The Forgotten Son Read online

  LETHBRIDGE-STEWART

  THE FORGOTTEN SON

  Andy Frankham-Allen

  Foreword by Terrance Dicks

  CANDY JAR BOOKS · CARDIFF

  A Russell & Frankham-Allen Series

  2015

  Copyright Andy Frankham-Allen 2015

  Characters and Concepts from ‘The Web of Fear’

  copyright Hannah Haisman & Henry Lincoln

  HAVOC developed by and copyright Andy Frankham-Allen & Shaun Russell

  Doctor Who is copyright British Broadcasting Corporation, 1963, 2015.

  Editor-in-Chief: Shaun Russell

  Line Editor: Andy Frankham-Allen

  Editorial: Jon Cooper, Will Rees & Hayley Cox

  Licensed by Hannah Haisman

  Published by Candy Jar Books

  ISBN: 978-0-9931191-6-3

  This book is available in print at most online retailers.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted at any time or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the copyright holder.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.

  www.candyjarbooks.co.uk

  Dedicated to the memories of

  Mervyn Haisman and Nicholas Courtney

  And thanks to

  Henry Lincoln and Hannah Haisman

  Without whom…

  A lot of research was needed to get the period details right, however mistakes will almost certainly have been made (some intentionally). If you spot any, just think of it this way; this is the fictional reality of Doctor Who, not everything happens exactly as it does in the real world. The same can be said for continuity with other Doctor Who. Not everything connects perfectly, such is the nature of a universe in which time travellers exist and constantly disrupt the timelines.

  Contents

  FOREWORD BY TERRANCE DICKS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  THANK YOU

  — FOREWORD BY TERRANCE DICKS —

  The Brig and I

  I FIRST ENCOUNTERED THE BRIGADIER on my very first day at the BBC during the filming of The Web of Fear; not in person but on the screen. In 1968 I attended an editing session of The Web of Fear. Of course, he wasn’t the Brigadier at all in those days. He was Colonel Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart – a new arrival, initially regarded with some suspicion by Professor Travers and his daughter, and the others, trapped in the Underground by the web. (At the time the production team was trying to make the roar of the Yeti sound less like a flushing toilet – a task in which they never entirely succeeded!)

  At the end of the story, Lethbridge-Stewart – who turned out to be a good guy after all – apparently suggested the formation of a special unit dedicated to fighting alien threats (as revealed in my later novelisation of the script). When Derrick Sherwin created UNIT – the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce – in The Invasion, the newly promoted Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, henceforth referred to as the Brig, was in command.

  The Brig’s concerns about alien attacks were immediately justified when he was faced with the machinations of the evil Tobias Vaughn and his deadly allies the Cybermen. UNIT troops were tested for the first time, battling the silver giants on the streets of London.

  I got to know the Brig personally, in the form of Nick Courtney, in 1970 during the production of Spearhead from Space. Here the Brig was faced not only by the plastic-manipulating Nestene Consciousness with its army of window-smashing Autons, but by the alarming arrival of a completely new Doctor. Or rather, by the same Doctor in a very different form. The small scruffy Patrick Troughton had been replaced by the tall elegant Jon Pertwee.

  Since my predecessors, the out-going Bryant and Sherwin, had made the decision, in my view entirely wrongly, to exile the Doctor to Earth, I saw a good deal of Nick Courtney, the Brig and UNIT during my time on the show.

  I was utterly torn and divided in my attitude to UNIT. As I said before, I felt that exiling the Doctor to Earth was completely wrong-headed. Doctor Who needs the Doctor roaming through time and space in the TARDIS. Exiled to Earth he becomes not the Doctor but Professor Quatermass, battling a series of alien attacks.

  Moreover it limits the story potential. When I told my friend and mentor Mac Hulke about the exile decision he thought for a moment then said, ‘Well, Terrance, you’ve got two stories, Alien Attack or Mad Scientist!’

  The reasons for the decision were, of course, financial. It’s cheaper to film on present-day Earth than to create an alien world. Sets, costumes, locations, alien races and monsters – all have to be specially designed and created. It’s a lot cheaper to take your actors, dressed in everyday clothes, and film on the streets of London.

  Incidentally, a much-debated topic is exactly when the UNIT stories are set. The answer, which has to be vague, is an unspecified time in the near future. Far enough for there to have been a British Mars Probe, not so far that clothes, cars and buildings look any different.

  All that being said, I absolutely loved the UNIT stories. The interplay between Nick and Jon, Captain Yates and Sergeant Benton, Caroline John, Katy Manning and later Lis Sladen – the whole UNIT family.

  Nick Courtney was a delight to work with. Modest, charming, completely unassuming, and quite unaware of his own talent for comedy. I was with Nick on his first Doctor Who convention in America. He was tremendously nervous. He needn’t have worried. He appeared on stage cleared his throat and said, ‘Er… good evening!’ The audience fell about laughing.

  I realised a vital difference between us. Given some reasonable material, I can be funny. Nick was funny – he just had to be Nick!

