School Days

by Ruskin Bond

  'O. K. Thanks awfully.' He slung the rifle. It felt good.

  Neil put on his jungle boots, slung the old field glasses round his neck, strapped the rolled ground-sheet round his middle, and shouted good-bye to mum.

  She came to the door. 'Well,' she said, being silly, 'if it isn't Jim Corbett himself. What are you hunting today, colonel?'

  'I'm going after a barking deer,' Neil said, ignoring that crack about Jim Corbett, the tiger hunter. But his mother's face changed. It never stayed the same for long, and now he saw it change to wanting to come with him. He might have offered to take her, because she was what father called 'a good jungle woman,' but he didn't. 'See you later,' he said.

  'Be back by six, darling. And please stick to the paths. I heard that panther twice last night.' She made a harsh pantherish rasp exactly right, and laughed, and looked rather sad again. 'The house is going to be so quiet after tomorrow.'

  He escaped. Toby gave one deep woof, and gambolled about like his old bouncing self, or his young self, as he always did for a minute at the beginning of a walk. Then he sobered down to a double limp from the mastiff wound on his right shoulder and a panther swipe on his left quarter.

  I wonder if Sher Bahadur could come? Neil thought. So he went by the weighing shed. Sher Bahadur had been his father's orderly in the Gurkhas. He was a square, short man, just about as broad as he was long. He sprang to his feet and quivered into a superb salute. 'General Sahib! 'It was an ancient joke and still funny.'

  'Oh, great brave tiger Sher Bahadur, and chopper of many heads by night,' said Neil in Nepalese, 'can you come hunting?'

  'Not this baby, Nee-ul,' said Sher Bahadur. He had picked up that one in the Italian campaign and was proud of it, almost his entire spoken English vocabulary, although he could understand a bit. 'There is a dangerous Major Mackenzie in these hills who orders that I weigh tea this afternoon.'

  Toby had come over to say hullo. He ignored non-family adults, but Sher Bahadur was a friend of many walks. He patted Toby once on the head. 'Old Warrior.'

  Neil told him what his father had said. He couldn't have talked about it to anybody else. 'I have to decide.'

  'You are a man, Nee-ul, and you will decide.'

  'Come on, Toby. He wasn't a man, and he didn't want to decide.'

  They left the buildings and followed a path through trees. The hillside was bursting green with growth. You could hear a seeping trickle of water everywhere under the cicadas trilling 'rain' more loudly now than ever. Three months' rain, a hundred inches, and more to come before the monsoon rolled back in October. The mist had thinned to wisps of cloud climbing out of the valleys. Far away south and six thousand feet down, there was sunshine on the plains, a different, sticky world.

  Neil and Toby came to terraced slopes where tea bushes were dark green and the hill women were picking green tips and chattering nineteen to the dozen while their fingers flew at the work. He quickened pace because lately they seemed to stare and giggle and make remarks.

  Somebody did now. 'Aaaiii!' she called. 'See the beautiful boy, sahib!' Which was quite embarrassing, and meant for his ears. They knew he understood the hill tongue as well as they did. Cackles of laughter.

  'So many fat, lazy old cows mooing!' he said loudly. It was a great success.

  He reached the end of the tea garden. The country beyond was too steep for cultivation. The path swung into the head of a gully where the stream gathered, and out round the next shoulder.

  Neil stopped to look back at the red-roofed house and buildings. You never thought much about home until there was only a week to go. Then it was the last day suddenly. And after Christmas you were going to school in England.

  'Good boy, Toby,' he said. 'We'll have a rest in a minute.' Toby wagged his tail. He was wheezing. There were no level walks, but this was the easiest one. They crossed the shoulder.

  Neil unrolled the groundsheet. It was father's, from the war, too noisy a thing for stalking, but waterproof and very good for wearing when you sat still because of the blotched brown and green camouflage.

  He did not wear it now, but sat on one half and put Toby on the other. The hillside dropped off almost vertically for a few hundred feet; farther down there were trees again, and ferns among the rocks, and lush green grass. Somewhere out beyond all that, two hill men were having an across-the-valley conversation, voices pitched high; they might be five miles from here. But the sounds of home, which was only just round the corner, were cut off completely.

