The House of Blue Mangoes (64 page)

‘So I’ve heard,’ Harrison said drily. ‘But if I were a bloody self-respecting tiger, I wouldn’t show up with a bunch of bumbling jackasses crashing about with bloody great guns around me.’ He walked across to the machan, seemed satisfied with what he saw, and said to Kannan, ‘I’ll scout around a bit, see what I can find. Looks like we have a couple of hours of light left. Go home, get a couple of blankets and a good torch and be back within an hour. If you don’t see me around, go straight to the machan and sit on it. I don’t think the tiger is around yet, but if he’s going to show up, I don’t want anything spooking him.’ As Kannan turned to go, he said, ‘Oh, and bring a bottle of brandy with you.’

Kannan was at the machan at half past five. Soon after he had settled himself, he saw Harrison walking towards him. He wondered if the old man had watched him arrive; perhaps he’d had his rifle trained on him. He was suddenly nervous. He decided to watch the man carefully, try not to be caught unawares. Harrison nodded to him and climbed up into the machan. There was no conversation between them except for Harrison asking Kannan whether he’d brought the brandy. Kannan passed him the bottle and Harrison took a long swig. Then, capping the bottle, he settled himself more comfortably.

As the light began to leach from a sky crumpled and barred with cloud, the jungle around them came alive with sound. Cicadas whirred, birds chattered and rustled and once they heard a large animal crashing away through the undergrowth. The sound of a man singing eddied up to them. When there was barely enough light to see, they heard a log being struck rapidly with a stick. ‘Barking deer,’ Kannan heard Harrison say. ‘The tiger’s moving. In this direction.’

Excitement coursed through him. He forgot the pain of the past few days. He was alive only to the thrill of the moment. A man-eating tiger, the most dangerous animal alive, was approaching them . . . The barking deer stopped calling. Night fell abruptly and slowly the excitement left him.

‘Is the tiger still around?’ he whispered to Harrison.

The old man’s whispered reply was angry. ‘Not one more bloody word out of you tonight. Comes of having bloody amateurs on a tiger shoot.’

‘Look, Mr Harrison, this is not the first shoot I’ve been on . . .’

‘One more word out of you,’ Harrison hissed, ‘and I take no further part in this hunt, is that understood?’

Kannan clamped back the angry retort that rose to his lips and subsided into a sullen silence.

The landscape lightened as the moon came up. Beside him the old man sat so still and unmoving, Kannan wondered if he was alive. The pressure of the rough wood of the machan was uncomfortable, but he dared not move in case he provoked another outburst from Harrison. He craned his head to look at his watch. They had been almost two hours on the machan. Christ, it was uncomfortable! He could feel his legs beginning to cramp; the whine of mosquitoes increased in intensity and he felt a couple settle on his face. He itched to slap them, but his fear of Harrison stayed his hand. As time passed, the strain and the discomfort spurred him to anger. What the hell am I doing in this place? he thought. I should just leave it to mad tigers, renegade Englishmen and bloody malarial mosquitoes. It’s no place for normal people. He flexed his thighs unobtrusively and tried to ignore the mosquitoes. The anger leaked away of its own accord and a sense of resignation took over. He wondered whether he should tell Helen about his decision to resign. Would it make any difference to them, to their future together? Probably not.

His immediate priority was to show these damned white planters their place. He would try and link up with Murthy when he left the estates; he wanted to be part of the action when Gandhi, and the rest of them, sent the British hurtling back to their rain-ringed islands. He wondered what someone like Harrison would do if his countrymen were kicked out. Nothing, he suspected. Just stay in his cottage with his fat coolie woman and drink himself to death with arrack. God, he hoped the old soak would be able to shoot the tiger. Assuming there was a tiger. What if it was a ghost, would Harrison die of fright? Would he? He fought the urge to giggle, then every sense snapped alert as he felt Harrison’s warning hand on his knee. The moon had gone behind a cloud and he could see nothing, but he knew that the old man had the stock of his rifle screwed to his shoulder. He held his own rifle aslant his chest but dared not move it. Now, even his untrained ears could pick up the sound of something moving cautiously towards them. The moon began to ease from behind the clouds and they could make out the shape of a large tiger astride the kill. The light grew in intensity as the moon sailed free of the cloud, and then Harrison’s rifle crashed into the night. Instantly, the animal bounded up and away into the undergrowth. ‘Don’t know if I hit him, but I think I might have. He gave me a splendid shot and I don’t usually miss at thirty yards. At least we know it’s a tiger. Get some rest, we’ll track him in the morning.’

