by Guy N Smith
Baldwin cleared his throat more loudly, and conversation subsided as he spoke.
‘Gentlemen,’ he licked his lips, ‘we all know why we are here. On Sunday morning the son of Jack Evans was savaged by a wild beast which has been at large for the past few weeks. This is no ordinary wild animal, but a ferocious killer, not only of livestock as we originally believed. Now we know it for a … a maneater! A beast which removes the skin from a young child and then devours the corpse must be exterminated without delay!’
Everybody seemed to be looking at everybody else as though psychologically seeking safety in numbers. Even the hardened Chief Constable; he had seen the remains of Eddie Evans, a sight which would linger in his memory and haunt his nightmares for many months to come.
‘We know for a certainty,’ Baldwin continued, ‘that the caracal is still at large in the vicinity. Had our hunt on Saturday been successful, then a four-year-old boy would still be alive and his parents would not now be under sedation. The position is quite clear. The Press will blame the Forestry Commission for harbouring such a beast in their woods, but only those familiar with country life can appreciate the difficulties involved in dealing with such a beast. Nevertheless, human lives are in danger and no effort must be spared until this caracal is dead. I have had a request from a wildlife park that they be allowed to send in specially-trained hunters to catch the creature alive. Obviously, however, we cannot waste time while elaborate traps are set up or efforts are made to shoot it with a drugged dart. We must organise one of the biggest hunts ever carried out in Britain. The Chief Constable informs me that the armed forces have offered to help, and the Forestry Commission are drafting in every Ranger and beat forester in the county. We are working full out to organise a drive for Thursday, on the same lines as last Saturday, only this time the net must be drawn much tighter. Teams of men will cut their way into the thickets with billhooks, and every available gun will be out in the hills.’
‘One further point.’ the Chief Constable rose to his feet, his height and physique emphasising that here was a man who had already been twice decorated for bravery outside the limits of normal police duties, a man whose very presence inspired confidence. ‘We have not yet established how the caracal came to these parts. Every zoo and private menagerie has been investigated without result, so we can only conclude that the animal was brought into the country illegally. In that case somebody somewhere is aware that they have a murder on their conscience!’
The force of his words hit those in the room, made them cringe inwardly because they knew he spoke the truth. This senior police officer not only wanted to see the caracal dead, he also intended to find the person responsible for bringing it to these Welsh mountains, and would spare no effort in tracking down the culprit
‘Read it!’ Lester Hoyle's voice rose to a scream, indicating his panic and fear. ‘Fucking well read it!’
Bilal trembled as he took the newspaper thrust into his hands. Everybody in the dining room was staring at him; he felt their guilt, terror and hate as he read the large black print of the headlines: MANEATER. Given time he could have translated the rest, but nobody was prepared to wait.
‘You're a murderer, that's what you are!’ Hoyle shrieked.
Bilal swayed, thought for a moment that he was going to faint. The newspaper dropped from his fingers and he held on to the table, averting his eyes from the accusing stares.
‘It's not just him,’ Wes Lansdale spoke softly. ‘It's all of us. We're all murderers if you look at it that way.’
‘Rubbish!’ Hoyle's complexion was deep red, the veins in his neck standing out. ‘I'm not. I wanted to kill the bloody thing but everybody said “Oh, no, we musn't harm the poor creature.” Now see where it's got you. This Chief Constable is as keen to find the guy who brought the caracal here as he is to kill the bloody thing. God, you lot ought to be publicly flogged!’
‘Cool it,’ Lansdale stood up. ‘We're not going to get anywhere by looking for scapegoats, and we've all got to stick together. If the police trace the caracal here we're all for the high jump, not just Bilal. OK, with hindsight Lester was right, we should've got rid of the caracal, but we didn't and that's that. Now we've got to make sure the police don't get on to us.’
‘Very magnanimous of you, Wes,’ Lester Hoyle sneered. ‘I just hope you haven't let anything slip to that zoologist friend of yours.’
‘I've said nothing,’ Lansdale's gaze flickered round the room, challenging them to dispute his clandestine relationship with Rutter, but nobody spoke. ‘Anyway, it's my business whom I make friends with. Now, leave Bilal alone. Anybody who interferes with him answers to me!’