  Neil watched. There were many tints of green, brown, grey; some of the wet rocks were black. Nothing was the colour he wanted - the russet red of a karkar, the barking deer that lurked so daintily in shaded places. He would have had a much better chance lower down, but this was Toby's walk, and Toby was not able. Toby snoozed.

  Neil spied through the glasses for a while, searching clump by clump methodically, but nothing doing. 'Monkeys,' he said, putting his hand on the dog's square head. Toby did not have the cramped, shallow skull of a modern bull terrier. He had a head on him, ugly though it was. At the word 'monkeys' he opened his right eye in the centre of its black patch, and rumbled. Toby had it in for monkeys, particularly for the big grey langur males, who had it in for him. These now were langurs, too far away for the dog to see. They swung through trees and over the ridge. After that, a party of minivets flashed across, the males bright scarlet, the females yellow. Neil had a good feeling of birds and beasts and him and Toby. It was time to go on.

  They came to a sandy ravine. There were pug marks and the tracks of lesser game.

  'Toby!' he said loudly. 'Want to go on? You old fool, Toby.' Calling him an old fool was the way to make Toby smile. He did now - a hideous, disreputable leer before he rolled on ahead. The path swung into the next cascading stream, wound out to the next spur or shoulder: the teeth of a giant lumberman's saw - it was that kind of hill country.

  Toby led. He could decide for himself how far he wanted to walk. That, anyway, could be Toby's decision. They went through loud water, and now were following the shoulder. The air was damp and thin and cool. Clouds were piling in, grey again. The distant plains were not visible.

  Toby's head had been low, but suddenly it came up; the skin wrinkled on his shoulders; he sniffed. Then he gave a whimper, quite an insignificant noise. He made it only when he caught a hateful scent - monkey or panther or bear or pig.

  'Steady, boy,' said Neil, putting him on the leash. Nowadays he ran into things and hurt himself.

  The dog pulled hard. He was still tremendously strong. 'I wonder if I should turn back.' Thought Neil. Then he thought, perhaps this is our last time, and it'll only be some old monkey scent; he'll quieten down in a minute. But he unsung the carbine and held it in his right hand.

  Toby did not quieten down. The hackles bristled dark all along his back, and he took charge, blundering along the path. It narrowed from three feet to two feet to one foot, and there was the point of the shoulder now.

  'Stop, Toby!' Toby heard, and eased a little.

  Neil knew this place. You crossed the shoulder, and then for twenty yards or so, as you swung in again, you were not on a path, but on a ledge below a vertical cliff, above steep scree. They would stop there to have a last spy for karkar and then turn home. Toby whimpered again, but was well in hand as they reached the apex of the spur. They turned.

  It was not old monkey scent. At the far end of the ledge stood a panther.

  A great many things flashed across Neil's mind in that second. Too narrow for the brute to turn. Too steep for it to climb. Could come on. Might break down the scree. Himself with leash in one hand, carbine in the other. Had to hold Toby. Horrible, slender, wicked panther. . . .

  He was hauling his hardest on Toby when the panther crouched, tail switching, coiled to -

  Toby attacked, tearing the leash from Neil's fingers. As Neil stumbled forward, he watched his dog hurl himself along the ledge, bunched bone and muscle, silent but for scrabbling claws.

&n
bsp; The hill panther had hunted and killed many dogs for its favourite meat. But it had never seen a dog like this, a dingy white monstrosity with one black eye, a braver fighter than it was itself. The panther charged also - a hundred and forty pounds against seventy. The cat snarling, the dog mutes. They met in a thudding fury of fangs and claws; then the two twisting, contrasted bodies rolled over the edge and down the scree.

  Neil watched them go - writhing, tangled, the dog at the panther's throat - heads over tails in a showering rattle of loose stones. He dared not fire. But a moment later he realised that he should have risked the shot, because there could be only one end to this. However, brave Toby was and, however, firm his throat-hold, the panther would break him.

  But Neil was too late. He saw it happen before they reached the bottom of the scree. The pale body swung out and away from the tawny body, and the cat had the space it needed. Fore-paw smacked hindquarters. It was a vicious stroke, nearly too fast to see. Toby's jaw-grip was loosening already as they tumbled out of sight into green undergrowth.

