The Time Traveller and the Tiger

by Tania Unsworth

  Mandeep divided the rest of his almonds and shared them with the others. They ate slowly, trying to stretch out the tiny meal.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t have any more?’ Elsie asked.

  John bent his head, staring at the last two nuts in his palm.

  ‘You can have these if you want,’ he said abruptly, handing one to Elsie and the other to Mandeep. ‘Not terribly hungry, you know,’ he added stiffly.

  Elsie could tell he wanted to be friends again but wasn’t sure how to do it.

  They set off once more. Elsie’s legs were aching after all the walking she had done the previous day, although it didn’t bother her as much as it might have done.

  Mandeep had so much information about the forest and was so good at pointing out things she might never have noticed that she forgot she was tired. For a while, she even forgot she wasn’t supposed to be here, seventy-four years in the past, and thousands of miles from home.

  ‘Where there are spotted deer, there are always langur monkeys,’ Mandeep told her. ‘They help each other like a team.’

  ‘Bamboo is a strange plant,’ he said. ‘It grows for more than thirty years, flowers just once and then it dies.’

  ‘There’s another of those huge spiders!’ Elsie cried.

  ‘It’s a female,’ Mandeep told her. ‘The male is ten times smaller and she will eat him if she gets the chance because she is always hungry.’

  ‘That’s terrible,’ Elsie said, grinning at him. ‘What an awful wife to have!’

  John was growing more and more miserable as they chatted. He had started to limp again, wiping and re-wiping his face with the back of his hand.

  ‘We must be getting close,’ he muttered every few minutes.

  Elsie felt certain that he was sick and tired of the search, and was longing to give up but was too proud to admit it. All he needed was an excuse, she thought. A way to save face.

  A few moments later, he found it.

  A jeep, parked in the middle of a dirt path.

  ‘Hello!’ John said eagerly. ‘What’s this?’

  The jeep looked new, despite the dust on its wheels and bonnet. It was empty, apart from a large solar topee lying on the passenger seat. ‘Might be someone out looking for us,’ John said. ‘We’ll have to go back with them. What rotten luck.’

  ‘Yes.’ Elsie gave him a look. ‘Rotten luck…’

  ‘Where’s Mandeep?’ she said suddenly.

  ‘He was here a minute ago!’

  ‘He vanished,’ Elsie said, staring back the way they had come.

  A loud, angry shout came from their left, immediately followed by a cry of pain.

  ‘Mandeep!’ John darted forward, then stopped short. A man with sandy-coloured hair and glasses came striding out of the trees. Mandeep was with him. The man was holding his arm in a tight grip, jerking him sharply each time he stumbled.

  ‘What the devil are you doing here?’ he said when he saw John and Elsie. He gave Mandeep’s arm another, harder jerk.

  ‘Let him go,’ John cried. ‘He hasn’t done anything.’

  ‘He needs to turn out his pockets first.’

  Mandeep didn’t move, his face blank with fear.

  ‘He hasn’t done anything!’ John repeated.

  ‘That remains to be seen.’ The man tightened his grip until his fingers were digging into Mandeep’s arm. ‘Come on! Empty them!’

  ‘You can’t just attack him!’ Elsie burst out, shocked. ‘That’s child abuse!’

  The man stared at her for a second, as though she’d gone completely mad, then turned back to Mandeep.

  ‘This is the fellow who’s been following me, almost sure of it. Deliberately scaring the game. Deliberately!’ His voice rose with fury. He took a breath, smoothing his hair back in place with his free hand, as if trying to gather himself.

  ‘Biggest gaur I’ve ever seen, I had it in my sights. And now I think of it, there was something damn fishy about my missing goat. Rope looked as if it had been cut with a knife.’

  The memory seemed to infuriate the man all over again. He jerked Mandeep’s arm even harder.

  ‘Stop hurting him!’ Elsie cried. ‘You can’t do that!’

  Nobody was listening to her. A look of caution had come over John’s face. He wiped his hand on his shorts and held it out.

  ‘My name’s John Lassiter.’

  ‘Gordon,’ the man snapped, ignoring the hand. ‘Eric Gordon.’

