Tiger, Tiger

by Philip Caveney

  He began to think very favourably about the cool green fields of England.…

  * * *

  IT WAS LATE and it was Mess night, but for the first time since he had begun the regular visits, Harry could not raise the necessary enthusiasm to go. He sat alone in his sitting room, with just one small reading lamp lit behind him. He had told Pawn to go home, that he would not be going out tonight and eventually, with great reluctance, she had agreed. She had realized only too well that something must be very wrong, for the Tuan was a creature of habit and the visits to the Mess were as much a part of his weekly routine as the cups of tea he liked to enjoy out on the verandah.

  “I’m just tired,” he had said, by way of explanation. “I need to rest.”

  He knew himself that this was nothing but a poor excuse. What he really felt was an acute sense of betrayal. Quite unexpectedly, the two people he loved most in the world had turned against him. Not only that, but both of them had gravitated towards a man that he disliked intensely, a man who according to Harry’s code of living, had no moral ethics whatsoever.

  Harry sighed. He gazed thoughtfully about the room in which he sat and he seemed to be seeing it for the first time. What a grim, cheerless place it looked, doubly so in the harsh limited glow of a single light bulb. The bare, red-tiled floor was covered here and there by worn rush matting and though Pawn kept it beautifully polished, it had none of the appeal of a good soft carpet. The heavy teak furniture, brought over from Burma, was at least an improvement on the ghastly tubular steel and Formica stuff that the armed forces tended to furnish their officers quarters with, but against the nondescript pale-blue walls, it tended to look oppressive and only served to emphasize the emptiness of the rest of the room. There had been paintings and some wood carvings once upon a time, but these artifacts were more Meg’s influence than his and he had got rid of them shortly after her death, for they only served as constant reminders of her existence. There were no plants in the house either, the only other living occupants being a pair of chit-chats, busily searching the corners of the ceiling for tasty insects.

  “Dead,” thought Harry sadly. “Even the room is dead.” For the first time in his life, he felt near to resigning himself to a similar fate. There seemed little to go on for now. The community here was falling apart at the seams. In a short while Melissa would be gone, and it grieved him to think that she might leave before their quarrel could be repaired. As for Ché… well, he was at an impressionable age. It was quite possible that he would simply forget about the old man who had once meant so much to him. Then what would be left for Harry? Would he go on haunting the Mess and the tennis club, until all the last stragglers had moved away to their British homes? Was he to be the last doddering old vestige of Empire, constantly hounded by well-meaning bores like Doctor Kalim? He shuddered at the very thought of it. He was in every way, in every little habit, a product of the strange colonial life he had led for so very long. With that life-style gone, he would be nothing more than a pitiful relic. A feeling of coldness settled over him. He felt abruptly as if there was not a single ounce of emotion left in him. He stood up slowly and went over to the ornately carved writing desk that stood against the far wall. He pulled out the single drawer and extracted a heavy .38 revolver that had not been fired in many years. Reaching further back into the drawer, his fingers located a box of ammunition. He put the two items down on the desk and stood gazing at them for several moments, the palms of his hands resting on either side of them. He did not feel in the least afraid. He now opened the cardboard pack and let the bullets drop out onto the desk. Breaking open the chamber of the gun, he began to load it, carefully and methodically. Once all the chambers were full, he snapped the gun shut and stood, gazing at the weapon thoughtfully.

  The doorbell rang. Harry glanced up in surprise. He had certainly not been expecting a caller. The only person who might be expected to call on Mess nights was the old Chinese trishaw driver, but Harry had not seen hide nor hair of the fellow since his illness. It was very silent in the house. Harry stood where he was for several moments, trying to decide what to do. Then he came to a decision. He raised the pistol, opened his mouth slightly and placed the tip of the barrel inside. A friend had once told him that this was the best way to do it; a shot through the side of the head could often deflect against the hard bone and a lingering, miserable death resulted. Harry closed his eyes and his finger tightened on the trigger.…

  The doorbell rang again, shrill, insistent. Harry snatched the gun away with a curse and slammed it down on the surface of the desk. How the hell was he supposed to make an end of himself with all these bloody interruptions? Mumbling to himself, he strode towards the door, unlatched it, and peeped out into the night. It was not well lit out there and at first, all he could see was the silhouette of a small, half-naked boy. Harry’s first impulse was one of joy, for he thought that this was Ché; but as he swung the door open and the boy stepped into the light, he could see that it was a Chinese youth, someone he had never seen before.

