Most horror stories, at least in India
do not have origins or ends; they are like rivers which flow continuously
without breaks, gathering in their great volume lots of material which adds to
their complexity and fascination. Sometimes however a river becomes dead because
what feeds it is gone; it may be a glacier or rain; that is what also happens
to some horror stories, when people become more rational they stop passing the
story along and adding to it their own bits of imagination: that is exactly what
happened to the story of the half man and half horse creature haunting the Spaulding
bridge in India.
The tall man with an aquiline nose and
beetle brows could hardly be restrained even by five well built soldiers of the
English army. He was very excited and was shouting something at regular intervals
that sounded like a warning. His horse, a jet black Arab was very restless and
could hardly be kept in check.
Brigadier Hawking was in charge of
garrison at Harnau the city that the English army had captured a few months
back. What he thought was a minor
incident at first, looked like it would blow up into a riot if not a battle. The
English army was stationed across the river in a cantonment about six miles
from the river. Most of the town was on the other side of the river. The
cantonment was not in the main town because technically the town belonged to an
Indian Nawab and it was only after
the Nawab was deposed that the
English could call the town their own and establish a new cantonment. But
before this could happen the people rebelled against the English and fought a
fierce battle which the English won but not before they had lost a large number
of their best officers. The English army realized that the weakest point in
their supply chain was the narrow and dilapidated bridge over the river which
neither allowed troops nor carriages to move fast enough. Moving heavy
artillery was another big problem. So they did a quick survey and decided to demolish
the old bridge and build a large modern one in its place and also to move the
cantonment to a large location inside the city: the former was an easier job
but the latter a lengthy one so they took up the former with great zeal and
this is how all this started.
During the rule of the Nawabs public works were in the hands of
rogue elements who did whatever they wanted and presented the bills; if they
were at all audited the rogue contractors would bribe the auditors too! However
with English army engineers this was not possible; they had to build the bridge
where the river was the narrowest. If they built the bridge at any other site
the cost would go up dramatically and when the project would be inspected sometime
in future, those in charge were liable to be punished heavily.
After a careful survey the army
engineers identified a spot near the old bridge which could be used for constructing
the new bridge but that made it imperative that the old bridge be demolished as
it was too close to proposed site of the new bridge, almost touching it. The
old bridge was duly demolished using gunpowder. The debris was cleared in a
week and all was set for digging foundation for pillars for the new bridge when
it occurred to engineers that they would have to demolish a mazaar too! This was rather problematic
since two or three caretakers in charge of upkeep of the mazaar had already objected to construction activity saying that
the eternal peace of the peer in the mazaar was being disturbed by huge
demolition and construction activity. This had been reported to top authorities
who had ordered all work to be put on hold.
Captain Hawking had carefully
studied the report and was now looking at the man with immense power; he was a
tall bearded man with a green cap and a matching green dress.
“Dear
Winslow if I am not mistaken I have seen the guy before as also his horse which
to be honest is a beauty”, said Captain Hawking putting his pipe to his lips.
“I
agree with you Sir, but only just; I myself thought so, we all have seen such
characters during the just concluded Mutiny or should I say the Great Mutiny
for it was perhaps the greatest of the Mutinies till now. These are religious
fanatics acting as soldiers of the faith and have very little if any fear of
death, they are generally dressed in green and bearded but that is only a
superficial resemblance. The guy we have here does not belong to these parts;
he has come from somewhere in extreme west of India upon hearing of imminent
destruction of the so called mazaar
as his ustaad belonged to some sect
created by the saint or peer buried in that mazaar.
He has visited this area for the first time as his ustaad had instructed him to stay in the west of India and spread teachings
of the sect I mentioned before. Being from a warlike tribe martial qualities
have come to him naturally as in those areas only he survives who can use
firearms or knives best”, said Colonel Winslow
“Well!
So what do you suggest Colonel Winslow what should we do with him, I do not
want another religious fanaticism induced riot here, I have had enough for a
lifetime during the Great Mutiny as you rightly call it: God knows how we were
able to crawl our way out of it, pitched battle is one thing but your enemies
climbing out of every hole and attacking you with anything they have got and
anytime they choose is a different thing altogether. Help me on this Winslow, I
am an old man now”, said Brigadier Hawking who was new to the parts and had
been brought in from retirement for help in quelling the Great Mutiny.