  ‘I think there must be some mistake, Mr Gordon. Mandeep can’t have been following you. He’s been with us all day.’

  ‘Ah, but it’s yesterday I’m talking about. Where was he yesterday?’

  ‘He was with us yesterday too,’ John said. ‘We’ve been tracking a tiger.’ But he hesitated for a fraction of a second before telling the lie, and Elsie could tell Mr Gordon didn’t believe him.

  ‘I still need to see what’s in his jacket.’

  Mandeep looked at John, and back at Mr Gordon. Then he removed his jacket silently, with an air of defeat.

  ‘What’s all this rubbish?’ Mr Gordon said, rummaging through the pockets, and tossing out an assortment of scraps. A look of triumph seized his face. ‘I thought so!’

  He held up a small twist of paper.

  ‘But it’s just a firecracker,’ John said.

  ‘Exactly!’ Mr Gordon resumed his grip on Mandeep’s arm. ‘It’s all the evidence I need. He’s coming with me.’

  ‘I’m sure my father can sort this out,’ John said, speaking rapidly. ‘I’m sure of it.’

  Elsie gave John a puzzled look. Why was he talking about his father? Surely it was Mandeep’s father who ought to be contacted. Then she remembered where she was. Mr Gordon would be far more likely to believe John’s father for one simple reason. Because John’s father was British. That was how the system worked in this time and place. Elsie stared silently at the ground, her shoulders hunched with discomfort.

  ‘If you could just drive us home…’ John begged.

  ‘Impossible, I’m afraid,’ Mr Gordon said, when he heard the name of the town. ‘That’s miles out of my way.’

  He began marching Mandeep towards the jeep. Elsie and John hurried after him. ‘I have to contact my parents,’ John said. ‘I have to!’

  Gordon hesitated, as if registering their bedraggled appearance for the first time. He glanced at John’s bandaged leg and single, drooping sock.

  ‘Well, I don’t suppose I can leave you out here alone,’ he said, his voice grudging. ‘You’ll have to come along too, sort things out when we get to Sowerby’s place.’

  They sat in the jeep, Elsie in the middle, staring at the back of Mr Gordon’s head as they went along the bumpy track.

  ‘Who is he?’ Elsie whispered.

  ‘Don’t know. Don’t know who this Sowerby is either.’

  ‘Do you know?’ Elsie asked Mandeep.

  ‘I don’t know where he came from,’ Mandeep muttered. ‘Only that he was after a leopard…’

  Elsie was still holding the yellow feather from Mandeep’s jacket that she’d picked off the ground. She smoothed it out and placed it on his knee.

  ‘Well, I don’t care who he is,’ she whispered. ‘I hate him.’

  They drove through the forest, slowing to a crawl as they manoeuvred over ridges and across the beds of dried-up rivers, speeding up as they regained the path, the trees flicking past in a blur. Elsie glanced at Mr Gordon’s face in the rear-view mirror. His glasses, reflecting the light, were two blank and burning discs. Then he shifted his head a fraction, and she saw his eyes, watching her.

  Elsie looked away instantly, her hands tightening in her lap. Perhaps he had noticed the strangeness of her clothes. Perhaps he was wondering where she came from. The thought frightened her. She nudged John.

  ‘Don’t tell him I’m from the future,’ she whispered.

  ‘I won’t,’ John whispered back. ‘Because you’re not.’

  ‘Where are we going?’ he asked Mr Gordon.


  ‘I told you, Sowerby’s place.’

  ‘But who is he?’

  ‘You mean you haven’t heard of him?’ Mr Gordon wrestled with the gear stick. The jeep made a grinding noise, earth spraying beneath the wheels. ‘Man’s famous. Best hunter in India, if not the world. You must have seen pictures of him.’

  ‘Maybe,’ John said. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You’d have remembered him if you had,’ Mr. Gordon said. ‘Imposing-looking chap.’

  He could hardly say the same about himself, Elsie thought, with his weaselly features and thin moustache.

  ‘Sowerby’s a living legend,’ he continued in the same enthusiastic tone. ‘Must have bagged pretty much everything on the planet, although tigers are his real speciality.’

  Mandeep turned his head towards the window, as though willing himself far away.

