The Tiger's Prey

by Wilbur Smith

  Clapping and shouts started up on their left. It was the stops, men placed in the treetops to stop the tiger veering off course. Shahuji took a gun from his bearer. Tom, Francis and Ana did likewise. Tom felt the thrill of the hunt rising in his blood.

  A furious roar rang through the forest. The noise of the stops increased, beating the tiger back towards the river bed and the waiting guns. Like a flash of golden sunlight, the tiger burst from cover. For an instant, Tom forgot the gun in his hands as he marvelled at his first view of the creature. It was an enormous animal, moving much too fast for him to even hazard a guess at its size. But it was much bigger than any of the lions he had seen in Africa.

  It bounded across the clearing in the forest not twenty paces from where they stood and snarled when it saw the men in its path. It spun around. The white ruff around its head was erect and bristling. The fangs in its jaws sparkled as it roared.

  Even at such close range it was a difficult shot, but the rajah fired. Tom saw the ball strike, but much too far back behind the shoulder blade. The heavy ball bowled the animal over. But in the same movement it somersaulted back onto all four feet, and kept on running without seeming to miss a stride. Both Tom and Francis fired simultaneously, but the tiger was moving too fast and their shots kicked up dirt and dead leaves several feet behind it. The tiger reached the forest edge and disappeared into the dense vegetation.

  Shahuji jumped down from the tree, heedless of his own safety, and ran to the place where he had hit the tiger. He scanned the ground for a blood trail.

  ‘He is hurt,’ he declared, ‘but not killed. This is when he is most dangerous.’

  ‘What do we do now?’ Tom demanded.

  ‘The tiger will be thirsty after the chase and the wound I inflicted upon him. There is a water hole, not far from here. I think he will go there.’

  Before Ana had finished translating, the mahouts had brought up the elephants. There was no time to rig the howdahs. They all clambered on to the elephants’ backs, sitting on folded blankets and clinging to the rope that circled the girth as the animals strode forward.

  In a short while, the gully opened into a wide meadow, with high grass that brushed the elephants’ bellies. Up on its back, Tom felt as if he were on a ship, sailing through a rustling sea. He gripped his firelock, and searched the ground ahead for a blood trail or pug marks. He knew that the tiger itself would be invisible. His stripes would blend almost perfectly with the long grass.

  One of the huntsmen, running along ahead of the elephants, shouted and pointed at the ground without checking his speed.

  ‘He has found the tiger’s trail,’ Ana called.

  The mahouts kicked the elephants into a faster pace. Soon, the grass gave way to bare earth, trampled by many hoofs and paws. Even from high on the elephant’s back, Tom could make out the tiger’s tracks. Ground water was oozing into the freshly made depression that its paws had left, and the animal was beginning to bleed. Dribbles of bright blood sparkled in the sunlight like rubies.

  ‘He is a male in his prime, about fourteen years old. But he has lost the toe on his left front,’ Shahuji mused softly, and Ana translated.

  Tom gave the rajah an approving nod of the head. To have gleaned so much from a casual glance high on the back of an elephant demonstrated his exceptional hunting skills.

  The tracks ended at the edge of a muddy hole, half filled with water. A pair of kites watched from a lone, bare tree. The tiger was nowhere to be seen.

  Every nerve in Tom’s body tingled with anticipation. This was the overwhelming thrill of the hunt, and he had never lost his addiction to it since the first time his father put a gun in his hands.

  The tiger must be near. The elephants had caught its scent. They twitched and shuffled anxiously, huffing through their trunks. The motion would make any accurate shooting well-nigh impossible. Shahuji slid down to the ground. Tom and Francis followed him.

  Shahuji consulted with his huntsmen. ‘There is another watercourse, a little to the north,’ Ana translated. ‘It leads through a ravine into the next valley. The tiger may attempt to go that way to escape our net.’

  While they were talking the beaters started to catch up with them, and within minutes there were a hundred or more half-naked men in the clearing, armed only with sticks and machetes.

  The rajah’s elephant was thirsty. Without warning, it walked to the edge of the pool and began slurping up water through its trunk. The mahout shouted and hauled on its rope; more of the attendants clustered around it, but the beast was immovable. Distracted, everyone turned to watch.

