the puddings… caramba! Rasagolla, sandesh, mishti doi…’ He kissed his fingers like a chef.

‘Chicken korma and a poppadom’ll do me,’ Donna said.

‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,’ he replied.

They walked for twenty minutes, the Doctor leading them through a labyrinth of streets without once hesitating. Gradually the streets widened as they moved away from the poorer areas of the city, but even the change of surroundings didn’t help Donna shake off a feeling of unease, a sense that something was not right.

The Doctor didn’t seem to notice the shuttered shops and burned-out buildings; the debris scattered on the ground; the rats crawling around the stinking piles of uncollected rubbish; the gangs of young men who glared at them in baleful silence as they strode by. He kept up a constant jabber about Calcuttan life, one second talking about the August monsoons, the next about how he was once voted man of the match at the Calcuttan Polo Club. As they passed yet another group of silent men, some of whom brandished staffs or simply thick branches stripped of leaves, the Doctor raised a hand and called, ‘Hello there!’

None of the men answered. One spat on the ground close to the Doctor’s feet.

‘Probably just shy,’ the Doctor muttered as Donna took him by the arm and led him away.

‘Blimey, for the biggest genius in the universe you can be incredibly thick sometimes,’ she said.

‘Oi!’ he protested, then asked her more reasonably, ‘What do you mean?’

‘Just look around you. Even a mere earthling can tell that something’s about to kick off here. You can virtually smell the testosterone in the air.’

The Doctor’s eyes darted around. ‘I suppose the atmosphere is a bit tense,’ he admitted.

‘Maybe we ought to head back to the TARDIS,’ she said, ‘settle for the Taj Mahal on Chiswick High Road.’

‘Kam’s place is only a couple of minutes from here. It’s a lot closer than the TARDIS.’

Two minutes later they were standing outside Kam’s place, looking up at it in dismay. It had been gutted by fire, the interior nothing more than a burnt-out hollow. Face grim, the Doctor placed his hand on a door frame that was now just so much charcoal.

‘No residual heat,’ he said. ‘This happened a while ago.’

‘Two weeks,’ said a cracked voice to their left.

Donna looked down. An old man was squatting on his haunches in the shaded doorway of the building next door. He wore nothing but a turban and a pair of loose white cotton trousers. His skin was lined and leathery, and an unkempt grey beard covered the lower half of his face.

The Doctor darted across and squatted beside him. ‘What happened?’ he asked softly.

The old man shrugged. ‘When men fight,’ he said, ‘their judgement becomes clouded. They bombard their enemies with stones and kerosene bombs and beat them with clubs. But if they cannot find their enemies, they simply destroy whatever is close by. They claim they fight for a just cause, but when the madness takes them they don’t care who they hurt.’

‘Yeah,’ the Doctor murmured, ‘I know the type. But what about the people who lived here? Kamalnayan Bajaj and his family?’

‘They are gone.’

The Doctor’s eyes widened. ‘You don’t mean…?’

The old man shook his head. ‘No, no, they are alive and well. But they have fled Calcutta. I don’t think they will return.’

‘Not to this address anyway,’ said the Doctor ruefully. ‘But this can’t be right. I know for a fact that Kam was here in 1941. I came for Navratri. I brought fireworks.’

‘What’s Navratri?’ Donna asked.

‘Hindu festival. Lots of dancing.’ Thoughtfully he said, ‘So either someone’s mucking about with time or…’ He turned back to the old man. ‘What year is this?’

‘1947,’ the old man said.

‘Forty-seven!’ the Doctor exclaimed, and jumped to his feet. ‘Well, that explains it.’

‘Does it?’ said Donna.

‘Course it does. Think of your history.’

‘Believe it or not, I wasn’t born in 1947.’

‘Not your personal history,’ said the Doctor. ‘Earth history. Didn’t they teach you anything at school?’

Donna gave him a blank look. ‘I only liked home economics.’

The Doctor made an exasperated sound. ‘Remind me to buy you a set of encyclopaedias for your next birthday.’

‘Only if you remind me to punch you in the face,’ Donna said.

The Doctor carried on as if she hadn’t spoken, talking rapidly, almost in bullet points. ‘Last year there was a famine in India. The people got desperate and angry. When the British Raj did nothing to help, the population rioted. Now the Brits are about to give India home rule, but instead of solving the problem it’s only making things worse. Different religions are fighting amongst themselves about how to divide up the pie, and Calcutta is at the centre of it. At this moment it’s one of the most volatile places on Earth. Thousands have been killed, many more made homeless. It’s a massive human tragedy, and I’ve landed us slap-bang in the middle.’

He looked so anguished that Donna felt compelled to say, ‘Well, nobody’s perfect.’

He smiled sheepishly. ‘The Taj Mahal on Chiswick High Road, you say?’