  ‘Didn’t you say you were after a tiger yourself?’ Mr Gordon asked.

  John didn’t answer.

  ‘What’s that? Speak up!’

  ‘Yes,’ John muttered.

  ‘Then you’re in for a treat, Sowerby’s an expert. There’s nothing the man doesn’t know about tigers. He’s so good at tracking them down that it’s almost uncanny. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he could actually communicate with the brutes. I’ve been pestering him for ages to let me join one of his hunts.’

  ‘Is that why you’re going there now?’ Elsie asked, too disgusted to keep quiet. ‘For a hunt?’

  ‘For a tiger hunt,’ he corrected. ‘Sowerby holds them once or twice a year. Only for a select few, mind you. He’s very choosy about his guests, and rightly so. I’ve heard the hunts are spectacular. I thought I’d come a day early, get some useful tips from him before the others arrive.’

  Elsie didn’t reply, although there was a lot she would have liked to say. She pressed her lips together, her heart hammering with indignation.

  The conversation about hunting now over, Mr Gordon didn’t seem to have anything else to talk about and they continued to drive in silence.

  After about an hour on forest tracks, the jeep turned on to a paved road, apparently empty of all other traffic. The brightness of the morning had vanished, and the sun was no more than a smudge in the white, glaring sky.

  It was past lunchtime. But Elsie was too nervous to ask Mr Gordon how much longer the journey would take. He kept his eyes on the road ahead, sweat running down the back of his neck to meet the stained ring on the inside of his collar.

  After a while, John fell into a doze, his head bobbing with every lurch of the jeep. Elsie looked at Mandeep. Apart from replacing the feather in his jacket pocket, he had barely moved. He sat stiff-backed, his eyes wide and watchful.

  The road wound into a long bend, and then another, as if they were going uphill, although the rise was so gradual that Elsie was hardly aware of it. Then the trees cleared for a moment and she caught a glimpse of the horizon, hazy in the distance, the land spreading for miles to meet it. They had climbed much higher than she had guessed.

  ‘Do you know where we are?’ she asked Mandeep.

  He shook his head tightly. ‘I have never been here before. We must be twenty-five miles from the river by now, maybe more.’

  They carried on, the road still rising. The jeep slowed and turned on to a narrow track, then again on to an even narrower one. Dense walls of vegetation rose on either side as the jeep pushed onwards. The walls grew higher, until the sky was nothing but a ribbon between. A moment later, it had vanished completely.

  They were in a tunnel of such deep green that it was almost black. Elsie could barely see her own hands in the darkness. All she was aware of was the swish and thudding scrape of branches lashing the sides and roof of the jeep. They sounded like claws, she thought. As if she had entered the lair of some terrible beast. For a moment, panic engulfed her. Then the track widened a fraction and they were out of the tunnel. They turned a final bend and stopped.

  Elsie saw an area of flattened earth dotted here and there with trees. In the middle stood a two-storey building with a broad roof and white wooden pillars framing a long, shady verandah. Five or six smaller buildings were clustered behind, separated by a low stone wall.

  Mr Gordon turned off the engine and in the sudden silence, she heard the pulse of the forest surrounding them. Two men wearing white tunics and trousers hurried over and began taking luggage out of the back of the jeep.

  Mr Gordon opened the passenger door for them to get out.

  ‘Not you,’ he said, putting a heavy hand on Mandeep’s shoulder. He said something to one of the men, his voice brusque. The man nodded.

  ‘Come along with me,’ Mr Gordon told the others. Elsie didn’t want to go, but there didn’t seem to be much choice. She followed him up the stairs, on to the verandah, past an arrangement of wicker chairs and tables.

  She glanced back. Mandeep was being hustled away, around the side of the building. Elsie tried to see where they were going, but the front door had opened, and she was being ushered through. A stern-faced man in a turban and jacket led them silently across a hall with a coat stand and a collection of walking sticks. John slipped the rifle off his shoulder and carefully propped it in one corner. Then the man opened another door and gestured for them to enter.

  They were in a spacious living room, shuttered against the light, filled with comfortable-looking sofas and armchairs, a bookshelf, and several lamps with fringed shades. Bottles stood in a neat line on a bar at one end, and on the wall above the fireplace hung the head of a bear. It was black, with a cone-shaped snout and a bewildered expression, as if it was surprised to find itself there, and was still trying to fathom out exactly what had happened.

