Penguin Book of Indian Ghost Stories

by Ruskin Bond

  ‘By Jove! what an escape!’ said Sinclair thankfully; ‘but I suppose you fight that sort of brute every day.’

  ‘No, thank Heaven, I don’t,’ and then Bollinger told Sinclair the stationmaster’s story and how, on hearing it, he had come to the rest-house to see if his help was needed.

  Sinclair went up to Bollinger and shook him cordially by the hand: ‘Then my dear chap I owe you my life. I cannot say how grateful I feel. I shall never forget your help.’

  The other smiled and said: ‘Oh, nonsense! you’d have done the same for me. But, I say, didn’t you bring your boy with you?’

  ‘Yes, I did. I wonder where he is. I hope to goodness the khansama has not killed him.’

  ‘Well, we had better go and look but we must be very wary, for if the hyena killed your boy he’ll come back.’

  ‘All right, come along. You’ve got a knife, haven’t you? I’m afraid I’ve got nothing.’

  The two men went to the back of the rest-house and there they found below a slight slope the dead body of Sinclair’s Goanese servant. His throat was completely torn open. The hyena must have crept up noiselessly to the servant’s bed and torn out his throat, killing him instantly. Then it must have again become the khansama and tried to enter the rest-house with the iced lemonade.

  Sinclair stood sorrowfully by the dead man, who had been many years in his service and to whom he was greatly attached.

  ‘I say, we can’t do anything for the poor chap,’ said Bollinger, ‘so we had better go straight back to the rest-house. I have a horrid feeling that the brute is somewhere near, coming back to its kill. By God! there it is!’

  He pointed to where a huge striped form was galloping straight for them. The two men ran for the rest-house as fast as they could; they only reached it in time through Bollinger throwing his coat at the brute’s head and thus gaining a moment’s respite.

  ‘I wonder what it will do now,’ said Sinclair, but it did nothing. It went slowly back to the body of the Goanese and began to crunch it up, every now and then breaking into screams of diabolical laughter when its neck hurt it.

  ‘I wish to God I had a gun,’ said Bollinger, ‘but as we haven’t let’s try to get some sleep. One will sit up and watch while the other lies down. I’ll sit up first.’

  ‘All right,’ said Sinclair, and lying down on one of the cots fell dead asleep in spite of the heat and his servant’s death.

  Bollinger sat in a chair and tried as best he could to keep awake. Still he must have dropped off for minute or so, for waking up with a start he saw in the bright moonlight the baleful glare of the hyena’s eyes as it stared at him through the wire netting. He drew his knife and ran with a shout towards the netting but the hyena with a growl of fury jumped back and galloped off.

  Sinclair woke and hearing what had happened said; ‘We must both sit up, otherwise the brute will return and get us.’

  The two friends sat and smoked and talked through the weary hours until about 5.30 a.m. when their troubles came to an end. A crowd of Sindis, led by Isarmal, came to the rest-house to see what had happened to the two Englishmen.

  ‘God be praised!’ exclaimed Isarmal earnestly. ‘Nothing has happened and you are both safe!’

  ‘We are safe, but look at this,’ and Bollinger led the crowd of Sindis to the half-eaten remains of the unfortunate Goanese: ‘The khansama killed him!’

  Isarmal’s face grew grim and turning to the rest of the crowd he cried: ‘Brothers, we are Sindis. The khansama is a Panjabi and therefore of a race that we hate. He is clearly the reincarnation of Anu Kasai. When the train has gone we must deal with him.’

  The two Englishmen walked back with Isramal to the station, where the train was standing; as they walked, Bollinger related the events of the night. Afterwards Isarmal repeated the story in Sindi to the men following him. On reaching the saloon nothing more was said. The two weary travellers got in and Isarmal, as he waved on the train, turned to the Sindis, who were mostly Musulmans, and cried: ‘The Sahibs are safe, Alhamdelilla (God be praised)!’

  After a hot, slow journey the Englishmen reached Karachi. On the way Bollinger said: ‘I fancy the khansama has had a bad quarter of an hour. He is Panjabi and as Isarmal said of a race hated by the Sindis.’

  ‘But why do the Sindis hate the Panjabis? I like them.’

