We were too busy during these weeks to do any shooting. But a curious bit of shikar fell to my lot one day. While I was superintending the building of the fort a sepoy who had been gathering stones for the wall ran up to tell me that he had seen some curious little animals in the nullah. Borrowing an ancient Martini rifle from a native officer, I ran down to the river-bed and found several wild dogs playing on the sand a few hundred yards away in front of a small island covered with thick undergrowth. On seeing me they bolted. I took a hurried shot at one and missed it, the bullet glancing off a rock behind which the dog had disappeared. To my horror a low wailing cry issued from the bushes on the island behind. Alarmed at the thought that I might have wounded one of my sepoys, I ran to the spot. There to my astonishment I found a barking deer standing up with half its face blown away. The unlucky beast had been struck by my chance bullet. Its shrieks were piteous and almost human, until we put it out of its pain.
Another day a sepoy cutting bamboos was disturbed by a herd of wild elephants. He had the sense to remain motionless; and the animals passed without seeing him.
One evening another man met a more dangerous beast. He had gone down at dusk to bathe in the river just below the fort and came face to face with a panther drinking. The man was unarmed; but fortunately for him the brute only growled and trotted away.
One Sunday afternoon we had a serious alarm. No work being done on that day two of the native officers, taking a few sepoys with them, had gone out with shot-guns to look for jungle fowl. Splitting up into two parties they separated and beat through the undergrowth a few hundred yards away from the fort. Suddenly one of them came upon a tiger which snarled viciously at them and retreated in a direction which would bring him upon the other party. With this was Subhedar Sohanpal Singh, the sturdy old Rajput who had been my companion in the long chase after the rogue elephant.
A sepoy came running back to the fort with the news. Seizing a rifle, I turned out a number of men with their arms and ammunition and hurried off to the rescue. Reaching the spot where the tiger had been seen, we searched the jungle for it and for Sohanpal Singh's party until dusk, without result. We shouted the subhedar's name loudly but got no answer. When night fell we returned to the fort. I was in hopes that the missing party had passed us in the jungle and got in safely. When I found that it had not come back I began to be seriously alarmed. But I reflected that it contained four men and that the tiger could hardly have killed them all and not left one to bring back the news. The missing men returned at ten o'clock. They had not actually seen the tiger but had heard it growling close to them in the thick undergrowth. As one of the sepoys had his rifle with him, Sohanpal Singh took it and tried to get a shot at the animal. The beast retreated slowly before him, growling all the time, but keeping in dense jungle where he could not see it. In vain the subhedar tried to get ahead and cut it off. He and his party followed the tiger until night put an end to the tantalising pursuit. Then, when they tried to retrace their steps, they lost their way in the darkness and wandered blindly through the jungle for hours until they struck the river.
On the day of General Bower's arrival I sent two elephants to bring him and his staff officer with their baggage from Buxa Road Station. Balderston and I awaited him in the fire line about four hundred yards from our fort. When our visitors reached us they dismounted and shook hands with us. After our greetings were over I said to the General:
"You told me last year, sir, to teach my men the art of making themselves and their officers comfortable in the jungle. You have got to test the result of my instruction practically now. You must live in a jungle hut, sleep on a jungle bed, sit at jungle-made tables on jungle-made chairs."
General Bower laughed. "Is the jungle supplying my food too?" he asked.
"Yes, sir; jungle fowl and venison. Captain Balderston wanted to give you wild vegetables from the jungle as well. But I tried them myself once; and as I don't want a bad report of my detachment, I dare not offer them to you."
I led the way along a road which we had cut through the forest. Where it emerged on the clearing around our post I stopped and said: