Barbara Cleverly - The Palace Tiger

‘What? You’re going too? This is turning into a charabanc trip!’

‘You didn’t think it was to be just a chaps’ outing, did you? Eight gents in velveteen coats, yarning over the angostura bitters? Sorry, Joe — we’re all being encouraged to go. To clear the palace for a few days, I’d guess. And, honestly, I’d rather take my chances with the wild tigers than the palace ones. I’ll feel safer out there with the snakes and the scorpions — no kidding! I think Lois and Lizzie are staying behind because they don’t approve of shooting animals but everyone else will be there.’

And here they were, milling about in the courtyard, some anxious and excited, others phlegmatic, even bored. Last minute instructions were given to the servants, forgotten items were urgently sent for from the palace. Everyone checked places assigned in the motor cars. It was going to be a two-hour journey and no one wanted to be put to sit next to Ajit Singh.

Joe stood back, silently admiring the forethought Colin had put into the planning. Heavy camp equipment which included iron water-tanks of drinking water had been sent off days earlier by camel and bullock cart and there remained only the ten members of the shooting party and their personal items of luggage to be distributed among the motor cars. Nothing had been left to chance, not even their placing in the fleet. Three passengers were allotted to each with a uniformed driver and Colin effortlessly ushered the guests into their places, hearing no argument. The first, a Rolls Royce, set off with Bahadur, Edgar and Ajit Singh, and the second, a Hispano-Suiza, with a perceptible lowering of the anxiety level, followed with Madeleine and Stuart and Sir Hector, firmly refusing to be separated from his medical bag which he insisted should travel with him.

Joe was invited to sit in the third motor car, a Dodge, one of three, with Colin and Claude, and with a further four cars carrying the baggage they set off, waved at by Lois and Lizzie.

‘Don’t shoot one for me, Joe!’ said Lizzie.

‘Darling, do check your boots for creepy-crawlies, won’t you?’ said Lois to Claude.

Joe looked round, concerned. ‘Colin! I don’t see Her Highness. .’

Colin pointed ahead. ‘There she is, half a mile up the road. Shubhada elected to go on horseback accompanied by her grooms. It’ll be a point of honour with her to get there before we do. But she won’t find it that easy — the ground’s hard and dry. Good going for motor cars! We should make good speed.’

The drive along the forest road with the sun slanting through the trees awaking clouds of acid-yellow butterflies was magical in the early morning, though the approach of a seven-vehicle motorcade frightened away any animals they might have encountered. Some hinted at their presence by the occasional warning cry. On the last few miles to the camp site Joe noticed that the surrounding land was growing more rocky and broken and there were signs of ancient civilization on every hand. A crumbling sandstone fort looked grimly down from its hilltop, heavily ornate Hindu temples nestled in patches of jungle, and here and there they caught the grey-green gleam of lakes in valley bottoms.

Shubhada was already installed when they drew up, sitting on a folding camp chair, a half-read novel on her lap. Teasing, she waved a teacup at them and looked at her watch. ‘Oh, good. I was hoping you’d be here in time for tiffin,’ she said. ‘I hope you don’t mind but I’ve already settled in. First to arrive has choice of tent, you know!’ She pointed to one at the end of the double row of white canvas tents pitched in a clearing. She had chosen the end nearest the jungle and furthest from the supply and cooking tents.

This did not please Colin, who had been about to place the two ladies protectively in the centre of the group, Joe guessed, but he smoothly reassigned the tents and all disappeared gratefully into their accommodation to smarten up and wash away the dust of the journey. Shubhada was in her element, striding about the camp in jodhpurs and riding-jacket issuing orders. He wondered what kind of a shot she was as he watched her fussing over a camp servant charged with unloading her gun case from the Rolls. It looked very splendid, he thought, as it disappeared into her tent, and he wondered whether she had been allowed to borrow her husband’s Purdeys for the occasion.

Everyone else’s guns had been delivered to the camp the day before and Joe’s Holland and Holland duly made its appearance. He welcomed the Royal as an old friend in this strange place. He took it out, held it to his shoulder and squinted down the barrel. He checked his ammunition and satisfied himself that all was well with the gun. He was not allowed to put it to more serious testing as all shooting had been banned by Colin. Now that everything was in place, he didn’t want to risk alerting the tiger to make off for a hunting ground farther afield.

A holiday spirit seemed to have invaded the group. Free of the crushing atmosphere of the palace and happy with their outdoor accommodation, they settled in the filtered sunlight of the glade to enjoy each other’s company over constant cups of tea and glasses of iced (now how had the khitmutgar managed that ?) lime juice and soda. They sat down ten to lunch in the open at a table lavishly supplied by a field kitchen already in bustling order and manned by several palace cooks. The male guests were kitted out in khaki shirts and shorts and had good-humouredly adopted the Australian army bush hats Colin provided for them. No bright white pith helmets were to be worn on the hunt — a quiet camouflage was the order of the day. Bahadur and Ajit Singh conformed by agreeing to wear turbans of dull green. Everywhere, Joe was aware of teams of men cheerfully at work to support this enterprise from the twenty mahouts and their elephant handlers to the splendid major-domo figure who was organizing the valets and maidservants.

But Joe was uneasy. He strolled with Edgar a short way into the forest for a companionable after-lunch cigarette. ‘Nothing like it since the build-up to the Somme,’ he remarked to Edgar, pointing to the scurrying squads of servants. ‘And all for one tiger! Where on earth are they all sleeping?’

Edgar pointed to the south. ‘A hundred yards away in the next clearing there’s a sort of tent city. And the elephants are corralled down by the lake. And all this is not just for the tiger — as well you know! — it’s supposed to be an entertainment, a bit of relaxation for us Europeans. In the middle of his troubles, Udai is providing a distraction from the awfulness we’ve got caught up in. Typical piece of courtesy from the ruler and it would be very nice if you stopped sneering and questioning and set about having a good time. Why don’t you pick up Colin, take an elephant and go out and have a look at the countryside? Calm your nerves a bit.’

Thinking perhaps that he’d spoken a little sharply, he added, ‘Look, Joe, if it’s concern for Bahadur that’s making you so twitchy, you can relax a little. Not too much, mind! We’re both still on duty. But he’s away from the palace now and surrounded by people who have his welfare at heart. When he goes up that tree he’ll be feet from Shubhada and yards from Claude, both of whom have the strongest reasons to keep him alive. Across the nullah there’s his father’s man Ajit and he’s not done a bad job of protecting the lad so far, you have to agree. Then there’s you and there’s me. That adds up to quite a protection squad!’

‘You’re right, Edgar, but I get a bit nervous in a scene like this — high-powered rifles everywhere you look, a man-eater lurking somewhere in this dense scrub, elephants to fall off, trees to fall out of and heaven knows what else! Place is a minefield!’