“Sire
I thought of buying time but that is not going to help because we are going to
build the bridge here anyway, till then I think the only thing we can do is to
put this person in jail in some unknown location and maybe release him when the
bridge is made. We have to do all this off the record as we just cannot afford
another inquiry only months after the Great Mutiny”, said Colonel Winslow in a
cold blooded way.
“Do
whatever it takes Winslow! I know you can bring it off! You have a carte blanche from me just make sure it
is quiet!” said Brigadier Hawking in a dismissive tone.
So
the man was taken to a secret prison in the dead of the night far away from the
city a prison which had housed all undeclared prisoners from the time of the
Mughals; the English had a way of blending into things instead of creating
their own poisons. Some people suggested that the man’s horse be killed but the
officer in charge laughed it off and just released the horse in the forest as
it acted too wild to be of any use to them.
Two
platoons of army were stationed near the site of the bridge for the entire
duration of the construction as the English did not want to take any chances
with local rebellions after the Great Mutiny. The entire mazaar was removed without trace after cordoning off the area. In
less than a year the bridge was ready, painted and inaugurated by the Commander
in Chief.
The
mysterious bearded man with green cap had been quite a handful in his place of
incarceration and a huge amount had to be spent to maintain military personnel
just to guard him. He had a new unpleasant surprise in store almost every day
for those guarding him and had injured quite a few of the jail staff. He would
not eat for days or rant off nonstop in his language which no one understood.
He had no connection with the outside world but that did not break his spirit.
He was not tortured physically because his guards were afraid of him and also
did not have the orders for torture, they treated him more or less like a beast
and maintained a safe distance from him
One day he disappeared, taking
advantage of the very thing his captors thought would help keep him in
captivity – water. The jail was situated on a mini island, perhaps artificial,
made by the Mughals for their ‘special’ enemies. Over hundreds of years the
drainage system had become defective and water had corroded and made small
passages into big tunnel like structures. The prisoner perhaps studied the
sound of the flowing water very carefully, it being absolutely noiseless in the
jail and the prisoner having nothing to do but listen to sounds. No one really
knew how he did it but he escaped the prison fort and swam to mainland and
disappeared without a trace; later it was found that his accomplices had been
living near the jail since his incarceration and had his own black Arab ready
for him. The horse had of course found his way ‘home’ as all intelligent
animals do.
The
news was sent to the head quarters in Harnau which ordered the prison staff to
mount no search and to forget about it all and remove all traces and records
concerning the incarceration of the prisoner, the bridge being up and
functional they felt there was no need to spend another penny on the disappeared
prisoner.
Some months later while Brigadier
Hawking was visiting the newly built Spaulding Bridge along with a dignitary he
was shot dead in a hail of bullets by the mysterious man and his associates.
The mysterious man in green also had the audacity to put his foot on the
prostrated Brigadier Hawking’s body and raise his arms in a show of victory. He
then quickly disappeared along with his associates on the highway riding on his
legendary horse. He was pursued but it was too late and the assassin’s black
Arab was too fast!
Brigadier
Hawking died on the spot, none of the people who were shot survived, the aims
of attacking party were lethal and they seemed to be highly trained marksmen.
Colonel Winslow’s leg shook as he
heard of the news; it was a huge blow to him but he composed himself as he by
default had become the highest authority in the land. He immediately despatched
search parties with strict orders to bring the culprit dead or alive and started
preparing for a state funeral for Brigadier Hawking. He felt like a child who
had been orphaned, he had become accustomed to living under the shadow of the
seasoned soldier and literally felt like weeping with the double blow of losing
a father figure and having the immense responsibility of ruling the land
teeming with what he thought were delinquent elements. Only his military
training kept him from weeping like a child when he first saw the prostrate
body of Brigadier Hawking the dead man’s mouth open in a ghastly manner as if
from shock.
After the burial Colonel Winslow
wept openly in his room and banged his head several times on his table, he was
clueless about what to do about the assassination but as hours passed by he
resolved to punish the culprits in a way that should set an example for the
‘rebels’.
