The Beast Tamer

by Ruskin Bond

  Like an echo outside the tent, Ali Baksh repeated the comforting ‘zarur’.

  II

  Pendlebury arose at 6 a.m. for the stag which he was to see at 6 p.m., and spent the most nerve-racking morning of his life. He cut himself shaving; he fiddled with his rifles, and asked a dozen times whether he should take the High Velocity or the little Mannlicher; he counted out ten rounds of ammunition and laid them ready…then decided to rake the other rifle, and counted out twenty more; then, finally changed his mind and decided to take both, with about thirty rounds; he stuffed his pipe too full, and broke the vulcanite stem in tapping it out; changed his boots three times; smoked quantities of cigarettes, and burnt a hole in his copy of Rowland Ward with one of them; and had neither a good breakfast nor a sufficient lunch.

  In fact Pendlebury did his utmost to spoil his eye and his hand, instead of strolling out with a rod and forgetting the great stag in the excitement of landing a pound trout, as any of the old bores at the Club would have advised him to do.

  At last the great moment arrived, and Ali Baksh whispered, ‘Pir Baksh here, sir.’ With an immense effort Pendlebury assumed the nonchalance he did not feel, and strolled out of the tent, where he found Pir Baksh carrying a rifle and looking very businesslike in ancient garments; a ragged, disreputable stranger had the other rifle. When Pendlebury, who was feeling nervous enough already, objected to the latter’s presence, Pir Baksh pointed out the advantages of having a man on the spot to help skin the shikar, and so had his way. On the way Pendlebury did a great many things which the old bores at the Club would have deprecated: he smoked too many cigarettes—‘to steady his nerves’; he slogged along instead of walking quietly, thus laying up a clammy shirt for himself in the evening; also, he cursed the men for not hurrying, and then cursed still more when, half-way, he discovered that he had forgotten his second-best pipe, his flask and his sandwiches. However, it was too late to do anything then.

  They climbed uphill through thick forest bordering a little hill stream till they came to an open glen, with green moss at their feet and tall trees around them. Half-way up the glen Pir Baksh whispered a halt, and Pendlebury was led behind the trunk of a fallen tree, where he was asked to wait, without moving, while Pir Baksh and the stranger moved furtively off under cover of the trees.

  Hours seemed to pass as Pendlebury fingered his Mannlicher, the final choice, expecting every moment to see the dark shape loom in the glen. Time and time again he opened his breech to see if the thing were working, and feverishly moved the backsight up and down the slide, finally leaving it at five hundred yards, when a sudden sound startled him.

  It was booming, long-drawn…the unmistakable roar of a stag far above him. He was at once certain that Pir Baksh had messed up the whole show, and that he ought to be farther up the glen; it would be dark for a certainty before the stag moved down; it was getting dark already. A twig cracked behind him, and he turned to see Pir Baksh behind him, holding his finger to his lips.

  ‘Barawala ata,’ whispered Pir Baksh, while Pendlebury got into a position of readiness; there was no doubt about the approach of the stag, for it roared more than once, and was evidently moving down the little stream.

  A quarter of an hour passed—the sun sank—still no view of the stag; in five minutes it would be too dark to see the foresight. Pendlebury began to fidget, when suddenly Pir Baksh touched his arm, and pointed… a dark shape was moving under the trees by the stream.

  ‘Woh hai, saheb,’ whispered Pir Baksh. ‘Maro. Maro. Zarur lag jaega.’

  Pendlebury aimed his wavering piece in the direction of the dark shape, and squeezed the trigger…

  There was a flash and a kick—then a commotion under the trees, as a big animal splashed with a snort through the tiny stream and crashed into the undergrowth beyond—farther and farther away.

  ‘Damn!’ said Pendlebury—not so Pir Baksh, who sprang to his feet with a wild, ‘Lag gya. Lag gya. Zakhmi hai,’ and, motioning to Pendlebury to stay where he was, ran towards the stream, throwing out a parting, ‘Milega zarur.’

