by Ruskin Bond
On one occasion, an accident happening to my horse, I got a lift into town, hoping that someone might do me a similar favour on my way back. But this was not to be, and I made up my mind next morning to do the journey on foot, shortening the distance by taking a cut through the hills which would save me about six miles.
To take this short cut it was necessary to cross an ostrich ‘camp’ or farm. To venture across these ‘camps’ in the breeding season, especially on foot, can be dangerous, for during this time the male birds are extremely ferocious.
But being familiar with the ways of ostriches, I knew that my dog would scare away any ostrich which tried to attack me. Strange though it may seem, even the biggest ostrich (and some of them grow to a height of nine feet) will bolt faster than a racehorse at the sight of even a small dog. And so, in company with my dog (a mongrel who had adopted me the previous month), I felt reasonably safe.
On arrival at the ‘camp’ I got through the wire fencing and, keeping a good lookout, dodged across the spaces between the thorn bushes, now and then getting a sight of the birds which were feeding some distance away.
I had gone about half a mile from the fencing when up started a hare, and in an instant my dog gave chase. I tried to call him back although I knew it was useless, since chasing hares was a passion with him.
Whether it was the dog’s bark or my own shouting, I don’t know, but just what I was most anxious to avoid immediately happened: the ostriches became startled and began darting to and fro. Suddenly I saw a big male bird emerge from a thicket about a hundred yards away. He stood still and stared at me for a few moments; then, expanding his wings and with his tail erect, he came bounding towards me.
Believing discretion to be the better part of valour (at least in that particular situation), I turned and ran towards the fence. But it was an unequal race. What were my steps of two or three feet against the creature’s great strides of sixteen to twenty feet? There was only one hope: to wait for the ostrich behind some bush and try to dodge him till he tired. A dodging game was obviously my only chance.
Altering course a little, I rushed for the nearest clump of bushes where, gasping for breath, I waited for my pursuer. The great bird was almost immediately upon me, and a strange encounter commenced. This way and that I dodged, taking great care that I did not get directly in front of his deadly kick. The ostrich kicks forward, and with such terrific force that his great chisel-like nails, if they struck, would rip one open from head to foot.
Breathless, and really quite helpless, I prayed wildly for help as I circled the bush, which was about twelve feet in diameter and some six feet in height. My strength was rapidly failing, and I realized it would be impossible to keep up the struggle much longer; I was ready to drop from sheer exhaustion. As if aware of my condition, the infuriated bird suddenly doubled on his course and charged straight at me. With a desperate effort I managed to step to one side. How it happened I don’t know, but I found myself holding on to one of the creature’s wings, close to its body.
It was now the bird’s turn to be frightened, and he began to turn, or rather waltz, moving round and round so quickly that my feet were soon swinging out almost horizontally. All the time the ostrich kept opening and shutting his beak with loud snaps.
Imagine my situation as I clung desperately to the wing of the enraged bird, which was whirling me round and round as if I had been a cork! My arms soon began to ache with the strain, and the swift and continuous circling was making me dizzy. But I knew that if I relaxed my hold, a terrible fate awaited me: I should be promptly trampled to death by the spiteful bird.
Round and round we went in a great circle. It seemed as if my enemy would never tire. But I knew I could not hold on much longer.
Suddenly the bird went into reverse! This unexpected movement not only had the effect of making me lose my hold but sent me sprawling to the ground. I landed in a heap at the foot of the thorn bush. In an instant, almost before I had time to realize what had happened, the ostrich was upon me. I thought the end had come. Instinctively I put up my hands to protect my face. But, to my amazement, the great bird did not strike.
I moved my hands from my face, and there stood the ostrich with one foot raised, ready to rip me open! I couldn’t move. Was the bird going to play with me like a cat with a mouse, and prolong the agony?
As I watched fascinated, I saw him turn his head sharply to the left. A second later he jumped back, turned, and made off as fast as he could go. Dazed, I wondered what had happened.
