The Tiger Warrior

by David Gibbins

  “I should have remarked on it,” Hamilton gasped breathlessly. “The waterfall had liquefied the streambed and it’s like quicksand. We had the devil’s own time getting down here. Under those choked-up leaves and ash it’s a death trap.”

  “How close are we now?” Howard said, struggling to keep collected.

  “Just over the waterfall. There’s a bridge, and then we’re on the trail from the village to the shrine. We left Bebbie and the sappers in a clearing just in front of it.”

  “We’re being followed,” Howard said.

  “That gourd? I saw you look at it,” Wauchope said.

  “Why don’t they kill us?” Hamilton said. “They could shoot us like pigs in a slaughterhouse.”

  Howard looked at the muttadar, who had been scampering over the boulders with natural agility and had materialized silently beside them, his precious bamboo container held tight. “I think it’s the muttadar. He’s a sorcerer and even though the rebels know he’s betrayed them, perhaps there’s some kind of spell that prevents them from harming him.”

  “His idol?” Wauchope said.

  Howard nodded. “That’s the only reason he’s here with us, and has led us this far. He’s as terrified as all these people are of the jungle demons, the konda devata, but I believe he knows he will be allowed safe passage back to the shrine to replace what he had taken. And because we’ve dared to go into the jungle among the spirits that haunt it after the festival, they might think we have some kind of supernatural power ourselves.”

  “They are utterly irreclaimable savages,” Hamilton muttered, his face now flushed with the fever. “The only supernatural power they’ll get out of me is a volley of lead from our Sniders.”

  “Hold this.” Wauchope handed Howard the end of a rope he had taken from the haversack of one of the sappers, and leapt up onto the boulder at the base of the waterfall. He held his sword out of the way and climbed nimbly from rock to rock, paying out the rope. He stopped at the top, some thirty feet above them, just visible in the mist, and gestured with his free arm for them to follow. Over the next ten minutes they all clambered up after him one by one, the sappers with their rifles slung over their backs and going barefoot. At the top was a small bamboo bridge over the shingly steambed, and they trooped across it into a clearing surrounded by patches of feathering reed. About fifty yards ahead the jungle began again, rising high over another rocky hillock. The havildar suddenly gesticulated and one of the sappers ran forward, toward a small cluster of fellow sappers with bayonets fixed, visible below a boulder on the far side of the clearing. There was a sudden scream of warning in Hindi from one of them, but it was too late. The sapper had disappeared without a sound. The others cautiously went forward, Hamilton and Howard in the lead, and they peered down.

  “Good God, no,” Hamilton whispered. “I knew this was here. I should have warned them. I am not in my right mind.”

  A horrible gurgling sound came from below, then stopped. Howard leaned over, feeling nauseous. A tiger trap. The hole was deep, at least ten feet, and stakes of fire-hardened bamboo rose out of the ground. The sapper had fallen in a seated position, and a stake had caught him in the nape of his neck and driven right through his skull, a bloody spike that thrust a foot or more above his turban. The force of the impact had nearly decapitated him, and his neck was stretched out grotesquely, the rest of his body skewered on the bed of spikes in front. Howard swallowed hard, then stood back to let the other sappers see. He took the havildar aside and had a quiet word with him in Hindi before turning to Wauchope and Hamilton.

  “I asked him to recover the rifle and ammunition,” he said. “They’ll want to take him out and bury him.”

  “That will be an odious task,” Wauchope murmured.

  “They will not leave him here like this,” Howard said. He turned and walked toward the other side of the clearing, his anger rising. Bebbie now had even more to account for. But he saw that they were too late. The four sappers of the detachment, those Hamilton had left to guard Bebbie, were kneeling, with bayonets pointing outward, around a crude bamboo palanquin. On it was a sweat-drenched, half-covered body very far from being alive. Howard knew how cruelly the cholera could ravage a person’s appearance, but this was ghoulish in the extreme. The face was gray and the mouth was lolling, full of congealed blood. He came closer. It was not quite right. Bebbie’s eyes had clearly come out, only to be pushed crudely back in. As Howard approached, holding his nose against the smell of feces, he saw the explanation. A large hole perforated the middle of Beddie’s forehead.