  It was quite dark when Pir Baksh returned and informed the ecstatic Pendlebury that the stag ‘sekht zakhmi ho gya. Khun bahut hai. Aiye, saheb.’ Up jumped Pendlebury and followed across the glen and the stream, where Pir Baksh borrowed his electric torch and searched the ground…yes, there was blood…first a mere drop on a leaf; then, five yards on, a bigger splash; farther still, a regular patch dyeing the ground. Pir Baksh explained that the beast had been hit forward—a truly wonderful shot—and had carried on to die. He would be found quite dead in the morning—till then there was nothing to be done.

  On the way home, Pir Baksh, in the intervals of exultation, promised to make an early start, dissuading Pendlebury from accompanying him by remarking that this was only poor shikari’s work, unsuitable for the Saheb Bahadur. Pendlebury was fagged out, and let him have his way; before he went to bed, he had a last loving look at the Mannlicher, which he found sighted at five hundred yards! This he put down to carelessness in carrying, and congratulated himself that he had not had it at five hundred when he fired; good shot as it had been, he would not have put the beast at over seventy yards…funny how he had felt certain that he had hit him before Pir Baksh spoke!

  III

  Pendlebury’s next morning was almost as bad as the last. He clung to the camp, springing out of his chair at the slightest sound; he had occasion to throw his boots at Ali because the latter had made a noise like Pir; once more he failed to do justice to his meals, and spent the day alternating between triumph and despair. But the hours never brought Pir Baksh, and at last he turned into bed and lay awake, listening. Presently he heard a hubbub, then saw lights outside. As he sprang out of bed he was greeted with the welcome, ‘Mil gya…saheb,’ in the dulcet tones of Pir Baksh; he rushed out, and there, amid a crowd of admiring servants, stood Pir Baksh himself, grimed with mud and dust from head to foot, his clothes artistically torn, blood on his coat but in his hands great antlers, branching out from a draggled mask.

  Pendlebury whooped; the servants sucked in their breath with wonder; and Pir Baksh, in shrill tones, raised his paean of victory. Twenty miles had he toiled; fifteen hours without food; but for the saheb’s honour he would have dropped with fatigue and died. Even in death the great stag had been wondrous cunning, and would never have been brought to book but for the superior cunning of Pir Baksh; there had been a personal encounter, in which danger had been gladly braved for the saheb, and a valuable life risked. Great was the name of ‘Pendlebury saheb’, who gives life to poor men, even to the humble shikari, beneath his feet…

  This stirring recital—composed that day in the bazaar—was followed by that little lull which tactfully indicates baksheesh to the least imaginative of us, and Pendlebury rose to the occasion nobly. There was a hundred-rupee note for Pir Baksh; twenty for the disreputable stranger who had given bahri madad, and who was described as a ‘sidha admi…kam kerne wala bhi’; twenty more for Ali Baksh for being a good fellow; and mithai for all the camp. Pendlebury did things handsomely.

  ▪

  The old Club bores might, with reason, have sniffed at that head had they seen it; but, as it happens, it was packed straight off to Pendlebury’s agents in Bombay, for shipping to London, on the advice of Pir Baksh—so there was no one to call attention to a resemblance between these antlers and a pair produced by the disreputable stranger aforesaid on the occasion of Pir Baksh’s first visit to the bazaar. In point of fact, both pairs had a similar chip off of one of the brow points.

  The stranger had asked twenty rupees for this pair…but who can fathom the mind of the East?

  Another trivial detail…Pir Baksh and the said stranger had slain a young stag on the second day; while Pendlebury was fishing, for they had feasted the village with fresh venison that night. It was also on record that Pir Baksh had retained the mask, and had bottled a small quantity of blood.

  One more fact—Pendlebury had been mistaken abou
t his sighting, and the stag at which he fired in the dusk was not a warrantable one; at least, so the stranger informed me afterwards. Not that it matters, for the shot went well over its back.