  ‘I really do not quite know. Perhaps like French and Germans Sindis and Panjabis live too near together. The Panjabis, too, are bigger men as a rule than the Sindis and they throw their weight about. The Sindis seem very much afraid of them. Indeed I remember hearing a Sindi proverb that says: “If one Panjabi comes, sit still and say nothing. If two come, then pack up your kit at once, abandon your house and clear out.” Anyway Panjabis are not liked in these parts.’

  ‘They don’t seem to be!’

  Two mornings after their arrival, Davidson, the District Superintendent of Police, burst unceremoniously into Bollinger’s bungalow and onto the veranda, where he was having his chota hazri or morning tea.

  ‘I’m sorry, Bollinger, but I must see you. I have just received an official report from the chief constable of Sehwan to the effect that the villagers, led by the stationmaster, broke into the khansama’s house, dragged him out although he was very ill and walled him into the battlements of the old fort. He hints that you know something about it. In the meantime he has arrested the stationmaster, Isarmal I think he calls him.’

  ‘Half a mo’, Davidson! I fancy I have a letter from the stationmaster in my morning post. I’ll open it.’ Tearing open the envelope, Bollinger read aloud the following note, very short and quaintly expressed:

  Honoured Sir,

  The Chief Constable of Sehwan*, who is a Panjabi, is troubling us because of the death of that Anu Kasai, the khansama. After Your Honour’s departure we went to his house and found him very ill from a severe wound in the throat. We found in his house the property of the two missing Chota Sahibs; seeing this he became very obstinate and refused to answer our questions. Very soon he died. When dead, we put him where Anu Kasai was walled up. The Sahib knows the facts and will do the needful.

  ‘Well, Bollinger, he says you know the facts, for goodness sake let me have them.’

  Bollinger told the full story of the adventure and Sinclair supported him in every detail. Still, as told in an Englishman’s house in Karachi, it did not sound very convincing.

  ‘Hang it all, Bollinger! You can’t expect me to believe this tale of a werewolf.’

  ‘Well, Isarmal says that they found in the khansama’s house the property of those two missing subordinates. That raises a presumption that he is a murderer anyway.’

  ‘The chief constable says nothing about that.’

  ‘He is a brother Panjabi and can scarcely be expected to. Look here, instead of arguing, let’s go off and call on the commissioner.** He is Inspector-General of Police, as well as of everything else and we’ll abide by his orders.’

  ‘Right-o!’ said the district superintendent and at 11 a.m. all three men met to call on Government House.

  The commissioner was a big genial man who combined with a very cordial manner a vast amount of commonsense. He greeted all three men pleasantly. Then he turned to the D.S.P. who was in uniform:

  ‘Well, Davidson, what’s the trouble?’

  ‘I think, Sir, Bollinger had better tell you his yarn first and then I’ll supplement it with my information.’

  ‘Capital! Go ahead, Bollinger.’

  The railwayman repeated his story and Sinclair confirmed it. Then Davidson showed the commissioner his chief constable’s report and Bollinger produced Isarmal’s letter.

  The Commissioner’s keen intellect grasped immediately all the facts and came at once to a decision.

  ‘Look here, Bollinger, you can’t expect me to accept as gospel your story of the werewolf or werehyena; but the khansama seems to have been a murderer all right. The discovery in his house of the property of the two subordinates points to that. I h
ave often been worried as to what became of them. Again I do not see why we should not believe Isarmal’s statement that they did not wall in the khansama until he was dead. Anyway it will be impossible to disprove it; for all the eye-witnesses will support Isarmal. In any case, if you go into the witness box, Bollinger, and tell your adventure with the khansama-cum-hyena, my administration will be the laughing stock of all India. Think how the young lions of the Pioneer will sharpen their wit at our expense. No! No, we must stop the prosecution at all costs. Look here, Davidson, you wire to the chief constable to drop the case and release Isarmal and any others he may have arrested. I shall myself transfer to some other district the chief constable; for he seems to have been very slack over the disappearance of the subordinates. Well, good morning.’