  The havildar followed and spoke rapidly to the four sappers, passing them his water bottle, then let them speak in turn. Howard listened, then turned to Hamilton and Wauchope, his anger still palpable despite the grim finality of the scene. He jerked his thumb at the corpse. “That fool ordered the sappers into Rampa village to parley with the rebels. Their native guide had told him the rebel leader Chendrayya was there. One of the sappers went through the jungle to the edge of the village for a reconnaissance. He saw at least four hundred rebels massed, maybe more. I believe they were the party we saw join the throng by the river. The sapper returned and reported to Bebbie. The sappers had seen what the rebels had done to the captured police constables. The ones we saw executed by the river are not the only victims. Two more were murdered here in full view of the sappers last night, just outside the shrine. But Bebbie still ordered the sappers to go back to the village.”

  “He must have been delirious,” Wauchope said.

  “You didn’t know this man,” Howard said, gritting his teeth. “But before they could go, they were attacked. Shots were exchanged. Bebbie was hit and killed.”

  Wauchope knelt close to the corpse, and peered at the gaping blue hole in the forehead. He lifted up the head, raising a swarm of black flies from the sticky mess below. The back of the head was blown off, and fragments of skull were stuck to the ground. He looked up at the other two officers. “That’s no musket ball,” he said quietly. “That’s a Snider bullet. I’ve seen what our rifles do in Afghanistan.”

  Howard looked down at the wound, and swallowed hard. He looked at his right hand. It was still shaking. He thought for a moment and then turned to address the havildar in Hindi. “An unfortunate business. He would not have lasted with the cholera anyway. Have them bury him on the spot. And reassure our sappers that they will not be required to parley with the enemy.”

  “Sahib.” The havildar addressed the four men, who nodded at Howard and reached for the collapsible shovels on their haversacks. Howard looked back at the body with contempt. “If he’d done his job this rebellion would never have happened.”

  “Word will get out that he was shot,” Hamilton murmured.

  “A musket ball. It is as the sappers describe. They were attacked. That goes in the report,” Howard said determinedly.

  “If you ever get a chance to make one,” Wauchope said. “What do we do now?”

  Howard suddenly felt tired, deathly tired, and he took off his helmet and rubbed his stubble. He put it on again, and peered at the lowering sky. “We leave in twenty minutes. The sappers have that much time to finish up here. Hamilton, be so good as to egg them on. Robert, you and I are going to visit that shrine. You said you might have seen shapes in there, Hamilton? Carvings, inscriptions? At the moment all I want to do is get that wretched vélpu in there and be out of here. I don’t think the muttadar is going to let us leave unless we keep our side of the bargain.”

  ——

  The two men left Hamilton and the sappers behind in the mist, and approached the north side of the clearing where the stream curved around below another waterfall. Through the sheen of spray they could make out three huge boulders, one of which formed a kind of roof over the other two, with a vertical slab of rock blocking the space in between. The muttadar had been following them, but as the shrine came into view he pulled off his turban and squatted on the ground, muttering and chanting to himself in the Kóya language
, his eyes wide with terror. Howard turned and knelt beside him, trying to coax out some sense. “He has the most intense horror of this place. Nothing will induce him to go any farther.”

  “I thought this was his temple,” Wauchope said.

  “He knows he must return the idol, but he dreads the wrath of the konda devata, the tiger spirit. He says we must take the idol inside for him.”

  “But without it, he’s defenseless. Surely the rebels will kill him.”

  “He evidently fears the spirits more than he fears death.”