  UNIT featured largely in my early years on the show. The Brig and his men tackled, amongst others, the Master, the Daleks, Silurians, Omega and not one but three Doctors. Story after story they blazed away at invading alien enemies, usually to little or no effect.

  I felt so much sympathy for the Brig that I put in a special line for him. ‘Just once, Doctor, I’d like to meet an alien menace that wasn’t immune to bullets!’

  As I say, I loved a good UNIT story. But every story a UNIT story? It just wouldn’t do. Monotony was sure to set in. Gradually we started restoring the old set-up. The Time Lords sent the Doctor on various missions, much against his will, finally giving him his freedom in The Three Doctors. Even then he didn’t leave at once…

  My association with the Brig, like that of the Doctor’s, lessened after I wrote Robot, Tom Baker’s first show, when I left Doctor Who in 1974. The Brig had to cope with yet another Doctor. To save all that business of ‘You can’t be the Doctor, he looks quite different’ I had the regeneration take place in the Doctor’s laboratory, right under his nose.

  And of course the Brig was there again in The Five Doctors. It was a joy to team him with Pat Troughton’s Doctor once more.

  The Brig made frequent appearances on Doctor Who after I left the show, but from then on my main contact with the character was in books. He appeared in many of my novelisations, including The Auton Invasion and The Web of Fear. Barry Letts and I wrote a Doctor Who original novel, Deadly Reunion, in which Barry’s section, the first part, deals with a young Seco
nd Lieutenant Lethbridge-Stewart on a secret mission at the end of World War Two.

  Now, in this book and others to follow, the tradition lives on. The Brigadier is a splendid character. An old-fashioned English gentleman, decent, straightforward and utterly conventional, he makes a splendid foil and contrast to the fantastical worlds of Doctor Who.

  He deserves his immortality.

  — PROLOGUE—

  IT ALL STARTED WITH A roar!

  On TV Doctor Omega and his trusty aide, Captain Borel, were exploring a dark corridor of an empty house. The flickering flames from the fireplace threw their shadows against the walls, creating shapes that made young John James’ skin crawl. He sat back on the sofa, trying his best to squeeze himself between the cushions, his eyes riveted to the television screen. He knew they were going to find something in the kitchen. The Shadow Beast, a creature that lived in shadows and fed off the darkest thoughts of men. Doctor Omega had done some horrible things on his adventures, as had Captain Borel. The Beast was going to have a feast.

  The screen went black.

  For a moment John sat in the darkness, the only light in the front room having been the TV itself.

  A roar!

  He jumped, his eyes darting around the room looking for whatever it was that could make such a sound. It definitely came from inside his house. He swallowed. He was all alone and something was in his house!

  His mum wasn’t in; she had popped out with Danny, his little brother, over the road for a cup of sugar from Mrs Setchfield. Said she’d only be a few minutes, but John knew that really she’d be a lot longer. His mum was never only a few minutes when she went to see Mrs Setchfield. He’d asked his dad about that once, and his dad had simply shaken his head and said ‘women!’ as if that answered everything.

  The roar came again. It seemed further away this time. Outside maybe.

  John looked at the black television screen, listened to the gentle hum. The TV was still on, there was just no picture. He took a deep breath, knowing he had to find out what the roar belonged to. Doctor Omega would.

  It didn’t take too long to realise the sound had come from the outside toilet, and so he tip-toed out into the garden, the evening already becoming dark. He didn’t like to go into the garden at night – there were too many shadows that hid things he couldn’t see. Like in the story Robert had told him about the dead finger he’d found in his garden a couple of months ago. Tooting Bec wasn’t a dangerous place, at least not in the day, but night time was another thing. At least as far as John James was concerned. He liked to play Doctor Omega with his friends. Robert tended to be Captain Denis Borel and William would be Fred, investigating strange goings-on at the Lido, but when it came down to it John realised he wasn’t as brave as he liked to pretend.

  The moon appeared over the tip of the grey clouds, giving John the only illumination by which he could see. Some of the neighbours had outdoor lamps, but they weren’t cheap, and his dad insisted they had better things to pay for, like a new car. His old Audax Hillman Husky was a bit of a death trap, apparently. John hesitated, peering through the shadows, and then crept down the central path, careful to stay in the moonlight as much as he possibly could. There was the roar again. He paused mid-step at the sound. It seemed familiar, almost like the flush was broken and the water was having trouble going down.

  He called out to his mum. She could have come home without him knowing; Saturday evenings were the only time in the week he really got hooked on to the idiot box, as his dad often called television, so if she had come home John wouldn’t have noticed unless she entered the front room and tapped him on his head. And if Danny needed to have a wee, then it would have been much quicker for their mum to take him straight to the outside toilet than run into the house and up the stairs.

  Yes, that’s what the roar had been. Not some creature, but rather the sound of the outside toilet, the pipes rumbling in protest at the flush. Convincing himself that he was being silly, he called out to his mum again.

  She didn’t answer.

  But the roar did.

