Tiger, Tiger

He paused for a moment to listen. Far away to his right, deep in jungle sanctuary, the lonely sound of an argus pheasant calling to his mate. Silence for a moment and then a barking deer sounded an alarm as the wind carried a familiar odour to his nostrils. Haji growled softly to himself and was about to move on when a new sound came to his sensitive ears. He froze in his tracks, snapped his gaze to the roadside at his left. The sound was not made by any kind of animal that he knew of. It was a rapid whirring noise, much too loud to be produced by the wings of any insect. Haji slunk beneath the cover of some large ferns as a light came soaring out of the darkness. He twisted around, holding himself ready to run if need be. For an instant, the twin orbs of his eyes mirrored the bouncing reflection of the light.

A curious vehicle sped into view, a gleaming, clattering, froglike thing in which two Uprights were riding. Haji could see them quite clearly for an instant in the glow of the light, which swung from side to side in front of their heads, like a dangerous firefly. Haji could see the naked wrinkled sternness of their faces, as they gazed unswervingly at the road ahead of them. How foolish to travel in such an unthinking manner, always looking forward when danger might lie in the shadows at either side of them; or was it simply that the Uprights were so powerful, they did not fear the beasts of the jungle? They did not look very powerful, that was for sure.

The Uprights left a curious smell behind them on the wind, a fragrant burning-leaf smell that lingered on the warm air for some moments. Haji sniffed, grimaced, watched as the Uprights sped away into blackness, taking their light with them. For some time, he was still aware of the constant whirring noise, fading gradually into distance. Then his thoughts returned to the sound of the barking deer he had heard before the interruption. He emerged from the bushes and moved right of his original path, heading deeper into jungle, his head down, his mind intent on the long hunt ahead of him.

The barking deer sounded again and Haji homed in on the noise, moving with the calm, silent intent of one who had been hungry for far too long.

The trishaw driver came to a halt outside Harry’s bungalow, part of a small estate just off the coast road, a mile south of the nearest village, Kampong Panjang, which they had passed on the two-mile journey from Kuala Hitam barracks. Harry alighted and pressed a dollar into the driver’s arthritic hand. The fare was always the same, whatever the distance, and the old man would probably have been insulted if Harry tried to give him more than that.

‘Safe journey back,’ he told the Chinaman.

‘Of course, Tuan!’ The old man grinned, waved briefly, and pedalled gamely away, hoping to reach his own home safely. Few trishaw owners ventured to drive at night, preferring to leave it to the taxicab drivers, but this engaging fellow had somehow discovered Harry’s regular Mess nights and would not have dreamed of missing a single one of them. Neither, for that matter, would Harry have dreamed of using another driver.

‘You get to a certain age,’ thought Harry, ‘and all your life becomes a ritual. Has to. The only way you can make any bloody sense of it.’

He unlatched the metal gate and strolled into the large, neatly ordered garden. The path was wide enough to take a car but curiously, in all his years in the army, he had never learned to drive. There had always been somebody to ferry him about and that was the way he preferred to keep things now. He strolled up the path, past banana and papaya trees, whistling tunelessly to himself. The bungalow was like many others, purposely built for British tenants. A long, low, white-painted building with a green slate roof and an adjoining verandah; it was compact, practical and possessed no particular style. The windows were comprised of slatted bars of frosted glass that could be levered open, like venetian blinds, to admit fresh air. These were reinforced by metal bars that had been disguised as wrought-iron decorations in an attempt to make them look more attractive. In fact, they looked quite hideous. Harry, who believed in calling a spade a spade, would have preferred plain upright bars. A more acceptable feature were the sliding metal grills that could be padlocked across the front and back doors of the house. A legacy of more Communist-threatened times, they were still very useful weapons in the constant war against house-thieves that had been going on for many years and showed no signs of letting up yet.

No sooner had Harry inserted his key in the front door and stepped into the house, than Pawn, Harry’s aged amah, came bustling up to greet him. There was a toothy smile of welcome on her wizened little monkey-face and she still held a straw broom with which she had presumably been dusting somewhere. Pawn never stopped work while she was in the house and when there was no work, she quite simply invented some. She lived at Kampong Panjang and usually went home to her own family at five o’clock. But on the nights that Harry went to the Mess, she insisted on staying the night in the amah’s room at the back of the house, to ensure that the ‘Tuan’ was properly looked after when he came in. Harry would quite happily have looked after himself, but once Pawn had an idea fixed firmly in her mind, it was impossible to shake it.

