by Hal Colebatch, Mark O Martin, Gregory Benford, Paul Chafe
He turned to his bookcase, another elaborate antique affair with sliding glass doors, and handed something down, carefully.
“It’s pretty fragile.”
Vaughn-Nguyen did not want to let a Historian take family heirlooms away, even temporarily. I had to show him one of my identifications in the end. I also promised to return the things after examination.
Many pages of the book were missing, and several broke as I handled it. They didn’t tear, just snapped and crumbled soundlessly. I learned sense then and stopped touching it. If it had been made of snowflakes, the thing could hardly have been less frail.
I had seen old books often enough professionally, but I had seldom had to puzzle out a lot of their contents. When in doubt, they went, as a general rule.
There were few pictures in the book and the ancient cramped layout and typefaces made it horribly difficult to read after a while, even though the spelling was relatively modern. I took a painkiller and then got the book to Bannerjee at the ARM Lab in New Sydney and had him photograph it before more harm was done. Then I got to the ’doc for treatment for my finger. I had hardly ever seen real blood before, certainly not my own, and I did not like the sight. Once, people like Colonel Vaughn must have seen a lot of blood.
The ’doc treated my finger, but nothing else. O’Brien’s direction on that matter had gone right through the system. I slept badly that night. A headache the ’doc again refused to medicate. A slight throb in my finger, all adding up to the unpleasant novelty of pain. It was like living in a fant book, I thought sourly, living, perhaps, as the military fants wanted it. And maybe my system was changing.
• CHAPTER 4
I had been asked to travel to the Mohne Dam, that structure at the head of the Ruhr Valley which was breached by the “Dambusters” 50 years ago, to research an anniversary article. [There was] no clue as to the events of that night of May 16/17, 1943. There are no plaques, no memorials, no postcards. There are no twisted chunks of bomb casing mounted on a concrete plinth. There is no roll call of the drowned. Nothing. Girls sunbathed in the 80 degree sunshine and a couple of yachts moved sleepily in the light breeze.
—Peter Tory, International Express, May 19-25, 1993
Bannerjee called me next morning, with the pages nicely enlarged and cleaned, and with a parallel text on the screen supplied in modern type which had been scanned from the legible parts and which I could read without developing a headache.
I kept him hooked up and we read the pages together. The book began with a conventional description of the colonel’s family, apparently ancient even when the words had been set down. I soon found the chapter heading I wanted.
The Indians said the tiger had come to the district a few months before. It had come, they said, in a blaze of light during a thunderstorm.
Certainly their superstitious awe could be explained by its extraordinary ferocity. Man-eaters in these parts generally adopt anthropophagy because owing to age or injury they can no longer pursue and pull down swifter and stronger game. But in this case men, cattle (including buffaloes), deer, bears and other creatures tame and wild, including even elephants, appeared to have fallen victim to a single beast. It attacked by day as well as by night, and even seemed to favor the daylight hours. It was said to be fearless and made little or no effort to conceal itself, save when it was plainly stalking for pleasure.
Efforts to kill it by a band of determined villagers had ended in disaster. Once it had disposed of them, it came into the village itself and wrought havoc.
Then the survivors had fled en masse. Yet these were tough hillmen who regard the tiger as a natural foe and will, if there is not a British regiment in the area with breech-loading repeaters and perhaps a few elephants, normally be prepared to tackle any beast on foot with tower-muskets.
There had been found, indeed, the half-eaten body of another tiger it had apparently defeated, and that, said Sher Ali, the descendant of generations of hunters and marksmen who examined it and knows tigers well (he had even taken his name from them), had been a Royal Beast. I will write of Sher Ali more, for he proved himself that day and was to be long in my service, though I cannot say I took him for a servant. Rather, in the way of the Pathan—and he was an Afridi—he took me for his master. The tiger had spread terror far and wide. There were plenty of stories afoot among the villages that our quarry was in fact a demon, or a ghost.
Indeed, but for the descriptions of it that a few lucky ones who had seen it and survived had brought back, we ourselves should have been doubtful that it was a tiger at all. Its spoor was quite unlike that of any tiger’s pugmarks. Curlewis suggested its paws had been burnt to deformity in some forest fire. But then how could it travel so far and so swiftly?
We plotted the pattern of its kills on an ordinance map…
There was another gap here. From what was left of the page it appeared the map he referred to had been reproduced in a foldout form. Some of the village names and contour lines were left on the remaining part and I suckered a copy of this from the screen.
It was a well-provisioned shikar, the best we could manage. We left as little to chance as possible, and owing to what we had heard of the beast’s size, took the largest caliber of rifles we had: elephant guns for our first weapons. We had Express rifles with the exploding bullets from the Dum-Dum Arsenal, and of course reliable military Martinis, borrowed from the infantry (I didn’t think our own carbines would be much use). We also had two of the new American Winchesters which the brigadier-general had asked us to try out. The bearers and beaters, we made sure, were well equipped with gongs, rockets, torches and guns. Sher Ali selected only the steadiest men for beaters.