While fleeing the attackers had left
behind pamphlets which warned people against using the bridge as it had been
constructed on the mazaar of a saint
and was sure to bring bad luck to those crossing it, they also warned people of
the vengeance by followers of the saint whose mazaar had been destroyed. The English did their best to hide the
pamphlets but the news got leaked and in fact in a week the whole town knew
every small detail about the events connected to Spaulding bridge.
As happens in extreme emotions
Colonel Winslow forgot all about his diplomatic training and became very angry
when his search parties returned empty handed. He had the men declared outlaws
and a huge reward was put on their heads. Soon the city’s streets had posters
announcing the reward on the bearded man and his associates.
Nothing happened for weeks but one
day a beggar delivered a crumpled paper with a rough map of hideout of the
wanted bearded man. The text in Persian said “Your enemy is my enemy too! I
don’t want your money!”
The English army surrounded the
location and captured the bearded man. Colonel Winslow would have loved to cut
the man down with his sword but he knew that it would be a bad idea. He began
to think of ways to finish off the person who had killed the father figure who
had trained him for years and who had been his only inspiration throughout his
career. Against his better judgement, since emotion had clouded it, he ordered
a public hanging of the bearded man on the Spaulding bridge. His immediate
juniors knew that advising the Colonel against his intent would be suicidal
since they knew well how much the Colonel hated the assassin due to personal
reasons.
On the appointed day traffic on the
bridge was stopped after dawn and all the arrangements made, Colonel Winslow’s
juniors begged him not to go to the scene of execution to which he agreed but
instructed them to have the event photographed. The bearded man was hung at the
gallows which were hastily erected and dismantled with double haste. Two of his
associates were also hanged, as instructed their bodies were buried in unknown
locations within the hour. The only highlight of the executions was that the
bearded man said nothing, his face was stony and expressionless but he put the
noose around his own neck, again without any expression of emotion. Just as he
was about to be hanged to the horror of all present his famed black Arab appeared
out of nowhere like a storm and almost smashed the gallows but a hail of
bullets by the guards present cut him down. The bearded man looked relieved to
see the fate of the horse as if it was now all set to join him in his own long
journey.
The central government however was
very angry with Colonel Winslow’s action as the resources of the home country
had been put to great stress in quelling the Great Mutiny only a few months
back and the emotional officer almost started another one. The intelligence
department newly created sent a confidential report that posters swearing
vengeance for execution of the bearded man had already come up in lanes and by
lanes near Spaulding Bridge. The government was very sensitive to such
incidents as before the Great Mutiny sequence of events were similar. Colonel
Winslow was strongly advised unofficially to accept an assignment in the
government back home as a ‘reward’ for services rendered during the Great
Mutiny. Colonel Winslow never regretted his actions and was almost relieved to
be rid of the immense responsibility of controlling a populace full of
‘delinquent elements’ and sailed home the next month being relieved by a
younger and shrewder officer. What sealed the government’s decision was the
intelligence report of Colonel Winslow’s intent of displaying the bearded man’s
severed head on the Spaulding Bridge!
The new administrator was General
Stadman, who when informed of posters promising vengeance for the dead bearded
man famously said, “Ignore the damn posters!” The city needed rebuilding and
General Stadman was just the man for the job being related to a lot of people
in the construction trade! He loved his job and his relatives loved him.
Devout
Muslims at first did not use the Spaulding Bridge but used a bridge of boats
which was reclaimed by them and repaired at private expense. When this was
brought to the notice of General Stadman who said again “Ignore it! We built
the bridge for ourselves not for them anyway; if they want to use it they are
welcome to do so but if they can make private arrangements it is even better”.
New entrants to the city of Harnau from the northern side knew nothing about
all this and used the Spaulding Bridge freely.
Old
English officers in India with a deep knowledge of religions in India were very
critical of project engineers who surveyed and proposed site for Spaulding
Bridge and opined that it was imperative that the mazaar should have been left alone regardless of the cost to the
government because a government had no option but to respect the feelings and
beliefs of the populace it planned to govern! The aforementioned however was
classified information and government only planned to learn from the obvious faux pas but do nothing about what was
essentially over and done with! The central government believed that removal of
Colonel Winslow brought the matter to an effective end!