  But what matters? The great head has the pride of place at Pendlebury Hall, and Pendlebury is happy whenever he sees it.

  And, anyway, Pir Baksh was an artist.

  The Great Retreat

  Aubrey Wade

  The twenty-first of March 1918 is a date that can never be forgotten in the history of the Great War. It nearly spelled defeat for the Allies—it was the day that the great retreat began. This is the vivid story of a man who was with the artillery, and whose guns helped to cover that retreat. When the retreat began, they were stationed at Jussy, and it is at Jussy that his story opens.

  At half-past four in the morning I thought the world was coming to an end.

  We awoke to the sound of debris, which was flying right and left from the explosion of a great shell somewhere near at hand. Before I had properly grasped what had occurred, another shell came down with a terrific roar just outside. I had a momentary glimpse of the end of the structure collapsing like a piece of stage scenery; the whole place shook about our ears with the violence of the explosion; I felt sure the next one would annihilate us. Frantically I dragged on my clothes and cursed myself for being such a fool as to undress in spite of the warning. Shells were falling everywhere now in a heavy bombardment. More frequent flashes lit up the windows, and while I tugged desperately at my big field-boots, something ripped through the woodwork near my face. A great hole showed where it passed through the wall; my candle had disappeared, leaving me to scramble for the rest of my equipment in a darkness charged with terror.

  And then, amid the crash of the shells, we heard a voice: ‘Stand to the horses! Stand to the horses!’

  There was a movement to the door, a careful hesitating advance into the darkness outside; one by one the drivers filed out and went over to the horse-lines on the other side of the field. I was last through the door, and on my way out I spotted some one huddled up in bed right by the entrance. I knew whose bed it was, it was that of a certain lanky Scottish recruit, who was on the sick-list with boils all over him. I shook him urgently. ‘Come on, man; you’ll be killed if you stop here!’

  A weak voice answered me from beneath the blankets: ‘Och awa’ wi’ ye. I’m aff duty!’

  ‘You’d better come. It’s not safe here, mind.’

  ‘I’m of duty, I tell ye!’

  There was not much time to waste on a lunatic like that, so I gave him up and followed the others; and half-way over to the horses I was glad I had not waited any longer, for a shell shrieked into the exact centre of the four huts and must have killed him as he lay there.

  In the stables, I took hold of my horse and led her out across the field to where the rest of the waggon-line occupants loomed up in the heavy fog that shrouded everything. It was a thick, cold, clammy sort of mist, so dense that it was impossible to see more than a few yards in front of one’s face. Here, away from the huts, there were no shells dangerously close; the violence of the bombardment was concentrated on the huts, the village behind, and the roads to the line and back to Flavy. I stood with the reins looped over my arm, my little mare grazing quietly, for perhaps a quarter of an hour, getting a glimpse of the others now and then through the fog. A full hour passed, during which time the shelling seemed to get even worse, so that when I heard some one calling me by name, I guessed there had been something happening at the guns.

  And I was not wrong. I was wanted to replace casualties.

  Our little party of gunners and signallers left the wagonline as the mist was clearing. We could see the road quite plainly in front of us—so plainly, in fact, that we saw things on it which decided us not to take the road at all, but make a detour across country. Only a few hours previously I had ridden along that road in the light of the stars, and it had seemed like a country road at home in its untouched whiteness; but now it was different. The shells had torn great holes in its length, and with the shells had come the red splashes of death where ammunition-waggons and infantry transport had been caught in the open when the barrage started. Smashed vehicles festooned its borders; horses lay there rigid alongside them, and occasionally a blotch of khaki.