  Howard spoke urgently to the muttadar, gesturing back in the direction of the sappers, but the man remained immobile, staring ahead as if in a trance. He suddenly reached down with trembling hands and brought a gourd he had been carrying to his mouth, gulping down palm liquor as if it were water. Howard reached over and grasped the bamboo tube from the man’s other hand, pulling it until he released it. The container was sealed at both ends with a hard resinous material over a wooden plug. He stood and carried it toward Wauchope, who looked at it with curiosity. “Shall we open it up?” Wauchope said. “He’ll soon be too besotted to care.”

  Howard looked toward the shrine. He thought he could see the shape of a tiger’s face in the boulders, the eyes and ears formed by undulations in the rock. He shook his head. “Let’s be done with it. I made him a promise. I will not treat these people like savages.”

  They started forward. A rocky alcove to the left of the shrine entrance came into view. Two thick bamboo trunks formed a kind of verandah, holding up a roof of poles and palm leaves. In front was a line of posts capped with bleached skulls, some of them of prodigious size—elephants, tigers, wild boar. Behind them were two taller poles, festooned with bedraggled feathers. Hanging halfway down the poles were two blackened masses, dripping and suppurating. Howard had noticed a smell, but thought it was Bebbie. Now he realized it was the sickly-sweet stench of older putre faction, and he remembered what the sappers had said. The two other police constables. He forced himself to look. Knives were suspended from cords beneath the corpses, slowly spinning around. The heads were smashed and scalped, the eyes gouged out. There was movement on the ground. He spied a gorged rat scurrying away, dragging an indescribable lump from below one of the poles. He turned quickly away, swallowing hard to avoid retching, and joined Wauchope at the vertical slab between the boulders. “We need to get away from this place,” he said hoarsely, holding himself against the wet rock, his head throbbing.

  “We need to finish here first,” Wauchope murmured. He was running his finger down the crack on one side of the slab. “It’s cut stone. Incredible workmanship. Who made this?”

  “Try pushing it,” Howard said. Wauchope put his hands on the slab, and it immediately pivoted inward. Inside was a passage large enough for them to stoop through side-by-side, but beyond was pitch blackness. The two men cautiously entered. Howard took out a brass container from his belt pouch and extracted a flint and steel, sparking a length of paraffin-soaked cord and using it to light a small candle. He lifted it up, and was immediately confronted by a crude etching of a lingam, a phallus. He raised the candle higher. All around them were other emblems, crude carvings, stick figures like the one he had seen on the gourd in the ravine. They edged forward. Ahead they could hear the rushing sound of the waterfall through the rocks. Wauchope suddenly tripped and Howard reached out to catch him, dropping the bamboo container with a clatter as he did so. Once Wauchope was upright he picked up the bamboo. One side had splintered, and he could feel something like paper inside. Crouching down, he saw what Wauchope had tripped over, a shallow stone basin full of liquid, still and dark, with a faint metallic tang. He raised the candle over it, and saw his face reflected, as if it were glowing with a deep red aura. Then he remembered what the muttadar had told him. The priest augurs the future in a bowl of blood. He looked again, but saw only the yellow flicker of the candle. He shifted slightly, then he saw something, gasped, dropped the cylinder again and let his right hand fall heavily into the liquid. It was thick, congealing, warm. He pulled his hand out and shook it hard, splattering gobs of red over the walls of the tunnel, then wiped it on his uniform. “I just saw the most ghastly apparitions,” he said hoarsely. “Tigers, devils, scorpions.”

  “They’re on the ceiling above you,” Wauchope said.

  Howard raised the candle and looked up. Of course. There were more etchings on the rock. He had seen reflections. He took a deep breath, and peered ahead. “That must be it. The shrine itself There seems to be some kind of altar in the center.” He picked up the bamboo tube again, and stepped carefully over the basin. Through the flickering candlelight he saw figures that were more rounded, sculptures in relief, front-facing masks and dancing limbs. “I recognize these,” he murmured. “My ayah used to take me to cave temples like this when I was a child in Bihar. That’s Parvati, wife of Shiva. And Vishnu, striding across the wall, vanquishing a demon.” He moved forward into the main chamber, where the walls were barely discernible in the candlelight. “But these ones are different. They look like warriors. I need to inspect them more closely.”

