by W E Johns
But to return to India.
Shaken by the news that he was soon to say goodbye to the life, and the friends, he had always known, with his rifle slung over his shoulder James wandered, deep in thought and a little sad, up the hill track to the tea estate to let his friend, Sula Dowla, know that they would be having no more excursions together as he would soon be on his way to England.
He reached the path leading to the bungalow where Sula lived with his parents, to meet him just going out. He carried a hatchet.
James said: “Where are you going?”
Sula answered: “Up the hill.”
“What for?”
“To fetch an orchid.”
James looked surprised. “An orchid! What do you want an orchid for?” His surprise was understandable because orchids of many sorts were as common as are moon-daisies in England.
With a roguish smile Sula explained. Out for a walk the previous day with Habu Din they had come on a branch that had fallen across the track. Growing on it was an exceptionally fine orchid plant. Habu had declared his intention of returning the following day to cut off the plant and tie it on a tree in his own garden.1 To make a long story short, Sula said he was going to fetch the plant, not because he really wanted it but for a joke, to see the expression on Habu’s face when he discovered the orchid had gone.
James did not think this was much of a joke but he did not say so. Anyway, there was no harm in it. This was the purpose of the hatchet. “How far is this branch?” he asked.
“Not far.”
“I’ll come with you,” James said. “I have some news for you. After a little while I don’t suppose I shall ever see you again.” As they walked on slowly up the track he explained what was going to happen to him.
Sula looked sad. “I shall miss you,” he said.
“When I go I will give you my rifle for a parting gift, but don’t tell anybody about it,” promised James.
“It won’t be the same without you,” Sula said in a melancholy voice. “We have only to go round the next bend so let us sit down here and you can tell me more about it. We shall see Habu if he comes. He can have the orchid. I don’t want it now.” They sat on a bank in a cool, shady spot. “What will you shoot in England?” inquired Sula.
James shrugged. “Nothing, I suppose.”
“Why not?”
“For one thing there’s nothing to shoot except birds. There is no hunting that you and I understand.”
“No tigers?”
“No.”
“Leopards, perhaps?”
“Not even leopards, nor bears, nor wild pigs.”
“Then what do people hunt in England? They must hunt something.”
“They hunt foxes.”
“Foxes!” Sula looked incredulous. “Not much fun in that.”
“Some people think so. Anyhow, there’s nothing else.”
“What a dull country. Why don’t you stay here where there is always something to do?”
“My father says I must go to school. Besides, if I stay here I shall probably die of fever. Every time I have an attack it gets worse.”
“Can’t the doctor cure you?”
“No.”
“I have some tiger fat. I’ll give you some to rub on yourself. That will cure anything,” declared Sula confidently.
“The doctor says the only thing that will cure me is different air. Cold air.”
“Cold air will kill you,” stated Sula. “Besides, it is so uncomfortable.”
“No doubt I shall find it so until I get used to it,” admitted James, lugubriously. “But don’t let’s talk about it. One day I’ll come back. Then we shall be grown up and you can be my shikari. Meantime I may be able to find something to shoot at.”
They fell silent. Little could James have imagined at that moment the sort of shooting in which he would be engaged before he saw India again: nor how long that would be.
As they sat there, pensive, suddenly the hush of the forest was shattered by such a clamour that the boys stared at each other in startled amazement. Monkeys whooped and screamed, birds cackled, and with the noise of the uproar came the frenzied voice of a man yelling and the wild bleating of a panic-stricken goat.
For a brief moment the boys stared at each other. They sprang to their feet. “Someone is in trouble,” said James tersely.
“It’s up here, just round the corner,” Sula said, and raced on up the track.
“Wait!” shouted James, prudently.
But either Sula did not hear, or took no notice, so he ran after him, trying to unsling his rifle as he ran. This of course impeded him, and Sula reached the bend first. He saw him falter, beckon furiously, and go on to disappear round the bend.
James reached it to see a sight he would have found difficult to imagine. The track ran through a little open glade. In the middle of it an old man appeared to be having a wrestling match with a leopard. Man and beast were staggering about, the leopard on its hind legs; the man, with an arm locked round its neck, was holding its back tight against his chest either in the hope of strangling the animal or to prevent its teeth and claws from getting at his body. Such clothes as he wore were already in shreds. Sula was dancing round the pair of them brandishing his hatchet, looking for somewhere to strike. More than that he could not do for fear of hitting the man. The only place where he could do the leopard any serious harm with a small hatchet was its head, but as this was in conjunction with the man’s face it was obvious that if he struck he was just as likely to brain the man as the animal. They were not still for a moment. Actually, the old man, in his desperation, was tearing at the back of the leopard’s head with his teeth, although the only purpose this served was to drive it into an insane fury. Close at hand a goat was rushing about as if demented. The noise was indescribable.
James joined in the mêlée; but of course he was as helpless to do anything as Sula, for the same reason. He had his rifle free, but as man and beast tottered about this way and that, locked in a life-or-death embrace, to shoot at the leopard without a grave risk of hitting the man was just not possible. Utter confusion reigned.
The old man gasped: “Shoot—shoot.”
James daren’t risk it. All he could do was jab the leopard in the stomach with the muzzle of the rifle shouting, “Let it go.”
