“Like a monkey with his arse on fire?” offered Marion.
Harry nearly choked on a mouthful of food, Melissa laughed out loud, Bob grinned and nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “You could say that.”
“It’s a delightfully terse expression,” chuckled Marion. “I’d love to use it in one of my pieces, but I don’t think the Times would go for it.” She glanced at Harry, who was mopping his lips with a napkin. “Are you alright?” she enquired.
He nodded. “Something went down the wrong way,” he said hoarsely. He cleared his throat noisily and took a long swig from his glass of beer. “Ah … that’s better,” he concluded.
“What I can’t understand,” continued Marion, returning her gaze to Bob, “is why you and Mr. Sullivan have never got together over this tiger business. I mean, surely with his experience and your prowess as a marksman.…” It went abruptly very quiet at the table. The clatter of cutlery and the sound of munching jaws seemed painfully loud by comparison, but it was a reaction that Marion had expected, and she pursued the point with calm determination. “I mean, when you consider that people are still being killed, surely any personal differences you might have should go by the board.…”
“It’s not a matter of personal differences, Marion,” said Harry softly. “But as I’ve told Mr. Beresford before, I’m far too old to go gallivanting about in the jungle after this tiger, it’s as simple as that.”
“Too old?” murmured Marion tonelessly. “That’s not the impression I got last night.”
Harry reddened, fumbled with his knife and fork. Melissa clasped a napkin to her mouth to conceal a smirk, then winced as her mother kicked her on the shin beneath the table. “Anybody like another drink?” asked Dennis uncomfortably but he got no reply. “Yes … well I think I’ll have one, anyway,” he muttered. Only Bob seemed to have missed the inference in Marion’s remark.
“Mrs. Burns, there’s nothing I’d like better than to have Mr. Sullivan along. I’ve tried often enough in the past, but he seems reluctant to get involved.…”
“Not at all!” snapped Harry irritably. “But it’s been years since—”
“Surely tigers haven’t changed all that much,” reasoned Marion.
Now Melissa joined the fray. “I honestly think, Uncle Harry, that you should give it a try. We’ll all be pulling out soon, what will happen if the man-eater is still at large?”
“Well, good heavens, girl, there are people up at the game department…”
“They haven’t been much use so far, have they?”
“Well I…” Harry paused and gazed slowly around the table. Three of his fellow diners were obviously convinced. He gazed at Dennis for a moment.
“It does sound like a sensible suggestion, old chap,” reasoned Dennis.
Harry sighed. He glanced at Kate.
“Don’t let people pressure you, Harry,” she said simply. “Do what you feel is best.”
He smiled, nodded.
“Thank you for that, Kate,” he murmured. “I’m glad to see somebody sympathizes.” He considered for a few moments, toying absentmindedly with the food on his plate. “I suppose … if it was just in an advisory capacity … as a tracker, perhaps.…” He switched the subject abruptly. “You’ve been using a local boy as a tracker, I hear?”
“Ché? Yeah, smart kid. He helps me out when I’m working around his kampong. I know he learned the ropes from you though, Mr. Sullivan.…”
Harry nodded. “I don’t much like the idea of having the boy around that tiger. It’s too dangerous. The cat’s unpredictable, he’s proved that much already.”
“Well now…” Bob grinned. “If I had the master workin’ with me, there’d be no need to employ the pupil, if you get my meaning.”
“Yes. Hmm. Well, I suppose it can’t do any harm to give it one try.”
“Now you’re talkin’ Mr. Sullivan! The next time that tiger makes a kill, I’ll be calling for you. You just keep your gun oiled and polished, that’s all.”
“I always have,” retorted Harry acidly.
But the atmosphere lifted dramatically with Harry’s decision. It was as though the other diners had breathed an audible sigh of relief and the dinner party was able to progress much more smoothly after this point. For Marion, it was a minor victory, another step taken along the path to reforming Harry Sullivan. As far as she was concerned the more times a person told himself that he couldn’t do a thing, the closer he came to complete vegetation. In Harry’s case, the deterioration was well under way, though it should have been plain to any observer that he was frankly capable of a great deal more than he gave himself credit for. There was nothing for it but to bully him into action. After that, she could only hope that things would turn out for the best.
“Let’s have a toast,” she said brightly, raising her glass. “To the new partnership, and though I almost hate myself for saying it, to the death of the man-eater!” Everybody raised their glasses immediately, except Harry, who sat frowning at his own drink for several moments. But then he shrugged, picked up his glass and tilted the cold beer to his lips, draining the contents in one long swallow. Melissa applauded happily.
“Let’s all get drunk!” she suggested.
Marion smiled. It wasn’t going to be such a bad party after all.
* * *
DENNIS AND KATE watched from the car as Harry and Marion swayed drunkenly along the driveway to Harry’s bungalow.
“Look at them!” whispered Kate happily. “They’re as drunk as lords!”
“I’m not surprised, love. They were putting the old Tiger away like there was no tomorrow. Good luck to ’em, I say. You know, that Marion’s a marvel. She’s got more get up and go in her than a woman half her age.” There was a brief wave from the couple as they disappeared into the house. Dennis blared his car horn and accelerated away into the night. “I say, did you catch that remark she made at the table? About being too old?”
“I’ll say! Honestly, the sly old devil. He’s a dark horse, right enough. Actually I think it’s lovely.”
“Do you think they’ll get married?”
Kate chuckled. “According to Melissa, they’re doing just that, tomorrow!”
“What?”
“Oh, don’t worry … I’m sure Harry was just pulling her leg. He also claimed that Marion was already married and that he was quite prepared to commit bigamy to get her.”
“Good lord. That doesn’t sound like Harry, does it? She certainly seems to be having a profound effect on him.”
“Yes. But I think that’s wonderful, don’t you?” Kate turned to gaze thoughtfully out of the window. “I’m more concerned about Melissa,” she said.
“Why, what’s the matter with her?”
Kate smiled sadly. “Honestly, dear, don’t you notice anything? She’s falling in love with that Australian all over again, just when she was getting over the last bout.”
Dennis shrugged. “Well … he’s not so bad, surely? He seems to like her well enough.”
“But that’s just the point. In a few weeks time, we’ll be heading back for England; he’ll be going off to his homeland. It could just be that he’ll end up taking Melissa along with him.”
Dennis turned to stare at her.
“Oh,” he said blankly. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
Kate gave a brief snort of exasperation and lapsed into silence. The car sped along the straight road, flanked on either side by dense stretches of garishly lit vegetation. For an instant, Dennis had the distinct impression that he was driving along a corridor that had no end. He turned to tell Kate about it, but she had lapsed into a deep sleep, lulled by too much alcohol and the hypnotic rhythm of the speeding car. It was a long lonely journey through the darkness, and Dennis was glad when he finally saw the approaching lights of his own estate. He brought the car to a slow, gentle halt, switched off the ignition and turned to Kate, rousing her from sleep with a soft shake on her shoulder. She opened her eyes instantly, lay slumped in h
er seat, gazing at him.
“It won’t be like this in England,” she murmured.
“I suppose not,” he replied, wondering just what exactly it was she was referring to, but then she was stumbling out of the car door, still half-asleep, yawning cavernously. Dennis locked the vehicle up, then stood for a moment beneath the glow of a nearby street lamp. A couple of large bats flipped past his head, seeming to miss him by mere inches. He watched them arc gracefully away over the rooftops.
“No,” he mused softly. “It won’t be like this in England. It won’t be like this at all.” And a curious sadness filled him for an instant, catching at his throat and making it hard to swallow. “I wonder what the hell it will be like,” he croaked. And with another shrug, he turned and followed his wife up the driveway and into the house.
CHAPTER 27
HAJI HARDLY DARED to move. The Upright was not aware of him, he was sure of that. But the hunger was now so terrible, so all-consuming, the fear of missing yet another kill made the cat anxious to the point where his stalking was uncharacteristically timid. The fact that the Upright carried a black stick was also a worry; and then again there was the knowledge that this was not a stranger, but the tall pale Upright who so often appeared at the scene of Haji’s kill, the walker by night who concealed himself in the treetops and waited quietly for the tiger’s approach. Haji knew his scent and it was this more than the other two factors that had kept him lying concealed for over an hour, watching and waiting for the right time.
Perhaps the Upright had learned that this was the place where Haji had made his unsuccessful attack on the gaur calf the previous day. Now, a sleek white goat was tethered in the centre of the small clearing. It was grazing calmly, unaware that it was being observed. The Upright, meanwhile, was gazing up into a large Kapok tree and barking instructions at two smaller, duskier companions, who were roping some kind of wooden contraption into place. The Upright’s black stick hung carelessly across his shoulder, and he had one of the small white twigs in his mouth that gave out a strong smell of burning. He was no more than ten feet away from the place where Haji was lying.
The ball of emptiness in Haji’s guts contracted spasmodically, and he ran his tongue nervously around the inside of his mouth. Already his strength was depleted. If another day were to pass without sustenance, he would surely sicken and die.
An abrupt feeling of decisiveness came to him. He raised himself slightly until his body was just clear of the ground. He fixed his gaze intently on a dark sweat stain that ran down the back of the Upright’s loose-fitting tawny skin; he let the image burn into his vision until he had excluded everything else that surrounded him, until he saw nothing before him but the tall straight back of his next victim. He let a swift terrible rage burn up inside him, pushing aside the doubts and fears that had so far held him back. He came out of cover in a swift terrible run, an engine of destruction, a harbinger of death.
One of the dark Uprights screamed a desperate alarm from the shelter of the tree. The pale Upright whipped around, and for an instant Haji registered the white round face of his prey, frozen in a grimace of shock and terror. Then the face swooped nearer as Haji’s legs propelled him upwards, the face was a great screaming moon that tumbled earthwards as Haji’s jaws closed around the vulnerable throat beneath it. The black stick went clattering uselessly away, and the Upright could do little more than aim a few puny blows at the head of his assailant before his life hissed briefly from the gash in his ruptured neck. He shuddered violently for a few moments, his arms still hitting out ineffectually. Then he went abruptly limp, flopped back onto the ground and was still.
The Upright’s two companions gibbered and shrieked like a pair of apes in the tree-fork, and Haji let go of the carcass for a moment to direct a great shattering roar in their general direction. With gasps of terror, they launched themselves higher into the treetops, their momentary bravado forgotten as they realized they were still within reach of a leap. In the confusion, one of the Uprights lost his footing, slipped, and came plummeting earthwards, to land with a heavy thud six feet from Haji’s side. The tiger took an involuntary step back, then roared again, sending a blast of power and the stink of raw meat full into the face of the Upright, who promptly fainted.
Haji gazed at the fallen creature for a moment, then padded over to him and gave him an exploratory sniff. There was no blood on the man and luckily for him, Haji simply did not associate him with the idea of food. Instead, he moved back to the meat he had already slain, gripped it firmly by the neck and began to drag it away from the scene of the kill. Hanging from a precariously slender branch, the remaining Upright gazed down, wide-eyed in amazement, scarcely believing the scene he had just witnessed. The tiger vanished into the bushes, taking the body of the Tuan with him; nevertheless, the man wisely allowed several minutes to elapse before he clambered down from the tree to revive his uninjured and incredibly lucky comrade. This accomplished, the two men headed for their kampong, screaming at the top of their lungs.
* * *
HARRY PUT DOWN the manuscript with an air of finality. He nodded. “It’s good,” he said simply. “Very good.”
“It’s only the rough draft,” Marion reminded him.
“Nevertheless, I think it’s just right. You’ve stated all the angles very effectively, and the strongest point is that you’ve managed to evoke sympathy for the tiger while admitting that he must be killed.”