Lansdale glanced at Bilal, then at the commune leader. The Pakistani's eyes reflected gratitude, Hoyle's smouldered with hate.
‘It's entirely my business,’ Wes continued, ‘but I may as well tell you that as from next week I shall be using a room in Professor Rutter's cottage to work in. I find the atmosphere more conducive to writing than here. Now, the sooner this caracal is shot, the better. If any of us see it, or if by any chance it ventures back into the grounds of Pentre, we report it immediately and swear blind that we've never set eyes on it before. OK?’
There were nods of assent. ‘But we've still got to keep him out of sight,’ Hoyle made one final attempt to reassert his authority, nodding towards Bilal.
‘Sure,’ Lansdale smiled, ‘but that doesn't mean he's got to skulk in the attic all day. He can work in the garden as usual, and if anybody comes he can lie low. If the police came with a warrant and searched the place then that'd be that, but at the moment there seems no reason why they should. There's nothing to connect Pentre with either the caracal or Bilal … so long as we all keep our mouths shut!’
Bilal had made up his mind to leave Pentre. It wasn't a sudden decision following Lester Hoyle's outburst, but a gradual one that had germinated and borne fruit. Nothing else mattered except to get away. He never wanted to see the commune or its occupants again, with the exception perhaps of Wes Lansdale and Wendy. They had always shown kindness towards him, and were the only ones he would miss.
He went outside into the garden. A mist which had been hanging over the hills was gradually dispersing in the morning sun, and birds were chattering in a silver birch copse nearby.
Night would be the best time to go, he thought, with darkness screening his movements and the commune sleeping. He couldn't live on the run, though, hiding all the time. He would have to give himself up to the police, tell them about the caracal even if it meant trouble for the others at Pentre, whom he would never see again, anyway. Eventually he would be deported, but anything was better than existing like this.
Bilal went down to the far end of the garden where there were some runner bean stalks to be pulled up, his mind on tonight's escape. It was then that he saw the caracal. He stared, wondering if he was still daydreaming, but it was real enough - sitting outside its old home, the barricaded poultry house, basking in a patch of sunlight as though it had every right to be there.
As he approached, the caracal's head went up, the lithe body stiffened, ears erect and eyes fixed on him. But it stayed where it was, and Bilal's breath quickened. He stretched out a hand, the long brown fingers trembling, and moved forward cautiously.
‘My little friend … you have returned to Bilal …’
His fingertips touched the coarse hair and smoothed along its back, up and down. The caracal sat motionless, ears twitching and wary, some instinct telling it that this human was a friend. Perhaps there was a vague memory of the long sea voyage and the boy who had caressed it during that time.
Bilal's gaze moved to the old poultry house, an idea forming in his mind. Perhaps … just perhaps, the caracal had returned to seek refuge in its former home, harassed as it was by guns and dogs. At least it wasn't wounded.
He crossed to the hen house, gripped the edges of one of the iron sheets, and pulled it away from the woodwork, lowering it gently to the ground. The animal watched him inte
ntly as, working quickly, he removed three of the obstructing sections in less than five minutes.
‘There,’ he turned and spoke softly to the watching animal, ‘your home is ready if you want to use it. You will be safe here.’ It was unlikely that anybody would visit this secluded corner of the garden; Wendy was the only one who ever came here lately.
The caracal made no move to enter, perhaps fearing a trap. It was lying down again now.
‘All right,’ Bilal muttered. ‘I will go on with my work.’
He walked away, glancing back to see the creature still lying there in the patch of early morning sunlight. It seemed strangely content and he found it hard to believe that it had killed a young child. Perhaps some savage dog was to blame, and the police were making a scapegoat out of the caracal. He began to pull up the rows of withered beanstalks, his pulses racing as he worked. He wondered if the caracal had gone into its shelter, but he wasn't going to disturb it by returning. Perhaps after dark …
Suddenly he remembered his decision to leave Pentre, and a feeling of doubt crept into his mind. Now that his pet had returned, he couldn't leave the animal to its fate. He was responsible for bringing it here … for the death of Eddie Evans! No! He couldn't accept that. The caracal was too tame to, have mutilated the boy. Sheep, maybe. After all, it had to kill in order to live, and these farmers wouldn't suffer from an odd loss.