  This was when the tiger took the moment to attack its tormentors. It had been lying hidden behind a bank of low saplings, no higher than a man’s knee, so thin that Tom could hardly believe it had hidden the huge creature so effectively. Even in the African lion, he had never seen such lethal speed. It charged in with snarling jaws and bristling white whiskers. Its tail was held like a scimitar curled over its back. Its great paws, each the size of a soup plate, with claws fully extended tore up the loose earth with each bound. It knocked down one of the mahouts and bit him in the back of his neck as he sprawled, severing his vertebrae and killing him instantly.

  But the tiger did not fixate on the corpse beneath it. With its next bound it bore down upon a second running man and killed him with a bite that took the top off his head; and then he took down another man and another. Total pandemonium reigned over the field with men running and shouting and the elephants trumpeting and squealing, knocking down and trampling anyone who stood in their way.

  Tom ran sideways, trying to get a clean shot at the tiger but the frenzied crowd blocked his line of fire and threatened to knock him off his feet. He saw Francis throw up his gun and chance a fleeting shot at the enraged beast, but one of the beaters ran in front of him as he fired and took the heavy ball squarely in the chest. He was thrown backwards with his machete spinning from his hand, dead before he hit the ground.

  Shahuji stood his ground in the rout and turmoil, holding his firelock at high port, shouting at the tiger to attract its attention; ‘Come to me, Shaitan! I will send you as a messenger to your foul gods! Come!’

  The tiger seemed to hear him, and it swerved towards him. It opened its mouth as it roared at him, as if it accepted his challenge. Its fangs were encrimsoned with the blood of the men it had killed and it flattened into its charge. Shahuji leaned forward and raised the butt of his gun to his shoulder, his trigger finger poised, ready for the precise instant to fire his shot.

  Only then Tom realized that Shahuji had not seen the elephant. It was one of those that had been drinking at the pool and it had been panicked by the scent and the roars of the tiger. It was rushing down blindly on the rajah.

  Tom shouted a warning, but Shahuji was oblivious to all but the great cat in his gunsight. Likewise the elephant had the scent of the predator in its nostrils and the sounds of its roars ringing in it ears, and was oblivious to the man standing in its path. One of its great swinging feet struck Shahuji in the back, lifting him off his feet and throwing him in a heap fifteen feet away. The loaded and cocked gun was sent spinning from his hands and by chance it landed at Ana’s feet. She stooped and swept it up.

  The elephant rushed away into the long grass. The tiger had lost sight of the rajah and now it checked its charge, and swung its head left and right seeking an alternative quarry to savage.

  It saw Francis. It swung towards him and roared. Francis was fumbling with his weapon, and Tom saw by the pallor of his face and his staring eyes that he was terrified witless. He had probably never fired a heavy gun before, and he had certainly never stood down the charge of a great ravening beast such as this.

  From where Tom was standing it was a long and awkward shot; furthermore Ana was in the line of fire. But Francis was in mortal danger, and Tom had to take the chance. He swung up his own gun, and fired in the same movement. Yet he knew at once that something was dreadfully wrong. Smoke spurted from the muzzle
of the gun but there was no recoil at all. Either his shikari had not loaded the ball on top of the charge, or the ball had been shaken loose from the barrel when he dismounted from the elephant.

  In any event the tiger was untouched, and continued its charge at Francis. At the last possible moment Francis seemed to rally his wits and his courage. He flung up his gun and fired in the same movement, but his eyes had been fixed on the tiger and not on the gunsight. Tom saw the ball kick up a spurt of damp earth six feet behind the charging animal, and at least three feet to its left.

  Untouched by the shot the tiger was still charging in on Francis, who threw down the gun and began to turn away. The great striped beast launched itself into the air, springing at him with its jaws wide open and Francis covered his face with both hands and stood helplessly, screaming, ‘No! No!’

  Another shot boomed out from nowhere, and the tiger seemed to crumple up in mid-air. However its momentum carried it onwards and it crashed headlong into Francis, slamming him to the ground and piling up on top of him.