Trouble started in the winter of the
year following the violent incidents at Spaulding Bridge. Harnau was notorious
for extremes of weather. While in summers the sun literally burned down the
crops in fields and forced people to remain indoors throughout the day; in
winters due to extreme cold the poor died like flies having little to fight the
icy winds and occasional icy rain. Places close to the river that ran alongside
the city were also affected by a thick envelope of fog which made movement of
carriages almost impossible and as such after sundown few people ventured near
the river not only because of the cold but for fear of being robbed. The most
vulnerable point in the whole city was Spaulding Bridge! Prior to the bridge
all structures were barely a few meters above the level of water and fog rarely
covered them but somehow Spaulding Bridge which was way above water level to
allow passage of large boats and small ships was not only enveloped in fog but
a kind of miasma seemed to hang about it only due to its altitude and proximity
to a large body of water which was by no means clean!
By dusk even those who had
pretensions of being rational and objective could not but marvel at the ghostly
picture the Spaulding Bridge presented being almost entirely invisible due to
the fog and the said miasma! Burning of a large number of fires for cooking
along the bank of the river made matters worse for visibility on the bridge!
At first a couple of incidents on
the bridge seemed isolated! A beggar leaped to his death from the bridge and a
week afterwards an opium addict shouting “Ghost! Devil on a horse is after me
save me!” and a lot of gibberish ran as if for his life away from the bridge
but collapsed on the roadside and died - his eyes wide open! Then two weeks
later a whole bullock cart fell off the bridge, something incredible as the
bridge had high railings, the cart would have to be pushed off by immense force
for such an accident: ironically a child of four or five whose family died in
the accident survived and it was perhaps he who gave origin to the legend of the
half human half horse creature which haunted the bridge by saying as if amused
“Half human half animal threw our cart in the river as we made him angry by
crossing his bridge without permission”.
In
India of those days people had little to do except indulge in gossip the whole
day specially in a town like Harnau: they lapped up the words of the child and
created their own elaborate stories out of it. The whole city talked of nothing
but Spaulding Bridge and the creature which haunted it. No Indian soul, at
least the civilians ventured onto the bridge after dusk. The government was
informed of the poor lighting during winters
so arrangement were made to install lamps at regular intervals on the
ornamental pillars on the bridge which were made in style of buildings
surrounding the bridge so that it could blend in. The lamps had to be lighted
after dark but those given the responsibility of lighting them would light the
lamps just before the dusk and did not dare venture a climb up the pillars
after dark. The fog on the bridge was so thick that the burning lamps only made
the atmosphere more eerie. After dusk only non-Indian government officials used
that bridge and they too avoided doing so if only due to fear of highway men
and there were quite of a few of them during those times.
As the winter progressed to its high
point of ferocity the incidents at Spaulding Bridge increased; most of the
people seemed to jump to their deaths in the river below but occasionally a
body would be found with eyes wide open in what the police described as death
due to ‘horror’. It came to a point when even during the day people avoided
using the Spaulding Bridge and either used a boat ferry or the makeshift bridge
that had been laid down privately. This worried the government! They tried to
schedule the running of official carriages after dusk through Spaulding Bridge giving
special allowance to carriage men all of whom were Indians but after initial
reluctance and applications for being ill the carriage drivers flatly refused
to drive through Spaulding Bridge after dark. When this information reached
General Stadman he said, “Ignore it! Do what the carriage drivers want! It is
not important!”
He knew what was important for him,
it was ‘reconstruction’ and he did a lot of it! His next plan was to bring
railways to Harnau as it had been created the capital of the region. This
necessitated that the Spaulding Bridge be made absolutely safe as it was the
route through which all officials connected with the railways were likely to
pass as also the material needed to lay the tracks at a later stage. General
Stadman smelt money, lots and lots of it and all it needed was that the supply
line be safe and truly open. He wrote about the problems connected with Spaulding
Bridge to central government and asked for advice. Prior to the Great Mutiny
the central government would have been amused by such a request and would have even
thought the officer insane and not fit to rule but it was different after the
Great Mutiny which had taught them a lot
of things about ruling India. They constituted a team of experts who were
scheduled to visit in weeks after the receipt of the letter as they had been
stationed in different parts of India however some incidents involving English
soldiers on the Spaulding Bridge made the situation an emergency and within a
week a team of five seasoned English officers had started monitoring Spaulding
Bridge and preparing a report.