  ‘Lord, I need a drink,’ Mr Gordon said, throwing himself down on the sofa. ‘Whisky,’ he told the man in the turban. ‘And make it a large one.’

  He glanced at Elsie and John. ‘I suppose you’re hungry. There’ll be something or other to eat in the kitchen. The bearer will show you.’

  John didn’t move. ‘I have to telephone my parents.’

  Mr Gordon took a gulp of whisky, swallowed it and let out a satisfied sigh.

  ‘A telephone?’ he retorted. ‘Out here in the middle of nowhere? Not likely!’

  ‘Can someone be sent to fetch my father, then?’ John said. ‘He’ll be worried about us. He can sort everything out when he gets here.’

  ‘I don’t know about that. I’m a guest. You’ll have to take it up with Sowerby.’

  John stared at him helplessly, but he could see it was no use. The bearer was already indicating for them to follow. They went out of the room and down a corridor to the kitchen at the back of the building.

  ‘There’s no one here,’ Elsie said.

  ‘Don’t suppose the cook was expecting us,’ John said. ‘Lunch must have been over ages ago.’

  He was right, the cook hadn’t been expecting them. He appeared a few moments later, looking grumpy, and set to work with a great thumping of pots and pans.

  John and Elsie sat nervously at the table to wait.

  ‘Did you see where they took Mandeep?’ Elsie whispered.

  John shook his head, his face anxious.

  ‘What is this place?’ Elsie asked.

  ‘Hunting lodge, by the look of it.’

  ‘Do you think your parents know you’re with Mandeep?’

  John nodded. ‘They must have guessed, and that means they won’t be as worried. But yours must be frantic. They probably think you’ve been eaten by wolves.’

  ‘They don’t think anything,’ Elsie said. ‘They can’t. I told you, they haven’t even been born.’

  John made a face. ‘Don’t start that again.’

  The cook turned around abruptly and placed two plates of scrambled eggs and toast in front of them. He stood by the table, his arms folded.

  Elsie took a cautious bite. The eggs had a strange, soapy taste.

  ‘It’s delicious,’ John said.

  ‘Yes… delici
ous,’ Elsie echoed.

  The cook didn’t reply, although his grumpy expression relaxed a fraction, and after they were finished with the eggs, he produced dessert, laying it before them with a flourish.

  Elsie stared at the wedge of blancmange. It had a flabby, slippery texture, although it didn’t taste of anything bad. Instead it tasted of nothing at all, which somehow made it even worse. But she could feel the cook’s eyes on her, and she hurried to finish, holding her breath and trying to smile politely at the same time.

  ‘What do we do now?’ she asked, after the last slimy morsel had gone and the cook had cleared the plates.

  ‘The only thing we can do,’ John said. ‘Talk to Sowerby.’

  Elsie felt better after her meal, despite its peculiarity, although as the bearer led them up the wooden staircase to meet Sowerby, she couldn’t avoid a creeping sense of dread. Part of it was not knowing what had happened to Mandeep, and part of it was the unease on John’s face. But mostly it was the silence.

  No noise came from the outside. All she could hear was the slap of the bearer’s shoes on the floorboards and the sigh of the overhead fan, one of its blades slightly crooked, making a pah-pah sound as it beat the still air.

  They reached the top of the stairs and found themselves on a wide landing, with doors to rooms either side, and a huge, empty space in the middle, surrounded by a wooden railing. Elsie peered over, saw a long table beneath, and guessed she was looking down at the dining room on the floor below.

  The bearer stopped at a pair of double doors. He tapped softly, and bent his head, listening. Then he opened the door and they stepped inside.

  Elsie’s first thought was that it was the most cluttered room she had ever seen. It was so crammed with objects that it was impossible to focus on anything in particular. Yet she had the sense that there was something vaguely wrong about everything there. As if each item – from the ornate pieces of furniture to the hundreds of ornaments crowding every surface – was shaped a little oddly. But she didn’t have time to work it out. All her attention was drawn to the man sitting in the centre of the room.