Lim stirred in her sleep beside him and became aware of his wakefulness.
‘Bob not sleep?’ she murmured, her own voice a dreamy slur. ‘You want me fetch drink … you want …?’ But then she was gone again, submerged in the pool of slumber from which she had but briefly surfaced. Bob smiled. He closed his own eyes, tried to settle back down, but then the noise came again, long, constant, not a mechanical sound at all. It went on for some considerable time, repeating at regular intervals, and then at last it stopped abruptly, as though the animal responsible had called it a night and had drifted away in search of sleep.
‘Wish I could bloody well find some,’ thought Bob, but he knew only too well that once disturbed in this way, he would lie awake till dawn, thinking bad thoughts. Thoughts of his father who lay dead in the cold earth and of his mother, whom he had abandoned because she had remarried. Bob had worshipped his father. He could never bring himself to understand how she could have forgotten him so readily; worse still, how she could have chosen a no-account bank clerk to take his place. Well, Bob had fixed her wagon, right enough. It didn’t matter how many letters she wrote him, he was just going to let her stew in her own juice along with the bloody little twerp she called her husband. Some people might think of it as rough justice, but then, they hadn’t known Roy Beresford. They hadn’t known the sort of man he was.
Bob fumbled around on the bedside cabinet until he found his cigarettes and matches. The brief flare of light as he struck a match lit the room with a strange glow. He lay, staring up at the ceiling, smoking his cigarette and occasionally glancing at the red glowing tip of hot ash as it burned steadily downwards in the darkness.
Haji woke with new spirit. His hunger was satisfied, his pride restored. He was once again a killer of flesh. He emerged from the thicket where he had been resting and stretched himself luxuriously for a few minutes, aimless for the time being, for he knew that there was another dinner stored safely away which he could go to whenever his hunger returned. Some monkeys in a nearby tree shrieked an alarm, and he noted with satisfaction that there was a new respect in their manner.
He strolled off along a well-worn cattle track, moving gracefully and stopping from time to time to spray the trees and bushes with the aid of a scent gland beneath his tail. This was simply a way of marking out his territory. The secretion, mixed liberally with urine, possessed a powerful stink that could linger for weeks, provided it did not rain. Now that the urgency of his hunting had, for the time being, been dispelled, he travelled with the air of a sophisticated landowner surveying his property. Even the dull pain in his injured leg was temporarily forgotten. The sun was rapidly gaining in heat and Haji could hear the curious maddening song of a brain-fever bird in the treetops to his left. The track led down a slope to where a sluggish yellow river wound its way between sandbanks and boulders. Without hesitation, Haji plunged into the water, glad of the chance to cool off. He submerged his body completely, leaving just his head sticking above the surface. The water was wonderfully cooling, especially to the wound on his leg and he would have been content to remain there for the rest of the day; but after an hour or so of lounging, his keen eyes caught sight of a telltale swirl in the water that spoke of a large crocodile nosing his way. Haji had no real enemies in nature, unless of course one counted the Uprights, who could be dangerous when roused; but he knew well enough that the only other beast likely to try and attack him would be a crocodile. Stupid and brutish creatures, they tended to go for anything that moved and in their natural element, water, they were unbeatable. Haji, perhaps wisely, decided to curtail his bathing session and move on to new pastures. But he waded out with dignity, refusing to hurry himself, even though the crocodile’s snout was no more than a few feet away from him when he finally clambered back onto dry land. He half turned, directed a threatening roar at the pair of beady eyes surveying him from the surface of the water, and the crocodile, thinking better of his own motives, dropped from sight and looked elsewhere for a meal. Haji growled and shook himself to remove the water from his fur. Then he went on his way, moving along beside the river for some distance. He could see the brilliant blue flash of kingfishers as they skimmed down to touch the surface of the water and occasionally, there would be the curious wriggling wake of a long sea snake that had journeyed in from the coast.
After a while, Haji moved right, along another track into deeper jungle. He was astonished to find the powerful scent of a male tiger, sprayed on the bushes and trees. He came to a halt, sniffing and grimacing. It was rare for one male tiger to invade another one’s territory. It was true, certainly, that young tigers who did not possess their own home ranges sometimes crossed an established run, but such creatures were merely transients. They killed game on their travels but were rarely opposed by the resident animal, for they were only en route to another place. They certainly didn’t go around marking out territory in such a brazen way, and Haji was very angry that his authority should be challenged in this manner. He paced up and down for a moment, growling to himself, not sure how to resolve the matter. After some moments of indecision, he simply lifted his tail and blanketed the area with his own scent, so that if the intruder should return this way he would be left in no doubt about Haji’s feelings over the outrage. This accomplished, Haji moved to the centre of the track and made two distinct scrape marks in the dirt with his hind feet, a further indication that the territory was his. He made as though to move off again, but returned after a few steps, still not satisfied with his efforts. He squatted down near the bushes and defecated, leaving a large pile of steaming dung as a calling card. There could be no mistaking a move like that.
Content at last that he had made his intentions clear, he moved on again, stopping to spray at regular intervals. The scent of the other cat kept recurring along the track for some considerable distance until Haji reached a place where the intruder had veered off towards the river, leaving two scrape marks to indicate his change of direction. Haji growled, sniffed at the ground and gave out one last obliterating spray as a parting gesture. Then he moved along his way, trotting briskly, his head down. His aim was to make a wide rambling circle within the confines of his territory and arrive back for a second feed on his kill, around dusk. The rather vague intentions he had were soon channelled into more positive notions, when a mile or two along the track, he came across another scent. This one, however, did not antagonize him, for it belonged to Timah, one of the two resident tigresses that shared Haji’s range. Haji had not yet mated with Timah for she was only just coming to maturity and would be expecting her first ‘heat’ any time now. The older tigress, Seti, was already heavily pregnant after a brief encounter with Haji some four months back and could expect to drop her litter in a day or so.
As is the accustomed way with tigers, Haji lived a solitary existence, as did his two mates. They would only meet up to copulate and then after a few hours together would go their separate ways. It was true that sometimes, when chance brought them within range of each other, they would meet up briefly and possibly even share a kill. Such was Haji’s intention now. Timah’s scent was still fresh and he was soon able to locate her, by a series of calls which she promptly answered. A short while later, he found her waiting on the track ahead of him and hurried forward to join her. They made the familiar coughing greeting to each other that tigers invariably used and they rubbed against each other, flank to flank, purring contentedly like overgrown domestic tabbies. Timah was a particularly handsome creature. Some three years old, in the first flush of maturity, she was considerably smaller than Haji and shorter in total length by over a foot; but her fine dark coat was smooth and glossy and her green eyes glittered with quick intelligence. In old age, Haji’s coat had grown tattered and pale, and there were many grey hairs about his face and throat. But for all that, Timah was still his mate. In many ways, Haji preferred Timah to good dependable old Seti, who had borne him four litters over the years. Raising cubs was