  “Yes?” he enquired, puzzled.

  The boy moved forward into the light. He was clad in just a pair of khaki shorts and some worn looking flip-flops. He was somewhat older than Ché, perhaps fourteen or fifteen and he had that wide-eyed, undernourished look that many of the poorer kampong children possessed. When he spoke, it was haltingly, for his English was not good.

  “I come take Tuan sol’ymess.”

  Harry gazed at the boy for a moment, then scratched his head in puzzlement.

  “What?” he asked simply.

  The boy smiled self-consciously, aware of his own limitations. He repeated the phrase again, more slowly this time.

  “I … come … take Tuan … sol’ymess.” Then he turned and pointed up the path, into the darkness. “Trishaw,” he added and patted his own thin chest to indicate that the vehicle was his property.

  “Ah … I see … where’s the other fellow?” He noted the boy’s look of bafflement and amended his own question accordingly. “Where is other man who always come for me?”

  Recognition flared in the boy’s large brown eyes; then he glanced regretfully at his feet.

  “My grandfather, Tuan,” he said glumly. “He dead … two days now.”

  To Harry, the news was like a sharp blow beneath the ribs. It momentarily took the breath out of him and he had to lean against the door frame for support.

  “Oh,” he murmured tonelessly. “Oh God, I’m sorry.…” So they were all leaving him, one by one. Even the ones who really belonged here. He glanced back over his shoulder and the pistol was waiting for him, a shiny mechanical ticket to oblivion.

  “Grandfather leave trishaw to me,” explained the boy with difficulty. “He also leave…” He struggled for a word he did not know, then brightened and pulled a piece of paper from his back pocket and handed it to Harry. The old man gazed at it blankly. It had been scrawled on in pencil, but the characters were Mandarin Chinese and Harry could only shrug helplessly.

  “Is times, Tuan. Times you allus go sol’ymess. Grandfather make me promise to come for you ev’ry night. Also, not take money till pay back what you give him. You unner’stan?”

  Harry nodded, sighed.

  “Yes, I understand. But there is no need to pay back anything.…”

  “I promise Grandfather. In return, get own business. Trishaw driver. So … we go now, yes?”

  “I … I won’t be going tonight son. Too tired … here, let me…”

  He began to fish about in his pocket for change but the boy shook his head adamantly.

  “I not take money, Tuan! Is promise I make.” He gazed at Harry imploringly. “Why you not go, Tuan? Grandfather, he say you allus go. You think I not look after you?” He grinned fearlessly. “Don’t worry, Tuan! I small but strong too!” He indicated his skinny little legs. “Go many mile aw’ready.…”

  “Yes … yes, of course, it’s not that I don’t trust you.…”

  “If you not go, how
I pay back what Grandfather owe? It long way from kampong to here, but I allus come for you. You see!”

  Harry gazed thoughtfully at the boy, suddenly struck by the determination in the boy, the will to fill his grandfather’s shoes, to do a man’s job. It couldn’t be easy for him, for he was thin and puny and no doubt he crawled into bed every night in a state of exhaustion, every muscle aching. Harry felt ashamed, realizing just how easily he himself had given up. He thought of the old man who had not even let death prevent him from repaying what, to him, was a debt of honour. He could learn much from people like this.

  “I’ll get my coat,” he said simply, and turning, he strolled back inside, pausing only to unload the pistol and replace it in the drawer.

  “What is that, Tuan?” asked the boy, intrigued.

  “Nothing. Just a toy I was playing with,” replied Harry and he went to find his jacket.