‘Tuan have good time soldiers’ Mess?’ she inquired; and before waiting for a reply, she was hurrying off to the kitchen to prepare the cocoa and biscuits that Harry always had before retiring for the night.

He shook his head ruefully, wondering just exactly how it was that he had managed to get himself saddled with a cranky old creature like Pawn. Most of his acquaintances had pretty young Chinese amahs to care for their needs. It was easy enough to organize: there were countless agencies in Kuala Trengganu that specialized in providing the girls. You simply had to tell them what your preferences were and if the girl turned out to be lazy or inefficient, you simply sent her away and ordered another one. But Pawn now, she’d been a legacy of sorts. She’d worked for the previous occupant of the house, a mining engineer, and the day Harry had moved in she’d just arrived on his doorstep, walked past him into the house, and commenced work. Mind you, it was not as if Harry had any cause for complaint. She was an excellent worker, worth every cent of the one hundred and twenty dollars a month wage she received. This worked out at about fifteen pounds and was considered a decent wage by Malay standards. She was far too proud to accept anything more than her basic salary, but Harry had found that she was not averse to accepting little gifts from time to time, particularly if they were intended for her grandson, Ché, of whom she was very proud. The boy was a bright, articulate twelve-year-old, who sometimes accompanied his grandmother to the ‘Tuan’s’ house and had, as a result, become a great friend of Harry’s. In fact, if the truth were known, Harry doted on the boy, reserving for him the kind of affection that he would have given to his own son, if he had ever sired one.

A photograph of his late wife, Meg, stood on the sideboard. Harry walked over to it now, as he often did, picked it up, and stared thoughtfully at the face he had loved for so many years. She had always been a rather frail sort of creature and it was a wonder that she had ever taken to a life in the tropics as well as she had. She had died quite suddenly, in 1950, a cerebral haemorrhage. They had tried for children most of their married life, but something was evidently wrong with one of them. Ironically enough, the night before Meg had died, the two of them had discussed the possibility of adopting a Malaysian child. They had both been strongly in favour of the idea. Later, that same evening, Meg had awoken from sleep complaining of a terrible headache. She got up to go to the bathroom and fetch some aspirins, but halfway to the door, she had spun around to look at Harry, her face suddenly drained of colour and she had spoken his name once, softly, in a tiny, frightened tone. In that instant, he had somehow known that it was all over for her, that he would never hear her voice again. She had crumpled lifelessly to the floor before Harry could reach her and there was not a thing in the world he could have done to save her. Then, his grief and torment had been indescribable; but now, looking back with the advantage of hindsight, he knew that when his time came, this is how he would want it to be. Quick, clean, a minimum of fuss and pain; far better than lingering on in some hospital ward, a useless, incontinent old fossil. His own father had died that way, during the war. Harry had only been allowed leave to visit him once and he vividly remembered leaving the hospital room for the silence of the corridor outside, where he had proceeded to cry like a baby for several minutes, unable to stop himself. It was not the grief of losing his father that had affected him so; it was more a horror at the appalling loss of dignity the old man was suffering. He had been incapable of doing anything for himself by this time. In Harry’s opinion, all a man had was his dignity. Lose that and you had lost the reason for living. But his father had lived on, a horrifying eighteen months longer in that tiny cheerless hospital room. It was Harry’s personal nightmare to find himself with a similar prospect at the end of his life.