Marion smiled. “Ah good, I’m glad you saw that in it. It was one of the points I was worried about.…” She reached out, took the manuscript back from him, patted it softly. “I shall have to have this in to my editor by tomorrow afternoon,” she told him. “Means I’ll have to be moving on tomorrow morning…”
“Oh.” Harry gazed thoughtfully at the rattan table. He had of course expected this; but had forced himself not to think about it. “Must you … go quite so soon? I thought tomorrow, we might…”
She stilled him with a wave of her hand.
“Harry, it’s my job. I have to go.”
He nodded, glumly. “Yes, well of course…” He shrugged ineffectually. “If that’s the way the land lies, who am I to say different? But look here, surely one more day couldn’t make that much—”
He broke off in alarm as a familiar vehicle came lurching dangerously up the street and slowed to a dusty, noisy halt at Harry’s garden gate. An equally familiar figure leapt from the driver’s seat and, in his haste to enter the garden, actually vaulted the gate and came running breathlessly up the path.
“Beresford! What the hell is the meaning.…?”
Bob waved him to silence.
“No time, Mr. Sullivan, no time! Run and get your gear quickly, there’s been another killing over by Kampong Wau. Only happened a couple of hours ago, I just got the news.”
Harry sat there, staring indignantly at the Australian. He was not in the mood to go racing off into the jungle and he silently cursed the agreement he’d made the night before. Perhaps though, if he could stall for time, the impatient Aussie might give up and be on his way.
“Now look here, Beresford; I know last night I agreed to come along, but how was I to know it would happen so soon? I … I haven’t even got my kit sorted out yet and besides…”
Once again, Bob waved him to silence.
“I think you’ll want to come along with me, Mr. Sullivan,” he said. “See, it wasn’t some stranger who got killed this time. It was Mike Kirby.”
“Mike…” Harry’s eyes widened in momentary disbelief. Then they narrowed suspiciously. “There must be some mistake,” he murmured. “Mike wouldn’t be that careless. He’s been hunting those jungles for years— He…”
Bob shook his head adamantly.
“Believe me, it’s no mistake, Mr. Sullivan. I’ve talked to the boys who were with him. He was setting up a machan and the cat came right up behind him. Poor bugger didn’t have a chance. Now … are you coming, or do I go without you?”
Harry fro
wned, glanced at his feet.
“I’ll get my things together,” he said, and getting up from his seat, he strode purposefully into the house. Bob sat himself down impatiently on the steps of the verandah to wait.
“Mike Kirby,” mused Marion sadly. “I’ve only met him once, but he struck me as such a capable man.…”
Bob shrugged. “It only takes one mistake, Mrs. Burns. Besides, he had no reason to suppose the cat would sneak up on him at a time like that. It might just as easily have been me.”
Marion frowned. She reminded herself that it was her own interference that had got Harry involved in this venture.
“Take care out there,” she murmured. “Both of you.”
“Ah, don’t worry on that score, Mrs. Burns. I’m not about to do anything stupid at this stage of the game. And I reckon Mr. Sullivan knows how to take care of himself.”
Marion nodded.
“I hope so,” she said softly, and she gazed out across the hot silent expanse of the garden, wishing she could explain the sudden terrible fear that had settled in her heart.
* * *
IT WAS cramped and uncomfortably hot up on the machan. Harry and Bob sat side by side, sweating profusely in the dank heat of the night. They were both in foul tempers though up till now the older man had managed to suffer in silence, sitting up as rigid and unmoving as a dummy behind the thick screens of foliage he had so painstakingly erected, his rifle resting across one knee. Bob sneaked a glance at him and wondered how in the hell he could keep himself so still. Ever since calling at Harry’s house, the Australian had regretted the idea. Firstly, the old man had taken so long to get himself ready; after nearly an hour’s delay, he had emerged from the bungalow looking like the Great White Sahib himself, resplendent in two layers of clothing, a waterproof jacket worn over a thick khaki shirt, puttees, long drill trousers, and a battered jungle hat. Then he had spent what seemed an eternity packing odds and ends into a light haversack and an even longer one saying good-bye to the ubiquitous Mrs. Burns. By the time they were ready to drive away, Bob was positively screaming with impatience.
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