He worked steadily, his brain in a turmoil. If he stayed, he would have to put up with insults from Lester Hoyle, and hate from some of the others who didn't want someone of a different colour in their midst. Maybe if he had entered the country legally it wouldn't be so bad. He couldn't really blame them for despising illegal immigrants, but he hadn't wanted to come in that way. He had thought it was all above board. Like the caracal, he was a victim of circumstances.
No, he wouldn't leave while the caracal was still hiding out in the grounds of the commune. He owed it some sort of protection, food and shelter. But the future frightened him. He couldn't take King with him when he eventually left, and if the animal was discovered in the old hen house it would be shot immediately, mercilessly. It would have been better if it had not returned, but had stayed in the hills and run the gauntlet with the hunters. Bilal felt he understood the animal - a boy and a caracal in a strange land with everyone against them.
Guns and beaters were assembling soon after first light. A thick autumnal mist enshrouded the whole of the rugged countryside, reducing visibility to a maximum of twenty yards. Dogs barked and whined eagerly in vans and Land-Rovers.
‘Hell, we could've done without this mist,’ Melvyn Hughes grunted. ‘It won't clear before mid-morning.’
‘We'll have to make a start, though,’ Baldwin, the Forestry Commission Divisional Officer, was dressed in plus fours, cradling an expensive shotgun under his arm. ‘Otherwise we won't cover the ground.’
‘It's dangerous,’ Hughes replied. ‘Somebody could get shot.’
‘Well, we'll have to try and keep as straight a line as possible, each man ensuring that he can see the gun on either side of him at all times. When the mist clears there'll be helicopters trying to spot the creature.’
‘Never heard of anything so bloody daft,’ the gamekeeper had already decided that he didn't like the forestry official. Baldwin was as bad as Hidderley-Walker on shooting days, trying to organise things and blaming the keeper when he eventually made the inevitable balls-up of everything. ‘Apart from the fact that the woods and undergrowth are too thick to see anything on the ground, the noise'll scare the caracal into hiding.’
‘It might have the reverse effect and flush it from cover.’
Oh, Jesus Christ, you can't win! Hughes turned away. Let them get on with it!
The plan of campaign was much the same as before, a triangular assault taking in some twenty square miles, only this time the force numbered around five hundred. There were at least a hundred dogs, including the pack of otter hounds.
Cartridges were being issued from an army Land-Rover, two per gun, BB load. Nobody was likely to need more than two shots; after the second barrel the caracal would be out of range, and if the animal was wounded there was a full complement of arms to deal with it. A youth with a five-shot Browning automatic 12-bore was arguing that he wanted to fill his magazine, and the corporal in charge was becoming irate. A terrier was hurling itself at the rear window of a Mini Countryman in a futile attempt to get at a yellow Labrador in the next vehicle. There was no sign of the Chief Constable - possibly he was still in bed or perhaps in the comfort of his own headquarters, in touch with his men by radio. Soldiers were everywhere, in denims, carrying shotguns. Rifles were considered too dangerous on an exercise such as this.
Baldwin and a young army captain were in charge of this particular drive. Melvyn Hughes had been relegated to the rank and file; he would be called upon if his rural experience was considered necessary, but both leaders hoped that this would not arise.
There was some delay whilst the line of guns was drawn up, men shouting to each other in the thick mist. The dogs had now been let out; they barked frenziedly and tugged at their leashes, further excited by the presence of police tracker dogs.
Baldwin checked his watch: 7.30 a.m. The captain had a whistle at his lips, and for a brief moment the scene took on the bizarre atmosphere of some ludicrous sporting event in which the competitors attempted to keep up with the dogs over almost impossible terrain. A shrill blast, then dogs were unleashed, an untidy army stumbling forward in their wake. Suddenly everything became real, a hunt for a maneater!