  Tom reached the man and beast only seconds later. He seized the tiger’s head and, by some superhuman effort, dragged the massive carcass off of Francis.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he shouted at Francis.

  ‘I think so,’ Francis stammered as he crawled back onto his knees. ‘You saved my life. Thank you, Tom.’

  ‘Not me! My gun was not even loaded with ball …’ He looked around him and for the first time became aware of Ana. She was standing ten feet behind where Francis was lying. She was still holding the butt of the rajah’s long gun to her shoulder, and a cloud of blue gun smoke seeped from the muzzle.

  ‘Ana Duarte!’ Tom went to her and took the gun from her trembling hands. ‘Did you fire the shot that killed this monster?’ She nodded, too overcome to speak. ‘That was a shot of which any man could be proud.’

  Tom reached down and seized the tiger’s head with both hands and twisted it around. Ana’s musket ball had struck the great animal squarely in the forehead and gone on through the centre of its brain.

  ‘And a shot of which any woman should be doubly proud!’ Tom went on.

  ‘I had to do it; Francis is the only man I have,’ Ana explained reasonably, but her voice was shaky.

  Tom’s skin prickled as he entered the courtyard of the Rani’s palace at Chittattinkara. He thought of the men who had died there, Captain Hicks, Lawrence Foy and so many others. Then he wondered if he might have dreamed it. The bullet holes in the brickwork had been patched up, blood scrubbed from the stones, and the shattered balconies replaced. The only sign that a battle had ever taken place was the fresh plaster on the walls. It made him angry to remember the carnage that they had lived through.

  The throne room brought back many more bitter memories. The last time he had been there, he had fought Tungar for the Neptune sword, and nearly died for it. Now, the Rani received him cordially, as if history were a blank page. Like Shahuji, she had the ruler’s art of forgetting everything that was no longer convenient. Tom was not sure if he detested her for it, or envied her.

  He did not waste time with pleasantries.

  ‘The Rajah of Satara, Chhatrapati Shahuji, demands the return of the cannons you seized from the wreck of my ship. He has a vessel standing off the coast near Brinjoan ready to take them aboard.’ This was the same ship that had brought Tom from the coast near Satara. Francis and Ana had stayed with Shahuji as he mustered his army and prepared for the siege of Tiracola.

  The Rani smiled at Tom’s outburst. She was so lovely when she smiled that Tom was thrown off his stride for a moment.

  ‘The cannons were mine by right of salvage,’ she explained reasonably. ‘All wrecks on this coast, and their cargoes, belong to me.’ She lifted a hand to stay Tom’s retort. ‘I assure you, Captain Courtney, that I have no quarrel with you. On the contrary I find myself exceptionally well disposed towards you. If it were within my power I would return your guns to you without quibble. But, alas, I no longer have them. When my men fled the siege of Brinjoan, they also abandoned the guns there. The hat-wearers have them. My scouts report they have mounted them on the ramparts of their fort.’

  Tom cursed inwardly. He had feared that might be so, but had come to the Rani first in hope of being mistaken. If Guy had sent word to the fort of Brinjoan of his escapades in Bombay, he could expect a hot reception if he ventured there to reclaim them.

  ‘I am sorry you have wasted your time by coming to me,’ said the Rani. ‘But from my own point of view I have enjoyed renewing our acquaintance. Is there any other way that I might be of service to you?’ She leaned forward on her throne and the movement accentuated the size and shape of her bosom.

  ‘There is another matter.’ Tom was confused and mollified by her change of attitude towards him, so he decided to take full advantage of it. ‘Your captain, Tungar, stole a weapon that belonged to me. It belonged to my grandfather and my father before me. I place a very high sentimental value upon it. It is a gilded sword, with a sapphire in the pommel.’

  ‘I know it well.’ She nodded. ‘It is truly a magnificent weapon. Tungar was inordinately proud of it. He carried it into battle.’

  ‘Yes!’ Tom agreed. ‘But I found his body after he was killed in the assault on Brinjoan. Tungar did not have the weapon with him.’

  ‘One of your men must have looted it.’