  Isarmal was duly released and resumed his duties as stationmaster. But Bollinger did not forget him. Using his influence with the railway chiefs, he got Isarmal first promoted to be stationmaster of Radhan and then of Sukkur, a very important post. This Isarmal retained until his retirement. He lived for many years on an ample pension and nothing gave him greater pleasure than to tell the story of the Panjabi who could turn himself into a hyena and how he nearly ate up the two Sahibs. He gave ample credit to Bollinger Sahib for his courage and resource; but the person for whom he reserved the fullest commendation was none other than Mr Isarmal, late stationmaster of Sukkur.

  The Tail-Light

  F. R. Corson

  ‘Dead men sometimes do tell tales,’ said the quiet man in the corner, looking up from his book at a pause in the smoke-room conversation.

  Every night since the Ranpura had left Bombay he had sat silent in his corner, had smoked one cigar and drunk one peg, before retiring at 10.30 to his cabin. Tall, spare and white-bearded, he was a noticeable figure in an age of smooth chins, and though unknown to most of his fellow-passengers, his seat at the captain’s table and the deference shown to him by that officer marked him out as a person of consequence.

  ‘Sometimes,’ he went on, while the smoke-room listened attentively, ‘sometimes they are permitted to return and to communicate with us, as I have good reason to know.’

  ‘Donald Mackenzie, burra sahib of Bryce and Mackenzie,’ whispered a Calcutta merchant to his neighbour. ‘He comes out for three months every cold weather.’

  ‘Will you not let us hear the story, Mr Mackenzie?’ asked the High Court judge, voicing the general desire. ‘I am afraid that I, for my part, am not a believer in the supernatural, but I am open to conviction.’

  Mackenzie put down his book, looked at his watch, and carefully lit a fresh cigar before replying.

  ‘When I was a young man in Inverness,’ he began, ‘I was of your opinion, Sir George; I did not believe in the supernatural, and I laughed at the old men with their tales of wraiths and the second-sight. Well, I know better now; the old men were right.’

  ‘It happened thirty years ago, when I was an engine-driver on the Bengal and Behar Railway, and had only been in the country a few years. I had recently been put on passenger work, and was driving the Benares mail between Howrah and Mogul Sarai, up one night and down the next. One stormy night in the rains I had left Howrah up to time, and was running through the rocky hills beyond Asansol. It was a wild, wet night of pouring rain; the monsoon roared across the open country, and drove in gusts against the windows of the cab, making it very difficult to see the signals. We had passed Madhupur, and were climbing the long gradient beyond, when I caught sight of a red light far ahead, where no light should have been. This section of the line had been the scene of several accidents—was said to have been badly built in the beginning—and we drivers were always on the alert until clear of it.

  ‘Shutting off steam I ran slowly towards the light, which presently resolved itself into a red lamp, carried by a white-clad figure standing in the middle of the track. As the locomotive came to a stand, I leaned from the cab, and shouted to the stranger to tell me what the matter was. There was no reply; the man, a European in a soiled white uniform, gazed at me in silence. In the glare of the headlight his face looked white and drawn; the drill coat, sodden with rain, clung closely to his spare figure; and I saw, with somewhat of a shock, that his right arm was missing. He had set down the red lamp between the metals, but made no attempt to move, so I jumped down from the cab and went forward to meet him. But the sleepers were slippery with rain; I missed my footing and fell heavily. I was up in a moment, but in those few seconds the white figure had gone.

  ‘The head light showed the shining metals, the streaming, rain-lashed ballast, and the red lamp burning quietly in the middle of the track; that was all.

  ‘I was puzzled and angry, for I thought someone was fooling me, but I picked up the lamp and went back to the engine. My Indian fireman seemed very reluctant to take the lamp, which was an ordinary railway tail-light, and besought me to leave it behind.

  “Sahib!” he said, trembling and looking fearfully into the darkness, “that was a bhut* which we saw, and not a man! It bodes no good to us and I am afraid. Do not take a bhut’s gift or we shall surely perish.”

  “Nonsense, Ramjahn,” I said angrily, “the sahib came to warn us, and has now gone back along the line. We will go on slowly and keep a good look out. As for the lamp, it is only a tail-light. See! It has the company’s mark on it,” and I showed him the letters ‘B.B.R.’ and the number 76321 stamped in the metal.