Pawn came bustling in with a silver tray holding the mug of cocoa and two digestive biscuits that constituted Harry’s usual bedtime snack. He sat himself down in his favourite armchair, the tray placed on the table beside him. He glanced through the day’s news in the Straits Times, but there was little that took his interest. Pawn excused herself and retired to her little room. Harry sipped at his cocoa and watched the antics of a couple of chit-chats on the ceiling above his head. The smaller of the two, presumably the male, was chasing his somewhat larger mate around the room, but she seemed to resent his advances, and consequently their antics took in every square inch of the wall and ceiling. Harry soon tired of them and, after locking doors and windows and switching off the lights, he retired to his bedroom. He changed into a pair of silk pyjamas, climbed into bed, and let the mosquito net down around him. He lay down for a few moments with the bedside light on, staring blankly up at the ceiling above his head. A varied collection of moths and other flying insects had congregated in the pool of light reflected on it, but Harry was hardly aware of them. He was thinking of the boorish Australian he had seen in the Mess earlier. For some reason he was not entirely sure of, he felt vaguely threatened by the man’s presence. Perhaps he felt that this man represented the new order here on the archipelago, and perhaps he also realized that his kind was disappearing fast from these parts.

He smiled wryly.

‘I’m an endangered species,’ he murmured, and reaching out he switched out the light. He slept and dreamed he was riding in a trishaw.

Chapter 3

Haji woke from a fitful doze and the world snapped into focus as he opened his large yellow eyes. The first flame of dawn was still an unfulfilled promise on the far horizon and it was cool. The damp, shivering land awaited the first rays of warmth to ignite the spark of life. Haji stretched and yawned, throwing out a long rumbling growl that would have sounded more content had it been fuelled by a full belly. Wasting little time, he struck out along a well-worn cattle track into deep jungle, his eyes and ears alert to anything they might encounter. They were his greatest aids, much more developed than his comparatively poor sense of smell, and the day that they began to fail him would be the day that Haji would admit defeat. But now, there was a terrible hunger, knotting and coiling in his belly, and while his legs still possessed the strength to carry him he would hunt to the best of his ability, and somehow stay alive.

The jungle was beginning to come awake. There was a distant whooping of gibbons in the forest canopy, interspersed with the distinctive ‘Kuang! Kuang!’ cry of an argus pheasant. Black and yellow hornbills fluttered amongst the foliage and there was the familiar weeping tones of the bird that the Malays had named, Burung Anak Mati or ‘bird whose child has died.’ But none of that distracted Haji from his quest for what was good to eat and within his reach. Presently, his ears were rewarded by a rustling in the undergrowth some eighty yards ahead of him. He stopped in his tracks and listened intently. He could hear quite clearly the crunching of a deer’s wide jaws on a bunch of leaves. Haji flattened himself down against the ground and began to move around to his right, keeping himself downwind of his intended prey, hoping to get it in sight. He moved with infinite care and precision, knowing that one telltale rustle in the grass would be enough to frighten the creature away. Slowly, slowly, setting down each foot in a carefully considered spot, he began to shorten the distance between himself and the deer. After twenty minutes, he had worked himself close enough to see it. A rusa, he could glimpse the rust-red hide, dappled by the rising sun. The rusa was nervous. He kept lifting his head between mouthfuls, staring skittishly this way and that. On such occasions, Haji remained still, not moving so much as a muscle. Each time that the deer returned to its meal, he inched forward again, his eyes never leaving the creature for an instant. In this way, another half-hour passed and now Haji was within twenty yards of the rusa; but here, the cover ended. There was a clearing now, over which he could not pass undetected. His only hope was to rush the beast and trust that the resulting panic would confuse his prey long enough for Haji to leap upon it. He flexed his muscles, craned forward, ready to rush upon the deer like a bow from an arrow; and in that instant, another deer further upwind caught the familiar smell of tiger and gave a loud cry of warning.

The rusa wheeled about with a snort, and with a bellow of rage Haji broke from cover, propelling his four hundred pounds of body weight along with tremendous bursts of power from his heavily muscled legs. For an instant, the rusa seemed frozen to the spot with fear, but abruptly the instinct for survival maintained itself and the deer turned and bolted across the clearing with Haji mere inches from his flying heels. But where Haji was already at top speed, the rusa was just approaching his. He lengthened his stride, sailed effortlessly across a fallen tree stump and was off, gathering speed all the time. Haji followed for just a few yards, knowing only too well when he was beaten. He dropped down onto the grass, panting for breath while he watched the rusa recede into distance, tail flashing impertinently at his would-be killer.

