Doctor Who: Mawdryn Undead
The Doctor’s time-travelling machine is trapped in the flight-path of an alien spacecraft in orbit around the Earth. To avoid the fatal impact of a head-on collision the TARDIS resorts to the only escape possible and materialises on board the on-coming liner.
This solves the immediate problem, but a new difficulty arises – the TARDIS cannot get off the ship until a radio signal transmitting from Earth has been disconnected.
The Doctor sets off in a Transmat capsule, having programmed the TARDIS to enable Tegan and Nyssa to follow him once he has dealt with the interferance.
Naturally enough, things don’t go quite as planned…
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TV tie-in
DOCTOR WHO
MAWDRYN UNDEAD
Based on the BBC television serial by Peter Grimwade by arrangement with the British Broadcasting Corporation
PETER GRIMWADE
Number 82 in the
Doctor Who Library
published by
The Paperback Division of
W. H. Allen & Co. Ltd
A Target Book
Published in 1983
by the Paperback Division of
W.H. Allen & Co. Ltd
A Howard & WyndhamCompany
44 Hill Street, London W1X 8LB
First published in Great Britain by
W. H. Allen & Co. Ltd 1983
Novelisation copyright © Peter Grimwade, 1983
Original script copyright © Peter Grimwade, 1983
‘Doctor Who’ series copyright © British Broadcasting Corporation 1983
The BBC producer of
Mawdryn Undead
was John Nathan-Turner, the direct was Peter Moffat
The lines quoted from
The Flying Dutchman
by Richard Wagner, translated by David Poutney, are reproduced by courtesy of the translator and John Calder (Publications) Ltd.
Phototypset by Input Typesetting Ltd, London SW19
8DR
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading
ISBN 0 426 19393 8
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
‘You cannot know or dream just who I am!
But every sea and every ocean, and every sailor who sails across the world
will know this ship, the terror of the godly: the “Flying Dutchman” is my name!’
Richard Wagner
For Keith Shand
7 Double Danger of the Brigadier
1
Turlough hated it all: the routine, the discipline, the invented traditions and petty snobbery of a minor English public school.
‘The Battle of Waterloo’, quoted the Headmaster, one day during the boy’s first term in the Sixth Form, ‘was won on the playing fields of Eton.’ And Turlough had screamed with derisive laughter.
Not that Brendon School was exactly Eton College, though it was an imposing enough place. The fine old Queen Anne mansion had hardly changed since the days when it was the country seat of the Mulle-Heskiths, though its circumstances had altered dramatically. Sold in 1922, on the death of old Sir Barrie Mulle-Heskith, the battle had raged fast and furious as to whether Brendon Court should l ecome an independent school for boys or an institution for the criminally insane. Education had triumphed. (Though not notice-ably so, it was thought in the village.)
On a fine summer’s day in 1983 there was still something quintessentially British about the rolling park-land, from which drifted the sound of a cricket match (all games at Brendon compulsory), and the rose-gardens, arbors and wisteria pergola Of the old house (out of bounds to boys and assistant masters) – all of it alien to Turlough.
He longed to escape. But how? He gazed up at the obelisk on the hill above the school – an eccentric memorial to General Rufus Mulle-Heskith. Turlough was curiously drawn to the sombre pinnacle that dominated the horizon, silhouetted against the sky like the sword of some Angel of Death.
‘Come on, Turlough! You’ve got to see the Brig’s new car!’
He was startled from his revery by a group of fellow sixth-formers. Ibbotson, the boy who had spoken, presented a sharp contrast to his friend. Whereas Turlough was thin as a willow, his auburn hair, blue eyes and sharp-boned face investing him with an unworldly, pre-Raphaelite appearance, Ibbotson was a lump. It is the misfortune of some boys to be trapped, seemingly for ever, in the blubber and acne of adolescence; just such a one was Ibbotson.
‘Hippo?’
The nickname was apt, but not flattering. Turlough’s use of it, however, pleased Ibbotson as public evidence of their friendship. And Ibbotson needed friends; because Ibbotson was a bore.
‘What car, Hippo?’
‘A sixteen-fifty open tourer!’
The object of Ibbotson’s admiration was parked behind the main building in the Masters’ Car Park. There was something about the vintage Humber, with its immaculate paintwork, polished levers and knobs, and soft luxurious upholstery that gave it a sense of belonging to the old Brendon Court, part of a bygone world of landed wealth and privilege, that made the Minis, the Saabs and the ancient Renault of the other masters seem positively upstart.
A group of boys had already gathered around the gleaming vehicle. Ibbotson pushed his way through the crowd. For a moment he gazed in silence, then moved reverently around the old car, caressing the smooth bodywork with his podgy hands, stroking the soft leatherware and fingering the knurled controls, all the while maintaining the most boring commentary.
‘You realise, Turlough,’ he droned anaesthetically on,
‘that this car has the same chassis as a 3½-litre Humber Super Snipe.’