There was no way that the otter hounds could be checked. Since the sport for which they were bred had been banned, they had had to be content with more mundane exercise. Then last Saturday had whetted their appetite for the chase again, the fast-flowing current in the river below Kinsley Wood reviving old memories as they forged ahead upstream. There were no otters but they could have gone on for miles regardless.
Tige, the lead hound, raced ahead of the pack into the mist, cleared a barbed wire fence which suddenly loomed up before him, and carried on without waiting for his followers. He smelled a variety of scents, but none interested him. He longed for the cooling waters of the river, the fast foaming current that was a challenge to his swimming prowess. Nothing else mattered.
On. On. A thick wood lay ahead and the dog slowed its pace, nose down to the ground again. Rabbits, an abundance of scent; sheep had been here, too. It stopped, listening to the baying of the pack far behind, the horn of the whipper-in as he strove to call them back. Tige had no intention of returning. Freedom called and would not go unanswered.
The hound entered the wood, its brown markings blending with the dying bracken, the track it had been following now petering out in the dense undergrowth. It leaped a wall of brambles and stopped again - the river was all that mattered, but there was no guiding sound of rushing water.
Tige's earlier eager pace had dropped to a fast trot. The hound was not used to these alien woodland surroundings. The trees were much denser now; neither bracken nor grass grew here, just a thick carpet of decomposing pine needles which were springy beneath the dog's heavy pads.
Suddenly Tige pulled up, the hairs on his back beginning to rise like a hedgehog's spines as a sharp rancid scent assailed his nostrils, a smell which reminded him of the tortoiseshell cat which lived in the barn behind the kennels. There was definitely some sort of cat close at hand. Tige growled in the depths of his throat, an instinctive warning to a natural foe which was answered by a sharp spitting hiss. He backed away, looking upwards towards the sound, and then he saw it - a huge cat lying on a thick branch some six feet above his head. Its lips were drawn back to display huge sharp fangs, its eyes glinted with yellowish-green malevolence and its ears were erect.
As the two animals faced each other Tige experienced fear for the first time in his life. The sensation was new to him and it alarmed him even more than the unexpected presence of this gigantic feline creature. His tail
flicked in between his legs and remained there; his intended growl became a short whimper. Courage and pride evaporated as he thought about flight, half turned, but was too late. The caracal came at him with the speed and determination of an attacking fighter plane.
Tige's view of the opening encounter lasted less than a couple of seconds. Needle-like claws ripped into his eyes, puncturing the pupils and dragging them from their sockets in a trail of bloody sinews. He howled with pain as his attacker landed on his back, clung on and then bit deeply at the base of his neck like a blood-lusting stoat killing a helpless rabbit.
At most the contest lasted five seconds. In one moment of blinding, excruciating pain it all ended for Tige the otter hound. His legs buckled and he sank to the soft ground, rolling over as his attacker sprang lightly aside and stood erect to survey its kill.
King, the caracal, hesitated with paw raised and then slowly lowered. He only skinned to eat, and otter hound did not figure on his menu. This had been a mortal combat, and now a natural foe lay dead at his feet. He had done all that was necessary.
Then noise intruded upon his proud moment of conquests. A horn blew, hounds bayed and men shouted. His back arched he spat viciously - it was time to retreat.
Chapter 6
The bright October sunlight finally broke through the mist around midday. By that time the party led by Baldwin and Captain Niall had beaten out Kinsley Wood and assembled for a council of war before pressing on towards Panpunton Hill.
Derek Houghton, the short stocky whipper-in, clad in black jacket and white jodhpurs (relics of the days when his chosen sport was still legal) had finally managed to bring - the pack of hounds back. But there were only seven of them. There should have been eight.
‘Sod it, Tige's missing,’ he spoke to Joe Simmons, the Forest Ranger, another keen otter hunter.
‘I shouldn't worry about Tige,’ Simmons was carrying his camouflage jacket over his arm, sweat running down his gaunt features. ‘Can you ever remember a time when Tige has come back with the rest of them? Remember up at Bwlchybryngolan when he stuck to that big otter for five miles? It was two days before we got him back.’