Haji fashioned his rage and frustration into a great blasting roar that seemed to shake the ground on which he stood. The noise disturbed a troop of pig-tailed monkeys resting in the top limbs of a nearby Kapok tree. Safe in their leafy sanctuary, they began to chatter and shriek abuse at him, and Haji, blind to everything but his own anger, flung himself at the base of the tree and began to tear at the wood in a frenzy, his great claws rending the soft wood to shreds and scattering bits of tree bark in every direction. The monkeys quietened for a moment, but then, seeing that they were safe, began their impudent mockery again, leaping up and down on the branches and grimacing, while Haji raged vainly, far below them.

At last, his anger ran its course and he drew back from the tree, still growling bitterly beneath his breath. He paced up and down for a moment, ignoring the monkeys, his head low, his eyes fixed to the ground while he waited for the great calm to come to him again. At last it did. He stared once along the track the rusa had taken. No sense in going that way now, the deer’s panic would have alerted every creature for miles in that direction. Haji gave one last roar, but this time it was controlled, decisive. He struck out along a path to his left which led to secondary jungle and, eventually, Kampong Panjang.

The monkeys watched him stalk away and they fell silent again. A couple of the braver ones stood tall and made threatening gestures with their arms in the direction he had gone; even so, it was some considerable time before they ventured to leave the safety of their tall Kapok tree.

Harry strolled in through the open glass doors of the Kuala Hitam Sports Club, nodding to the pretty Chinese receptionist, who rewarded him with a radiant smile. He passed through another open doorway and was outside again. He turned right, past the forest of white-painted chairs and tables that ran alongside the long open-air bar, which in turn overlooked the three well-maintained tennis courts belonging to the club. Harry had come for his regular game with Captain Dennis Tremayne, a long-standing friend who still served with the Fourth and was therefore a useful source of gossip where they were concerned. He was considerably younger than Harry, but that hardly seemed to matter. Tennis was the one sport that Harry really enjoyed and he was thankful that he had never put on any weight in his advancing years. Nothing looked more ludicrous than a fat man in shorts attempting to play a game that was quite beyond his capabilities. But it was probably quite true to say that Harry cut a more imposing figure in shorts than Dennis, who, at the age of forty-four, was already a little on the stout side.

Harry spotted Dennis sitting at one of the small tables.

‘Hello old chap!’ chuckled Dennis. ‘It seems we’re a bit early for our game today. Let me get you a drink.’

‘Fresh orange juice, please.’ Harry settled into a chair as Dennis signalled to the barman.

‘Two fresh oranges, please. Plenty of ice,’ Dennis grinned and turned his attention to the game in progress. ‘All action out there today,’ he observed. ‘Hope they don’t expect that sort of routine from us.’ He had a plump, ruddy-complexioned face that always wore a happy expression. His cornflower blue eyes were hidden today behind a pair of mirrored sunglasses. ‘Strewth,’ he exclaimed. ‘Is it just me or does it get hotter here all the time?’ He motioned to Harry’s sweater. ‘Beats me how you can wear that thing.’

‘Well, don’t forget Dennis, I’ve been living in this climate for most of my adult life. India, Burma, Malaya, all got one thing in common – they’re bloody hot. Couldn’t stand it any other way now.’

Dennis nodded.

‘You er … wouldn’t fancy going back to Blighty ever?’

‘I should say not! I’d freeze to death.’ He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. ‘Why did you ask that?’

‘Oh, no reason, really …’

‘No reason, my hat! What’s up? C’mon Dennis, spill the beans, you know you never could hide anything from me.’

Dennis raised his hands in capitulation.

‘Alright, alright, I surrender!’ He leaned forward, lowered his voice slightly. ‘It’s just that word came through today about some more cuts and –’

‘More cuts!’ Harry shook his head. ‘Don’t see how they can do it, frankly. Surely they’ve cut the Gurkhas down as much as they possibly can. Trimming the force to ten thousand men, it’s butchery!’

Dennis nodded sympathetically.

‘Well, you know my views on that one Harry, I couldn’t agree with you more. But the particular news I’m referring to concerns Kuala Hitam in particular. Seems the top brass have got it into their heads that it’s unnecessary. It’s got to go, old son. Complete demobilization by 1969. Fact. Heard it myself, just this morning.’

