The Palace Tiger Page 23

  The forest was surprisingly silent. In the far distance an elephant trumpeted, even the gang of langur monkeys overhead who had at first registered a chattering protest at his presence in their tree had settled down to groom each other quietly. Joe’s ears were straining for the sounds of the beaters. Was Colin having a problem with the squad of villagers, over-eager volunteers, all anxious to settle old scores with the tigress?

  He checked his wristwatch, surprised to find that he’d only been in his tree for half an hour.

  A small herd of sambur wandered into sight, then seeing something it was uneasy with, one of them belled and flicked its tail, startling the others into a nervous run down the nullah. To Joe’s right a short warning call rang out – a monkey? – alerting the troupe above his head. They peered, chattering, about them, then, deciding there was no cause for alarm, settled back to their preening.

  Joe knew that on many days Colin had sat up in the branches of a tree without the comfort of a machan on tiger-watch for hours on end, once overnight in the Himalayas in a downpour, a situation from which he had to be extricated, all limbs locked rigid, by his men in the morning. Joe had only been aloft for an hour and he had the benefit of a stout platform and a ladder if he needed it. Suddenly the temptation to climb down for a pee and a cigarette was almost overwhelming.

  A single blast on a silver bugle released all his tension. The hunt was under way. Colin’s choreography was beginning to be played out. Distantly, voices called, sticks clashed rhythmically together and drums began to beat. The men were advancing slowly on all three sides of the funnel-shaped draw and the stage was set for the appearance of the main player. Joe’s blood was racing. She would have been alerted by the first bugle blast and would even now be starting to cover the mile separating her from the open end of the valley and freedom. Eyes fixed on the stream bed, he counted the minutes. Unless she had veered off course to climb the scree slope to the left of Bahadur’s tree she would be level with the guns at any moment. Joe listened, expecting to hear gunshots from his right. Minutes went by, the noise from the beaters grew louder but no shots rang out. Nothing from Bahadur? Nothing from Ajit Singh?

  ‘Oh, God!’ Joe cursed under his breath, ‘This trap’s empty! She’s not here! And we’ll have to do the whole bloody thing again somewhere else tomorrow . . . or the next day!’

  A single shot from Claude’s position steadied his nerves. Something was moving, then. He waited, scanning his sector.

  Then she was there, in the spot where he’d looked for her. Outlined against the sandy patch on which he’d been concentrating, she stood, stealthily sniffing the air. A huge beast, gleaming red-gold and black in the harsh sunlight, she was magnificent. The monkeys above his head barked a tiger warning, dancing about with outrage and fear. A shot cracked out from Edgar and she reared on her hind legs roaring a protest. Seemingly unharmed, she swung about and plunged into the cover of the grasses. Was she wounded? Had Edgar missed? He’d fired with the tiger sideways on to him. An easy target but not the best of shots when it came to placing a killer bullet. Joe watched the waving of the grasses as she came on at a bounding run towards his tree. Swallowing nervously he tracked her as she forged forward.

  ‘Go for the throat,’ Colin had said. ‘Don’t try for a head shot. More difficult and tigers often survive a head wound. The throat shot’s the stopper.’ But how the hell did you shoot a tiger in the throat when you were fifteen feet above its head and it was charging straight towards you? By the laws of geometry the throat would be an impossible target if she got any nearer. With sinking heart he acknowledged that, incredibly, everyone else had missed their shots and it was up to him. Hands steady on the gun, he waited. Instinct, calculation, luck, they all played their part: suddenly she was clear of the grass, her throat a target for the duration of one more stride. He pulled the trigger. Her forward dash stopped abruptly and she stood still, looking up at him, with, he could have sworn, a slight smile on her face, then she crashed to the ground.

  Movement below Edgar’s tree told Joe he was already running towards the kill. Joe climbed down, still clutching his rifle, his head a whirl of mixed emotions with something very like elation bubbling to the top. As Colin had taught them, he picked up a stone and threw it at the body to check for signs of life. It seemed to him a mean act but tigers apparently dead had been known to leap roaring to their feet when inexperienced shikari had approached to place a conquering foot on their necks. There was no movement so he moved forward to apply the second test. He tugged the end of the tiger’s tail and, still seeing no response, he waved his rifle in triumph as Edgar ran towards him.