It roamed far afield, but its regular lair, we were told, was in the adjacent valley where it had first been seen, which was now virtually depopulated. Indeed the country was now almost empty of human inhabitants for miles around. Those that had not been devoured had fled.
Not only, it seemed, was this tiger more voracious and aggressive than any man-eater I had ever heard of, but it was faster and more cunning. No horse would stay near its tracks.
With the aid of the map we had carefully worked out a plan to disperse the beaters to drive the beast towards our guns when we had positioned ourselves in its valley. Never, in the event, did any plan prove more unnecessary…
There was another gap here. The passage referring to the first part of the tiger hunt seemed to have been lost. Presumably the most frequently referred to part of the book had suffered the most wear and tear. The next few pages had had to be cleaned of old dirt.
It was not to be like any stalk I have ever known. A bold tiger will sometimes not trouble overmuch to conceal its tracks. This beast had left them everywhere. The path from the valley where it had first been seen and where it was now headquartered was beaten like a highway.
It was a strange, oppressive day. The hills seemed lowering. The bandar—the monkeys—had disappeared from the trees and all the birds were silent. Any hunter will tell you of the strange silence when the world of nature puts aside its business as a hunt begins, but this was a more intense silence than any I had ever felt. I worried that it might affect the bearers’ nerves. And though I had no doubt as to his courage, I saw the sweat of Sher Ali’s face. I could not see my own, but I felt my heart beating faster than I liked. Sher Ali was my gun and I gave silent thanks that he was an Afridi and from what I knew of that breed—for we had taken tea with them many times on the Northwest Frontier—he would die a thousand deaths before he gave way to any fear he felt, least of all in front of these eastern hillmen.
I felt danger very near in that silence as we set out from the camp in the early morning light. For the sake of all our people’s morale, as the French call it, we wore our uniforms and, not much more practically, or so I thought at the time, I ordered the guns to be loaded and cocked then and there. I would not be writing these words today if I had not obeyed that second impulse.
And then we heard a so
und: a snarling roar louder than any tiger I have heard, louder than the roar of an African lion…
Sher Ali saw it first: an orange spot moving through the trees, its coat strangely bright in the shadows. It was not hiding from us, nor was it stalking us, I realized. No sooner had it seen our party, men, guns, beasts and all, than it moved to the attack!…
…faster than any tiger I have known, moving towards us with a strange loping gait like that of an English weasel. But a beast three or four times the bulk of a man! It came…
The beast shrieked again with a cry like no tiger I have heard before. Utterly fearless, it charged straight uphill towards our party! Such speed! Two of the beaters in its way were flung aside and killed by no more than a passing blow of its paws. It was coming straight at me as if it knew my purpose and had singled me out from among all the rest.
The size of it! I thank the Lord I had the elephant gun with me, not the Martini. I was sure the first shot hit it, a shot to knock down a tusker, but it appeared to impede its progress not at all. It was almost upon me when I fired the second time: a bad shot, for the creature, again like no tiger I have seen before, reared up on it hind legs as I fired. I was quick of eye and hand in those days, but the beast was quicker than I, quicker than anything I had known.
I had aimed at the head, hoping to take the eyes and lungs together, as you sometimes can with a tiger charging head-on. But the exploding bullet must have struck it in the pelvis, from the manner in which it collapsed. Yet it seemed, despite its wounds, to be gathering itself as I fired again. I heard the guns of the others behind me.
Again, the third shot was one I was not proud of. You would not understand the difficulties unless you fully comprehended not merely the size of the beast but also its speed. With astonishing quickness—a quickness that would have been astonishing even had it not been gravely wounded—it hurled itself aside. More shots hit it: from the elephant guns, the Martinis, the Winchesters. The tower-muskets of the tribesmen joined in. I saw the bullets hitting. A normal beast would have been blown into several pieces by those impacts.
Yet even then it was not finished. It rolled into the undergrowth and a moment later we heard it crashing away. It passed close to Sher Ali (Great Heart! When the magazine of his repeater was empty, he did not stop to reload, but drew his Khyber knife!), and I heard the others pumping shot after shot from the Winchesters after it.
I was sure the shots were mortal. It had absorbed enough lead to kill a herd of elephants, yet no wounded tiger can be left. I was deafened, my head was ringing and my nose bleeding from the concussion of the .606.
I examined the beaters who had fallen. Sadly, a swift examination was all that was needed. One had been decolloped, the other torn almost into two pieces by those claws. As soon as I might I called for Maclean, Curlewis, Sher Ali and the head beaters to follow me.
Mortally wounded or not, it traveled quickly, up a thickly grown rocky hillside. The blood trail was easy to follow but the blood was strange. It seemed sometimes purple and sometimes orange. There was orange hair, fragments of meat and smashed bone, even entrails. I knew the exploding bullets had done their work well.
But the too-deep quietness was still sending a message to our hunting instincts. Somehow I knew the brute was not dead yet. But it was no longer shrieking and it could not be heard. I did not believe it was dying quietly. It was, I felt somehow certain, husbanding its well-nigh unbelievable strength and vitality for a last charge. I was glad indeed of the trusty guns behind me!
