The Palace Tiger Read online

  Joe stood back, silently admiring the forethought Colin had put into the planning. Heavy camp equipment which included iron water-tanks of drinking water had been sent off days earlier by camel and bullock cart and there remained only the ten members of the shooting party and their personal items of luggage to be distributed among the motor cars. Nothing had been left to chance, not even their placing in the fleet. Three passengers were allotted to each with a uniformed driver and Colin effortlessly ushered the guests into their places, hearing no argument. The first, a Rolls Royce, set off with Bahadur, Edgar and Ajit Singh, and the second, a Hispano-Suiza, with a perceptible lowering of the anxiety level, followed with Madeleine and Stuart and Sir Hector, firmly refusing to be separated from his medical bag which he insisted should travel with him.

  Joe was invited to sit in the third motor car, a Dodge, one of three, with Colin and Claude, and with a further four cars carrying the baggage they set off, waved at by Lois and Lizzie.

  ‘Don’t shoot one for me, Joe!’ said Lizzie.

  ‘Darling, do check your boots for creepy-crawlies, won’t you?’ said Lois to Claude.

  Joe looked round, concerned. ‘Colin! I don’t see Her Highness . . .’

  Colin pointed ahead. ‘There she is, half a mile up the road. Shubhada elected to go on horseback accompanied by her grooms. It’ll be a point of honour with her to get there before we do. But she won’t find it that easy – the ground’s hard and dry. Good going for motor cars! We should make good speed.’

  The drive along the forest road with the sun slanting through the trees awaking clouds of acid-yellow butterflies was magical in the early morning, though the approach of a seven-vehicle motorcade frightened away any animals they might have encountered. Some hinted at their presence by the occasional warning cry. On the last few miles to the camp site Joe noticed that the surrounding land was growing more rocky and broken and there were signs of ancient civilization on every hand. A crumbling sandstone fort looked grimly down from its hilltop, heavily ornate Hindu temples nestled in patches of jungle, and here and there they caught the grey-green gleam of lakes in valley bottoms.

  Shubhada was already installed when they drew up, sitting on a folding camp chair, a half-read novel on her lap. Teasing, she waved a teacup at them and looked at her watch. ‘Oh, good. I was hoping you’d be here in time for tiffin,’ she said. ‘I hope you don’t mind but I’ve already settled in. First to arrive has choice of tent, you know!’ She pointed to one at the end of the double row of white canvas tents pitched in a clearing. She had chosen the end nearest the jungle and furthest from the supply and cooking tents.

  This did not please Colin, who had been about to place the two ladies protectively in the centre of the group, Joe guessed, but he smoothly reassigned the tents and all disappeared gratefully into their accommodation to smarten up and wash away the dust of the journey. Shubhada was in her element, striding about the camp in jodhpurs and riding-jacket issuing orders. He wondered what kind of a shot she was as he watched her fussing over a camp servant charged with unloading her gun case from the Rolls. It looked very splendid, he thought, as it disappeared into her tent, and he wondered whether she had been allowed to borrow her husband’s Purdeys for the occasion.

  Everyone else’s guns had been delivered to the camp the day before and Joe’s Holland and Holland duly made its appearance. He welcomed the Royal as an old friend in this strange place. He took it out, held it to his shoulder and squinted down the barrel. He checked his ammunition and satisfied himself that all was well with the gun. He was not allowed to put it to more serious testing as all shooting had been banned by Colin. Now that everything was in place, he didn’t want to risk alerting the tiger to make off for a hunting ground farther afield.

  A holiday spirit seemed to have invaded the group. Free of the crushing atmosphere of the palace and happy with their outdoor accommodation, they settled in the filtered sunlight of the glade to enjoy each other’s company over constant cups of tea and glasses of iced (now how had the khitmutgar managed that?) lime juice and soda. They sat down ten to lunch in the open at a table lavishly supplied by a field kitchen already in bustling order and manned by several palace cooks. The male guests were kitted out in khaki shirts and shorts and had good-humouredly adopted the Australian army bush hats Colin provided for them. No bright white pith helmets were to be worn on the hunt – a quiet camouflage was the order of the day. Bahadur and Ajit Singh conformed by agreeing to wear turbans of dull green. Everywhere, Joe was aware of teams of men cheerfully at work to support this enterprise from the twenty mahouts and their elephant handlers to the splendid major-domo figure who was organizing the valets and maidservants.