I soon found out, for, to my great joy, I heard the bark of my truant dog, and the next moment he was jumping around me, licking my face and hands.
Needless to say, I returned his caresses most affectionately! And I took good care to see that he did not leave my side until we were well clear of the ostrich ‘camp’.
Owls in the Family
One winter morning, my grandfather and I found a baby spotted owlet by the veranda steps of our home in Dehradun. When Grandfather picked it up the owlet hissed and clacked its bill but then, after a meal of raw meat and water, settled down under my bed.
Spotted owlets are small birds. A fully grown one is no larger than a thrush and they have none of the sinister appearance of large owls. I had once found a pair of them in our mango tree and by tapping on the tree trunk had persuaded one to show an enquiring face at the entrance to its hole. The owlet is not normally afraid of man nor is it strictly a night bird. But it prefers to stay at home during the day as it is sometimes attacked by other birds who consider all owls their enemies.
The little owlet was quite happy under my bed. The following day we found a second baby owlet in almost the same spot on the veranda and only then did we realize that where the rainwater pipe emerged through the roof, there was a rough sort of nest from which the birds had fallen. We took the second young owl to join the first and fed them both.
When I went to bed, they were on the window ledge just inside the mosquito netting and later in the night, their mother found them there. From outside, she crooned and gurgled for a long time and in the morning, I found she had left a mouse with its tail tucked through the netting. Obviously, she put no great trust in me as a foster parent.
The young birds thrived and ten days later, Grandfather and I took them into the garden to release them. I had placed one on a branch of the mango tree and was stooping to pick up the other when I received a heavy blow on the back of the head. A second or two later, the mother owl swooped down on Grandfather but he was quite agile and ducked out of the way.
Quickly, I placed the second owl under the mango tree. Then from a safe distance we watched the mother fly down and lead her offspring into the long grass at the edge of the garden. We thought she would take her family away from our rather strange household but next morning I found the two owlets perched on the hatstand in the veranda.
I ran to tell Grandfather and when we came back we found the mother sitting on the birdbath a few metres away. She was evidently feeling sorry for her behaviour the previous day because she greeted us with a soft ‘whoo-whoo’.
‘Now there’s an unselfish mother for you,’ said Grandfather. ‘It’s obvious she wants us to keep an eye on them. They’re probably getting too big for her to manage.’
So the owlets became regular members of our household and were among the few pets that Grandmother took a liking to. She objected to all snakes, most monkeys and some crows—we’d had all these pets from time to time—but she took quite a fancy to the owlets and frequently fed them spaghetti!
They loved to sit and splash in a shallow dish provided by Grandmother. They enjoyed it even more if cold water was poured over them from a jug while they were in the bath. They would get thoroughly wet, jump out and perch on a towel rack, shake themselves and return for a second splash and sometimes a third. During the day they dozed on a hatstand. After dark, they had the freedom of the house and their nightly occupation was catching beetles, the kitchen quarters being a hap
py hunting ground. With their razor-sharp eyes and powerful beaks, they were excellent pest-destroyers.
Looking back on those childhood days, I carry in my mind a picture of Grandmother in her rocking chair with a contented owlet sprawled across her aproned lap. Once, on entering a room while she was taking an afternoon nap, I saw one of the owlets had crawled up her pillow till its head was snuggled under her ear.
Both Grandmother and the owlet were snoring.
He Said It with Arsenic
Is there such a person as a born murderer—in the sense that there are born writers and musicians, born winners and losers?
One can’t be sure. The urge to do away with troublesome people is common to most of us, but only a few succumb to it. If ever there was a born murderer, he must surely have been William Jones. The thing came so naturally to him. No extreme violence, no messy shootings or hackings or throttling; just the right amount of poison, administered with skill and discretion.