Harrison sounded pleased and Kannan found that reassuring. The almost unbearable excitement that had enveloped him when they had first spotted the tiger began to fade, and their uncomfortable perch, the mosquitoes and the cold began to make themselves felt. But the tension and irritation were gone now. He laid his rifle down carefully, stretched, scratched luxuriously, folded himself into his blanket as best he could. As he dropped off he heard the bottle of brandy being uncapped.

103

A wounded man-eater is the most dangerous animal in the jungle. Where a normal tiger probably will not charge its tracker a day or so after it has been shot, especially if the wound is a surface one, and the pain and shock have subsided, there is no telling what a man-eater will do. The likelihood is high that it will go for the hunter. Mindful of this, Harrison and Kannan proceeded very slowly on the trail of the Pulimed Tiger.

At first light they had gone over to the spot where they’d seen the animal and the old man spotted the tell-tale cut hairs and splashes of blood that showed the bullet had gone home. Instructing Kannan to bring him a hat, sandwiches, coffee and a few other necessities, he had set about examining the blood trail. When Kannan returned, they set off at once.

At first they moved slowly, constantly checking every boulder, shrub or natural formation that was capable of concealing a wounded tiger. Wherever the trail wound through thick forest, Harrison sent Kannan ahead, for tigers do not like to charge head-on. They would inch along the jungle, keeping their eyes peeled for any sign. His every sense straining with the excitement he felt, but without the knowledge that enabled the old hunter to read the jungle with ease, Kannan saw the tiger everywhere – in a patch of grass dappled with sunlight, peering through a lantana bush, creeping over a carpet of dry leaves. Inevitably, this watchfulness took its toll and in less than an hour he was tired and was starting a headache. His body ached and spots swam before his eyes. He didn’t see the root protruding a little above the path. His foot caught on it, and his tired body fell. He had the presence of mind to hold his rifle clear as he crashed to the ground. Harrison, who was leading, was back immediately.

‘Clumsy bloody amateur,’ he muttered. Without bothering to help Kannan up, he took his rifle, unloaded it, and handed it back.

‘What did you do that for?’

‘Take my chances barehanded with a man-eater any day before I’d have some idiot shoot me in the back.’

Kannan felt the anger take hold of him and he fought it. Today, for as long it took, he would hold his temper. He needed Harrison. Wearily, he got to his feet and followed the old shikari. He tried to shake off his tiredness, it was important to keep going. He was sure Harrison would leave him behind if he felt Kannan was slowing him down.

Some time later, the blood trail was beginning to fade. At the first rest halt, Kannan asked whether that meant the wound was closing. The hunter shook his head and uncharacteristically volunteered additional information. He explained that as an animal’s coat only loosely covered the flesh, when it was in motion the wound in the skin and the wound in the flesh did not match. As a result there was little blood spilled so long as the animal kept going. When it stopped, the blood would spill out as the skin aligned with the flesh. Fifteen minutes later, he proved his theory by pointing to a big splash of blood in a clearing where the tiger had paused to rest. ‘Not a mortal wound. But not a superficial one either,’ he said to himself, and then grew alert. Away to their left, a troop of black-faced langurs which had been feeding quietly suddenly began to call, khok, khok, khok, khokorrorr . . . ‘They’ve seen the tiger, it’s on the move, come on, let’s get going.’ Kannan, who was sitting on the ground, his rifle propped between his knees, reluctantly got up. His calves, his thighs, even his shins ached. The sun was well up, and sweat sprung out on his body, further adding to his discomfort.

The tiger was moving faster now, judging by the punishing pace Harrison set. On they went, hour upon hour, under the mighty flail of the sun, through tea and eucalyptus thickets, dense sholas, up steep escarpments. Kannan staggered along, every step an effort. His rifle was monstrously heavy in his hands, his rucksack seemed full of rocks, and his thighs, calves and feet screamed with pain. Still Harrison kept on.

