The Tiger Hunt

              The Jeep bounced and lurched along over the rutted path through the jungle.  Bill had written to the Forest Officer, submitting the Rs. 20 for the reservation, to go tiger hunting for two days in the winter of 1954.  Permission was for a specific block of the jungle – roughly 20 miles square.  The permission was specifically for the tigers as deer, gaur, wild boar and even crocodiles were plentiful and easy prey.   He had convinced his wife to let him take his two younger children, Sally age 7 and Johnny age 4, with him as they had a new born daughter and his wife and the baby could use a break from the boisterous older children.  There were servants including a cook, ayah, chaukidhar, and gardeners who would tend to all the household chores.  It would be a vacation for his wife and an adventure for the two older ones.

                The Jeep was an old U.S. Army vehicle with left hand drive.   Bill had gotten a motor shop in Raipur to extend the back of the Jeep out over the rear axle so that two side benches could be added, allowing three people to sit on each side.  A drop-down gate over the trailer hitch gave access to the back seats.  The roof of the vehicle was also custom made covering the extended back.  For the jungle trip the canvas roofing was been removed for better sight lines and as a consequence it was a dusty, windy drive. 

                Beside Bill in the front was Ted Essebaggers, a colleague from the mission, who had wanted to come along on this hunt.  He would only be in India for another two years and his opportunities to shoot another tiger were dwindling.  His teenage son Teddy Jr. was seated in the back along with two Indian men, one who was the mission driver Suntu, and other, Alfred, who would cook for them at the forest rest house.

Sally sat on the back bench, directly behind her father, her head covered with a scarf, knotted under her chin by her mother just as they left, to keep the pervasive red dust out of her hair.  She could look out through the windshield and watch the road coming up ahead of them.  Looking behind them she could see the billows of the dust being thrown up in a plume.  The broad leaves of the teak trees that made up a majority of the jungle were covered with a thick coat of the dust.  She could feel the grit in her mouth. 

                “Daddy, Johnny is not sitting on the bench,” she reported to her father, watching her little brother slide toward the back gate of the Jeep.

                “Johnny, back on the bench.  Don’t make me tell you again.”

                “When will we get there?”  Johnny asked.

                “I told you, after we stop for lunch and then it will be just a little farther.”

Johnny continued to fidget, sliding on and off the bench, as they drove on into the jungle.   Alfred, his hair covered with his handkerchief tied pirate fashion over his black hair in an effort to fend off the dirt, looked ghostly with his brown face covered with the fine jungle dust.  He grabbed Johnny around his pudgy middle and held him close to his knee.  Johnny began giggling in anticipation of being tickled which was a favorite activity in their kitchen at home.  Alfred said in Hindi, “Nay, nay baba.  Teek sei bhato.”  No, no little one.  Sit still.  In a few minutes Johnny had crawled into Alfred’s lap and fallen sound asleep.

They stopped in a partial clearing, stretching and dusting themselves off, to eat their lunch.  Alfred unpacked the tiffin carrier, setting out the individual containers of subzi and roti.  Sally thought the cold meal, shared communally by all of them, was strange but novel.  She and Johnny happily ate several of the tiny yellow bananas that Alfred produced from a within a newspaper package.    

                Bill said to the children, “Go over there behind that bush and go pee-pee before we get back in the Jeep.”

                Sally had sometimes gone to the bathroom outdoors with her little friends who came to play with her in the compound at home.  When her mother discovered them doing that behind the lantana bushes ringing their yard – she said it is was “jungli.”  This opportunity was another in the growing list of new experiences on this trip with their father.

                The children did as they were instructed and then climbed back into the Jeep.  Sally wished she was sitting in the front seat with her father where she would sit when he took her on trips to other villages.  Uncle Ted was taking her favorite place but then everything that was happening was out of the ordinary. 

                In spite of what Bill had told Johnny it was nearing dusk when they finally reached the forest guest house, built by the British before Indian independence, but still maintained by the forestry department.  It was unusually large for a forest bungalow, with four bedrooms set around a large central living and dining room.  The kitchen was in a separate room at the end of the wide verandah which ran the length of the building.  There were large tamarind trees in the yard with two oblong flower beds near the front gate.  Tall red canna lilies filled the flower beds.  A row of marigold plants grew at the edge of the front porch.   It all seemed quite grand to Sally.

                Bill chose one bedroom for himself and the two children.  Ted and Teddy Jr. took a second bed room.  The cook and driver would sleep in the kitchen.   Alfred got a fire going in the wood stove in the kitchen, serving rice, dahl and chappatis to the five of them on the large dining table.   Johnny sat on two large sofa cushions on a dining chair to raise him to the level of the table. 

                Ted said, “Should we go out with lights tonight or wait until daybreak?”  The custom of hunting with lights so that the animals could be taken unawares was a common one.

                Bill replied, “Let me get the kids into bed so they can sleep a couple hours and then we’ll go out.”

                Sally listened with fascination wondering what it meant that they would sleep some and then get up in the dark.   She did not fall asleep right away after her father had put the two of them into the same bed.  The sheets were coarse and smelled of wood smoke.  Johnny was asleep almost before his father had put him in the bed.  They slept in their clothes, another oddity.  In what seemed only a few minutes her father was gently shaking her shoulder, “Wake up Sally, we’re going to go on shikar now.” 