A gentle, civilized sort of person was Mr Jones. He collected butterflies and arranged them systematically in glass cases. His ether bottle was quick and painless. He never stuck pins into the beautiful creatures.
Have you ever heard of the Agra Double Murder? It happened, of course, a great many years ago, when Agra was a far-flung outpost of the British Empire. In those days, William Jones was a male nurse in one of the city’s hospitals. The patients—specially terminal cases—spoke highly of the care and consideration he showed them. While most nurses, both male and female, preferred to attend to the more hopeful cases, nurse William was always prepared to stand duty over a dying patient.
He felt a certain empathy for the dying; he liked to see them on their way. It was just his good nature, of course.
On a visit to nearby Meerut, he met and fell in love with Mrs Browning, the wife of the local stationmaster. Impassioned love letters were soon putting a strain on the Agra-Meerut postal service. The envelopes grew heavier—not so much because the letters were growing longer but because they contained little packets of a powdery white substance, accompanied by detailed instructions as to its correct administration.
Mr Browning, an unassuming and trustful man—one of the world’s born losers, in fact—was not the sort to read his wife’s correspondence. Even when he was seized by frequent attacks of colic, he put them down to an impure water supply. He recovered from one bout of vomiting and diarrhoea only to be racked by another.
He was hospitalized on a diagnosis of gastroenteritis; and, thus freed from his wife’s ministrations, soon got better. But on returning home and drinking a glass of nimbu pani brought to him by the solicitous Mrs Browning, he had a relapse from which he did not recover.
Those were the days when deaths from cholera and related diseases were only too common in India, and death certificates were easier to obtain than dog licences.
After a short interval of mourning (it was the hot weather and you couldn’t wear black for long), Mrs Browning moved to Agra, where she rented a house next door to William Jones.
I forgot to mention that Mr Jones was also married. His wife was an insignificant creature, no match for a genius like William. Before the hot weather was over, the dreaded cholera had taken her too. The way was clear for the lovers to unite in holy matrimony.
But Dame Gossip lived in Agra too, and it was not long before tongues were wagging and anonymous letters were being received by the superintendent of police. Inquiries were instituted. Like most infatuated lovers, Mrs Browning had hung on to her beloved’s letters and billet-doux, and these soon came to light. The silly woman had kept them in a box beneath her bed.
Exhumations were ordered in both Agra and Meerut.
Arsenic keeps well, even in the hottest of weather, and there was no dearth of it in the remains of both victims.
Mr Jones and Mrs Browning were arrested and charged with murder.
‘Is Uncle Bill really a murderer?’ I asked from the drawing room sofa in my grandmother’s house in Dehra. (It’s time that I told you that William Jones was my uncle, my mother’s half brother.)
I was eight or nine at the time. Uncle Bill had spent the previous summer with us in Dehra and had stuffed me with bazaar sweets and pastries, all of which I had consumed without suffering any ill effects.
‘Who told you that about Uncle Bill?’ asked Grandmother.
‘I heard it in school. All the boys were asking me the same question—“Is your uncle a murderer?” They say he poisoned both his wives.’
‘He had only one wife,’ snapped Aunt Mabel.
‘Did he poison her?’
‘No, of course not. How can you say such a thing!’
‘Then why is Uncle Bill in jail?’
‘Who says he’s in jail?’
‘The boys at school. They heard it from their parents. Uncle Bill is to go on trial in the Agra fort.’
There was a pregnant silence in the drawing room, then Aunt Mabel burst out, ‘It was all that awful woman’s fault.’
‘Do you mean Mrs Browning?’ asked Grandmother.
‘Yes, of course. She must have put him up to it. Bill couldn’t have thought of anything so-so diabolical!’
‘But he sent her the powders, dear. And don’t forget—Mrs Browning has since …’
Grandmother stopped in mid-sentence, and both she and Aunt Mabel glanced surreptitiously at me.
‘Committed suicide,’ I filled in. ‘There were still some powders with her.’
