Chapter 2
The Pathway Widens
1941
DENT LIFE
1942
WAR RECRUIT
1943
RUSHBROOKE HALL
THE WHITE HORSE
1944
DOODLEBUG
1945
ILLUMINATED CROSS
THE WHITE LADY
1946
BORLEY FEVER
1947
FRAGMENTS OF BORLEY
WOOD CHOPPER
OFFICIAL GHOST HUNT
THE INVITATION
1948
SUDDEN DEATH
SPR
1949
LONELY LANGENHOE
1943
20
YEARS
THE WHITE HORSE
“One other case of haunting came to my notice
while I was in the Army…”
“This concerned a large private house
which had been requisitioned for officers’ use.”
“It stood in secluded surroundings
at the end of a winding drive
bordered by overhanging trees.”
“It was a square Georgian house with a curiously brooding atmosphere which may or may not have been connected
with the tragedies that had undoubtedly taken place there.”
“A former owner, during a hunt ball,
had ridden his horse into the house and along the hall, and had then tried to make the animal climb the stairs...”
“The horse had missed its footing on the narrow second landing, and horse and rider crashed to the hall below,
crushing two guests and breaking the necks of steed and rider...”
“There was a tradition that a ghostly figure…”
“…mounted on a white charger, had been seen in the upper rooms of the house.”
“There were those who suggested that it was this apparition that had so startled the horse,
that it missed its footing.”
“In the succeeding years
the sound of a horse’s hooves was heard for several nights
during the early months of the year.”
“And on one occasion, when a party of officers sat up to listen for it, they heard the sound move along the hall,
mount the stairs, and then cease, leaving the would-be ghost hunters holding their breaths...”
“I was most intrigued by all this,
and managed to make the necessary arrangements
to sit up by myself in the house…”
“…but I heard no noises other than the somewhat
unnerving cracks and groans
that any old house might make at night.”
“I must have picked the wrong night…”
“…for a couple of evenings later
the noises were heard again by several officers
who happened to be returning late…”
“…and were puzzled by the clip-clop
of a horse’s hooves
which appeared to follow them up the gloomy drive to the house.”
“As they reached the door (which stood open) they waited on one side, and the sounds seemed to pass them and enter the house.”
“They gingerly followed and stood in a group just inside the door, looking at the stairs and landing above,
looking at the stairs and landing above, listening to the sounds as they appeared to mount the stairs.”
“One of the officers had been among those who had heard the noises a few evenings previously,
but on this later occasion, he assured me, they were much sharper and louder.”
“He said that he felt he could almost
see the horse and rider
in a shadowy kind of way…”
“This time, as the sounds crossed the second landing,
the landing rail suddenly cracked and gaped open
as though something had fallen through.”
“A second later there was a dull thud
from the direction of the passage below,
and then an uncanny silence…”
“Next day I examined the broken landing-rail.
It seemed and sound firm, but had been broken
as it might have been with great force….”
“There seemed no normal explanation for the damage, and I found myself asking
whether the supernormal can affect the physical…”