  Silence. Only the drip-drip of water and the eternal tree frogs. No movement at all below. Neil ran down the moving scree, stumbled, recovered, slithered to the bottom. He shouted. It was a cracked imitation of a shout to scare the panther. Then he was into bushes, ferns, grass, thorns, carbine at his waist, forcing a passage down. Now a rustling clump of bamboo, but no white Toby, no deadly panther.

  'My fault,' he thought. All my fault.' His coat was torn, his face scratched, his body soaked. He went on. Was that -?

  No, it was not the crouching leopard. It was a dappled rock. And that flicker of white was not old Toby. It was a paradise flycatcher, flitting away with streamer tails.

  Then he saw Toby. His dog lay at the edge of the stream. Toby was alive with a broken back and many wounds. He was only just alive, but he knew Neil's hand. He opened both eyes.

  'Oh, Toby.' It could not be long.

  Toby growled. 'I smell you, enemy,' he growled. There was another noise above the tiny splashing of the stream. It came from higher up. It was the panther swaying long grass, a bold hill panther with a sore throat, wanting its kill.

  Neil held the rifle in his shoulder. He was not afraid, although his heart thumped fast. Father had said, 'Never take on a panther in closed country. Never!' And this was an angry panther.

  There was movement in the grass again from right to left. It might come straight or it might cross that open patch of rock to complete the circle. They generally circled first, didn't they? Neil had not shot a panther, but he had read every big-game book he could find.

  The panther did not come straight. It crossed the ten yards of rock in two galloping strides.

  Neil fired, saw the hindquarters slew slightly, heard it grunt. Then it was out of sight behind that clump of bamboo. He had hit it, he thought, but he knew the shot was too far back, probably a flesh wound. The brute had not even stumbled.

  He looked down.

  'Poor Toby,' he said. 'Poor boy, I'm sorry, Toby.'

  Neil did not have time to think about Toby's death, for the panther growled from the bamboos. And it was not thinking but feeling that said, 'You're not going to eat my dog. You killed him and I'm going to kill you.'

  But then Neil did think; he thought fast. Could he put Toby's body on his back and climb the other side of the gully where it was open ground for a shot? No, too heavy and too steep. A tree? Yes, there was a tree beside him, gnarled and small, but with a fork low down. Climb it and leave Toby where he was? But if you missed, the panther would take the dog and be gone in a flash.

  Neil had made his plan. He began to carry out the plan now without ever taking his eyes off those bamboos where the panther growled again. He loosed the belt which held his groundsheet, undid the cords, unrolled it on the steep ground, spread it wide, hauled the body, still limp, on to the centre. Then his heart jumped because the bamboo fronds were moving. But it was only the monsoon deluge beginning again, pattering on his groundsheet, on leaves overhead, drowning lesser noises.

  All this Neil had done with one hand. Now he laid down the .256, gathered the corners of the groundsheet, tied them with the cord, making a sack for old Toby. Would it come now? If it has any sense it'll come now, he thought in a standing-outside-himself sort of way.

  But the panther did not come. Now Neil had the belt fixed, too, and buckled round his neck. He picked up the rifle, staggered to his feet, and tried to clamber into that fork. He tried desperately in the loud rain, but he was not strong enough.

  Down again, belt over his head. What a clever idea about the groundsheet sack, and what a waste of time. He took seventy pounds dead weight in his arms and managed to raise it to the fork. Then he climbed above, wedged himself, heaved, steadied it again.

  Bit by bit, Neil dragged his own body and Toby's body higher. It was an easy tree to climb, the kind of tree you pretty well ran up when you heard game moving and wanted to spy. But it was not easy now.

  He rested. Legs, arms, stomach, lungs all ached, and the lights of exhaustion flashed. His hand, grasping at a green, slimy bough, trembled like some old man's. The rain fell in a drenching, solid wall of noise. But gradually his breathing slowed, the shakes and aches lessened, heat dwindled into the middle of his body. No panther.