  A few minutes later, the trishaw was whizzing smoothly along the coast road. The night was humid and rich with the scent of wild orchids. As they turned a long slow bend in the road, Harry could see the ocean far below, half masked by a screen of thick foliage. The sea air wafting in over the treetops was a temporary cooling respite before they plunged back between flanks of screening jungle, but the vision of glittering moonlight on restless waves stayed with Harry as they journeyed on into the darkness.

  The boy applied himself to the task of turning the pedals with silent dedication. His dark face shone with sweat.

  “You’re a good driver,” observed Harry, and the boy grinned with pleasure.

  Harry leaned back with a sigh and took the cigar case from his breast pocket. He extracted two, lit them both and then handed one back to the boy. He had done this from force of habit, momentarily forgetting that it was no longer the old man who was driving him, but the boy accepted the cigar gratefully, put it between his lips and smoked as though he had been doing it for years.

  “Thank you, Tuan,” he said brightly. “Good cigar.”

  And the trishaw whirred on into the night, its easy gliding motion calming the desperation that Harry had so recently felt in his heart. Once again, he was at peace with the world.

  TWO

  CHAPTER 18

  HAJI MOVED SLOWLY through the screen of bushes that flanked the jungle road, placing his paws with delicate precision and he never took his eyes off the old Upright woman for a single moment. She was moving with surprising speed for her age, as she had done now for several miles. She was totally unaware that she was being followed and that she had already had several lucky escapes. Every time Haji tensed himself for the short dash that would end the woman’s life, something happened to disrupt the plan: A bullock cart passed along from the other direction, or a group of Uprights would call noisy greetings to her from the roadside. Haji would then be obliged to hug cover and wait for some time, before another opportunity presented itself and now the woman was dangerously close to Kampong Panjang, the place where she was headed.

  It was getting increasingly difficult to secure an Upright. Over the two and a half months since Haji had resumed his rightful territory, he had killed five of them. He had also picked up several dogs from around the kampongs and some stray cattle, but his presence was now so feared that people did not wander about after dark and Haji had been forced to operate in broad daylight. He still hunted his more usual prey whenever the chance arose, but there seemed to be a terrible shortage of game in the jungle and anyway, he had quickly learned that an Upright was much easier to catch and kill. His right foreleg was now almost completely useless and though he had learned to live with it, it slowed him down terribly.

  Haji was certainly having to keep his wits about him now. It seemed impossible to return to a kill without finding it disturbed in some way and with an Upright lying up in wait for him, with the inevitable black stick. He had been shot at on two occasions, the roaring fire coming dangerously close and as a consequence, he hardly ever returned to a kill anymore without first patrolling the whole area and assuring himself that the coast was clear. It very rarely was and if the victim was an Upright, it never was. The most suspicious creatures of all were the live cattle that Haji sometimes encountered tethered in the very midst of the jungle. They made no attempt to run when they saw Haji, they simply tugged ineffectually at the ropes that held them and bawled pitifully. There was something so wrong about this behaviour that Haji steered well clear of the creatures, even when he was very hungry. He had once encountered Timah on one of the cattle trails and saw that she was stalking one of these strange cattle. Haji had intimated his fear to her and she too had abandoned the scheme, bowing to his greater experience. Haji had noticed that she was heavy with cubs and realized that his litter might be born in a few weeks’ time. This had given him a brief sensation of well-being, though he had quickly forgotten the incident when he and Timah went their separate ways. He hoped that he had instilled in her the good sense to avoid anything that seemed “unnatural” for there was, in nearly every case, a strong indication that Uprights had been in the vicinity and these were dangerous times.

  The road seemed deserted again. Haji glanced to left and right and for the moment, nothing else moved. He fixed his gaze on the old Upright, moving his head backwards and forwards, like a cameraman taking focus and he crept to the very edge of the undergrowth, bunching his leg muscles to propel himself across the road.…

  An unexpected yell startled him and a large band of Upright cubs spilled from out of some bushes to his left. He dropped back with a growl of frustration as they rushed past him along the road, waving their arms and shouting greetings to the old woman, who they quickly surrounded. Haji was furious. He dared not attack so large a group and he could only slink along, keeping pace with them, in the vague hope that he would get one more opportunity to strike before the woman reached the sanctuary of the kampong. But even now, she was turning in at an open entrance that led along a short lane to the houses of the village, no more than twenty yards away. The cubs, who had no doubt appointed themselves as some kind of escort, deemed her to be safe this near the kampong and they turned away, waving and yelling their goodbyes. Smiling, the old woman turned and trudged slowly along the lane, while the others continued along the main road.