She nodded. ‘There’s a pay and display across the road, if you need somewhere to park.’

They said goodbye to the clearly puzzled old man and headed off down the street. It was still hot, and flies were still buzzing around their heads, but the cloudless sky had deepened, and the shadows were lengthening.

As the sun crept towards the horizon, more and more men were gathering in the streets. Almost all of them silently watched the Doctor and Donna pass by, their expressions ranging from bemusement to hostility.

‘Just look confident,’ muttered the Doctor. ‘Usually works for me.’

‘Don’t worry, Doctor,’ Donna said. ‘Once you’ve been to a few West Ham/Millwall games, there’s nothing much that can frighten you.’

They were walking down a quiet street, past a pile of straw and steaming dung, when they heard gunshots from somewhere ahead of them.

‘Although in my time,’ Donna said, ‘people don’t usually shoot each other at the football. What shall we do?’

The Doctor halted and half-raised a hand. ‘We could always stand here for a minute and hope it’ll go away.’

The gunshots grew louder – and were now accompanied by the din of an approaching crowd.

‘Any more bright ideas, Einstein?’

The Doctor pointed at the pile of straw and dung. ‘Well, we could always hide in there.’

Donna gave him an incredulous look. ‘I think I’d rather get a bullet through the head than cover myself in—’

‘Shift!’ yelled the Doctor, grabbing her hand.

The panicked cries of the crowd had suddenly become much louder. Donna turned to see that soldiers on horseback had appeared at the end of the street, and were driving a rampaging mob before them.

A mob that was heading straight for her and the Doctor!

‘Where is that dratted Gopal?’

Dr Edward Morgan consulted his fob watch with a frown, then dropped it back into the pocket of his waistcoat. He looked tired, Adelaide thought, and with good reason. He worked such long hours at the camp that he barely allowed himself time to sleep. He could easily have settled for a cushy practice in the ‘White Town’, treating overfed English diplomats with the gout, or old ladies with the vapours. Instead, despite many of his fellow countrymen scoffing at him for wasting his medical skills on ‘coolies’, he had decided to ply his trade on the front line.

Adelaide had been so inspired by his commitment that she had openly defied her father, Sir Edgar Campbell, to help him. Sir Edgar continued to assert that tending to the ailments of Indians was ‘a most unsuitable position for an Englishwoman’, but at least he was fair-minded enough to allow his daughter to make her own decisions. The work was arduous and the rewards minimal, but Adelaide had the satisfaction of knowing that she was trying to make a difference.

‘He’ll be here, Edward,’ she said. ‘Gopal is reliable and dedicated.’

Edward used a crumpled handkerchief to wipe a sheen of sweat from his forehead. He was unshaven and his white doctor’s coat was stained and dusty. He was in his late twenties, only five years older than Adelaide herself, but just now he looked closer to forty.

‘I know he is,’ he said, his irritation fading. ‘I do hope nothing has happened to him.’

‘Well… my tonga-wallah did tell me that there has been trouble in the north of the city again today,’ Adelaide said. ‘I believe Major Daker and his men are attempting to restore order. It could be that the streets are simply difficult to negotiate.’

‘Yes, I’m sure that’s what it is,’ Edward said wearily, and swayed a little on his feet. Adelaide, who had just arrived at the camp for the night shift, reached out to steady him. Her touch made him blink in surprise, and the look he gave her caused her to blush. To cover her embarrassment, she looked around the medical tent with its two cramped rows of beds and asked, ‘Has it been a difficult day?’

Edward smiled without humour. ‘No more than usual. We’ve had another fifty people in today, most suffering from malnutrition.’ He wafted his hand in a gesture that somehow carried an air of defeat about it. ‘The fact is, Adelaide, we simply don’t have the resources to cope. I feel so helpless, having to stand by and watch children starve in front of my eyes… but what can you do?’

Again, Adelaide felt an urge to put a hand on her colleague’s shoulder, but this time she resisted.

‘You’re doing your best, Edward,’ she said. ‘It’s all anyone can reasonably expect.’

He shrugged and looked around the tent once again. Despite the best efforts of the overburdened medical staff, it was a squalid place. The patients slept beneath unwashed sheets, with swarms of flies hovering above them and cockroaches scuttling across the floor. The interior of the tent smelled of sickness and sweat and, even with the flaps pinned back, it was as hot as an oven during the day and barely cooler at night.

The tent was one of three, situated side by side on a slight rise at the north end of the camp. The tents housed the most seriously afflicted of the refugees, who, over the past six months, had been arriving here in their hundreds, on this flat, dusty area of scrubland two miles outside Calcutta.

‘How many deaths today?’ Adelaide asked bluntly.

Edward sighed. ‘Fifteen.’

She nodded stoically. ‘Anything else to report?’

‘We had another one brought in.’