  ‘None of them had reached his corpse before I did. If it was looted, it must have been a man from your army.’

  The Rani made an elegant but dismissive gesture. Tom watched her hands; they were lovely, almost as beautiful as her face. ‘No subject of mine would dare hide such a treasure from me. And what would a peasant do with such a weapon, and where could he sell it that I would not hear of it? If it has not been found, that is because either the sea took it, or it has been looted.’

  Tom flinched at the thought, though he knew she spoke good sense. He had one more question.

  ‘There was a man in your service – he spoke English, and wielded a strange sword with a blade like a whip. What became of him?’

  ‘His name was Absalom. He disappeared in the final battle. We did not find his body. Perhaps he lies buried under the rubble of the gatehouse.’

  Her words hit Tom with surprising force. Of course it did not matter – Absalom was just another pirate – yet his mind refused to let it go. He had some unfinished business with the man Absalom: avenging Hicks, certainly, but something else besides.

  He turned to go.

  ‘Wait.’ The Rani’s tone was imperative. Tom paused. ‘There are many hat-wearers who have settled in India to sell their skill as warriors.’

  ‘I serve the Rajah of Satara,’ Tom answered.

  ‘Whatever he pays you, I will triple it. I could make you a great man in my kingdom. You would want for nothing.’

  Her cheeks had flushed lightly. Her jewelled hand reached to her throat, resting on the valley between her breasts.

  ‘Stay with me, Thomas Courtney.’ Her voice sank to a whisper. ‘I have need of you.’

  He was riven by guilt and temptation. He felt the very foundations of his honour shaken. She was so very beautiful, but also so very evil.

  Tom doffed his hat and made her a courtly bow. ‘Alas, your highness, I must leave you now to rescue my wife.’

  Returning to the fort at Brinjoan was even stranger than revisiting the Rani’s palace. The sentry on the gate stared at Tom as if he were a ghost.

  ‘Mr Weald?’ he stammered.

  Tom recognized him – one of the sepoys who had survived the siege. He tried to remember the man’s name. ‘Akal?’

  The sentry beamed with pleasure at being recognized. ‘Welcome back, sahib.’

  ‘Is the new Governor here?’

  ‘He came three weeks ago.’ He grinned, as if at a private joke. ‘However, I do not think he will be happy to see you.’

  ‘Then take me to him.’

  The East India Company had been busy repairing th
e fort, though the work was not yet finished. Gangs of half-naked labourers toiled with stones and mortar, reconstructing the gatehouse, but the Governor’s house which Tom had torn down was already rebuilt. He was glad to see that, this time, they had used bricks and tiles instead of wood and straw. One hard lesson learned, at least.

  No one guarded the door to the Governor’s office. ‘Wait outside,’ Tom told Akal. ‘Better if he does not know you let me in.’

  Without knocking, he stepped inside. The Governor’s desk was stacked high with papers, but they could not have been urgent. The Governor himself lounged on a day bed, half asleep, holding a goblet of wine against his chest. Some had spilled, leaving a red mark spreading across his shirt-front like a wound.

  Tom slammed the door shut. The Governor woke and sat up with a start. More wine spilled from the cup. He gaped at Tom.

  ‘Mr Weald?’ he squeaked.

  Tom nodded grimly, hiding his surprise. ‘Mr Kyffen.’

  ‘What – ah – why …?’ Kyffen scrambled to his feet.

  ‘I have come for my guns,’ said Tom baldly. ‘The nine pounders the Rani salvaged from my ship, those that the Company recovered from the battlefield.’

  Kyffen stared at him speechlessly.

  ‘Are you going to tell me they are your property?’ Tom asked. ‘After everything I did for the Company, the least you could do is permit me to reclaim what is my own.’

  Kyffen finally regained the power of speech. ‘Hubladar,’ he shouted.

  The door opened. Tom looked back, and saw another familiar face, the sergeant with the bristling moustache who had fought beside him in the siege. The man frowned. He drew a pistol from his belt, and trained it on Tom.

  ‘This man is a murderer, a thief and an imposter, charged with high crimes in London and Bombay,’ screeched Kyffen. ‘Clap him in irons.’