Turlough watched him in silence. This was the Ibbotson he loved to mock and ridicule. He felt a stab of pleasure at the possibility of humiliating his friend. ‘Crude, heavy and inefficient!’ he sneered, genuinely contemptuous of such archaic technology.
‘This car is a classic, Turlough!’
‘Dull, fat, and ugly – just like you, Hippo!’
The other boys sniggered. Turlough kicked viciously at the bodywork of the car and contemplated kicking the wretched Ibbotson himself.
But Hippo’s skin was as thick as the eponymous beast’s.
Ignoring the jibe, he pulled out a grubby handkerchief from his pocket and set about polishing the scuff from Turlough’s shoe, as delicately as if he were tending a flesh wound. He continued his numbing dissertation on the pedigree of the Humber Tourer, waxing eloquent on the lost skills of double-declutching.
It was at this point that Turlough had a wonderful idea.
It had the double virtue of embarrassing the pestiferous Ibbotson, and alleviating, if only for a moment, the boredom of his enforced stay at Brendon School. He flung open the door of the car. ‘Get in, Hippo!’
Ibbotson was scandalised.
‘We’re going for a ride.’
‘Turlough!’
‘Come on!’
‘We can’t.’ Ibbotson was stunned by the very idea.
‘No one will know.’
‘Turlough, we can’t!’
‘Oh come on, Hippo. Just to the end of the drive.’
Turlough sounded so reasonable as he pleaded with the boy. ‘You’re not afraid, are you?’ His voice changed key.
Ibbotson flinched as he felt the cutting edge of Turlough’s tongue. ‘Turlough!’ He made a final attempt to resist the manipulation of his older friend, but Turlough already had him by the arm and was bundling him into the passenger seat.
Despite his acute misgivings, Ibbotson’s initial feelings were entirely pleasurable as he sat enthroned on the opulent leather, peering at the ornate dials and gauges.
There was a muted thud as the driver’s door slammed shut. Ibbotson turned from his inspection of the dashboard to see Turlough in the driving seat beside him. The older boy tinkered expertly with the timing and turned the self-starter. The engine sprung to life with a dull roar, then settled to a purring tickover which shivered the whole fabric of the car.
Ibbotson was now intoxicated with excitement, as Turlough slipped the old Humber into gear and pulled away with only the slightest scrunching of gravel. The other boys, who had been watching in amazement, gave a cheer. Ibbotson, unused to such adulation, turned and waved like the Queen Mother.
His euphoria was short-lived. While their progress along the drive was as secure as it was stately, on reaching the school gates, far from stopping as he had promised, Turlough accelerated, and turned recklessly onto the main road.
‘Hey! you said just to the end of the drive!’
But Turlough was deaf to the protests of his passenger.
He eased the car into top gear. The revs of the powerful engine began to build.
‘Turlough! You haven’t got a licence.’
‘So? Who needs a licence?’ Turlough revelled in the discomforture of the boy beside him.
‘Go back to the school! Please!’
But Turlough pushed down on the accelerator.
Faster and faster they roared along the narrow country lane, Ibbotson gibbering with anxiety, Turlough laughing from sheer exuberance.
‘Turlough, slow down!’ pleaded Ibbotson.
Turlough accelerated.
‘You’re on the wrong side of the road!’ screamed his friend.
With total disregard for what lay ahead, Turlough turned to relish the terror of his passenger. ‘This car’s a classic. Isn’t that what you said, Hippo?’ he shouted mockingly.
‘Look out!’
Had he been watching ahead, Turlough would have spotted the van sooner. As Ibbotson cried out, the van driver hooted and Turlough realised he was on the verge of a head-on collision.
The van driver jammed on his brakes, veering sharply to his right, but not in time to avoid giving the Humber a sharp blow, which sent it helplessly out of control, straight towards the hedge.
Turlough was wide awake, confused by the unearthly light that surrounded him. He was floating in an enormous candyfloss of cloud. It was all strangely comforting. Even when he looked down and saw the improbable panorama below, he felt a detached sense of curiosity rather than surprise or alarm.
Turlough looked more closely. There was no doubt about it; the boy lying on the ground below him was undoubtedly himself.
He had a birds-eye view of the field where the car had crashed. He could see it now, half on its side, oil seeping from the broken sump. His body lay a few feet away, unconscious, obviously thrown clear by the impact.
Ibbotson stood near-by looking pretty sick, and being talked at by the Head. Trust Ibbotson to escape without a scratch.
He looked further afield. A panda car had pulled up in the lane and a policeman was taking a statement from the van driver. A battered Range Rover screeched to a halt. He recognised the man scrambling out as Doctor Runciman, who hurried across the field to the unconscious figure beside the Humber.
But, if the boy being examined by the school doctor was Turlough, what was
he
— who was also Turlough — doing up in the clouds?