  But Joe was uneasy. He strolled with Edgar a short way into the forest for a companionable after-lunch cigarette. ‘Nothing like it since the build-up to the Somme,’ he remarked to Edgar, pointing to the scurrying squads of servants. ‘And all for one tiger! Where on earth are they all sleeping?’

  Edgar pointed to the south. ‘A hundred yards away in the next clearing there’s a sort of tent city. And the elephants are corralled down by the lake. And all this is not just for the tiger – as well you know! – it’s supposed to be an entertainment, a bit of relaxation for us Europeans. In the middle of his troubles, Udai is providing a distraction from the awfulness we’ve got caught up in. Typical piece of courtesy from the ruler and it would be very nice if you stopped sneering and questioning and set about having a good time. Why don’t you pick up Colin, take an elephant and go out and have a look at the countryside? Calm your nerves a bit.’

  Thinking perhaps that he’d spoken a little sharply, he added, ‘Look, Joe, if it’s concern for Bahadur that’s making you so twitchy, you can relax a little. Not too much, mind! We’re both still on duty. But he’s away from the palace now and surrounded by people who have his welfare at heart. When he goes up that tree he’ll be feet from Shubhada and yards from Claude, both of whom have the strongest reasons to keep him alive. Across the nullah there’s his father’s man Ajit and he’s not done a bad job of protecting the lad so far, you have to agree. Then there’s you and there’s me. That adds up to quite a protection squad!’

  ‘You’re right, Edgar, but I get a bit nervous in a scene like this – high-powered rifles everywhere you look, a man-eater lurking somewhere in this dense scrub, elephants to fall off, trees to fall out of and heaven knows what else! Place is a minefield!’

  Joe made to sit down on the stump of a tree but was hurriedly caught by the arm by Edgar. Edgar thrashed about with his stick removing leaves and debris from the roots and then, satisfied with his efforts, said, ‘Never sit down anywhere that you haven’t checked for snakes, Joe. These woods are crawling with hamadryads . . . That’s all right. You can sit down now.’

  ‘Thanks, Edgar! Thank you very much!’ said Joe. ‘But I’ve changed my mind. Let’s get back to camp.’

  The rest of the day passed equally smoothly, to Joe’s relief. Determined to make the most of this break from palace routine, the group, hunters and spectators alike, took on a cohesion and, he would have said, an identity. Perhaps this was what happened in the Boy Scouts or on a Chapel Outing. It was certainly what happened on the battlefield. But a shared deprivation did not feature in their experience under canvas. The guests were eager to share their approval of the rich appointments of their tents. No ground sheets here – they trod on silken Persian carpets. The folding campaign furniture was made luxurious by tasselled cushions, and those who had been dreading the discomfort of a latrine were pleased to note the provision of a personal, mahogany thunder box.

  But, against the current of satisfaction and bonhomie, Joe felt, for no obvious reason, a thrill of unease as he looked round the lively faces gathered over the supper table. Colin, behind whom everybody had instinctively rallied and whose word everyone obeyed without question, had been entertaining them with tales of shikar. But the tales were more than entertaining and amazing, Joe realized, they were
instructive and, in the best tradition of storytelling, the audience felt its own experience had been widened, its sensibilities deepened and perhaps its point of view adjusted.

  Surprisingly, Ajit Singh, instead of being the inhibiting presence all had anticipated, joined in the after-dinner campfire storytelling, picking up and running with Colin’s accounts, adding a Rajput view or explanation, occasionally telling an ancient folk story of his own.

  Stuart, who had never been on a tiger hunt before, was all flattering attention, joining with Joe in asking the right questions of the right person, bouncing the conversation along. This young American, Joe thought, would have been an asset at the dinner table of the Vosges château where his squadron had trained in notorious and enviable luxury during the war. His sister, however, was less congenial.

