Gordon Casserly

“ Suddenly from the direction of the nullah where the deer had been killed came the tramping of some heavy animal over the dry leaves towards me. The tiger at last! One touch of the hand to assure myself that my rifle was cocked and I sat motionless, though the beating of my heart sounded loud in my ears. Few sportsmen, after long hours of waiting, can hear the approach of their quarry without a quickened pulse. The brute walked straight towards the kill. In another second it must emerge into the full glare of the moonlight. Stealthily I raised my rifle to my shoulder. ”

“ Of the dreary solitude of a military police post in the jungles of Burma, of a fort on the Indian frontier, where a young subaltern lives for months, for years, alone. A boy brought up in the comfort of an English home, used to the pleasant fellowship of a regimental mess, is there condemned to isolation from his kind, to food that a pauper would reject, and a lodging a cottager would scorn. Should one of the many diseases of India lay its grisly hand on him he is far from medical aid. He must fight his illness alone, lying unattended in his comfortless quarters. ”

“ Past Alipur Duar, and then hills and snow-clad summits were lost to sight as our little train plunged from the sunny plain into the deep shadows of the famous Terai Forest—the wonderful jungle that stretches east and west along the foot of the Himalayas, and clothes their lowest slopes. In whose recesses roam the wild elephant, the rhinoceros and the bison, true lords of the woods; where deadlier foes to man than these, malaria and blackwater fever hold sway and lay low the mightiest hunter before the Lord. ”

“ The voices of the men in the camp sounded loud through the silent forest and must have astonished the wild animals making their way to the salt lick close by, for at night all the jungle is awake. The beasts of prey wander from sunset to sunrise in search of a meal; and the deer must be on the alert against them. Only in the hot hours of the day dare they repose in security and lie down to sleep in the shade of the undergrowth. ”

“ And once, feeling a sudden pain in my instep, I looked at my foot and discovered an elephant fly biting through a lace hole in my boot. Khartoum, having driven off the pests temporarily, lifts the branch to her mouth and chews it, wood and all. Bechan, her mahout, espies a small creeper which is highly esteemed by the natives as a febrifuge and is considered a good tonic for elephants. So he directs her attention to it. Out shoots the snake-like trunk and tears it from the tree around which it is growing; and, crunching it with enjoyment, she strides on through the undergrowth. ”

“ The window of one shop was filled with skins of tigers, bears, and panthers; a sight to move the sportsman to wrath, for to him such things are trophies to be won in fair chase, not articles to be exposed for sale to the American tourist. I noticed that tiger-skins were ticketed at £20, the pelts of other animals at lower prices. Beyond the market-place, on a knoll, stood the European sanatorium, in which I was to find myself a patient months afterwards.
As I entered the Amusement Club at sunset, after my visit to the bazaar, I was quite bewildered by the sight of so many white folk. ”

“ Even if it did not attack us it would certainly stampede our horses. And to be bolted with in the thick forest in the dark would be a dangerous experience. Imagination peopled the black jungle with lurking tigers ready to spring out on us; and every sound seemed to herald the approach of a wild elephant. A deer crashing through the undergrowth would have been sufficient to scare our horses. To make matters worse Balderston's tiny pony could not keep up with us. ”

“ While they were discussing a plan to capture him, they saw a wild elephant appear out of the jungle behind the poacher and stealthily approach him. To their horror the brute suddenly rushed on the unsuspecting man, knocked him down, trampled on him and then, placing one foot on his thighs, wound its trunk round his body, seized him in its mouth and literally tore him to pieces. The story seemed too horrible to be true; but the forest officer and Tyson visited the spot and found the corpse of the luckless poacher crushed and mutilated as the eyewitnesses to the tragedy had narrated. ”

“ Outside, a pitiless sun in a sky of brass pours down its rays on the glaring, shadowless desert. Inside, [Pg 33] the droning whine of the punkah mocks him throughout the weary day, as it scarcely stirs the heated air. Night brings only the more terrible hours of darkness when sleep is banished from the tired eyes and the fever-racked brain knows no relief. Small wonder that too often in his agony he seeks death by his own hand. I have gone through the hell of sickness in a lonely post, when day after day the awful pains of jungle fever tortured me and night brought no relief. ”

“ Like the Bhuttias in our village feast one of the number takes it in turn to act as host. He sends over from his bungalow, miles away, crockery, glasses, a cold lunch, and, possibly, tea. For planters are not fond of it as a beverage. Then men, who have not seen another white face for a week, foregather, do justice to the lunch, play tennis or polo, and take a farewell drink or two when the setting sun warns them to depart. Then into the saddle again and off by forest road and jungle track to another week of loneliness and labour. ”

“ But I bring up the rifle rapidly to my left and press the trigger. As the recoil of the heavy .470 high-velocity weapon almost knocks me back flat on the pad I hear a crash in the brushwood. "Shabash! Luga! (Well done! Hit!") cries Bechan and slips from the neck of the elephant to the ground. Drawing his knife he dashes into the jungle. For, being a Mussulman, he is anxious to reach the stricken stag and hallal it; that is, let blood by cutting its throat while there is life in it. For the Mohammedan religion enjoins that an animal is only lawful food if the blood has run before its death. ”