‘What … you mean … everything?’

‘The works. Lock, stock, and barrel. What troops we leave in Malaya will be based at the barracks in Singapore. As for this lot –’ He gestured briefly around him and then made a sawing motion across his throat with his index finger. ‘Which is why I asked you if you ever thought of going home,’ he concluded.

Harry stared at the grey Formica top of the table.

‘Dammit Dennis, this is my home. What the hell would there be for me over there, anyway? My relatives are all dead –’

‘You’ve a nephew, haven’t you?’

‘Oh yes, and very pleased he’d be to have a crotchety old devil like me descending on his household from the far-off tropics, I’m sure.’

Dennis smiled. ‘I wouldn’t call you crotchety,’ he said.

‘Well, thank you for that anyway. But let’s face it, Dennis, here I be and here I stay, until the Lord in all his infinite wisdom sees fit to reorganize my accommodation. What will you be doing?’

‘Oh, I’ll be going back home. Expecting confirmation any day now. Suffolk, I hope. Where my roots are. The fact is, I’m quite looking forward to it. I keep imagining snow at Christmas, all that sort of thing. I’m a romantic old devil at heart, you know. And Kate’s thrilled to bits. There’re lots of things she misses. Good shops, fashions, family … Well, she’s all but got the bags packed.’

Harry nodded.

‘And what about that pretty young daughter of yours?’

‘I think Melissa is pleased too. Things are a bit too quiet around these parts for her liking.’

The barman arrived with the drinks, tall glasses filled with freshly blended orange juice and topped with crushed ice. He set them down on the table and left.

‘I’ll miss you,’ observed Harry, after a few moments’ silence. ‘I’ll miss you all.’

‘Yes … well, look here, old chap. If you ever want to come and visit us, there’ll always be a place for you. I hope you realize that.’

Harry sipped his drink thoughtfully, and stared impatiently at the couple sweating it out on the tennis court. ‘Are they never going to finish?’ he muttered. ‘In the old days, these games always finished bang on time …’ His voice trailed off as he recognized one of the players. It was the loudmouthed Australian from the night before. ‘I say Dennis, who is that fellow on the court?’

Dennis lifted his sunglasses, peered in the direction that Harry was indicating.

‘It’s Corporal Barnes, isn’t it?’

‘No, not him! The other one.’

‘Oh! You mean Bob Beresford.’

‘Do I indeed? And who, may I ask, is Bob Beresford? He’s not an enlisted man, surely to God?’

‘No, a civvy. He’s working at Kuala Hitam on the Gurkha repatriation scheme though, so he’s been given the run of the place.’

‘Yes. He was at the Mess last night. Just what exactly is he supposed to be teaching the Gurkhas? How to tell dirty stories?’

‘I don’t think so. Farming techniques, I believe. You know … irrigation, animal husbandry, that sort of thing. How to make the most out of very limited resources, basically. I can’t help thinking that these repatriation schemes are more an attempt to salve the British government’s conscience than anything else. But Beresford seems to be making the best of it. He’s certainly well-liked by the men.’ Dennis smiled warily at Harry. ‘I get the impression he hasn’t made an instant hit with you though,’ he observed.

Harry grimaced and shrugged.

‘Well … you know how I feel about the Aussies, Dennis. I mean, good God, they’ve all descended from convicts anyway! And that one was in the Mess last night, shouting his mouth off to all and sundry, telling some filthy story … it … shows a lack of respect, that’s all.’

Dennis chuckled.

‘Oh come on, Harry. None of us are above telling a dirty story now and then. The British tell it in a whisper and the Aussies tell it to the world. I’m not so sure that they haven’t got the healthier attitude. It just comes down to what you’re used to really. Beresford isn’t so bad; and I tell you what, you’ve got something in common with him.’

Harry fixed his friend with a suspicious look.

‘Really? And what might that be?’

‘By all accounts, he fancies himself a bit of a crack-shot. Done some hunting in his time, or so he tells me.’

Harry shook his head.

‘I haven’t hunted for years, as well you know. If this Beresford chap still does, it just confirms that he’s got some growing up to do.’