We searched the jungle-grown rock holes for a long time, or so it seemed with every nerve keyed up. We had followed our quarry into a long, deep ravine that twisted and turned. Overgrown, with dark clefts and overhangs. Then we heard the creature again. It was not roaring and snarling, but its strange voice, muffled by distance, rose and fell like water on a dying fire. It came from deeper within the ravine.
By now the morning mist was lifting off the distant hilltops. I remember the reluctance with which I led the way down. I looked at those hilltops where I had hunted innocent sambar and musk deer and wondered if I would see them again. The high rocky walls almost shut us off from the sky so that it seemed to us as if we were deep underground.
Then suddenly there was a deafening crack and a flash across the sky. So loud was it I did not know whether it was lightning immediately overhead (though it was louder than any thunderclap I have heard, even in the mountain country) or a hundred batteries of artillery firing simultaneously. A blast of hot air smote us. Across the crest of the ridge a vast column of dust boiled into the sky like smoke. I have seen a magazine explode in a bombardment, but this far eclipsed that detonation. The wind picked up stones and flung them so we covered our faces.
Leaving even the hunt for a moment, and turning our backs on our quarry as we should never do, we hurried up the slope. A vast avalanche had torn away half the side of the next valley. The tiger that was said to have come in a thunderstorm died in the midst of another great convulsion of nature.
So great was the force of the avalanche that we saw trees and boulders flung high in the air above us, to crash down again adding to the ruin below. We stood and stared at it for many minutes, but before such a cataclysm we were helpless. We could do no more than pray that no unfortunate souls had been trapped in the landslide’s path. Luckily, as I have mentioned, all the people in that valley had already fled from the tiger’s predations. There would have been no hope for any who had remained.
“He was on the top of a ridge, and he saw a landslide in the next valley throw trees and boulders high in the air above him?”
“That’s what it says. He goes on.”
As the sounds of the avalanche died away, we heard again the sound of our quarry. No other tiger I have heard before or since made such a sound, resembling almost articulate speech. But now it was weaker, and I thought I could hear blood in its lungs. Guided by these sounds through the thick undergrowth, we saw at last a cave entrance, and the blood trail entering it.
One remembers smells from such times. There was the landslide smell of pulverized flint filling my nostrils, as well as a strange gingery smell, and blood.
A hunter and a soldier must at times do dangerous things, but there is no wisdom or glory in foolhardiness. Maclean, Curlewis and I waited at the entrance with our guns ready and sent the bearers back for torches and rockets. Several were moaning on the ground and vomiting, I believe through hysteria induced by the two excitements of the chase and the awesome convulsion of nature we had just witnessed. When my friends at length returned we fired several rockets into the cave in the hope of flushing the beast out.
At last, not, I confess, liking the work particularly, I entered the cave, with a light held well before me, and all of us with the triggers of all our guns at their first pressures. There lay the tiger. Its forepaw appeared to be holding something.
It was plainly dying. Its hindquarters were shattered and it lay in a pool of its own blood. It had been burnt again by the rockets that lay flickering out around it. Yet at the sight of us it gathered itself as if to spring.
It cried out again, and I swear that there was something in the tone of its voice that told me it was asking some question! I have heard a wounded Pathan warrior die so, crying out, I believe, to know the name of the warrior who killed him.
It sprang as well as it could. Our guns discharged together. All aimed at the chest, and it was blown backwards against the cave wall. Still, it made another attempt to attack us as we fired shot after shot into it from our repeaters, clawing and dragging itself along the ground, still shrieking and snarling in its strange voice. I never imagined any beast so hard to kill. But at last it died.
When we examined the beast closely, I was astonished, and moved to pity for it. I said most man-eaters are old or crippled beasts. That is why there is no particular sport in hunting them: They are simply vermin.
I have seen deformed beasts before, that are sports or unhappy freaks of nature,
but this was the most deformed I have ever seen. Pity? Why should a soldier not feel pity for an enemy once he has done his job and the enemy lies dead before him? But when I examined the great carcass more closely, I was overcome with bewilderment and a strange sort of fear such as I have never felt before. I had thought of my quarry as a noble beast, though a man-eater. But now, what can I say?
What can I say? Should I write a tale none will believe? I write this as an old done man, with my career behind me. I do not wish to be called mad, yet I have set out to tell the plain narrative of my life, and I have the skull and the skin with me yet. The creature had not paws but hands! And its head was like the head of no tiger I have ever seen.
Was it a previously unknown species that had wandered down from the high snows of Tibet? The tail was wrong, too. Hairless and pink like that of some giant rat. There was something disgusting about that tail.
Do not think me mad, but I have lived in the East long and seen something of Eastern magic and know that mysteries exist we of the West cannot solve. Even in an Indian cantonment, I have seen things which would not be believed were I to recount them in London or Sydney.
Was this creature the product of Tibetan magic? Was it indeed a Demon? If I attend Church-parade and pray to the God at the head of my men, how can I not, in the end, be prepared to accept the existence of Demons too?