  Glancing wildly around, Haji cut through the intervening cover at a steady trot, hoping to surprise the Upright in the narrow confines of the lane, but he had reckoned the distances badly, for when he reached the lane, she was already emerging into the area beyond and was passing into the shadow of the first house. The kampong seemed quiet in the heat of the day and Haji was loath to follow her in there; but then he noticed that she had come to a halt beside the second house and that this house was still near the very perimeter of the village. Making a quick decision, Haji burst from the cover of the bushes and loped across the intervening distance, a lithe, striped form that made no sound. He came around the far side of the house she had already passed, instinctively keeping to the shadow it threw on the hard earth. The old Upright had begun to climb the ladder to the open door of the house. She was on the third rung and she was calling out to someone within.…

  Inside the house, the woman’s daughter was sitting cross-legged on the floor in the corner of the room, attending to some sewing. She lifted her head at the sound of her mother’s voice and was slightly puzzled by an abrupt bump that followed it. She stood up and placed her sewing carefully where it would not be disturbed; then she turned, strolled to the open doorway with a smile of greeting on her face. The smile faded when she saw that there was nobody there. Outside was deserted and silent save for the maddening song of a brain fever bird. The woman thought she saw a brief flutter of dress fabric disappearing around the corner of the house and she leaned forward a little, called her mother’s name. But there was nothing there. She began to think that she must have imagined the call and was about to turn back into the interior of the house; but then she noticed something strange on the ladder below her, something soft and brown that w
as caught in one of the V’s, between the upright and a horizontal slat of wood. Something that was wedged there. The woman frowned, began to clamber down the ladder curiously. Now a dark viscous liquid began to pump from the thing, spattering the rungs further below. The woman recognized one of a pair of elaborate embroidered slippers that she had given to her mother some years before as a present. It dawned on her slowly, horribly that her mother’s foot was still inside, torn raggedly away at the ankle.

  She screamed until she fainted.

  * * *

  BOB BERESFORD sat in the bare cheerlessness of his sitting room, cleaning his rifle with an oily rag and taking occasional swigs from a can of Tiger beer. For him, the last two and a half months had been a frustrating time. Although he had practically redoubled his efforts to catch the man-eating tiger, he was still no nearer to his goal. The beast was very lucky, very cunning, or possessed a combination of both. At any rate, none of Bob’s ruses had worked, the closest he had got were a couple of fleeting glimpses of the tiger as it took off into cover and the shots he had tried on both occasions, nothing more than useless gestures that stood not a hope in hell of hitting their target. He had also managed to shoot a leopard which had attacked a tethered calf he had put out in the vicinity of one of the tiger’s kills and that particular beast had since been converted into a rather tatty-looking rug, that looked singularly out of place in Bob’s otherwise spartan abode.

  The greatest blow of all to Bob’s pride had, of course, been the realization that Harry Sullivan was quite right about Bob’s mistaken shooting of the first tiger. When the news had come through about a second kill, Bob had felt vaguely ashamed of himself, but not enough to allow him to apologize to the old man. He had encountered Harry once or twice at the Mess since then and though nothing was actually said, the venom in Harry’s eyes suggested that it would have been useless to try to be friendly; so, perhaps wisely, Bob kept his distance and simply got on with rectifying his own mistake to the best of his ability. Of course, as time went on and more lives were claimed, the Malayan Game Department had dispatched one of their own men to take care of the tiger. His name was Mike Kirby and he was an affable enough fellow. Bob had gone drinking with him on a couple of occasions and there was certainly little competition between the two of them. The fact that Bob lived locally and had already organized a good “jungle telegraph” for himself meant that the Australian tended to be onto the scene of the kill first and as Bob seemed to know what he was doing, Kirby was content to work from a series of staked-out baits.