                Her father often went hunting for deer or peacock but she had never been with him on any of his shikaris.    Johnny was whimpering as her dad wakened him and sat him up to put on his tennis shoes.  She tied her own shoes and stood waiting for the next instruction.

                “Didn’t you bring a sweater?  Better wear something – it’s going to be cold out there in the jungle.” 

                “Mommy didn’t put a sweater for me in the ‘tache case. “

                “Okay then – just put your pajama top on over your dress.”
               
               Suntu emerged from the kitchen at the end of the verandah, recognizable only from his smile which was barely visible under the huge turban he had made of a blanket around his head.  Another khaki green, army surplus blanket was tied around his neck like a cape, leaving his arms free to drive the Jeep.  He was rubbing his hands together to warm them and asked Sally, “Are you ready to go tiger hunting, Babi?” 

                Alfred followed rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands, trying to rub his eyes awake.   He was wrapped in only one blanket, thrown over his head like a shawl.  He would sit in the front of the Jeep, and would help spotting the animals, hopefully including a tiger which was the object of the hunt.

                Bill lifted the two little children up over the back tailgate of the Jeep and told them to sit together on the side bench.   The children huddled together, watching the grown-ups get into the vehicle and settled in their places. 

 Bill vaulted into the back after the kids with the Army carbine.  He took a place on the other side of the Jeep, resting the gun on the metal bar that normally supported the canvas top of the Jeep.  Ted clambered in, holding the huge light he would use to spot the animals.  It was rigged to the car battery which Suntu had put in place before dark earlier that day.  Ted panned the light across the yard of the forest bungalow, the white bricks marking the driveway bright with reflected light showed the way out of the compound. 

Suntu began to drive, slowly leaving the compound, the dust was thick on the road, looking soft and velvety in the spot light.  The jungle felt cool but thick with darkness.  Sally asked, “When will we see the tiger?”

“Shhhh,” said Bill, “don’t talk.  It will scare the animals.” And then in the next breath, “There’s something,” as the light reflected on the red eyes of an animal. 

                “Might be wild boar,” Ted responded, holding the light steady at the same spot but there was nothing there but brush.  He began the slow panning back and forth again. 

                They heard the wild call of jackals who were not afraid of the human presence.   There was the occasional call of a nightjar, Suntu would say softly, “chapka,” each time they heard the chukkrrr sound.  They saw other eyes reflected but when Ted would focus the light there would be no animal in the beam. 

                Suntu stopped the Jeep just as they were going down into one of the nullahs created by a stream.  As they all looked into the gloom on the other side, only partially illuminated by Ted’s search light, a figure was faintly visible in the road. 

                “It’s a tiger,” Ted said with a sharp intake of breath.

                “No, no it’s a leopard,” Bill said, raising the rifle to his shoulder, “Suntu, gharry mut chalao.” Don’t move the Jeep. 

                “Here give me the gun, take the light,” Ted said with urgency.

                “No, I got it, I got it” Bill answered.

Johnny was stretched across Sally’s lap, peering over Suntu’s shoulder to see what the men were talking about.  It suddenly dawned on him what was happening, and he squirmed, stamping his feet.

                “Daddy, daddy, don’t shoot the kitty.  Don’t shoot the kitty,” his little voice was urgent, almost sobbing.

                “Take the light, it’s my turn,” Ted insisted, ignoring, or not hearing Johnny.

                Bill did not turn to his son but looked down the sights and was taking direct aim at the big cat.  At that moment the leopard rose to his feet, his long tail unwrapping from his reclining posture, he slowly, with measured steps walked off the road and into the jungle.  No shot rang out.  The argument had given the leopard just enough time.

                Sally was as relieved as Johnny that the leopard had escaped.   Later, nearing dawn, they came on a group of cheetal drinking at a talab and with one quick shot Bill felled a buck.  The men jumped from the Jeep, slit the deer’s throat, and having tied the hooves together, secured the carcass across the hood of the Jeep.  Returning to the forest guest house, they hoisted the animal up into one of the tamarind trees to gut and slaughter it. 

For breakfast Alfred fried up a thick slice of venison sirloin for each of them.   Sally ate hers with enthusiasm thinking this was a breakfast that she would love having again.  Johnny toyed with his but was too tired from the unusual night to eat.

                “We’ll try again tonight Ted,” Bill said. 

                “Yes, I have two more days to get that tiger.  Or maybe that leopard will be back in the same spot.”

***

               

Glossary:

Ayah:  maid, child care provider

Chappatis: unleavened, wheat bread

Chawkidhar:  night watchman

Cheetal: spotted deer

Dhal: lentils

Jungli:  bad mannered, ignorant

Nullah:  ravine, typically where a road crosses a stream, a culvert

Roti: bread

Subzi: vegetable, usually with spice

Talab:  small pond, sometime manmade

Shikar:  hunting, specifically a hunting trip

"Sally" grown-up, many years later.

Tiger at another trip to Ranthambore in 2008