  When Edgar reached the open ground he stopped. His body tensed, he dropped his hat and yelled something which Joe could not possibly hear over the continued noise of the beaters and the now hysterical monkeys.

  Joe could make no sense of what was happening but his blood chilled to see Edgar’s gun go up and train steadily straight at him.

  ‘Edgar! What the hell?’

  Joe was looking down the barrels of a 500 express rifle and one of them was still loaded.

  Holding his rifle one-handed, Edgar raised his left arm and in a well-remembered soldier’s silent warning his hand chopped down savagely twice. In instant response, Joe spun around to cover his rear and looked straight into the open red jaws of a tiger.

  A tiger only feet away, very much alive, full of rage and on the point of springing. Colin’s voice sounding in his head, and his instincts allowing for the change in height as the beast leapt, Joe swung his rifle upwards. With no time to shoulder it, he fired from the hip. The recoil of the big gun threw him backwards and sideways away from the twenty-stone body hurtling towards him and he fell, out of the path of the tiger as it collapsed, twitching and thrashing, over the prints of his own feet in the sand. Its hot breath swept his cheek as it crashed down; the claws of one outflung paw raked his forearm.

  The monkey chorus leaped about, angry little black faces gibbering and screaming, throwing pieces of wood at the body of the tiger. Joe scrambled to his feet and was glad of the support of Edgar’s arm as he rushed forward and held him upright.

  ‘Sorry, Joe, couldn’t get a clear shot at the bugger! You were right in my line of fire. But what the hell! Where did he come from? Are you all right, old man? That was a nasty surprise!’ He released Joe and went to examine the tiger. ‘Fine shot! Right through the throat!’ He straightened and began to laugh. ‘Two tigers, with two bullets, in two minutes! This is a story that’ll be told at campfires for years! Two Shots Sandilands! I can hear it now.’

  Edgar’s attempt at jovial insouciance did not deceive Joe; it covered a depth of trembling agitation. At last Joe managed to get his vocal cords in gear. ‘Edgar – thank you. Thank you very much. Again.’

  Edgar raised his revolver. ‘Mustn’t forget the all clear in all this excitement!’ He fired three swift shots. ‘We’d better get the doc to have a look at that arm but meanwhile I’ll put this round it.’ He produced a large handkerchief. ‘Can’t have you dripping blood everywhere in that dramatic way.’

  ‘What in heaven’s name is going on here?’ Suddenly and silently, Colin was at their elbow, rifle over his arm. ‘Oh, no! Good Lord!’ He read the scene in front of him at once, needing no word of explanation from Joe or Edgar. ‘Two of the creatures! How can I have missed that? What a bloody fool! Joe, are you all right?’

  Joe reassured him. ‘The tigress did everything you expected her to do, Colin, right on cue. But where the hell did this other one come from? It was right behind me!’

  Colin shook his head slowly. ‘Her cub? Most likely her cub. Fully grown as you’ve noticed. They must have been hunting as a pair . . .’ His face contorted with anger and regret. ‘If only I’d had more time to examine the area I might have come across a second set of pug marks. This was very nearly a disaster.’

  ‘Explains why so many villagers were being taken,’ said Edgar practically. ‘Feeding two of the buggers!�
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  A band of villagers, beaters judging by the sticks and drums they still carried, approached warily, then less warily as they saw the two bodies lying motionless. They shouted exultantly at Colin, clashing their sticks together in triumph. One approached the tigress and began to pour out invective on the dead animal.

  ‘“This shaitan of a tiger”,’ Edgar translated with a grin. ‘Just giving you the flavour of this now . . . They’re glad it’s dead. He’s naming all his friends and relations who’ve been killed . . . it’s quite a long list.’ He turned to the hunter, who was still unable to join in the celebrations. ‘Come on, Colin, cheer up! All’s well that ends in two dead man-eaters. It’s a double triumph for everyone.’

  Slowly Colin allowed himself a slight smile, then, catching the relief of Edgar and Joe and the good humour of the beaters, a wider smile.