Aunt Mabel’s eyes rolled heavenwards. ‘This boy is impossible. I don’t know what he will be like when he grows up.’
‘At least I won’t be like Uncle Bill,’ I said. ‘Fancy poisoning people! If I kill anyone, it will be in a fair fight. I suppose they’ll hang Uncle?’
‘Oh, I hope not!’
Grandmother was silent. Uncle Bill was her stepson but she did have a soft spot for him. Aunt Mabel, his sister, thought he was wonderful. I had always considered him to be a bit soft but had to admit that he was generous. I tried to imagine him dangling at the end of a hangman’s rope, but somehow he didn’t fit the picture.
As things turned out, he didn’t hang. During the Raj, white people in India seldom got the death sentence, although the hangman was pretty busy disposing of dacoits and political terrorists. Uncle Bill was given a life sentence and settled down to a sedentary job in the prison library at Naini, near Allahabad. His gifts as a male nurse went unappreciated; they did not trust him in the hospital.
He was released after seven or eight years, shortly after the country became an independent Republic. He came out of jail to find that the British were leaving, either for England or the remaining colonies. Grandmother was dead. Aunt Mabel and her husband had settled in South Africa. Uncle Bill realized that there was little future for him in India and followed his sister out to Johannesburg. I was in my last year at boarding school. After my father’s death, my mother had married an Indian, and now my future lay in India.
I did not see Uncle Bill after his release from prison, and no one dreamt that he would ever turn up again in India.
In fact, fifteen years were to pass before he came back, and by then I was in my early thirties, the author of a book that had become something of a best-seller. The previous fifteen years had been a struggle—the sort of struggle that every young freelance writer experiences—but at last the hard work was paying off and the royalties were beginning to come in.
I was living in a small cottage on the outskirts of the hill station of Fosterganj; working on another book, when I received an unexpected visitor.
He was a thin, stooped, grey-haired man in his late fifties, with a straggling moustache and discoloured teeth. He looked feeble and harmless but for his eyes which were pale cold blue. There was something slightly familiar about him.
‘Don’t you remember me?’ he asked. ‘Not that I really expect you to, after all these years …’
‘Wait a minute. Did you teach me at school?’
‘No—but you’re
getting warm.’ He put his suitcase down and I glimpsed his name on the airlines label. I looked up in astonishment. ‘You’re not—you couldn’t be …’
‘Your Uncle Bill,’ he said with a grin and extended his hand. ‘None other!’ And he sauntered into the house.
I must admit that I had mixed feelings about his arrival. While I had never felt any dislike for him, I hadn’t exactly approved of what he had done. Poisoning, I felt, was a particularly reprehensible way of getting rid of inconvenient people; not that I could think of any commendable ways of getting rid of them! Still, it had happened a long time ago, he’d been punished, and presumably he was a reformed character.
‘And what have you been doing all these years?’ he asked me, easing himself into the only comfortable chair in the room.
‘Oh just writing,’ I said.
‘Yes, I heard about your last book. It’s quite a success, isn’t it?’
‘It’s doing quite well. Have you read it?’
‘I don’t do much reading.’
‘And what have you been doing all these years, Uncle Bill?’
‘Oh, knocking about here and there. Worked for a soft-drink company for some time. And then with a drug firm. My knowledge of chemicals was useful.’
‘Weren’t you with Aunt Mabel in South Africa?’
‘I saw quite a lot of her, until she died a couple of years ago. Didn’t you know?’
‘No. I’ve been out of touch with relatives.’ I hoped he’d take that as a hint. ‘And what about her husband?’
‘Died too, not long after. Not many of us left, my boy. That’s why, when I saw something about you in the papers, I thought why not go and see my only nephew again?’
‘You’re welcome to stay a few days,’ I said quickly. ‘Then I have to go to Bombay.’ (This was a lie, but I did not relish the prospect of looking after Uncle Bill for the rest of his days.)