  “Pass me the candle, would you?” Wauchope had crouched down beside the altar-like structure in the middle, a raised rectilinear shape that had clearly been sculpted out of the living rock. Howard carefully handed over the stub of candle. Wauchope held it close to one side of the stone.

  “Good God.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s an inscription. I can read it.”

  “What language?”

  Wauchope did not reply. Howard watched the yellow orb of light move quickly along the side of the rock, and then back again. He could just make out shapes, carved lettering. Halfway along the fourth row the candle sputtered and went out. They were in near darkness, the only light a dull gray coming through the passage from the entrance. “Quick,” Wauchope said excitedly. “Strike a light. I think I can read one of the lines.” Howard put down the bamboo tube by the altar and hurriedly took out his flint and steel, striking over and over again in the damp air until a spark lit the cord. He cupped his hand over it until there was a flame, and passed it carefully over. Wauchope dangled the flame close to the rock and moved it along. The flame reached his fingers and he dropped it, gasping in pain. There was a hiss as the cord hit the wet floor and they were in near darkness again.

  “That’s it,” Howard said. “Well?”

  Wauchope was silent. Howard saw the silhouette of his form, nursing his hand, stock-still and staring blindly at the stone. Then Wauchope swiveled toward him, and Howard could just make out his bearded face in the pale illumination from the entranceway.

  “It’s Latin. Sacra iulium sacularia. Guardian of the celestial jewel. There’s more, but that’s all I could make out.”

  “I’ve heard that before,” Howard whispered. “Some memory from my childhood, from my ayah. The celestial jewel. The jewel of immortality.”

  There was an immense rumble outside, then a clap of thunder. Lightning lit up the interior of the shrine like a flash of gunpowder, revealing for an instant a surging mass of forms that seemed to be crowding in on them, gods and goddesses and demons and glowering tigers, faces contorted in agony and fear, terrifying riders looming above them like the horsemen of the apocalypse. Howard thought he saw Romans. Roman legionaries. He felt as he had in the jungle when the noise of the beasts erupted. He put a hand to his forehead. It was burning, and his hand was shaking. He crouched beside Wauchope and they made their way back toward the entrance. The pounding of the waterfall behind the boulders had increased, and they could see the rain lashing down now, giant droplets that spattered into the passageway. Howard realized he was hearing something else, the insistent sound of drumbeats, coming from all sides, sometimes discordant but then steady and rhythmic, just as he had heard that morning from the riverbank. Fear rose in him. He peered into the downpour, searching for the muttadar, and then saw a crumpled form, a forest of arrows sticking out of it and a d
ark stain seeping over the mud. The rain was pulverizing his body, and it seemed to be disappearing before their very eyes. The two men crawled back into the main chamber. Howard pulled out his revolver, and Wauchope did the same. They knelt up in the confined space and shook hands.

  “God be with you,” Howard said.

  “If we ever make it out of here, this place is our secret,” Wauchope replied. “I saw something more in that inscription.”

  “If we rush toward the boulder where we left the sappers, we could make it.”

  They turned back toward the entrance. Howard reached into the darkness on top of the altar slab and lifted something he had seen earlier, a brass gauntlet with a fist in the shape of a tiger’s head, a rusted blade protruding from the tiger’s mouth. He felt his own sword pommel, then thought better of it and slipped his right hand into the gauntlet, curling his fingers round the crossbar inside. The head of the tiger looked like the image he had seen on the boulders of the shrine, with a grimacing mouth and slanted eyes. “Tigers seem to be the one thing they’re afraid of,” he said. “If it’s in the shrine, this thing must be some kind of sacred object. Might put the fear of God into them.”

  “I’ve got an even better idea.” Wauchope picked up the bamboo tube and held it in front of him. “You kept your side of the bargain. You brought the muttadar’s precious idol back to the shrine. But I think now that he’s past caring, we can borrow it for a little longer. If they see that we still have it, the rebels might hold off as they did before.”