The
head of the team was Colonel Dunn a man well versed in major Indian languages
and one who had great interest in Indian religions and beliefs but at the same
time a soldier who had served during the Great Mutiny and helped negotiate with
the defeated princes after the historic episode. He was one of the few who had
suggested to the government to forget about past incidents and channelize the
martial qualities of Indians to expand English empire further. He was very
sensitive to common Indian superstitions especially those connected to ghosts.
He had his own ideas about ghosts and the crux of the matter was that he did
not believe in them regarding them as figments of overactive oriental
imagination!
The team identified a house
overlooking the Spaulding Bridge and stationed themselves there to watch the
bridge carefully! They kept up the watch relentlessly making sure however that
no one knew what exactly was going on. They watched and watched and nothing
happened but one day they got ‘lucky’; they saw a bullock cart at dusk crossing
the bridge; it was full of veiled female villagers who obviously did not know
anything about the creature haunting the Spaulding Bridge. The bullock cart
went on halfway through the bridge and nothing untoward happened but as the
cart reached the halfway mark suddenly a cloud of mist mysteriously enveloped
the bridge; sound of neighing of a horse was heard, it was not a normal sound;
they could just about call it neighing as it was a strange mix of neighing and
screaming. Colonel Dunn was suddenly very excited and said, “Off to your horses
this moment, we are going to catch this fiend alive today. Hurry hurry!”.
In a matter of minutes the Colonel
and his team were on the bridge but they were just in time to stop the bullock
cart from falling off the bridge altogether, the bulls were hanging from the
railing of the bridge and in another minute the pair had fallen into the river
and disappeared, the women in the cart were all wailing, the cart driver was
perhaps the first to have fallen and was the only male in the party. With great
effort Colonel Dunn and his team were able to stabilise the bullock cart and
promised the women by gestures to arrange for another set of bullocks. To the
best of his abilities Colonel Dunn, who was well versed in north Indian rural
dialect, tried to ask the veiled ladies about what they had seen but they
seemed to say that if was too sudden for them and that because of their veils
they saw nothing.
Colonel Dunn was very upset as he
had hoped to catch the ‘culprit’ red handed. He kept up his watch for the next
three days working round the clock. It seemed to the team that whoever was
behind the incidents had taken warning and given his ‘mischief’ a ‘break’.
Their efforts seemed to have reached a dead end and this was not something
Colonel Dunn liked since he was accustomed to giving quick results. It was then
that Colonel Dunn thought of a trick. He procured a large bullock cart and hired
some villagers who drove the bullock cart while he and his party hid under a
heap of dried grass with their rifles cocked. It was a very uncomfortable
position to be in but they had put all their money on luring the
‘mischief-maker’ with this ruse.
The oversized bullock cart appeared
out of gates of a large mosque complex and headed straight for the Spaulding
Bridge; in a few minutes it started rolling on the bridge. Everything looked
normal. Colonel Dunn was almost disappointed; it was then that the mist
enveloped their cart; this was unusual since it was not the season for mist or
fog in the region. All members of the team checked their guns, they were ready.
The cart rolled on; faces of hired villagers exhibited no sign of alarm,
moments passed like ages and then there was a jolt to the carriage; Colonel
Dunn poked his head out of the dried grass his rifle ready to shoot; he gave
out a cry – in another moment the bullocks screamed too – a death scream and
did their best to haul the carriage over the railings, this was unsuccessful
but then the railings themselves gave way, after all they were only made of
ornamental stone. The whole cart heaved once and disappeared into the depths of
the river.
Colonel Dunn and his team’s demise
in their failed mission was kept a secret by the government, officially they
did not exist from the very start. Local government understood that Spaulding
Bridge had become a doomed project, it was ignored from that time onwards, it
was not repaired and it lost its glory over a period of time. The Government
saw the writing on the wall and started building another bridge downstream
which was to be a double bridge for both vehicles and trains. People did use
the Spaulding Bridge and incidents of people falling or jumping off the bridge
became infrequent but did not cease altogether. Roughly a hundred years
afterwards the English left India which became independent. There was a talk to
rename Spaulding Bridge after an Indian freedom fighter but it could not happen
for the simple reason that there were a number of plaques imbedded in the stone
bridge announcing its name and who inaugurated it. The country was poor and it
had other things to spend money on – renaming of an abandoned bridge could
wait!
