The Midnight Palace (Niebla 2)

A short while later they formed a single line, headed by Ben with Roshan in the rearguard, and began to walk cautiously over the bridge. Following Seth’s advice, Ben stayed close to the track, where the structure of the bridge was more solid. In broad daylight it was easy to avoid broken sleepers and see in advance areas that had given way with the passage of time and were now dangling down into the river, but at night, cloaked by the storm, the route was like a forest strewn with traps, and they had to advance a step at a time, feeling their way.

They’d only covered some fifty metres, a quarter of the length of the bridge, when Ben stopped and raised a hand. His friends stared ahead, bewildered. For a moment they stood motionless on the girders that trembled like jelly under the continual pounding of the river.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked Roshan from the back of the line. ‘Why are we stopping?’

Ben pointed in the direction of Jheeter’s Gate: two arteries of fire were speeding along the rails towards them.

‘Get to one side!’ shouted Ben.

All five threw themselves to the ground as the two walls of fire sliced through the air next to them. As the fire passed it sucked away bits of the track and left a trail of flames along the bridge.

‘Is everyone all right?’ asked Ian, standing up. He realised there was smoke and steam coming from his clothing.

The others nodded mutely.

‘Let’s take advantage of the light from the flames and cross over before they go out,’ Ben suggested.

‘Ben, I think there’s something under the bridge,’ whispered Michael.

A strange drumming sound could be heard coming from the other side of the sheet of metal beneath their feet. A vision of steel claws scratching at the surface flashed through Ben’s mind.

‘Well, we’re not staying here to find out,’ he said. ‘Come on.’

The members of the Chowbar Society pressed ahead, zigzagging along the bridge until they reached the end, not stopping to look behind them. Once they were on firm ground, just metres away from the station’s entrance, Ben turned and told his friends to keep away from the metal framework.

‘What was that?’ asked Ian.

Ben shrugged his shoulders.

‘Look!’ cried Seth. ‘In the middle of the bridge!’

All eyes focused on that point. The tracks were glowing red, the heat radiating in all directions and giving off a light halo of smoke. After a few seconds both rails began to bend. The entire structure of the bridge started to drip huge tears of molten metal into the Hooghly, producing violent explosions as they hit the cold water.

Paralysed with fear, the five boys witnessed the steel structure, over two hundred metres long, melting before their very eyes like a lump of butter in a hot frying pan. The liquid metal sank into the river, its intense amber glow reflected on the faces of the five friends. Finally, the incandescent red faded into a dull metallic tone, and the two ends of the bridge collapsed over the Hooghly like weeping willows caught staring at their own reflection.

The sound of the steel hissing in the water slowly abated. Then, behind them, the five friends heard the voice of the old Jheeter’s Gate’s siren cutting through the Calcutta night for the first time in sixteen years. Without uttering a single word, they turned round and crossed the frontier into the ghostly setting for the game they were about to play.

ISOBEL OPENED HER EYES as she heard the siren shriek through the tunnels like an air-raid warning. Her feet and hands were firmly pinned to two long rusty metal bars, and the only light she could see filtered through the grille of a ventilation shaft just above her. The echo of the siren slowly died away.

Suddenly she heard something creeping towards the grille. She looked up at the slivers of light and noticed that the bright rectangle was darkening and the grille was opening. She closed her eyes and held her breath. The metallic hooks that immobilised her feet and hands snapped open and she felt long fingers grab her by the nape of her neck and pull her up through the gap. She screamed in terror as her captor flung her onto the floor of the tunnel.

When Isobel opened her eyes, she saw a tall black silhouette standing in front of her, a figure without a face.

‘Someone has come for you,’ the invisible face whispered. ‘Let’s not keep him waiting.’

Immediately two burning pupils lit up, flaring in the dark. Grabbing her arm, the figure dragged her through the tunnel. After what seemed like hours of an agonising walk through total darkness, Isobel at last made out the ghostly shape of a train. She was hauled towards the guard’s van and didn’t have the strength to resist when she was flung inside and heard the door being locked.

As Isobel fell onto the charred floor of the carriage, a sharp pain seared through her belly. Something had gashed her badly. She groaned. She was seized by panic as a pair of hands took hold of her and tried to turn her over. She shouted out and came face to face with a dirty exhausted boy who seemed even more frightened than she was.

‘It’s me, Isobel,’ whispered Siraj. ‘Don’t be afraid.’

For the first time in her life Isobel let her tears flow freely as she hugged the bony, frail body of her friend.

BEN AND HIS COMRADES stopped under the clock with the drooping hands on the main platform of Jheeter’s Gate. All around them was a vast landscape of shadows and faint slanting light that filtered through the steel and glass dome.

From where they stood, the five youngsters could envisage what Jheeter’s Gate must have looked like before the tragedy: a majestic luminous vault held up by invisible arches that seemed to be suspended from heaven, above rows and rows of platforms arranged in curves, like ripples on a pond. Large noticeboards announcing departure and arrival times. Elaborate newspaper kiosks made of carved metal with Victorian reliefs. Palatial staircases rising through steel and glass shafts to the upper levels, with corridors seemingly hanging in mid-air. Crowds strolling about its halls and boarding long express trains that would take them to the furthest reaches of the country … Nothing remained of all that splendour, only a dark broken shell.

Ian noticed the hands of the clock, distorted by the flames, and tried to imagine the magnitude of the fire. Seth had the same thought; they both avoided making any comment.