Whether the man obeyed or lost his grip was not clear—probably the latter, for he was at his last gasp, eyes staring and foam on his lips. At all events the leopard fell clear. Now on all fours it sprang at Sula, making a swipe with a bunch of claws which, had they reached Sula’s face, would have left him without one. Sula parried the blow with his hatchet, but the force of it sent him reeling backwards. The leopard, spinning round, then leapt at the old man and knocked him sprawling. It was on him in a flash. Before James could get in a shot, Sula, who appeared to have gone mad too, jumped in and made a wild swipe at the animal’s head with his hatchet. The blow landed on the leopard’s neck, where it did little harm on account of the thick hair, through which the edge could not penetrate. The blade was probably blunt, anyway.
It is easier to imagine the scene than to describe it. Everyone was shouting, but no one really knew what he was doing. That included the snarling, spitting leopard. It turned back on Sula and crouched to spring. This gave James the chance for which he had been waiting. He jumped in, and with the muzzle of the rifle almost touching the leopard’s shoulder, fired. The leopard leapt high into the air, came down on its back and lay kicking. For a few seconds it twitched convulsively, tearing up the grass with its claws. James fired two more bullets into it and all was over.
The only sound now came from the old man. He was making incoherent noises but at least he was on his feet. James leaned against a tree, breathless, sweat pouring down his face. Sula sank down, panting, exhausted. From first to last the whole thing could not have lasted more than three minutes; but what it lacked in time was made up for by the intensity of the action.
After he had recovered somew
hat, James went to the old man to see how badly he had been hurt. To his surprise he found him unharmed except for a few superficial scratches. The old man called his goat, which ran to him. James looked at the leopard. It was only a small one, evidently a young one; which was lucky for the old man, probably for all of them.
Then, sitting on the ground, the old man told the boys what had happened. Lachme—that was the name of the goat—was an old nanny which in her ripe age had become a pet, living in the house with the family. She was allowed to roam free, but had become stupid, wandering farther than was wise. That was what had happened this morning. Fearing for her safety, the old man said, he had gone to find her and bring her home. It was while he was doing this that the leopard had charged out of the jungle and tried to seize her.
The old man went to her rescue, whereupon the leopard had turned on him. Having no weapon, for he was not expecting anything like this to happen so near home, he had seized the leopard round the neck and tried to choke it to death. In this he failed, but having got a grip he daren’t let go. That was the situation when the boys had arrived on the scene. He thanked them for their timely intervention, as, indeed, he had good reason.
In case the credulity of the reader should be strained by the idea of a man fighting a leopard with his bare hands it is on record that this has more than once been done successfully, in Africa as well as India, although of course not from choice but as a last resort on being attacked. The men concerned did not always recover from their injuries, dying later as a result of their wounds turning septic. The teeth and claws of all flesh-eating animals, and this includes cats and dogs, if they draw blood, can be poisonous, and highly dangerous if not dealt with quickly.
Well, that was the end of the affair with a young leopard which took on more than he could manage.
James and Sula were still sitting there talking about it when Habu arrived, also carrying a chopper, on his way to collect the orchid. It is hardly necessary to say he was amazed at what had happened. James left them to collect the orchid (although, understandably, Sula professed to have no further interest in it) and returned home.
Three weeks later he was on his way to England, where there were no tigers or leopards—anyway, not wild ones.
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1 This must have been one of the exotic epiphytic orchids that live on the bark of trees and do not require to have their roots in the ground, obtaining what food and moisture they need by hanging out air roots. They are common in tropical India.
IN CONCLUSION
NOT by the widest stretch of the imagination could young James Bigglesworth (or anyone else of his age) have foreseen the momentous events that were to rock the world in a single lifetime; wars that were to reshape countries, change the colours on nearly every page of the atlas and make geography, as it was then taught, as out of date as the prehistoric monsters that once roamed the earth. Men were striving to reach the Poles as they now grope for the moon. Some countries have vanished, their original inhabitants with them, or changed out of recognition. New ones have been created, new capital cities established, great areas renamed.
What in Biggles’ early days were blanks on the map now have teeming populations. Native tribal chiefs in what was called “Darkest Africa” now ride in motor cars. Mud huts have been replaced with palaces and skyscrapers that house refrigerators and television sets. All this in a lifetime. These changes must be borne in mind when reading the Biggles books, particularly the earlier ones.
As it has not been practicable to change the place names in the many books the original ones remain, and the reader must adjust himself accordingly.
No less astonishing have been scientific and technical development. When Biggles was a boy “penny-farthing” bicycles were still on the road. A new vehicle called an automobile had to be preceded by a man with a red flag. There were no aeroplanes. Even when on leaving school he learned to fly, a speed of seventy miles an hour was the limit. Against a head wind a plane could make little, if any, progress. None carried more than two people. They had this advantage. In an emergency they could land almost anywhere; which was just as well, for structural and engine failure were common and aerodromes few and far between. There were no passenger services, no radio, much less television. What from a schoolboy’s view was more important, however, was that a penny would buy a quarter of a pound of chocolates or other sweets.
The reader has only to look around to see the changes, even in the way of thought, that grew up with Biggles.
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Table of Contents
Contents
A Word in Advance
A Test of Nerve
A Chapter of Adventures
More Trouble
Death in the Water
The Big Bad Bear
The One That Got Away
A Sort of Education
Living Dangerously
The Thugs
The Black Intruder
A Professor Learns a Lesson
The Foolish Tiger
The Last Adventure
In Conclusion