  ‘He was somewhat reassured, and we moved on slowly, but I was ill at ease. Something was wrong on the line ahead, and I had received a warning, but who was the messenger, and where had he gone? I was no believer in apparitions, and in broad daylight would have scoffed at any such solution; but now, in the windy darkness and the driving rain, I was less confident.

  ‘The man had certainly looked ghastly as he stood on the track. Could there have been an accident? Suddenly came the thought of the bridge, the great, mile-long Sardhana bridge, which lay seven miles ahead. What if the Barsi river, swollen by weeks of rain, had once more proved too strong and had swept away the mighty steel lattice bridge of today as, many years ago, it had destroyed an earlier structure? There was, I knew, no other passenger train due to meet us, but several up-goods were due to cross the bridge that night, and if it were down …?

  ‘Resolutely I put away the thought and concentrated on watching the line ahead. By this time we had passed the summit, and were running slowly down the northern side; presently the long embankment of the bridge approach stretched before us.

  ‘There is a station and a signal-box at Sardhana, and as I pulled up beside the latter, the Bengali stationmaster, umbrella in hand, hurried out to speak to me.

  “Please to use great caution, Sir,” he babbled nervously, “there is unforseen interruption of communication with North Bank. I apprehend calamitous incursion of River Barsi.”

  “Have you sent a man along the line to investigate?” I asked sharply.

  “No, Sir. All subordinates are fearful tonight, and will not go. Besides, No. 17 up-goods is now overdue.”

  ‘Apparently the goods train should have passed the signal-box at 1.19, and it was now 2.5.

  ‘There was little to be got from the Babu in his nervous state, so Roberts, the guard, and I decided to see for ourselves, and leaving the fireman on the engine, we set out across the bridge.

  ‘It was not a pleasant walk by any means, and I quite sympathized with the “fearful” Indians as we battled our way through the windy darkness. From time to time, as the screaming gusts roared across the river and threatened to tear us from our hold, we crouched, blinded and deafened, gripping the lattice-work like drowning men.

  ‘Roberts’ hand-lamp, and the tail-light which I had brought with me, were soon extinguished, and we had to feel our way through the night, guiding ourselves by the hand-rail along the foot way of the bridge. Below us the river roared hungrily, swirling in foam round the stone piers, and licking upwards to the floor of the bridge, which was vibrating like a tense bo
w string. It was a tremendous effort to keep moving; I felt dazed and deafened by the never-ceasing roar, and had almost ceased to realize why we were there, when, far ahead, a light came into view.

  “Thank God,” I whispered, hardly realizing what I was saying, “that must be the North Bank.”

  ‘In ten more minutes, more dead than alive, we stood on firm ground, the Sardhana bridge, whole and unharmed, safely behind us. The light I had seen came from a point beside the track, where, in the shelter of a great tree, a dark figure crouched beside a charcoal brazier. Apparently alarmed at our arrival out of the night, the man sprang to his feet, and bolted. Not, however, before I had noticed that he wore a railwayman’s belt.

  ‘We had just succeeded in relighting our lamps, and Roberts, who had stumbled over an old tomb half-hidden in the grass, was swearing softly, when we saw a red light moving along the track, and a loud voice hailed us in English out of the darkness.

  “Thank God you were stopped, Mackenzie,” said the newcomer, when we explained who we were. “I’m Andrews, guard of No. 17 up-goods, which is derailed half a mile up the line. I’m afraid poor Brown is dead; he was pinned under his engine when she turned over. Ahmed Ali, his fireman, jumped clear, and is unhurt, so I sent him off to stop you; he has just come back without his lamp and scared out of his wits, but he seems to have stopped you all right. Where have you left the mail train?”

  “We were held up seven miles the other side of the bridge,” said Roberts slowly. “We left the train at Sardhana station.”

  “Seven miles beyond Sardhana!” repeated Andrews unbelievingly. “Why the thing’s impossible! The fireman couldn’t possibly have got there in time.” He turned to the man, who was standing behind him. “Tell me what you did when I sent you to warn the stationmaster at Sardhana, Ahmed.”

  ‘The poor wretch was obviously very scared; his teeth chattered and he kept looking over his shoulder into the darkness.