THE GHOST OF WASHINGTON BOSTAL

I shall never forget my first Christmas at Worthing, nearly thirty years ago. My chum, Jack Fenton, a fledgling doctor in Town, and I cycled down to the little place it then was in order to spend the Christmas under the hospitable roof of Colonel Denman, of Westring Grange. I am sure that Sussex never looked better than when we viewed it from the saddles of our old fashioned high bicycles as we romped along the frost-bound roads through Crawley, Horsham, and Ashington on that eventful Christmas Eve.

The keen, health-giving air was to us as champagne after the very indifferent beer to which the London air we had lately breathed might have been likened. How we admired the hedgerows, which sparkled as the December sunlight played timidly in the heavy layer of white frost, which, as Jack remarked, made the country look like a vast Christmas card.

I had made Colonel Denman's acquaintance some ten years previously, when, as a budding private detective I had endeavoured to track down the author of a wholesale robbery at the grange. The crime, now almost forgotten, still remained an unravelled mystery; it has seriously affected the Colonel financially, as, at the time he had a large sum of money in the house, a fact of which the thief or thieves probably had some knowledge, as the whole of it was stolen.

Pulling up at the Frankland Arms for tea, Jack got into conversation with the natives, and we learnt for the first time that Washington Bostal, the hill we were approaching, rejoiced - or otherwise! - in the possession of a ghost. All we could gather was that during recent years a phantom of some description had regularly appeared at midnight on Christmas Eve; no one could give us detailed particulars, as none of the rustics had braved the perils of the hill when the ghost was expected.

Jack was fond of adventure; I, too, felt that a little dabbling in the supernatural would be a pleasing accessory to a Christmas holiday after the unromantic round of life in London especially as we naturally looked for a simple and perhaps a humorous explanation of the seeming mystery.    cont.

Dick Turpin.

 

Dick Long is on the left in this old photograph. The other cyclists in this photograph from left to right are G. Fothergill (moustache), W.R. "Bert" Paine and E.H. Brackley.

So after arriving at Westring Grange and exchanging greetings with our jovial host and his daughter Grace, a charming type of rural beauty, whose auburn hair and hazel eyes were the theme of half Jack's conversations all the year round, we broached the subject of the ghost to the Colonel. Service in India had made him a confirmed sceptic of any tale which approached the improbable, and his ridicule went a long way towards shaking my resolution to spend the night of Christmas Eve in a cold and lonely roadside watch.

Grace Denman had a feminine horror of the uncanny which was sweetly pretty, and her persuasive eloquence was almost too much for Jack's manly but tender heart.

However after a dinner delightfully free from ceremony, and an hour or two spent in chatting around a blazing fire, Jack gave me a nudge; I took the hint, and led gently up to the subject of our quest.

The Colonel, seeing we were resolved, forebore to press his objections, but, somehow, as I accepted a flask of his special whiskey and some cigars from him, my joke about "spirits to keep up the spirits of spirit hunters" sounded very much hollow and mirthless. And it was with much reluctance that I cut short Jack's farewell with Grace as we vaulted into the saddles of our trusty bicycles and pedalled Northward, over the frosty roads, with a clear starlit sky overhead.

Findon was nearly asleep as we passed through, and we saw nobody as we climbed steadily to the top of Washington Bostal. A hushed silence had fallen over us, and we both seemed afraid to break it.   After seeing that it wanted less than half an hour to midnight we extinguished our lamps and walked some yards down the hill, where, after an exchange of whispers, we decided to sit on the bank and await events.

Slowly the minutes crept by as we shivered in the strained silence. An age seemed to have passed when in the distance a church clock drowsily droned out the hour of midnight. Then with our hearts madly thumping we heard the coming swish of another cyclist. Together we opened our mouths to shout a warning to the wheelman, who might be unaware of the sharp bend in the road awaiting him lower down the hill.

But the words froze on our lips, for at that instant he flashed into sight - a mysterious looking figure tearing madly down the hill on a quaint, old fashioned bicycle, the like of which I had not seen for years! Never since that night have I ridden the Bostal without recalling most vividly the awful look of terror I then saw as that weird, uncanny shadow of the cyclist sped furiously past; never shall I forget that long-drawn-out shrieking cry which rang out clear and sharp in the still night as we stood rooted to the ground and watched him disappear into the darkness!

Suddenly came the sound of an awful crash, and slowly the cry died away, leaving us trembling with "nerves" as silence again reigned over the scene.

Minutes passed before we could discuss our next move, but ultimately we resolved to follow the phantom wheelman, for such he undoubtedly was. It seemed to us the apparition had failed to turn at the corner, as many a wheelman had done since, and we accordingly left the road at this point and climbed down the steep side of the hill.

Undergrowth and rank weeds grew there unchecked in those days, and our search for any clue to the solution of the mystery seemed unpromising. But in the darkness Jack presently kicked against a piece of iron, which aroused our curiosity, and we cleared away the weeds and nettles from the spot.

A hoarse cry went up from both of us as our lamps illuminated the cleared patch, and we saw a ghastly skeleton with rotten and tattered rags of clothing hanging to it, whilst beneath this horrid object lay the old bicycle we had seen speed recklessly down the hill! A couple of yards away lay a capacious leather bag, which we thought might afford some clue to the identity of the mysterious corpse which had lain so long unheeded.

But on lifting the bag, which was rotten with damp, it burst apart, and the contents scattered at our feet. Imagine our amazement when we gazed upon a profusion of jewellery, and a considerable sum in gold amid such gruesome surroundings!

Greater still was my surprise when I discovered that much of the former tallied exactly with the descriptions Colonel Denman had given me of the property lost by him, in the almost forgotten burglary at Westring Grange.

My bewildered brain could hardly keep pace with events, and even as I stared in mute wonder at the scattered valuables, the grinning skeleton rose, and walking up to me, gripped my arm in his bony fingers!

Then with a superhuman strength he shook me as a terrier might shake a rat. Next the awful skull bent nearer to my face, I gaped in terror into his eyeless sockets, which looked like dark caverns; his jawbone moved slightly, and an awful voice, which seemed to come from far away, said in low and thrilling tones:

"Wake up, Tom old boy, it's one o'clock!" With a start I came to, and found myself rubbing my eyes and shivering at the spot on the bank where we had originally sat down to await our spectral visitor.

Jack and I had both dozed off, and my fevered imagination, aided by the Colonel's cigars, had concocted a dream which more than satisfied my desire for ghost-hunting that night. Jack and I were soon making our way back to Worthing, I need hardly say at a very fair pace - ostensibly on the plea of getting warm, but, for my part at least, shaking limbs and chattering teeth were not altogether due to the cold night air.

At breakfast on Christmas morning we told our tale, and, whilst Grace's anxiety on the score of colds was put at rest by Jack, I was alternately laughed at and sympathised with by the Colonel. Our experience provided him with a fund of humour which lasted throughout our holiday at the Grange.

Indeed, the hospitable old soldier lightly chaffs us about our vigil even now. I often spend the week-end at Worthing with him, on which occasions Jack - a successful country practitioner living within easy cycling distance - will frequently run over in company with his wife, who looks scarcely older than she did on that memorable Christmas of long ago. Jack's two sons run down from Town on their road-racing bicycles, and complete a little party which loves to sit around the old fireside and laugh over the ghost of Washington Bostal.

The End.

Dick Turpin.