Almost a hundred years had elapsed
since the Spaulding Bridge was first inaugurated; somewhere along the way
people forgot about what all had happened on the bridge, that generation was
long dead! Nobody bothered about the bridge in the meantime! Somehow in the
magic hundredth year of the bridge it again came into the limelight! The city
of Harnau started seeing a real estate boom and started expanding in all
directions including northwards. The only bridge connecting hitherto abandoned
north of the city to the main city was Spaulding Bridge. Traffic increased
manifold and it was then that the deaths started again. The government was
alarmed, the one thing it did not want was unexplained deaths, the new
government this time an Indian government expected huge investments in the city
and it did not want negative news in the papers! The government was quick to
move therefore and appointed a seasoned officer from the police who had
distinguished himself in intelligence operations to probe into the matter!
The
man A.C. Srivastava was a very meticulous man; he studied everything he could
lay his hands on including classified material on the bridge in Deputy
Collector’s archives originally created by the English. He got to know all
about the hangings and the subsequent operation by Colonel Dunn. He knew he had
to change his line of action, being a man from intelligence department he knew
how to mingle in the crowd. He started looking for old families in the city
that had been living in the area near Spaulding Bridge. He did not have to look
hard; there was a small colony of very old but very poor families near the
bridge itself. These families were dependent mainly on the big mosque complex
near the bridge for their livelihood as were their ancestors. Posing as a
writer Srivastava met them and asked them about their opinion on the incidents
on Spaulding Bridge, most of them knew almost nothing but Junaid a gardener he
met told him about Syed Shamshuddin the lone surviving member of a very old
family who lived a furlong from his home. Srivastava had a hunch that his
meeting with Shamshuddin was going to be important. In a few minutes he was
knocking at the rundown house of the man. Out came a very tall man with a high
aquiline nose his long hair falling down to his shoulders. His clothes were not
very imposing but he was dignified which looked quite incongruous with his financial
standing so much so that Srivastava felt tongue tied. Srivastava introduced
himself as a writer and much to his relief the tall men invited him in.
Srivastava saw that his one room dwelling was neat though not painted. The
walls had religious calligraphy sketches and room smelled of incense. What
struck Srivastava most was a hand painted portrait of a man who looked much
like Shamshuddin but even more staggering was the fact was that the man was on
a jet black horse, very majestic and tall, an unusually large animal. Srivastava
had read the files well and could not help but think of the man who had been
hanged on the bridge. He felt an unknown fear which was heightened by seeing a
green cap on a peg on a wall of the room. Shamshuddin keenly followed
Srivastava’s eyes and said, “Yes that Shaheed
was my great uncle; I too belong to the same sect; that picture is the only
memory of my uncle now in jannat. Why
don’t people understand that the bridge is cursed and nothing that they can do
will free it from the curse; people say I look entirely like my great uncle but
isn’t that quite natural, only two people from the same family can resemble
each other not strangers in the street.”
Srivastava again felt a strange fear
rising inside him and thanked Shamshuddin profusely all the time avoiding his
eyes. He was very relieved to end his meeting with the tall imposing bearded
man and walked away from the house to his car.
His next stop was the psychiatric
department of a renowned medical college incidentally a stone’s throw away from
the Spaulding Bridge. He had an appointment with Dr. Kar the head of the
department. Dr. Kar already knew what Srivastava wanted to talk about and had
the relevant material in front of him. He said,”Srivastava Ji the crux of the
matter is psychiatric illnesses have many manifestations and one of them is
phobia for ghosts, the seed of psychiatric illnesses takes root in the soil of
weak minds, infants are all same they do not fear ghosts, it is one’s upbringing
that is mainly responsible for making people psychologically vulnerable, lately
however scientist are looking at the possibility that psychiatric illnesses are
inherited but this is a very early stage for that line of research. To put it
plainly a rumour put forward many times by many mouths becomes a belief
specially for those psychologically vulnerable, this I am sure a man of your erudition already
knows; it may become a hallucination, a hallucination for us but a reality for
certain set of people who believe in that hallucination and may in this
particular case to escape the more frightening hallucination of a ghost jump to
escape the horror, also animals like bullocks, horses etc. who are closely
associated with their masters not only mimic their emotions but may even
amplify and become even more disturbed than their masters and may even develop
power several times more than is expected of such animals and jump off railings
such as those on Spaulding Bridge. Not only men but animals too use only a very
small part of their physical abilities in normal times but in emergencies they
may act with ten times more power!”