  As the noises died down, they all grinned at each other in satisfaction over the body of the tiger. They were still grinning when, a moment later, an insistent blast of a railway whistle sounded to the east. It sounded again and again.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  They ran, blinded by sweat, lungs heaving a protest at the heat, drawn on through the scrub by the note of panic in the whistle.

  It led them to Bahadur’s tree.

  Shubhada, stiff with fright, dropped her whistle as they crashed through the remaining bushes and pointed with an unsteady finger towards the thicket separating her tree from the one to its left, that of Claude Vyvyan. Joe looked and looked again.

  ‘Where’s Bahadur? Your Highness, where’s Bahadur?’

  Again she pointed. Shrilly she said, ‘I don’t know! He got down to have a . . . to answer a call of nature . . . sometime before the bugle blew. I told him to try not to . . . it was only nerves . . . but he insisted. Then the beat started and he still hadn’t come back. I didn’t know what to do. I stayed on the machan trying to cover the nullah and the game path. I didn’t want to whistle in case it brought the tiger down on us.’

  Colin nodded in approval but he was looking grey with anxiety.

  ‘I never saw her. And Bahadur’s still in there! He must have heard the all clear but he didn’t come out so I started to blow my whistle. Vyvyan got here just before you and he went in. He hasn’t come out either!’ Her voice rose to a peremptory scream. ‘What are you waiting for? Go and help him!’

  Edgar held her ladder in place and she climbed down and made to dash into the undergrowth. Edgar barred her way.

  ‘Help! Colin! Over here!’ came Claude’s voice faintly.

  On unwilling feet they made their way in single file following a pathway of flattened grasses into the heart of the thicket. Claude’s rifle lay abandoned to one side of the trail. Shoulders heaving, Claude was kneeling over a small form lying on its back. Hearing them approach, he got to his feet and stood, arms dangling hopelessly at his side. His khaki shorts and shirt were patched and dark with sweat and blood, tears ran down his face and he dashed them away with a bloodstained hand.

  ‘Too late. He’s dead. Bloody tiger got him!’

  In silent horror they crowded round the body of Bahadur, shock anaesthetizing them from the destructive emotions of fear, guilt and regret which would lay ambush to them later.

  ‘Don’t touch the body.’

  At the quiet command from Joe, Edgar and Colin held back, eyes devouring the scene. Somewhere behind them there was a stricken cry from Shubhada and Claude went to her side, murmuring. With an automatic assumption of authority, Joe bent to examine the body. Unable to bear what he saw as a look of astonishment and horror on the boy’s face, Joe gently closed the eyelids and turned his attention to the fatal wound.

  The throat had been torn out, raked by the claws of a tiger, and the boy had doubtless died from loss of blood and perhaps the shock of the attack. Further claw marks were visible on his chest where his tunic had been torn away.

  ‘His rifle?’ asked Joe.

  ‘He left it on the machan,’ said Shubhada.

  Joe remembered his own horror on being attacked and he’d had the comfort of a Holland and Holland rifle ready to hand. He could not imagine the terror that must have filled Bahadur’s last moments. Looking down on him with pity, Joe noticed something odd about the posture of the child’s body. The right arm was bent at the elbow and the lower arm and hand were concealed underneath his hips. Carefully Joe raised the slight form an inch or two and pulled the arm free. A small black revolver clutched in Bahadur’s hand was dislodged and fell at Joe’s feet.

  With a gasp, Joe turned his face away until he could regain a measure of control. Finally, he looked back at Colin and Edgar. ‘My revolver,’ he said. ‘He admired it so much I gave it to him. For protection. Poor little sod! He was trying to defend himself with my little pop-gun!’

  ‘Wouldn’t have been much use against a tiger even if he’d managed to draw it in time,’ Edgar commented, picking it up.

  ‘You’d use a toothpick if it was all you had to hand,’ said Colin bitterly. He was looking about him at the trampled grass, at the ground around the body.

  ‘Keep everybody back!’ Joe snapped out a command, hearing a crowd of beaters and hunt servants congregating at the fringes of the thicket, and Edgar went to pass on instructions and post a guard.

  No guard was strong enough to keep back Ajit Singh who arrived a moment later, his confidence momentarily shattered by what he saw. He stalked straight up to the body, distraught and angry.