  He was ten or twelve feet up the tree. The camouflaged sack that was Toby, or had been Toby, hung from a branch stump just below him. It was secure. Neil was secure enough himself - that is, he was wedged so as not to fall out. But he knew that he could be pulled out. The panther could get at him with a jump or it could get at him by climbing. 'I should just have slipped away,' he thought. 'What difference would it make, when Toby was dead already? Slipped away? No, sneaked away after letting him be killed for me. I never even did anything. I just let it happen.'

  Neil watched the clump of bamboo. It was about on a level with his own head. No movement at all. Was the panther still there? Had it moved down left to take him from behind? Had it gone altogether? Behind! Yes, that was what the shivers in his spine said. He whipped his head round. No panther.

  And now the light was fading, and every dancing leaf or blade could be dancing from rain or from a long slinking body. That sound! But there was no sound anywhere except rain.

  Neil began to shiver again - this time from cold, and because he was afraid. As he shifted position, the panther growled. It was in the same place still. It was waiting for the dusk that was not far off.

  Not knowing had been the bad thing. He stopped being afraid. He had the sights aligned just this side and below, finger on the trigger. If only it would show itself. If he could just get a glimpse of where the head was.

  But the panther did not move. He knew that when the time came for it to move, it would not stroll in a lord-of-the-jungle way as a tiger would stroll. It was a panther, and it had been touched up by a bull terrier at the throat and by a bullet somewhere far back. That growl had said, 'I'm going to get you.' It would kill for its dog meat.

  Neil should have been feeling sad about Toby, but suddenly he was rather happy in a calm, murderous kind of way. He had never felt like that before. 'You're wrong, you stinking panther. I'm the one who's going to get you.'

  It was much darker. He looked at his watch. Six-twenty. 'Be back by six, darling,' she had said, and it was a grey, wet, early night, and she would be in an awful stew already, particularly if they'd heard the shot. They might not have.

  'Don't imagine horrors, my love,' Father would be telling her. He treated her as a joke when she got fussed, which was quite clever of him, although she was much cleverer than he was. What's Father going to say when I get home? If I get. . . .

  Neil watched. He took his left hand off for a moment to wipe the rain out of his eyes. He heard an owl scream along the hill, and jackals howling far down in the deep valley. Otherwise, rain. He was very cold. What would happen if the panther did not come? Was that voices?

  Just then lights appeared. They came round the shoulder where he a
nd Toby had met the panther, and men were shouting. They were quite close.

  'Neil!' in father's loud bellow, and 'Nee-ul!' from Sher Bahadur.

  Neil did not answer. He was watching the bamboos. They were indistinct. He could not make out one slim shoot from another, but something was happening there.

  'Neil!'

  'Nee-ul!'

  'Shut up,' he said under his breath as the panther launched itself, a dark, long shadow of speed and hate. His bullet flame stabbed. Reload. Hit. Panther below, not dead, very much alive. Neil swung round, straining himself to get the barrel down. He saw it crouched there, head back, snarling.

  Then it climbed, paws on either side of the trunk, clawing. Like a house cat climbing from a dog, he thought in the galloping moment. But this was climbing to, not from. He fired. It came on. Eyes vertical slits. Reloaded. Stink of breath was hitting him as he fired yet again into the panther's face. It did not climb the last two feet. It stayed where it was. Then the devilish energy slackened. Neil saw that happen. He saw his panther slide down, claws rasping, strike the first fork, and roll back dead.

  'Neil!'

  He could hear them on the scree. He should answer now, but coldness and weakness were everywhere, and deep.

  Father with his big rifle, Sher Bahadur with the five-celled torch. Men carrying lanterns. The light shone on the dead panther, then up to the groundsheet sack, then blinded Neil.

  'What the hell's all this?' Father did not sound pleased or relieved. He sounded red-hot angry, and when father was angry, which hardly ever happened, then the whole shooting match exploded. 'Didn't I tell you—'

  'Major Sahib!' Sher Bahadur said. 'See!' The beam was on Toby's shroud dangling from its branch.

  'What happened?'

  Neil told it. He could not say much. He was just realising what he had done to Toby. 'The panther broke his back, and it was all my fault, and I—'

  'Well, I'll be darned,' Jim Mackenzie muttered at the end. 'Help the boy down, Sher Bahadur.'