Tiger Hills

by Sarita Mandanna

  A chill breeze blew through the pass and despite himself Lieutenant Balmer shivered. No cymbal clash’d, no clarion rang, still were the pipe and drum… The line from the poem ran through his mind. For the life of him he couldn’t remember what followed after: … still were…still were…still were the pipe and drum… It suddenly seemed of paramount importance that he remember.

  Ah! No cymbal clash’d, no clarion rang, still were the pipe and drum. Save heavy tread and weapon clang, our onward march was dumb. Shifting the strap of his rifle, he continued silently forward.

  The mountains, crystalline-shadowed, gazed meditatively down at their passage.

  They were now at least a mile from the camp. The pass narrowed to a sharp-edged defile ahead, barely wide enough to fit two men standing shoulder to shoulder before turning sharply to the left. Through there, Balmer decided, they would reconnoiter just beyond the turn, then head back to the camp. He signaled to his men, and they moved up the defile.

  For a split second, the silence continued. And then, a fiendish yell, bestial, bloodthirsty, ricocheted from the ancient crags into the velvet-cloaked valleys below.

  The soldiers had stumbled on the enemy, thousands upon thousands of men creeping stealthily through the gorge and toward the sleeping camp.

  The 20th opened fire at once, letting loose volley after volley of shots into the enemy at close range. They were met with howls of rage from the Pashtuns, who quickly lifted their own rifles.

  “Fall back, fall back,” Balmer cried. They moved back, pace by pace, still firing. The noise bouncing off the rock face was deafening.

  The 20th retreated, taking up position before the turn and the narrow defile, behind a rough outcrop of rock; the first line of defense kneeling, the second standing upright behind them, reloading and firing, reloading and firing into the enemy as they tried repeatedly to breach the turn. Shrapnel flew as bullets thudded into the rock face, bodies began to litter the defile, and still the Afghans pressed forward. They clambered over the bodies of their fallen comrades, letting loose wild volleys of bullets before being mowed down themselves. Still they came: for each Pashtun fallen, two more to take his place. Their bullets, too, began to find marks—a soldier immediately to Machu’s left; another, hit in the neck, gurgling blood and clawing wild-eyed at his throat as he fell.

  The soldiers shot a rocket into the air to warn the camp, the acrid stink of the shell burning their nostrils. As the shell flared high above them, it highlighted for an instant the desperate scene before them. The Pashtuns were gaining ground, Machu saw. They were being cut down steadily by the 20th, but there were too few soldiers to hold them at bay for much longer. And when they did breach the corner and get into the pass … He glanced at Balmer, saw the anxiety in his face. “Stay strong, men, stay strong,” Balmer shouted over the din, “not long now before they send us reinforcements. Sepoys, hold steady.”

  Another soldier cried out, the rifle falling from his hand as he slumped forward. “Get his bullets,” Machu shouted, but there was barely time to reload. The Afghans were pushing forward, leaping around the pass.

  Balmer reached into his belt pouch, but there were no more bullets. We need ammunition, Balmer thought desperately, searching behind him in the still empty pass. Where are the reinforcements?

  The volunteer officer stood next to him, firing wildly. There were so many of the enemy rushing around the corner, it did not matter that his aim was unpracticed; he shot erratically into their numbers, and with each bullet someone fell. And then his rifle, too, fell silent. Machu saw him turn to Balmer, gesticulating wildly. “The camp,” he shouted into Balmer’s ear, “we must retreat.” Balmer shook his head, not bothering with words. They would never make it, Machu knew, not with the mob that would tear after them.

  “I’m out, no more ammo,” the volunteer cried again. “What do we do?”

  The last rifles of the 20th sputtered to a halt. For just an instant, the pass fell silent again, the Afghans listening intently around one corner, the soldiers searching behind them on the other, willing the reinforcements to arrive. Balmer stared at his men, momentarily at a loss. Machaiah was looking steadily at him, Balmer saw, the tight resignation in the older man’s face speaking plainly of what must follow.