  Perhaps it was one of those illegal aliens? John wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but his dad was always talking about them and how they took things that didn’t belong to them. Using their toilet without permission seemed like something an illegal alien would do. Well, if it was some alien then it was in for a shock. Doctor Omega knew how to take care of monsters, and so did John James!

  He reached down and picked up the Little Snoopy pull toy which Danny had left in the garden the other day. Wasn’t much, but if applied properly it’d leave a bump or two.

  ‘You’ll pay the Fisher Price,’ John quipped, fortified by the feel of the wooden dog in his hand, and feeling oddly proud of his little joke in the face of such dread. Robert would have thought him crazy… and brave.

  He crept close to the shed-like structure that contained the outside toilet. He was just about to reach out for the latch and open the door when the roar stopped him dead.

  And it was definitely a roar.

  He fell backwards, the Little Snoopy falling from his hands. Something large and shaggy emerged from the toilet. Eyes glowing from its large head, it lumbered towards him. John loved reading about explorers visiting strange lands, and knew an abominable snowman when he saw one. But what was it doing in Tooting Bec? And why was it hiding in his toilet?

  Questions that would never be answered if he didn’t scarper. But John James found he simply couldn’t move. All he could do was look up, feeling an odd calm wash over him as the Yeti lurched towards him, a clawed-hand reaching down.

  A loud bang and the creature staggered backwards. For a moment John could do nothing but blink, his ears ringing from the unexpected sound. Someone else was in his garden. He slowly turned his head.

  Standing a short distance behind him was a tall soldier, a smoking gun in one hand, still aimed towards the Yeti. The soldier looked down at him. He looked a little like Captain Borel, with his clipped moustache and revolver, but his hat was different. Not like the beret found on Captain Borel’s head – more like a paper boat in shape, black with a tartan band around it, a silver thistle at the front.

  ‘Come on, son, let’s get you out of here,’ the soldier said. He didn’t sound Scottish. John thought only Scottish people wore tartan – like those skirts highlanders wore.

  John shook his head. There was only one question that really mattered right now, and it wasn’t anything to do with Scotland. ‘Where’s my mum?’ he asked, taking the soldier’s hand as he offered it.

  Pulling John up, the solider looked around briefly. ‘Climbing into the truck out there, I suspect, like you need to be.’

  John looked back at the Yeti, which was slowly climbing to its feet. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked as the soldier stepped forward. Despite everything, John found himself smiling. He felt like Doctor Omega being rescued by Captain Borel. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart,’ the soldier said and aimed the gun again. ‘Now cover your ears.’

  John did as he was told. This was adventure! The soldier fired.

  — CHAPTER ONE —

  The New World

  DEAD LONDON. IT WAS A sight Colonel Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart would never get used to.

  He had been travelling from his little flat in Pimlico to the London Regiment offices in Battersea from where he was co-ordinating the re-population of London. It was a mammoth task, and one of the least enjoyable roles of being a colonel; he preferred to be out in the field, but after the last couple of weeks he had seen enough good soldiers die in London that for once he looked forward to returning to the office.

  Nowhere was the evacuation more obvious than Carnaby Street. The centre of fashion for London, the street was usually full of young people; boys in their bell-bottoms and double-breasted jackets, and girls in mini-skirts and white go-go boots. Lethbridge-Stewart was far too conservative to fall into the latest trends, but he did admire the vibrancy of young pe
ople. And now, as he stood next to his car on that deserted street, he felt the lack of that vibrancy keenly.

  It was simply wrong. All around him the city was still, despite the slight breeze. Barely a sound, not even the distant rumble of a dustcart. London was a city made to be loud, to be full of noise, of people. The lack of it was eerie.

  Young people were emerging as the dominant presence in the city, overshadowing the more serious and less ‘fab’ gentry that were once the face of London. Lethbridge-Stewart felt a little depressed by the sight around him. The shops, usually open and full of life, were still closed. But now even the red and blue sign of Carnaby Girl seemed lifeless above the darkened windows, the colourful outfits in the windows of Irvine Sellars next door seeming almost drab and unwanted. Above the street Union flags blew gently in the breeze, as if they couldn’t work up the enthusiasm anymore, and on the corner of the street where usually an ice cream cart stood was nothing.

  Things were going to change, though. Friday 14th March would forever be remembered as the day that public life returned to London. Already the first trains were en route from the outer cities and towns, from the country, from wherever people could go after the unexpected and very abrupt evacuation a couple of weeks ago. The London transport system was, after days and days of false starts, once again underway – getting the buses back on the streets, and the Underground moving, was not as simple as flicking a switch. Businesses, the lifeblood of London, were slowly getting ready for the upcoming deluge – workers and business owners had been among the first to return to London, ahead of the millions of others that were only now starting to be herded back home. Of course, most still did not know why they had been evacuated, although a D-notice had since been issued it seemed the reason behind the evacuation was to remain a secret, muddied by politics and rumour. Just like the Great Smog of ‘52 all over again, only worse this time. So many more lives lost. Only a select few knew the real reason: top civil servants, a few government officials and high-ranking military officers. And Lethbridge-Stewart. He knew because he had been on the front line, one of the last men standing in Central London.