To The Coral Strand

by John Masters

  The elephants knelt and we all got down. ‘We’ll have about half an hour here,’ I told the clients, ‘in case anyone wants to stretch his legs. Only don’t go forward of this line, please.’ They stood in a group, lighting cigarettes and talking.

  Chadi said, ‘There are two in the grass, sahib, a male and a female. The other pair may be in there still, but Gulu thinks they left during the night.’

  I thanked Gulu. This hunt would have been impossible without the Gonds’ help ... and that stemmed from old William Savage. I was living on the reputation of my great-great-grandfather.

  We ran through the plans again. The elephants were to get into position first. That meant moving forward about a quarter of a mile, to a point where the grass sea was just wide enough to take four elephants at a proper distance from each other, about a hundred yards. The villagers would extend the line, so that the tigers would not try to escape past the ends. When we were in position Mitoo would start down the grass from the far end, in the centre of thirty beaters.

  More bloody tigers, I thought, that’s what I need. At least one for Hillburn, assuming that Lady Hillburn and George Wilson got these two. I would have needed another except for Blauvelt’s ague. He had to get a tiger sometime, and a good one, even if I put it in a cage and brought it to his tent so that he could stun it with a bottle. When viceroys and globe trotting grand dukes used to hunt tiger the maharajahs would have men trapping the beasts for a month beforehand, and cart them to the area, and release them only as the beat started. But those spacious days were gone, and I just didn’t have the resources.

  The elephants knelt again, we mounted, and moved forward, the villagers on the flanks. At the far end of the grass I heard the heavy boom of the village blunderbuss. We reached our position and waited. The hot, spring wind blew down the sea of grass, making long, curved waves, changing the colour and the brightness. The grass stood about six feet tall, with heavy tasselled tops. The elephants grunted and moved about. None of them were trained for this sort of thing.

  A tremendous roaring boom made me jump, and our elephant backed and fidgeted. There was no sign of Hillburn in his howdah. Mrs Wilson, her fingers in her ears, was yammering with terror. That elephant was dancing about and curving up her trunk. Hillburn hauled himself up into view from the bottom of the howdah. His dear lady beside me snapped, ‘Charles has shot at a bird.’

  I had noticed a jungle hen rocketing skyward just after the shot. Damned fool. That would alert the tigers long before they were near us.

  ‘Sorry,’ Hillburn called to the company in general, ‘I slipped, trying to keep my balance, and it went off ... I say, can’t you keep this animal still?’

  My heart sank. We waited another ten minutes - fifteen, thirty. The beaters were coming very slowly. Now and then I saw an arm waving above the grass, and heard the clatter of pots and pans coming closer.

  Cynthia Hillburn raised the heavy rifle and swung right. ‘Mine,’ she called, her eye to the sight and her cheek cuddled professionally into the butt.

  I saw a tigress, a good one, creeping along on her belly almost directly towards the elephant on our right, Hillburn and Dot Wilson’s. It was not Cynthia’s tiger by a mile, but let them fight that out. She fired, and the tigress sank her head to the ground and never moved.

  ‘Good shot!’ I said, and had no time for more, as I saw her swing the rifle up to her shoulder again. This time it was a big male tiger, following at a hard gallop in his mate’s tracks. George Wilson must have seen that if he didn’t fire at once he was going to lose this one, too, because Hillburn had not even got his rifle into his shoulder, and the peeress was clearly a lady who shot first and discussed the niceties later - if at all. He fired. The tiger bounded into the air and began clawing at the head of Hillburn’s elephant. The mahout scrambled back into the howdah, the elephant screamed and turned, ready to bolt. I took a big chance and, aiming at the tiger’s hind quarters, fired, and blew it off the elephant on to the ground, where Wilson dispatched it with a final shot through the heart.

  I reloaded - we were all using double-barrelled rifles, as I think they are safer with dangerous game. Cynthia reloaded. ‘That’s going to be all,’ I said, ‘I don’t think there are any ...

  But, by God, the rifle was whipping up into her shoulder again, and on came a third beast, this one a real monster of an old tiger with a magnificent ruff, heading along the same trail, straight for Hillburn.