  Balmer shut his eyes for a brief, calming instant. A vast bank of rhododendrons flashed through his mind, the enormous hedge of it that lined their garden back home. His mother sitting in the shade, in a white wicker chair, her favorite tabby purring on her lap. I’m sorry, Mother.

  Taking a deep breath, he pulled his revolver from the holster. “This is it, men,” he said. “Remember, glory to the Twentieth.”

  The sikhs pulled their turbans from their heads, their hair tumbling wild and loose down their backs. “Wahe guru ki khalsa, wahe guru ki fateh!!” they cried, thrusting their bayonets ferociously in the air. And alongside them, another voice that echoed from the mountains.

  “AYYAPPA SWAMI!” Machu roared, leaping with what remained of the patrol from behind the outcrop into the pass.

  Machu thrust his bayonet through a Pashtun, skewering him, but even as he fell, the man slashed at Machu’s shoulder. He stepped aside, the blade of the sword nicking his skin then falling away. He turned, pushed his bayonet through another man, removed it cleanly, thrust again. Duck, move, thrust, parry, thrust, remove, step aside, turn, thrust, remove, thrust. Something hit him on the head, he staggered for a moment as a warm gush of liquid streamed down his face, then righted himself, thrust.

  Back and forth his arm moved, no time to think, just this fluid dance, the hunter and the hunted. His blade turned dark, slicing through muscle and sinew. Thrust and remove, thrust and remove, the odikathi digging deep into the tiger’s guts. Dust rose thick in the air from beneath the churning feet, the screams of men echoing from the rocks. A foul stench of involuntarily voided bowels from among the fallen mingled with the acrid sting of gunpowder and the mineral smell of blood. From the corner of his eye, Machu saw the volunteer officer go down. Balmer, he thought, where is Balmer?

  He turned just in time to see the lieutenant fall forward. An Afghan stood over him, both arms raised high as he prepared to bring his sword crashing down. “SWAMIYE AYYAPPA!” Machu smashed his bayonet into the man’s spine, viciously twisting the blade. He was pulling it free when a man came rushing up to him and brought his sword down on Machu’s arm. Machu shouted in agony. Bending his head, he butted the man ferociously in the nose, felt rather than heard the cartilage crunch apart. The man staggered back, clutching at his face. Grabbing his bayonet in his left hand, Machu stabbed it through the Pashtun’s throat.

  In the distance, the blare of bugles. The reinforcements, at last. From behind them, the faint roar of men, the war cries of the sikhs. Machu grinned, a wild, wolfish grin, the dimple dancing in his cheek. It would not be long now.

  He stood over Balmer, not sure if the lieutenant was alive or dead, his right arm nearly sliced through, dangling uselessly from his side. His face was wet with blood, it was dripping into his eyes, so that he could barely see. No time to think, just this dance, this eternal, exhilarating dance, thrust and parry, thrust, remove, thrust. The hooves of horses, thundering up the pass. Machu laughed out loud. “El Kheir,” he roared, “El Kheir! May victory be eternally bound to your forelock … I am going home.”

  He could hardly see through the blood; he was fighting more from instinct than anything else. Thrust and remove, thrust … a bullet hit him square in the chest. Machu jerked backward from the force of it; to his great surprise, he found his legs would no longer hold him. He fell hard to the ground, the breath knocked from his body.

  Everything went silent, as if wads of cotton had suddenly been plugged in his ears. The flash of swords about him. The blue-white glint of their tips, as if the stars hung lower this morning. The unbound hair of the sikhs whirling about them as, one by one, they too fell.

  Machu was filled with an inexplicable urge to laugh. It was all so ridiculous.
Honor, glory—all trampled underfoot in some misbegotten pass. The battle would end soon, he knew, and eventually the war. The world would turn. Men would forget. And then, as sure as the sun was rising even now in the east, the very same battles would be waged again, for reasons that would not matter. Who would remember the blood staining the dust; who would mourn hope, lost forever?

  A man was poised above him, his sword lifted. Machu gripped his bayonet. The Afghan raised his arm high and Machu stabbed the bayonet upward, into the man’s groin. The man dropped like a stone and suddenly Machu’s hearing returned. The cries were louder behind him; he could hear the horses pounding up the pass. The Afghans began to falter. How many, he wondered idly, had the sardarji killed?