“ Sixty or eighty miles west of Buxa Duar and seven thousand feet above the sea is the pleasant Himalayan Hill Station of Darjeeling. Less than a day's journey by rail from Calcutta, it attracts to it the fortunate mortals who, in the summer months, can escape from the heat of that crowded city and the Bengal plains and plunge into a whirl of gaieties on the cool heights of the Pleasure Colony. ”

“ Absorbing as is the chase of wild animals it is nothing to the excitement of a man-hunt. I forgot that we were tracking a human being to his doom, and remembered only that I had the blood of one of my best soldiers to avenge and that I was pursuing a cowardly murderer. I had given orders to all that Farid Khan, if overtaken and seen to be armed, was to be fired at on the spot; for I was determined to give him as little chance as possible to kill anyone else. Had I come upon him myself I would have shot him down without compunction, and regretted only that my bullet saved him from the gallows. ”

“ While we are following this trail a loud crash ahead of us awakens the silent forest. I think at once that it is caused by the herd in whose tracks we are. But Bechan, who is a man of few words, mutters "bunder". And I look up and see a troop of monkeys leaping through the upper branches and hurling themselves in alarm at the sight of us from tree to tree. But their insatiable curiosity brings them back to peep at us. Once this curiosity in one developed into impertinence; and the impudent little beast deliberately pelted me. ”

“ They invariably took the form of British soldiers. And actually one night when I was miles away out shooting in the jungle the sentry at the gate turned out the guard to an approaching white officer, whom he took to be me. The whole guard, eleven men in all, swore next day to the ghostly visitant.
Few English folk at home, who fondly picture an officer's life in India as one long round of social gaieties, of polo, sport, races and balls, realise the tragedies of loneliness of many who serve the Empire. ”

“ Lulled by the swaying motion of the elephant—not unpleasant when used to it—one's senses are nevertheless keenly on the alert; for every stride may disclose some strange denizen of the jungle either to be sought after or guarded against. And the beauty of it all. The fern-carpeted glades, the drooping trails of bright-coloured orchids, the tangled shadows of the dense undergrowth, the glimpses of never-ending woodland between [Pg 99] the great boles. And always the hush, the intense silence of this enchanted forest.
The generous jungle provides everything that savage man needs. ”

“ Yet the existence of a white woman in India is not all unalloyed pleasure. Her lot may be cast in some small out-of-the-way Station, where there is little society and less amusement. And even in larger places her life is empty enough. In the morning, perhaps, she goes for a ride and then has to shut herself up in her bungalow on account of the heat, until in the cool of the afternoon she can drive out to play tennis or golf and then go to the club, where she sits on the lawn and talks scandal with her female friends or, possibly, flirts with her male ones. ”

“ Next morning I moved on, deeply regretting that I could not afford the time to remain and make a systematic search for the man-eater. It was tantalising to be in its hunting-ground and yet be unable to stay longer and devote myself to its destruction. To shoot an ordinary tiger is not much of an achievement; but to circumvent and kill a murderous beast, grown daring and wily in the slaughter of human beings, is something to be proud of, and a good and useful deed. The hunter must pit his brains against its cunning and risk his life freely ”

“ Save for an occasional blackened tree-trunk, half hidden in the greenery, there was no trace of the devastation wrought by the fires. The ashes had only served to fertilise the ground, and the vegetation pushed more vigorously than ever. Orchids again clothed the boughs. And, sporting in the unusual sunshine, myriads of gorgeous tropical butterflies, scarlet and black, peacock-green, pale blue, yellow, all the colours imaginable, rose up in clouds before my elephant. The creepers again swinging from stem to stem writhed and twisted in fantastic confusion. ”

“ On the second day we were passing through tall elephant grass with waving plumes that nodded high over our heads. We followed a path made by the passage of wild animals. The two orderlies were on foot in front, picking up the trail, when we heard, fifty yards ahead, the rogue crashing suddenly through the jungle. The startled men turned and ran towards our elephants which, alarmed at the sight of their terror, turned sharp and stampeded. ”

“ Once my elephant put up a stray bison calf which looked at us with mild curiosity until my orderly climbed down and tried to catch it. It trotted off out of his reach and stopped to look back at him. We drove it for a mile before us, hoping to shepherd it into camp and capture it: but we lost it in thick jungle. Wild elephants I occasionally came across, and had a couple of unpleasant adventures with them.
The fascination of a day's sport in the heart of the great forest is beyond words. Even if nothing falls to one's rifle the pleasure of roaming through the woodland is intense. ”

“ As the mahout picks up the pretty animal, too dead for him to hallal it, binds its legs together and hands it up to me to fasten on the pad, only the thought of its succulent flesh reconciles me to the slaying of it. The khakur, or barking deer, as it is called from its cry, which is similar to a dog's bark, is of a bright chestnut colour and has a curious marking on the face like a pair of very black eyebrows raised in surprise and continued down the nose. ”