Dr. Kar had confirmed much of what
Srivastava, a very well read man, had thought himself except the animal
mimicking master bit. He did not know however where to fit in the tall man and
his great ancestor. But Srivastava an Indian bureaucrat was a very practical
man too; he wanted to close the case and finish the assignment and move to
Delhi riding on success of his short probe. He explained his conclusion to his
immediate senior and even showed his report which he had had typed out by his
secretary. His senior looked at it disinterestedly and from above his reading
glasses he said, “Srivastava you are too much of an academician and I respect
you for that, your conclusion is much in order and your report very meticulous
but you have to make it believable too. Yes that is important, you have to
present bills, you have to have a budget, a ‘cheap’ report or inquiry is considered
a hurried inquiry, make some bills, take your time roam around the bridge, be
seen on the bridge lest someone may say tomorrow that you did not go to the
bridge even once and yes never file a report immediately, sit over it, let
those guys there ask you once or twice about the progress of the report only
then they will think you are working hard, I hope I sound convincing”.
Srivastava suddenly understood what
being a senior bureaucrat meant, he was convinced about every word his senior
said and thanked him profusely for his advice and promised to adhere to it and
left.
The next day he drove down to Spaulding
Bridge with his final report in a file which he carried in his hands by his
side. He alighted at the far end of the bridge and instructed the driver to go
back to office. It was dusk; he had chosen the time on purpose, he walked
towards the bridge smiling and feeling triumphant. As he stepped on the bridge
he admired its architecture greatly, nobody could have said it was made by
English architects, the style was purely Indian and he really liked the observation
balconies at regular intervals on either side of the road on the bridge; those he
felt were marvellous, he himself stood on one balcony and watched the river
flowing below and washer men washing a huge number of clothes down below. He
noticed that it was growing dark and misty but since it was November he felt it
was quite normal though he did regret sending the driver back. He started
walking towards the other end of the bridge, he planned to hire a horse
carriage there, he looked forward to travelling in one since it had been
decades since he had enjoyed a ride in a horse carriage. As he moved forward the mist thickened, he
moved faster, after a few paces he could hardly see the ground he was walking
on, he hurried. With each step he took it became darker which was inexplicable,
he moved on and on and thought he should have included installation of arc
lamps on the bridge as it was very poorly lighted. He even remembered a
relative who dealt in such things!
He
mentally calculated that he had been walking briskly for at least an hour and
the bridge was only about quarter of a kilo meter in fact much shorter! He
looked at his hand winding watch, it had stopped! He shook it vigorously and then
put it close to his ear, the balance wheel was oscillating but the hands were
not moving; this was when his fears started. By now he was unable to see
anything at all he just moved ahead, suddenly he heard the neighing of a horse
a very loud neighing almost a scream, he explained to himself that it was a
good thing since it meant a horse carriage was nearby and he could hire it but
he did not have the courage to look back, the sound of horse’s hoofs was coming
nearer, this time Srivastava really panicked he ran at first reluctantly then
his file fell off he could see it no longer but he ran now unashamedly as if
his life depended upon it, he ran through pitch darkness and fell a number of
times but got up and ran again, in the process he had lost his glasses and a
shoe then suddenly he felt two tremendous poles had hit him from behind, the
bridge suddenly became visible as he fell injured on its railing, he saw that
it was daylight still and no mist, he however dared not turn back, he again
felt a tremendous force of two thick poles and this time rose in the air and
started falling into the river, he looked up and saw the bearded man in a green
cap, his eyes ghostly his hair dishevelled and he was resting on the railings no
not his hands but two very black forelegs of a horse.
Srivastava’s report was found on the
bridge later which said that the creature haunting Spalding Bridge the so
called half man and half horse was only a figment of imagination of people with
psychological disorders and having suicidal tendencies. His disappearance was
attributed to highway robbery since his glasses and shoes were found on the
bridge. Few people ventured on the Spalding Bridge after dusk in any case and
even a highly educated bureaucrat sometimes made mistakes!