  Ah, but it did not matter. None of this did.

  He was going home.

  The pop of gunfire, the whistle of bullets above him. Or was that the breeze, rustling through the rushes? The air was still, so clean it hurt his chest to breathe. The paddy, just turning green, the jeweled flash of a kingfisher among the crab pools. And look there, just beyond the crest of that hill, a flock of herons, graceful as the wind. Machu watched them soar, his heart taking flight along with them, cresting into the sky.

  It feels like a pair of wings, she had said to him. Loving you, it is like being given the gift of flight. To have all of the sky at my disposal, to soar where I will.

  A numbness was slowly descending on him. He gripped his bayonet closer, fighting the darkness, forcing his eyes to stay open. Pennants of golden silk danced before him, rustling in the air. The snorting of horses, the thunder of their hooves. Cold, arrogant steel slicing through his flesh. The fiery orange of the tiger as it turned roaring to face him, the tint of the early morning sky that was even now staining the mountaintops. She was calling out to him, her laughter tinkling in the breeze. He shook his head, smiling, and reached for her, but it was like reaching for quicksilver. Wait, I am coming home.

  He tried to say her name then, as liquid flooded his chest. He struggled, coughing, but when he finally did say it, De-vi, it was but a sigh, slipping unheard into the stones. He struggled again, feebly trying to draw air into his lungs. The reinforcements were upon them, Machu realized, the Afghans in full flight beyond the defile. “Over here!” someone shouted. “Lieutenant Balmer is here. He’s alive!”

  Machu grinned, the dimple flashing briefly, and a fierce elation flooded his chest. “I am headed … ” He coughed again, a great gush of blood spilling from his mouth. “I … am … ”

  And then the tiger killer was still, his eyes open, staring unblinking into the rising sun. His grip slackened and the bayonet slipped at last from his hand, raising a brief puff of dust as it fell.

  Hundreds of miles away, a woman, heartbreakingly lovely, woke with a start, her heart contracting with dread. The fields erupted in an explosion of white as a flock of herons suddenly took wing. Water rolled off their wings, their beaks, and their claws in minute droplets, catching the first rays of the sun as they hurtled toward the earth. And it was as if the birds were weeping, crying a shower of diamonds over the still-sleeping town below.

  “I am yours forever.”

  Chapter 27

  Devi stood in the vegetable patch, trying to make sense of the tomatoes. They had seemingly grown overnight, the plants very nearly the height of the wooden stakes to which they had been bound.

  “I had Tukra treat them with lime,” Devanna said softly, pointing toward the stakes. He waited, and when there was no response forthcoming, “See? Here, and here, so that the termites wouldn’t get at them.”

  She looked about her in a daze, his words barely registering. How had they grown so quickly? Why, she clearly remembered planting them not one week ago. Barely the length of her palm, they had been.

  “Devi, come, we should head inside. It looks like rain.”

  She said nothing.

  Such ripe, juicy fruit. She reached a hand toward an especially voluptuous specimen, testing the springiness of its flesh.

  “The tomatoes … ,” Devi said vaguely, still not looking at him.

  “Do you want some with your lunch? Tukra—pick some.”

  She shook her head, suddenly irritated. Really, he could be so obtuse sometimes. “The tomatoes. Can’t you see how they have grown? I planted them just a couple of days ago and already … ” The tomatoes swayed fatly on their stalks.

  “You planted these three months ago,” Devanna said gently. “Don’t you remember?”

  “Three months?” She whipped around. “Three months?”

  “It is almost October, Devi. Look at the sky.”

  It was a soft, rain-washed blue. The color of a mynah’s egg, Machu used to call it, the sky after the rains.

  “October?” Confusion washed over her, and she took a faltering step backward.

  Tukra jumped forward, ready to assist, but stopped as Devanna shook his head. “Yes. Soon it will be time for the Kaveri festival,” Devanna said, his eyes fixed on her face. He limped cautiously toward her. “It’s been three months.”

