Lynne Banks - Tiger, Tiger

The smells were bad because there was no way to bury their scat. And there was the smell of other animals, and their fear. And there was a strange smell they didn’t recognise, a salt smell like blood. But it wasn’t blood.

It was bad being enclosed. All the smells that should have dissipated on the wind were held in, close. Cloying the sensitive nostrils. Choking the breath. Confusing and deceiving, so that the real smells, the smells that mattered, couldn’t be found, however often the cubs put up their heads and reached for them, sniffing in the foul darkness.

The motion was the worst. The ground under them was not safe and solid. It pitched and rocked. Sometimes it leant so far that they slid helplessly until they came up against something like hard, cold, thin trees. These were too close together to let the cubs squeeze between them. Next moment the ground tipped the other way. The cubs slid through the stinking straw till they fell against the cold trees on the other side. When the unnatural motion grew really strong, the whole enclosure they were in slid and crashed against other hard things, frightening the cubs so that they snarled and panted and clawed at the hard non-earth under their pads, trying in vain to steady themselves.

They would put back their heads and howl, and try to bite the cold thin things that stopped them being free. Then their slaver sometimes had blood in it.

When the awful pitching and rolling stopped and they could once again huddle up close, their hearts stopped racing, and they could lick each other’s faces for reassurance.

They were missing their mother – their Big One. They waited for her return – she had always come back before. But she was gone for ever. No more warm coat, no rough, comforting, cleansing tongue. No more good food, no big body to clamber on, no tail to chase, pretending it was prey. No more lessons. No more love and safety.

All their natural behaviour was held in abeyance. They no longer romped and played. There was no space and they had no spirit for it. Mostly they lay together and smelt each other’s good smell through all the bad smells.

As days and nights passed in this terrifying, sickening fashion, they forgot their mother, because only Now mattered for them. Now’s bewilderment, fear, helplessness and disgust.

There was only one good time in all the long hours. They came to look forward to it, to know when it was coming.

They began to recognise when the undifferentiated thudding overhead, where the sky ought to be, presaged the opening of a piece of that dead sky, and the descent from this hole of the two-legged male animals that brought them food. Then they would jump to their feet and mewl and snarl with excitement and eagerness. They would stretch their big paws through the narrow space between the cold trees and, when the food came near, try to hook it with their claws and draw it close more quickly. The food, raw meat on a long, flat piece of wood, would be shoved through a slot down near the ground, the meat – never quite enough to fill their stomachs – scraped off, and the wood withdrawn. Water came in a bowl through the same slot. They often fought over it and spilt it. They were nearly always thirsty.

The male two-legs made indecipherable noises: ‘Eat up, boys! Eat and grow and get strong. You’re going to need it, where you’re going!’

And then there would be a sound like a jackal’s yelping and the two-legs would move off and feed the other creatures imprisoned in different parts of the darkness.

Brown bears. Jackals. A group of monkeys, squabbling and chattering hysterically. There were wild dogs, barking incessantly and giving off a terrible stench of anger and fear. There were peacocks with huge rustling tails, that spoke in screeches. And somewhere quite far away, a she-elephant, with something fastened to her legs that made an unnatural clanking sound as she shifted her great body from foot to foot in the creaking, shifting, never-ending dark.

One night the dogs began to bite and tear at each other amid an outburst of snarling and shrieking sounds. The cubs were afraid and huddled down in the farthest corner of their prison. But they could hear the wild battles as one dog after another succumbed and was torn to pieces. The next time the sky opened, the two-legged animals found a scene of carnage, with only two dogs left alive.

‘There’ll be trouble now,’ one muttered, as he dragged the remains out from a half-opening while others held the survivors off with pointed sticks.

‘I said they should have put ’em all in separate cages. They’ll say we didn’t feed ’em enough.’

‘Better cut the corpses up and give the meat to the tigers. Dogs is one thing, but if we lose one of them cubs, we’ll be dog meat ourselves.’

After that there was no shortage of food and the cubs spent most of the time when they weren’t eating, sleeping off their huge meals. But their sleep was not peaceful.

The cubs had no desire to fight or kill each other. They didn’t know they were brothers, but each knew that the other was all he had. One was the first-born and the larger. He was the leader. In the jungle, he had been fed first and most, and had led their games and pretend hunts. He was also the more intelligent of the two. He came to understand that it was no use howling and scratching at the ground and rubbing backwards and forwards with cheek and sides against the cold, close-together barriers, or trying to chew them to pieces. When his brother did these things, he would knock him down with his paw and lie on him to stop him.

The younger one would submit. It was better, he found. His paws, throat and teeth stopped being sore. He learnt to save his energies. But the misery was still there. It only stopped while he ate, and when he curled up with his brother and they licked each other’s faces, and slept.

*

At last it ended.

The sky-hole opened and stayed open and a new smell came through. They smelt earth and vegetation – not what they’d been used to, but bearing some comforting relation to it.

They stood together side by side, alert and waiting for what would happen next. The two-legged animals were running about over their heads and making loud noises with their mouths. The sky-hole grew bigger, and at last they could see the blue of the real sky over their heads. Something came down from above, grasped their prison and swung it upwards! It rocked and swayed and the cubs fell on their sides and couldn’t get up without falling down again. After a short journey, there was a hard jolt. Then two-legged ones gathered around them, peering at them, their loud mouth-noises coming from all directions.

One of them put its long-toed hairless paw in between the thin trees. The bigger cub snarled and snapped at it furiously. It was snatched away and there was an outcry.

‘It tried to bite me!’

‘Stupid! What do you expect? It’s wild, it’s not used to being petted.’

‘But they look so sweet, like big kittens—’

‘Do you need to lose half your hand to find out that they’re not? They’re for the arena, they have to be fierce.’

The cubs watched warily as the other captives were lowered to the ground near them, and soon the crowd had moved away to inspect the bears, the peacocks, the monkeys. When the she-elephant was carefully lowered from above, there were gasps and shouts.

‘Great gods! What a size! Keep clear of it!’

‘Will the Emperor show it at the Colosseum? Will they bait it, like the bears, with dogs?’

‘Perhaps. I hope so! What a fabulous show that would be!’

‘How many dogs will it take to kill a thing that size?’

‘No, Caesar won’t have it baited or killed. They never kill the elephants. Perhaps he’ll ride on it. Think of that! Our great Emperor on the tallest beast in the world, riding along the Appian Way! What a triumph!’