Towards noon they stopped by a small mountain stream. The clear cold water pooled in a natural grotto fringed with maidenhair fern and moss. Gratefully Kannan collapsed on the ground. Harrison carefully placed his rifle next to him, then removed his hat and splashed water on his face and arms. Idly Kannan watched the little silver and blue fish in the shallows scattering in panic as the old man washed, then ventured a question: ‘Do you think we’ll get him, Mr Harrison?’

He seemed not to hear. Kannan was about to repeat himself when Harrison said, ‘The wound isn’t bothering him too much. I’ll have to try something else.’

They finished the sandwiches and coffee, and set off again. Around four o’clock, as they approached a spreading thicket of lantana, Kannan’s tiredness suddenly fell away, to be replaced by a sense of terror. There was nothing out of the ordinary that he could see, but he knew that the thicket contained something terrible. Harrison had stopped dead, his rifle up and pointing at the bushes. The minutes stretched by and then the thicket erupted with roar upon stomach-turning roar. Kannan had his rifle to his shoulder in an instant, then, realizing it was unloaded, panicked. What would he do if the old man missed or was killed? Should he take the bullets out of the rucksack and load the rifle, or would that be unwise? Harrison had given him no instructions. The jungle echoed and thundered with the tiger’s fury, then abruptly it was gone.

‘It was waiting for us,’ was all the old man said.

‘Should I load my rifle?’

‘No.’

‘Look, Mr Harrison, I know that this is just a precaution that you’re taking, but if the tiger stalks us again . . .’

‘I said, no. You said you would follow my instructions exactly, so do not argue with me! Now let’s get going.’

About half an hour later, they entered a clearing in the forest. The sunlight slanted down through tall forest trees festooned with creepers. A lush carpet of grass was neatly bisected by a stream that flowed clear and with barely a ripple over a bed of smoothly rounded pebbles. Various birds that Kannan couldn’t identify called through the green light of the glade. Jungle babblers rustled in the undergrowth. The old man, after pausing for the briefest moment to survey the scene in front of him, had gone across to a little isthmus of clear white sand by the stream. He studied the patch of sand for a long time, then beckoned Kannan over. ‘We have a very hungry animal on our hands.’ He pointed with his rifle. ‘Here’s where he stalked a sambhar doe, sprang, missed, and those tracks show how the deer got away.’

He paused in thought, then said, ‘How badly do you want this tiger?’

‘Very,’ Kannan said simply.

‘I have a plan that might work. But it depends on your complete co-operation. Is that understood?’

‘Yes. What’s the plan?’

‘I’ll tell you later. For now all I need to know is that I can trust you to do my bidding without question.’

Kannan nodded.

The old man regarded him for a long moment, then said, ‘We’ve got just under two hours of good light left, and to have a chance of shooting him, we’re going to have to do something out of the ordinary. If memory serves me correctly, there’s a game trail that leads from here to the Kallan shola. After that, it passes along the Parallel Rocks to the Periyar river. My hunch is that our fellow is a Thekkady tiger and that is the route he’ll take to get to the heart of his home range. Beyond the Kallan shola there’s a big pool with plenty of cover and lots of game. He’ll try and find some prey there, before he gets down to the river. We’ll circle around and try to ambush him. Did it successfully with a tiger I was tracking in ’24.’

Now that he had made up his mind, Harrison set a pace that stupefied Kannan. Where on earth did the old drunkard find the energy? Kannan lagged behind until Harrison snapped at him to hurry up.

They reached their destination as the sun began its descent. The great heat of the afternoon had mellowed. They walked through a mixed forest of teak and other deciduous trees, which ended in a ravine. The near slope was dense with scrub jungle which thinned as the ground got rockier. At the bottom of the ravine, a stream dropped in a series of rills and cascades into a deep pool with a broad shoulder of sand. As they got closer, they could see that it was pocked with the prints of all sorts of animals and birds. The far slope of the ravine was gentler than the one they had descended. It was sparsely covered with lantana and other jungle shrubs. Further up, there was more scrub jungle and then the forest proper started. A well-worn game trail ran down from the forest to the pool. The stream washed down the ravine to a rocky plateau, beyond which the ground fell sharply away into a bottomless valley, swirling with mist, in which there was an arresting natural formation: two huge columns of stone rising parallel to each other for hundreds of feet, their base obscured by thick jungle and mist. Kannan had never seen the Parallel Rocks and he was riveted by the sight. Harrison broke his reverie. ‘Come on, we have work to do,’ he said.