  In the overwhelmingly masculine gathering, Madeleine was uncharacteristically restrained and staying firmly in her brother’s protective shadow. As she was paying no more than casual attention to Joe, he could almost have wondered whether he had imagined the intimacies of the previous evening. Madeleine was making no female alliance with the only other woman present. Rebelliously wearing a bush shirt and divided skirt topped off with a cowboy hat, she presented an interesting contrast with Shubhada who glimmered in a little dinner dress of midnight blue silk. Voluble and excited, the maharanee seemed to be enjoying the company of the men. Though her behaviour was never less than scrupulously correct, there was a quality about her which intrigued and puzzled Joe: an energy, an elation or satisfaction perhaps. The girl was certainly in a good mood. The thrill of the chase? She was said to be a keen hunter.

  Bahadur too was enjoying the chance to be with a group of men he admired, and though not entirely confident of his status amongst them, his companions, by their conversation, let it be understood that all were gathered there in the lamplit clearing miles from civilization for a levelling and urgent purpose. No one felt it his duty to tell the young Yuvaraj it was past his bedtime and he sat on, listening with obvious pleasure until finally he summoned up his own body servant and declared his intention of turning in, recommending that the others follow his example.

  Most were only too pleased, after their long hot day, to use this as a trigger for their own departure and soon, after much genial calling of ‘goodnight’, all had retired to their own tents, their way lit by the glow of the sinking fire and the torches of the night watch. Joe stayed awake for a long while, alert to the sounds of the forest around him and to the sleepy sounds of the camp settling down. He smiled to hear the doctor, whose tent was immediately opposite, gargling heartily before, with a final trumpeting nose-blow, settling to his bed. Bahadur’s tent was to Joe’s right, sandwiched between him and Colin and opposite Ajit. Joe heard him stirring about for quite a time after he had gone to bed, chattering with his servant and even sending the man off to the supply tent on some errand or other. Judging by the subdued snort of laughter on the servant’s return, Joe guessed he was clandestinely laying in a personal supply of the Swiss chocolate he appeared to have taken such a fancy for and he smiled indulgently.

  The last muffled yawns and creaks petered out and Joe felt himself at last to be the only one of the party awake. The way he liked it to be. He was lying on his light-framed charpoy bed with its cotton-covered mattress, naked and damp from his tub wash, alert and anxious. He listened to the plink of frogs from the lake and the occasional yelp of a jackal. Twigs snapped and undergrowth rustled as night creatures moved stealthily by, skirting the clearing men had invaded. It was ridiculous that after the relaxed conviviality of the evening he should be left coiling with tension. Each time he tried to identify the cause of his disquiet he came back to the same disturbing thought: in his eagerness to arrive at a solution he had broken the first of his own most compelling rules. He had reached and even confided a conclusion before all the evidence was in. His suspicion of Udai Singh’s role in his sons’ murders was no more than that – and an outrageous suspicion! This was twentieth-century India after all, not fifteenth-century Turkey with the savage princely blood-lettings that accompanied every sultan’s death. The British Empire held sway, not the Ottoman. He had been over-hasty and all he could do now was hope that Madeleine would have the good sense to keep silent about the theories he’d confided to her. She’d only half believed him anyway, he told himself hopefully.

  And if he’d supposed wrongly – and he rather thought he had – what did that imply for Bahadur’s security? ‘Bahadur, old chap, are you all right?’ he wondered silently. He also wondered if Colin and Edgar and Ajit were, like him, on watch. ‘Ceaseless vigilance, Sandilands!’ he told himself with a stabbing memory of a similar night on watch in Panikhat. He was still trying to turn it into Latin when he fell asleep.

  In the depth of the night he woke, listening intently. The sound that had woken him – where had it come from? He feared for a moment that Madeleine might be crazy enough to pay him a visit but no one pulled aside the flap of his tent. In a moment Joe was on his feet and into his dressing gown and standing in front of Bahadur’s tent. He listened carefully and could have sworn that the odd noise he heard was Bahadur giggling.

  ‘Bahadur! Sir! It’s Joe Sandilands. Is all well?’ he called in a low voice through the flap.

  ‘Joe? Of course. Go back to bed! Much to tell you in the morning! When my trap has been sprung you will call me Bahadur the great hunter!’ More stifled laughter followed the puzzling remark and Joe crept back to his tent.