  I pushed Cynthia’s rifle barrel up and yelled ‘Yours,’ to Hillburn. He was leaning far out over the front of the howdah. The mahout crouched underneath, lying almost flat. Blood ran from long claw stripes down the elephant’s neck and forehead, and some of it had got on the mahout, who looked as though he had been mauled. From the corner of my eye I saw Cynthia’s mouth set in a hard straight line. Hillburn fired both barrels at once. He dropped the tiger stone dead, but you can’t fire both barrels of a big-game rifle without ill effects. Hillburn went straight over backwards, and out of the howdah altogether. As he fell, heavily, his lady snapped, ‘Bloody fool,’ put on her safety catch, and found a cigarette.

  We had a picnic lunch by the lake we had passed on the way up. Everyone, except perhaps me, was in tremendous good humour, and very excited, even Cynthia in her cold-fish way. After pointing out that she knew the etiquette of shooting quite well, thank you, she indicated that I was quite a presentable male, for a colonel, Indian Army, and that she would tell me, in due course, when I was to be given the privilege of pleasuring her. George Wilson measured his trophy in every direction. Hillburn drank more champagne than he could carry, and showed us his bruises. He was turning purple-black already, all over his right shoulder. Then we went home to the Rest House, and sat up late - Blauvelt too. He talked a great deal and was very amusing, mostly at his own expense.

  For the next day I had arranged a small-game beat. When we were almost ready to go - no sign of H. Huntington Blauvelt. I went to his tent and said sympathetically, ‘The old trouble again?’

  I don’t know why I felt sympathetic. If the bastard didn’t go out shooting, what could he write that would help us? But he looked grey and worn and vulnerable, and I liked him.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘A touch of dysentery, old man. Got it in Greenland, of all places, back in ‘38 ... some piece of seal meat the Eskimoes gave me. Never shaken it off.’ His fine mouth was twisted in disgust. The place stank of alcohol - not whisky this time, something else, coarser and sweeter. I knew it wasn’t whisky, because I’d counted the bottles in the bar at bed time, and at dawn, just to find out how much he did take. He’d had about a bottle during the afternoon and evening, but had not taken any to bed with him; and he didn’t have any of his own. The bearer I’d allotted to him told me that. I sighed wearily. He must be getting arrack from the village. Well, I’d find out ... not that I could do anything about it.

  ‘Hope you’ll be better by afternoon,’ I said, and left him.

  We set off, myself again with Cynthia. I felt tired. After the others went to bed I’d sat up till nearly three in the morning, talking to Chadi, Mitoo, Ganesha, and Gulu about the leopard shoot planned for the next day after this. I did not expect this small-game beat to produce much. The leopard shoot had to succeed.

  The beat was to be over a stretch of rolling upland jungle about half-way between Pattan, in the valley, and an even more isolated village called Dhain, on the hills to the west. The beaters - forty men from Pattan and ten from Dhain - were already in position outside Dhain. When we were ready, at nine o’clock, they’d drive towards us through the teak and sal jungle.

  I spread the shooters out, giving each one a Pattan man as general factotum and helper, though none of them could speak English. I put Wilson and Cynthia Hillburn in the middle, where I expected the best game to come down a slight fold in the ground; Hillburn and John Clayton on the extreme right, where some animals might try to break past the line; and Dottie Wilson on the extreme left, with myself.

  We waited. We
waited a long time. You can’t hurry game if you want to guide them, and the beaters had a long way to come, and they had to come slowly to make sure that no animals hid in the scrub until they had passed. Their line was long, fairly extended and the shape of an untidy crescent, the points towards us.

  Hillburn got the first animal - a small lean boar. Dot Wilson had got over her initial nervousness, having found she could lift the lighter rifle, and I had left her and was standing by a tree more or less behind the centre of the line, where I could see everyone. Hillburn struggled to his feet - he had been lying down - waddled forward to inspect his trophy, kicked it, and waddled back.

  Wilson fired next, about five minutes later, and got the stag out of a small herd of five chital that came straight at him at full gallop. The chital is a small and beautiful deer which I personally don’t like shooting - it has white-spotted brown hide and a big white tail and a fine delicate head. Wilson dropped his cold with a single shot at about sixty yards. Dot Wilson fired at another chital, a doe, and, thank God, missed. Cynthia expertly polished off a small sambhur. Another long wait, then a bunch of weasels, rabbits, and jackals dashed out. Dot Wilson got a jackal in the hind leg, though I was calling to her not to waste her shots. I killed it as it crawled away.