  ‘Sandilands, what has happened here?’ he demanded. ‘Vyvyan, I can’t believe that this could have happened under your very nose!’

  He listened carefully as Joe filled in the details, his eyes moving constantly around the scene taking in, Joe could have sworn, the position of every blade of grass.

  ‘Probably not the right time to ask, Ajit,’ said Claude boldly, ‘but I should really like to establish – while it’s fresh in all our minds – the sequence of events. Tell me, why didn’t you take a shot at the tigress when you had her in your sights?’ He turned to the others and added, ‘Saw her clearly from my machan. She drew level with Ajit Singh – perfect target – but we heard nothing from him. I remember being rather puzzled. Nodded off, had you, Ajit? I waited until she moved along into my sector and I fired. She cantered off, tail up. Missed, I’m afraid. Not a good shot. Well, Ajit?’

  What had been Madeleine’s phrase? ‘A baby poking a grizzly in the eye’? Perhaps the stress had unhinged Claude? Joe could think of no other reason for this suicidally bold and unnecessary challenge. His hand went automatically to hover over the grip of his revolver as, slowly, Ajit turned on Claude.

  Ajit did not draw a dagger and cut Claude’s throat as Joe half expected he would. Instead he unleashed a smile with the fine edge of a surgical scalpel and spoke in a tone of purring menace.

  ‘Why did I not fire when she presented herself as you accurately describe? My prince . . .’ He gestured reverently at the body at his feet. ‘. . . was to have every opportunity to claim her head. The tiger is a royal beast and should be shot by princes not the common herd. I held back, waiting for the shot from his machan, but it never came and the tigress passed into the sights of others.’

  The smile intensified in its devastating politeness. ‘But do tell us, Vyvyan, why we see you here, covered in the royal blood? Your machan was yards from this scene of slaughter. Did you see nothing that could have alerted you to the danger?’ His voice began to grate with an emotion increasingly difficult to hold back. ‘How gladly would I have leapt between my prince and the tiger’s jaws!’

  Joe believed him.

  Vyvyan drew himself up and seemed about to unleash another ill-timed volley at Ajit when Shubhada intervened. ‘Vyvyan!’ Her voice was sharp, calling him to heel. ‘There is no reason to hold Ajit Singh accountable!’

  Colin, who had been inspecting the scene, straightened and came to stand between Ajit and Claude. ‘Her Highness is right. Nothing either one of you could have done,’ he said. ‘It
was the young tiger that got him. It must have been lying up here when we put everybody on to their machans. When Bahadur climbed down and strolled all unawares into the shrubbery he surprised it and it turned on him. A normal tiger would have crept away and he wouldn’t even have known it was there but this one was a man-eater and they’ve lost all respect for humans. Then the bugle blew, the beating began and it sneaked out by the back door.

  ‘Here, look . . . and here. There are one or two paw prints if you look carefully but the ground is so trampled I can’t work out exactly where it broke out.’

  ‘So – while we were all watching the nullah,’ said Edgar, ‘it made its way towards the exit by Joe’s tree and, frightened and angry, did what man-eaters do and went for Joe whose back was presenting a perfect target.’

  ‘Young tiger, did you say?’ Claude’s voice was bemused.

  ‘There were two. Mother and full-grown cub. The cub killed Bahadur and then almost got Joe,’ said Edgar, indicating the bloodstained handkerchief round Joe’s arm.

  Claude put his head in his hands and groaned.

  ‘How useful it would have been,’ Ajit turned his glare on Colin, his anger still seeking a target, ‘to have been made aware of the presence of two tigers. Had we known there was a second lying up, no one would have risked his life alone, without a rifle on the forest floor.’

  ‘Time! If I’d been allowed the time I asked for . . .’ Colin began to protest.

  Through his shock and grief, Joe was conscious of the struggle for power or at least the struggle for the avoidance of culpability that was raging over his head as he knelt and continued his examination of the body. He listened and watched, knowing that he ought to call a halt to the recriminations before he had a further killing on his hands, but a professional interest kept him silently observing and it was Edgar who put an end to the ugly scene.