  The gun-position looked somehow different. Something had been happening there, too. Shell-holes were dotted about between the guns, gaping holes which showed up glaringly against the smooth green of the turf, and the guns were in action with the covers off and piles of ammunition ready at the trails. No shells came over as we walked on to the position, and ahead in the line the landscape was beginning to show its accustomed outlines as the fog lifted. Outside the TDO there was a little crowd of gunners, and an officer bending over someone who was lying on the grass at their feet. It was poor old Corporal S, of the signallers, who had caught it badly, and was about to be carried away to the dressing-station. I looked at his face as the stretcher passed me, and recognition came into his eyes. And then they called me into the dugout to take over the telephone.

  All the morning the gunners ‘stood’ ready to fire as soon as we should hear where the enemy had got to in their advance. No information had come down yet except the tales the wounded had to tell of how they had been suddenly overwhelmed in the frontline and surrounded by hordes of Jerries in the fog. The enemy had broken through all right after the terrific bombardment of the early hours, but he was held up somewhere or other, and now and again the rattle of machine guns came back to us.

  The front grew quieter as the morning wore on. Shelling became less frequent. But the fog had cleared completely, and every moment we expected orders for action, now that observation of the enemy movements was possible. Towards midday the noises of firing dropped to an occasional shell or so, and then came silence. It was all very mysterious and alarming. What was happening up there in front? Should we see the Boches coming over?

  It was half-past twelve when the first message came over the phone. Five minutes later the range had been worked out and the battery was in action, banging away at some unseen target over the low slopes in front of us, wooded slopes towards which we had directed half-fearful glances during the morning. With minor alterations of range, the guns kept it up for the next hour, two rounds per gun per minute, and I seized the opportunity of getting out on the position to have a look at things.

  Directly ahead the rising ground precluded all view of the line, so my sightseeing was limited to the flanks. On the right there was another battery in action about half a mile away, going strong with flashing salvoes. I looked to the left, and then I saw something which made my heart contract and sent me running back to the TDO to fetch Ross out to have a look.

  The infantry were running away.

  Down the slopes they came, throwing away their rifles as they ran, coming down towards the guns at the double in twos and threes, hatless and wholly demoralized, calling out to us as they passed that Jerry was through and that it was all over. No use staying there with those guns, they yelled as they ran by; he was through! Privates, non-commissioned officers, running for their lives out of the horror they had tried to stand up to all that day, running past our guns in increasing numbers, and making us realize to the full the desperate plight we were in. Why should we not retire as well and save the guns?

  But the Major was out on the position now, tight-lipped and grim, swinging his revolver in his hand and telling us all that no man was to leave the guns without orders or he would be shot; watching the rise ahead and then glancing back at the broken remnant of the battalion fleeing in disorder; sweeping the skyline with his glasses for the first signs of grey figures coming over—we were to stay.

  Towards three o’clock more and more infantry retired on our left and made us feel that we would shortly be the only people in the line at all. Messages came through with increasing rapidity ordering us to fire here and there on the advancing enemy. The ammunition was running out and an orderl
y was sent galloping off to the waggon-line for more. The whole brigade was now firing salvo after salvo into Lambay Wood, just in front, where masses of the Jerries were. Across the front as far as the eye could see there was no other artillery brigade firing; the one on our right had packed up at midday, and we were alone on the sector with the whole might of the enemy closing on us.

  No more infantry came down now. There were no more there. Inquisitive aeroplanes had found the coast all clear for a general advance. Only our brigade held the line, firing desultory salvoes into Lambay Wood, sweeping the guns across a too-wide arc of the front in a futile attempt to stay the tide of field-grey that was spreading towards us out there in the darkness of the evening. Across the length and breadth of the sector, save only where our battery defiantly banged away and reloaded and banged again, there settled a prolonged silence. A faint and strangely alarming rumble of transport reached us at intervals from afar, as if the enemy had penetrated behind us on the flanks and was dragging up his artillery. We did not know. The hours went by to seven o’clock and then eight o’clock with still no order to retire. With the coming of night the guns ceased their work, as the location of the enemy was now shrouded in mystery. The next thing that would happen, I thought, would be our last shoot of the war, at point-blank range, as they came running down that same slope with their bombs and bayonets.