  By then I was kneeling behind Cynthia Hillburn. A big boar charged out, head down, and passed close by us, going like an express train. The peeress never raised her rifle. ‘I have not come here to shoot pig,’ she drawled.

  Then we had a long pause, with nothing moving. The rattle of the pots and the clangour of the tin cans on the ends of sticks came closer and closer. There was no tiger grass here and we could see a long way through the glades of the jungle. It was very hot. I could see the beaters clearly now, their thin legs working, right, left, right, pause, raise the stick, rattle-rattle, on again. When they had closed to about two hundred yards from us, I stood up, cupped my hands, and called, ‘No more shooting, please.’

  I saw Wilson jerk the bolt and eject the cartridge from his rifle. At my feet Cynthia Hillburn began to do the same, when a gigantic sambhur stag broke cover dead ahead of us, and no more than sixty yards away. He was as good as the one I’d got to feed the village. Where he could have been hiding that great bulk and that superb spread of horns, in that open jungle, I don’t know - but there he was, running at a gallop from right to left across our front, between us and the beaters.

  Cynthia Hillburn slammed shut the bolt of her Mannlicher and in the same motion lifted it to her shoulder. As I jumped forward, she fired. I slammed the muzzle down into the ground with my foot, the sambhur leaped high in a long convulsive buck, and collapsed. It looked as if she’d got him clean through the neck, severing the spinal cord. A grunting, screaming cough from the farther trees made my hair stand on end. It broke down into a confused gobbling moan. I saw a beater writhing on the ground.

  I stood over the Hillburn woman, a painful knot in my belly. If my rifle had been in my hand I would have shot her, but I’d put it down when I called to everyone to stop firing. I whispered, ‘You selfish, self-indulgent bitch! You want a bayonet ramming up your cunt. Now get back to the Rest House, pack, and get out, at once.’

  She looked pale, but composed. It was, after all, only a peasant, and a black one at that.

  I ran to the wounded man. It was Piroo, the girl Kunthi’s father.

  The expanding bullet had gone straight through the sambhur’s neck, without mushrooming much, and hit Piroo in the left shoulder, making a bloody mess of the collar bone. He was in agony and I opened my first-aid haversack and gave him a shot of morphia. Then with George Wilson’s proficient help I bandaged the wound with a shell dressing and my shirt. Meanwhile one of the young men had run off as fast as he could go to the Rest House, to bring Ratanbir and the jeep to Pattan. Then a couple of strong men lifted Piroo and began to carry him down to the village. As I followed, I saw the peeress examining her trophy. Before she could stop me I snatched the Mannlicher from her hand and with a few savage swipes broke the antlers in several pieces. I don’t suppose I did the rifle much good, either.

  She said coldly, ‘That was quite unnecessary ... I will, of course, pay compensation to that man.’

  ‘Our insurance covers that,’ I said, ‘and no compensation can pay for an act of pure, selfish murder, done to get a trophy. I told you to pack your bags and get out.’

  ‘It was pretty bad luck,’ John Clayton said awkwardly, ‘I mean, the bullet going right on through. Of course Lady Hillburn shouldn’t ... ’ He always thought of money, our John. Why not? He was a businessman. He wasn’t stingy, but to him this was a business venture, and his money, his savings, were involved.

  ‘Look,’ I said to the peeress, ‘I’m going to Lapri with Piroo now. When I get back, I don’t know how long that will be, you had better be gone.’ Then I ran down the slope.

  When we reached the Lapri Mission nearly an hour later Piroo was dopey with the morphia, and not in so much pain. I was driving the jeep, Ratanbir following in the Bentley. I left Kunthi and Chadi holding Piroo, and hurried into the shack that was the hospital. The Holy Roller was there, bending over a bed in the corner. She turned, and half raised one arm defensively.

  ‘For Christ’s sake!’ I snapped. I recovered myself. ‘I beg your pardon, Mrs Wood. I have a badly wounded man outside. Bullet through the left shoulder.’

  She said, ‘I am a nurse, you know, not a doctor ... Bring him in, that door.’

