"On seeing that the tiger was round our camp I took extra precautions
and made all the men stop in one place just behind my tent; and gave
orders to my Indian servants to have their dinner early, and to sleep
with the Burmese coolies. My cook, an Indian, would not stop near the
Burmans, though told to do so several times. He had his kitchen fire
just in front of my tent. However, I told him he must sleep with the
other men. The other Indians also told him not to be a fool and stay
away by himself. To them he replied that he was not afraid, and that
if it was his fate the tiger would have him. He said, 'If it takes me,
it will be a case of one crunch and all will be over,' and this is
just what happened.
"I was having dinner early, before it got quite dark, so as to get the
men together. The cook had given me my soup and had cleared the plate
and put a roast fowl before me, and had gone back to the fire and was
standing with a knife in his hand watching the pudding on the fire.
"I was just carving the chicken, when I heard the cook give a
frightened cry, and on looking up I saw the tiger spring on to the
cook. In jumping up I upset the table and the lamp on it, also a glass
of beer that had just been poured out for me, and ran out shouting at
the tiger, and threw my table knife at it. My dogs, two terriers and a
spaniel, were sitting by my table, and jumped up and ran after the
tiger with me and attacked it. One terrier and the spaniel were killed
on the spot, and the other dog got away. In spite of this the tiger
went off with the cook. I thought the tiger had got the cook by the
back, but the sweeper who was standing close by with my goats" (that
is to say, had been there when the tiger came), "said it had got him
by the head, and so it turned out to be the case.
"On hearing me shout, the sweeper ran into the tent and got my rifle
and cartridges and handed them to me. I put in a cartridge and fired
in the direction the tiger had gone, and this had the effect of making
him drop the cook, but we did not know it at the time as no one would
venture into the forest to look for him. This of course upset everyone
in camp, and all huddled round my tent as close as they could and
shouted and beat tins all night. No one would even go to replenish the
fire unless I went with them, though it was not three yards from my
tent. All that night the tiger kept moving round the tent and I kept
it off by firing shots whenever we heard it walking in the leaves and
saw its eyes shining like live coals in the dark."
Here it may be noted that the eyes of a tiger, shining through the
blackness of the utter dark, are a phenomenon hard to forget, if once
you see them. In this instance, whatever strange light shone in them
may have been intensified by the glare of the camp-fire reflected in
those glistening optics. But no such addition was possible in another
case credibly reported to me and of more recent date in the extreme
north of Burma. A tiger ventured into the sepoy lines one night, and
entering the open door of a hut, it killed and carried away a man
asleep in bed. His comrades chased and mobbed the beast, which dropped
the corpse and escaped. The sepoys, taking counsel together, put out
the lights and hushed all noises, as if everyone was asleep; and in
fact they were back in their huts, and the door of the dead man's
dwelling stood open as before. Only, in ambush, below or beside the
bed, in a dark corner, a brave man was waiting, rifle ready; and the
tiger did come back to that identical door that night, and was shot,
exactly as the sepoys had hoped. What lingers in the memory best, of
all the details of that adventure, is that the man who lay in wait
told a magistrate, who told me, that when the tiger came, all he saw
was "the eyes in the doorway, shining into the room like two coloured
lamps, filling the room with tinted light." So he felt that hiding was
impossible and "banged away."
One other remark may be intercalated, to let readers realise what is
what. Even to men of experience in tiger attacks, the swift suddenness
of events is a continual surprise. The tiger practises "surprise
tactics," and his attack often is, and always is when he can manage
it, like a railway collision--it takes long to tell, but only a few
seconds to happen.
Let us now return to Mr Allan's journal.
"Early next morning, as soon as it was light enough to see, I started
to look for the body of the cook, and found it not ten paces from
where he had been cooking. The jungle, as I said before, was very
thick, so we could not see it at night."
(The tiger must have dropped the corpse when Mr Allan fired. He had
therefore lost his supper. Probably enough that was why he continued
prowling round.--D.W.)
"The tiger had caught the cook by the head as the sweeper had said,
for one fang had gone into his right eye and had knocked it out,
another had gone into his throat just below the chin, and two had gone
into the skull and neck at the back. So it must have taken the whole
head into its mouth, for it was a pulp with the brains coming out.
"We dug a shallow grave for the poor old cook and buried him, and then
left that forest as fast as the men could lay legs to the ground, for
nothing would induce them to stop another hour.... They yelled and
shouted till they got right clear of the forest.
"In leaving the forest no one wanted to be the last in the line for
fear of being taken from the back, so I brought up the rear."
It only remains to be added that in 1895, though the tigers "remained
as usual," Mr Allan finished the demarcation work so tragically
interrupted, and even took his wife to see the grave of the cook.