She knew immediately what he meant and her fists tightened. ‘The same as the others?’

Edward nodded wearily. ‘She was a young girl, perhaps eighteen or nineteen. Two men brought her, bound like an animal. They didn’t know who she was, and she was in no fit state to tell them. She has the same protrusions on her face and body as the others. The men say she was like a rabid dog, attacking people in the street. They told Narhari they believed the girl was possessed by demons.

‘She had bitten one of the men on the hand. I treated the wound and tried to place him in quarantine, but he refused to stay. I only hope she hasn’t passed the infection on to him.’

‘We still don’t know that it is an infection,’ Adelaide said.

‘And we don’t know that it isn’t either,’ replied Edward, ‘apart from the fact that none of us has yet been taken ill.’

She was silent for a moment, then she asked, ‘Can I see the girl?’

‘She isn’t a pretty sight, I’m afraid.’

‘All the same…’

Edward led her out of the tent and towards the one at the far end of the row. The sun had slipped below the horizon now and the sky was a riot of reds and purples, which would soon deepen to black. Out on the plain, the hundreds of people who had fled the fierce infighting between different factions of their countrymen were huddled in shelters made of wood and blankets and corrugated iron. The area was dotted with the flickering lights of fires, around which the recently homeless huddled for comfort and to cook what little food they had. Here and there scrawny goats, bleating piteously, were tethered to posts. Conversation among the people was soft and sombre. There was very little laughter, even from the children.

Edward held the flap of the third tent aside for Adelaide and she walked in. The interior of the tent had been divided in half, the front half partitioned from the back by several lengths of grubby muslin. They each donned a surgical mask, and then Edward led Adelaide through the flimsy partition. She braced herself. She was frightened of these particular patients, but she wouldn’t avoid them. If she wanted to do her job properly, she couldn’t afford to be selective.

There were twelve beds here, ten of which were occupied. It was unusual for even a single bed to be standing empty, but this area had been designated an isolation zone. All ten patients had arrived in the past week, all suffering from the same mysterious symptoms.

The newest arrival, the girl, was in the fifth bed along on the left. Adelaide approached, dry-mouthed, even though she knew that the patient would be tethered and sedated.

Sure enough, the girl’s hands and feet were bound by strips of strong cloth to the rough wooden bed-frame. She was sleeping but restive, her eyes rolling beneath their lids, her lips drawing back from white teeth as she snarled and muttered. She was small and slim, and Adelaide could tell that she had been pretty once. Her finely boned face was the colour of caramel, her hair like black silk. She wore a simple white sari, which was torn and stained with dirt, and her bare feet were lacerated with wounds that had been washed and disinfected.

As ever, it was the sight of the strange protrusions which horrified Adelaide. This girl had one on her forehead and one on her neck. They were black-purple lumps, which had pulled the flesh around them out of shape. From experience, Adelaide knew that the lumps would grow and multiply until the patient died. It had happened to three patients already, and two more were currently close to death. When the first sufferers had arrived a week ago, Edward and his colleagues had thought they were witnessing the start of a new strain of bubonic plague. But the limited tests they had been able to carry out seemed to belie that theory. So far they had failed to pinpoint any infection – which didn’t necessarily mean there wasn’t one.

‘Does she have the pale eyes?’ Adelaide asked, leaning over the girl. In all the cases so far, the victim’s eyes had become paler as the illness progressed, as if the pigment was draining out of them. It was eerie, watching a person’s eyes change from brown to the insipid yellow of weak tea.

‘Not yet,’ said Edward – and at that moment, as if to prove the fact, the girl’s eyes opened wide.

They may not have been yellow, but they were bloodshot and utterly crazed. The girl glared at Adelaide, and then lunged for her so violently that the restraints around her right wrist simply snapped. As Adelaide jumped back, the girl’s teeth clacked together, closing on empty air. Edward rushed forward to grab the patient’s flailing arm, but her momentary surge of energy was over, and already she was slumping back, her eyes drifting closed.

‘That shouldn’t have happened,’ Edward said, retying her wrist. ‘I gave her enough sedative to knock out an elephant.’ He looked up at Adelaide. ‘Are you all right?’

Adelaide was already composing herself. ‘I’m fine.’ She hesitated a moment, then stepped back towards the bed. ‘Poor thing. I wish we could find out what’s causing this.’

Edward said firmly, ‘I still maintain that it’s a chemical poison of some kind, perhaps similar to the effects of atom bomb radiation.’

A shiver passed through Adelaide. The American atom bomb attacks on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had occurred just two years previously, and had sent shock waves across the world.

‘But if a bomb had gone off nearby, we would have heard of it surely?’

‘It needn’t have been a bomb,’ said Edward. ‘It could be something in the water.’

‘Something introduced deliberately, you mean?’

He shrugged. ‘It’s possible.’