  We carried Piroo into the little operating room. It was small, clean, and primitive. She undid the bandages, and then began to move with decision and certainty, cleaning the wound while the rest of us held him down. She talked to herself in a low voice: ‘The clavicle is fractured ... compound ... shoulder blade irregular in the lower part. I can feel it - pierced by the bullet ... lacerated exit wound ... lucky he was not wearing any clothes to be driven into the hole. He must have a tetanus injection.’

  She took a needle, filled it, gave him the injection, and wrote on his forehead with some purple dye: TT 2cc 1230 19/3.

  ‘He must go to the general hospital in Bhowani as soon as possible,’ she said. ‘He must get there before shock sets in.’

  ‘I’m ready now,’ I said. ‘Is he?’

  She nodded. I told Chadi that I was off. Chadi looked troubled, and Piroo reached out his right arm slowly and took my hand. He whispered, ‘The sahib log ... the hunting ...’

  ‘What do they matter when ...?’ I began. But of course Chadi and Piroo were worrying about the success of my hunting camp. For the people of Pattan it might make the difference between near-starvation and a half-way decent life. Or was it my success they were worrying about? I couldn’t follow the inner causes any further. Piroo was severely wounded and I, being responsible for him, ought to take him to Bhowani and see him into hospital.

  Piroo said, ‘You must not come, sahib.’ He tried to sit up, his face working. ‘The camp! The sahib log!’

  I turned to Margaret Wood. ‘He ought to have a nurse with him on the drive. Can you go?’

  ‘No,’ she said abruptly.

  I glared at her; then told Chadi and Kunthi to carry Piroo out to the Bentley. I told Ratanbir to drive them to Bhowani hospital, fast but not too fast. Five minutes later they were gone. Margaret Wood and I stood alone in the road outside the hospital, opposite the tiny chapel and its graveyard.

  ‘Why couldn’t you go with him?’ I said. ‘He might need attention on the journey - trained attention,’ I added, to forestall any criticism from her. I ought to have gone, but I knew Piroo would fret himself into a terrible state if I did. He thought my clients would starve to death, or die of terror in the wild Indian jungles, if I left them alone for even a few hours. Perhaps the Holy Roller had recognised all that, too, because she did not try to counter-attack me. She said, ‘I did not go because I cannot. I have two patients in there who need me.’

  ‘Don’t you have any other nurses trained, after all these years?’ I said.

&n
bsp; She turned on me like a panther, her dark-gold hair shaking heavy over her shoulders. ‘I did have trained nurses,’ she cried. ‘I have trained eleven since I came here nearly two years ago. They have all gone! You have lured them away with your filthy money and your filthy life, the way you’ve lured back all the men.’

  ‘Only four girls came to you from Pattan,’ I said automatically. My temper rose. My nerves were throbbing and curling like a broken bridge cable. I snapped, ‘And then came back because they don’t want your damned religion rammed down their throats. They’ve got one of their own.’

  ‘Organised lechery!’ she cried. ‘Worship of sticks and stones! But you are the real cause. Why can’t you go away and leave me in peace?’

  ‘Go away?’ I said. ‘I’m only starting. I’m going to be in Pattan for a long, long time. I shall be here long after you’ve appreciated the impudence of what you’re doing, packed up and gone home, where you belong.’

  I spoke with the assurance of temper. Actually I was not at all sure how the camp would go, especially after throwing out the peers in such a high-handed manner and getting no publicity from Blauvelt.

  For a moment she seemed to lose all control of herself. ‘I’ll see that you go!’ she cried. ‘You wait! You’re not as safe as you think you are! I know what you’re doing!’

  I felt in my pocket, fished out a handful of rupees, and threw them at her. ‘For the treatment,’ I said. ‘Don’t bother to send a receipt.’

  Then I got into the jeep and drove away. In the rear-view mirror I saw her staring at the rupee notes in the road. Before I turned the corner she stooped and picked them up. I felt a sharp pang of pleasure at seeing her degrade herself; then realised that she had no choice. She needed the money for the mission, and the hospital. It was only myself I had degraded by that gesture. That did not improve my temper.

  Halfway to the Rest House John Clayton passed me in his car and I saw the Hillburns in it. He waved to me, rather nervously. The Hillburns sat up straight, ignoring me.