David Gibbins - The Tiger warrior

Howard tried to ignore his fear and struggled on, a few yards ahead of the others. As he rounded a boulder, something rolled down the muddy bank just in front of him. It was a red gourd the size of a human head, and he kicked it forward unthinkingly. As he did so he saw a marking. He sloshed ahead, turned it over then quickly stamped his foot into it before the sappers could see. It had been a crude representation of a man hanging on a gallows. The muttadar had told him about these. They were more than just a warning. They were beacons to the konda devata, meant to attract the evil spirit like the smell of dead meat to a hyena. Howard’s heart was pounding, and he looked up at the impenetrable wall of the jungle above the riverbank, blinking away the drops of rain. He could see nothing. But it was not only a tiger that was stalking them. They were close to the village, and there were others in the jungle, flitting forms. He looked ahead along the boulders to where the streambed rose into a tumbling rapids, and he fancied he saw a child, a form in a shawl with arms outstretched, beckoning him. He caught his breath. He must be hallucinating. He remembered the riverside scene, what he had done, and the image was gone. He struggled forward until he reached the base of the rapids. The stream was already rising against them, a red-brown torrent where it cut through the sandstone. Two freshly felled trees on either side were exuding dark-red sap that stained the banks. It was as if he were walking into a gush of blood. He wondered if he was being drawn into a world of sorcery and horror that he had made his own when he pulled that trigger. He half-fell forward, then suddenly sank up to his waist. He was caught just in time by Wauchope and Hamilton, who had come up behind him.

“I should have remarked on it,” Hamilton gasped breathlessly. “The waterfall had liquefied the streambed and it’s like quicksand. We had the devil’s own time getting down here. Under those choked-up leaves and ash it’s a death trap.”

“How close are we now?” Howard said, struggling to keep collected.

“Just over the waterfall. There’s a bridge, and then we’re on the trail from the village to the shrine. We left Bebbie and the sappers in a clearing just in front of it.”

“We’re being followed,” Howard said.

“That gourd? I saw you look at it,” Wauchope said.

“Why don’t they kill us?” Hamilton said. “They could shoot us like pigs in a slaughterhouse.”

Howard looked at the muttadar, who had been scampering over the boulders with natural agility and had materialized silently beside them, his precious bamboo container held tight. “I think it’s the muttadar. He’s a sorcerer and even though the rebels know he’s betrayed them, perhaps there’s some kind of spell that prevents them from harming him.”

“His idol?” Wauchope said.

Howard nodded. “That’s the only reason he’s here with us, and has led us this far. He’s as terrified as all these people are of the jungle demons, the konda devata, but I believe he knows he will be allowed safe passage back to the shrine to replace what he had taken. And because we’ve dared to go into the jungle among the spirits that haunt it after the festival, they might think we have some kind of supernatural power ourselves.”

“They are utterly irreclaimable savages,” Hamilton muttered, his face now flushed with the fever. “The only supernatural power they’ll get out of me is a volley of lead from our Sniders.”

“Hold this.” Wauchope handed Howard the end of a rope he had taken from the haversack of one of the sappers, and leapt up onto the boulder at the base of the waterfall. He held his sword out of the way and climbed nimbly from rock to rock, paying out the rope. He stopped at the top, some thirty feet above them, just visible in the mist, and gestured with his free arm for them to follow. Over the next ten minutes they all clambered up after him one by one, the sappers with their rifles slung over their backs and going barefoot. At the top was a small bamboo bridge over the shingly steambed, and they trooped across it into a clearing surrounded by patches of feathering reed. About fifty yards ahead the jungle began again, rising high over another rocky hillock. The havildar suddenly gesticulated and one of the sappers ran forward, toward a small cluster of fellow sappers with bayonets fixed, visible below a boulder on the far side of the clearing. There was a sudden scream of warning in Hindi from one of them, but it was too late. The sapper had disappeared without a sound. The others cautiously went forward, Hamilton and Howard in the lead, and they peered down.

“Good God, no,” Hamilton whispered. “I knew this was here. I should have warned them. I am not in my right mind.”

A horrible gurgling sound came from below, then stopped. Howard leaned over, feeling nauseous. A tiger trap. The hole was deep, at least ten feet, and stakes of fire-hardened bamboo rose out of the ground. The sapper had fallen in a seated position, and a stake had caught him in the nape of his neck and driven right through his skull, a bloody spike that thrust a foot or more above his turban. The force of the impact had nearly decapitated him, and his neck was stretched out grotesquely, the rest of his body skewered on the bed of spikes in front. Howard swallowed hard, then stood back to let the other sappers see. He took the havildar aside and had a quiet word with him in Hindi before turning to Wauchope and Hamilton.

“I asked him to recover the rifle and ammunition,” he said. “They’ll want to take him out and bury him.”

“That will be an odious task,” Wauchope murmured.

“They will not leave him here like this,” Howard said. He turned and walked toward the other side of the clearing, his anger rising. Bebbie now had even more to account for. But he saw that they were too late. The four sappers of the detachment, those Hamilton had left to guard Bebbie, were kneeling, with bayonets pointing outward, around a crude bamboo palanquin. On it was a sweat-drenched, half-covered body very far from being alive. Howard knew how cruelly the cholera could ravage a person’s appearance, but this was ghoulish in the extreme. The face was gray and the mouth was lolling, full of congealed blood. He came closer. It was not quite right. Bebbie’s eyes had clearly come out, only to be pushed crudely back in. As Howard approached, holding his nose against the smell of feces, he saw the explanation. A large hole perforated the middle of Beddie’s forehead.

The havildar followed and spoke rapidly to the four sappers, passing them his water bottle, then let them speak in turn. Howard listened, then turned to Hamilton and Wauchope, his anger still palpable despite the grim finality of the scene. He jerked his thumb at the corpse. “That fool ordered the sappers into Rampa village to parley with the rebels. Their native guide had told him the rebel leader Chendrayya was there. One of the sappers went through the jungle to the edge of the village for a reconnaissance. He saw at least four hundred rebels massed, maybe more. I believe they were the party we saw join the throng by the river. The sapper returned and reported to Bebbie. The sappers had seen what the rebels had done to the captured police constables. The ones we saw executed by the river are not the only victims. Two more were murdered here in full view of the sappers last night, just outside the shrine. But Bebbie still ordered the sappers to go back to the village.”

“He must have been delirious,” Wauchope said.

“You didn’t know this man,” Howard said, gritting his teeth. “But before they could go, they were attacked. Shots were exchanged. Bebbie was hit and killed.”

Wauchope knelt close to the corpse, and peered at the gaping blue hole in the forehead. He lifted up the head, raising a swarm of black flies from the sticky mess below. The back of the head was blown off, and fragments of skull were stuck to the ground. He looked up at the other two officers. “That’s no musket ball,” he said quietly. “That’s a Snider bullet. I’ve seen what our rifles do in Afghanistan.”