  Devi shook her head disbelievingly. “No.” It could not have been ninety days already. She knew they were watching her; she could sense the wariness in their gaze. “Go away,” she wanted to shout, “go away,” but she said nothing, staring at the shiny redness cupped in her hand. She squeezed the tomato, and it gave slightly under the pressure.

  “Devi … ”

  Her hand closed tightly over the fruit and it burst, squirting through her fingers. Devi backed away from the plant, staring in horror at her red-stained palm. Three months, it could not have been three months since … since … She turned at last to Devanna, her face crumpling.

  “It’s okay, Devi, it’s okay.” He was by her side, wiping her fingers clean. Just like when they were children. He was saying something, and she tried to reply but her throat was choked with grief, and she folded against him, sobbing.

  “It’s okay,” he said against her hair, holding her tight. “Come, you need to rest. Nanju will be home from school soon. You don’t want him to see you like this.”

  When Devi finally awoke, it was in that in-between hour between night and morning, when the forest was silent and the animals returned to their lairs, when ghosts sighed wistfully into sleeping ears and the breeze lay coiled and waiting in the hearts of the trees. Her head was clear at last of sound, the ringing in her ears silenced. He was gone. She tested this truth, tracing the cold steel of the words. He was gone and there was only one thing to do. Devi lay unmoving in her bed, lying perfectly still as she waited for the dawn.

  Devanna tried to dissuade her. “Devi, what on earth will you tell his widow?”

  “That she has no money and I do. That I can give her son a far better life than she ever will. Tukra,” she shouted. “Are the horses harnessed yet or must I walk all the way to the Kambeymada village?”

  “The boy is her only child,” Devanna tried again.

  “All the more reason that she look after his interests.”

  “Devi—”

  “Enough.” Devi turned on him, her eyes glittering, whether with nervousness, excitement, or a slight madness, Devanna knew not which. “This is not your concern.”

  She refused to let him accompany her, sitting ramrod-straight in the carriage all the way to the village, her hands folded in her lap. Once again Devi had lost weight, her figure now almost girlish, the collarbones prominent under her blouse. Where grief might have tarred another, it had only enhanced the translucence of her skin, rendering her face almost ethereal. Only the eyes, dark as coal, betrayed the fragility that lay beneath.

  With Machu’s passing, it was as if a fulcrum had gone missing from the world. A reaction so physical that barely would she place her feet upon the ground than it would buckle. The memory of his eyes, golden, so filled with pain. I would have stood by you. The dark walls of a well spinning about her, a subterranean vortex of loss bottomless in its tow. Until the previous night, when suddenly, there had bee
n stillness.

  Appu.

  Devi realized then what she had to do, felt the rightness of it in the stillness of her bones. Machu was gone. But Appu. The child was always meant to be hers; he should have been their son. She was only bringing him home.

  The house was shockingly small. Devi looked at the dust smudging the table, and the widow reached self-consciously to wipe it away. The woman flushed then, color tinging her cheekbones at being caught in this small act of pride. “So why are you here?” she asked, her voice tight.

  The child wandered in just then, dragging a wooden horse. Devi’s heart constricted. So much like Machu. He spotted Devi and stopped, sucking noisily on his thumb. The widow gathered him into her lap and gently removed the offending appendage from his mouth. When he promptly tried to put it back in, Devi leaned forward in an attempt to distract him. “Kambeymada Appu, is that not your name?”

  He looked curiously at her. “Who are you?” he demanded.

  “I am… ” She paused, at a loss.

  “My father died.”

  Devi swallowed. “I know, kunyi.”

  “I have to take care of the house now. He told me to, when he left for the mountains.”

  “Yes.” She smiled shakily. “See, here. Would you like a sweet?” She pointed to the box she had brought with her.

  “Sweets! What kind?” He reached eagerly for the box, but the widow pulled his arm away.

  “No.” She set him down on the floor. “No, Appu, go and play outside for a while, there’s a good child.”

  A disappointed Appu looked for a second as if he might argue but then he stoutly nodded. Devi bit her lip, unable to take her eyes off him as he left the room, his little horse clattering behind him on its string.

  “Appu looks so much like … he looks just like his … ,” she began huskily.