  Emerging late the next morning, Bahadur looked subdued and avoided Joe’s eye. He avoided everyone’s eye. He joined them at the table with polite greetings all round but seemed unwilling to pursue a conversation. Joe would have put the bilious appearance down to a surfeit of chocolate had not Bahadur tucked into his breakfast with some eagerness. The boy brightened up a bit when Colin began his briefing, the last before the hunt began.

  It was mostly standard advice about the necessity to constantly check one’s rifle and take care not to point it at other hunters but contained more useful pieces of information on the most vulnerable points of a tiger’s body and the preference of sideways or head-on presentation of target. Ever mindful of the safety of the group, Colin unsmilingly handed to each a railwayman’s whistle on a string and ordered that it should be hung around the neck. It was only to be sounded in dire emergency. ‘It’s not a toy. It’s not to be used for entertainment or pranks,’ he said stiffly. Joe noticed that he was handing out Bahadur’s whistle as he said this.

  They were to approach downwind of the nullah, ceremonially making the last part of the journey on elephant back. Cameras appeared and a file of elephants duly paraded, looking majestic, their hides painted with swirling patterns in bright colours, rich velvet cloths draped about their backs and golden ornaments hanging from their foreheads.

  ‘Joe, Edgar! You take this one,’ Colin called and they stood on the mounting block and scrambled, one at a time, into the cane-sided howdah. Joe looked about him with delight to see the lavish equipment packed into the small space: gun racks, cartridge pockets, bottles filled with lime juice, bottles filled with tea, a sun umbrella, a spare shirt, a pair of gloves, a skinning-knife, a camera and a block of Kendal mint cake and, most puzzling in the heat of an Indian summer’s day, a large blanket.

  Catching Joe’s look of surprise, ‘Bees,’ Edgar said. ‘In case of attack by. Just roll yourself up in it.’

  The mahout turned to them with a grin and announced that the name of their elephant was Chumpah and she was the senior elephant in the herd. As they lurched about uncomfortably, dipping and swaying at once sideways and back, Joe concentrated on imagining the grandeur of an earlier age when a hundred of these magnificent animals would have taken part in the hunt, encircling the tiger, bringing their riders within spear shot of the beast and sometimes being leaped upon and killed. With a sharp cry and a dig behind the ear with his toes, the mahout persuaded Chumpah to move faster onward into the forest and the hunt had begun.r />
  Standing on the fire-step counting the seconds before going over the top produced the same sort of tension. Joe licked his dried lips. He wiped his sweating hands on the seat of his trousers, one at a time. Nine o’clock and already the heat was unbearable even up here amongst the foliage. He thought of Sir George high in the Simla hills, probably sipping tea on the lawn in the shade of the deodars with a refreshing breeze knifing in from the Himalayas. He checked his rifle. He’d checked it three times in as many minutes. A section of the steel barrel which had been in full sun burned his hand. Even the rifle was overheating. He’d need gloves to handle it soon. So that was what they were for! He wondered nervously if the heat would affect its performance. Had Colin mentioned that? He looked down from his perch fifteen feet up in a tree to the south of the stream bed and tried to catch a glimpse of Edgar opposite. There was no movement from the tree cover which hid Edgar’s machan. Nor from Claude’s to his right. Colin had chosen his hide-outs well.

  He refocused on the hundred or more yards separating the edges of the nullah. He saw a tapestry of golden grasses, some shifting in a breeze he could not feel, some standing spikily to attention and taller than a man’s head. With her striped coat she could be anywhere in that underbrush and they wouldn’t catch a glimpse of her until she decided to break cover. Here and there, where the grass grew less plentifully, were patches of earth, reddish sand, stretching for yards along the dried stream bed. Joe decided he only had a chance of getting the tigress in his sights – assuming she had successfully run the gauntlet of the five other guns – if she appeared in one of these gaps in the vegetation. He narrowed his eyes and looked carefully at the nearest gap, assessing its size and judging how large his target would look in the setting. Would she come creeping stealthily along like a domestic cat or would she be bounding angrily through her territory like the Queen of the Jungle that she was? He knew so little in spite of Colin’s constant coaching.