Hussein - Patrick O’Brian

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for a while in his tent, and Hussein wandered about until he found a wild mango. He called Jehangir, and was lifted up into the tree; he threw some mangoes down for the elephant, and had a few himself; then he swam in the river. It was a swiftly flowing stream, with a gravelly bed, so there was no danger of crocodiles. He swam about until Gill awoke and called him.

      ‘We had better cross the river,’ said Gill, after they had folded up the tent and got underway again; ‘if we strike due south we may get in by about moonrise.’

      So Hussein led Jehangir down to the bank: there was a little sandy beach, and the elephant went over it very cautiously, for he knew that if once he got into a quicksand nothing would save him. As soon as the water was deep enough for him to swim, the elephant surged along at a surprising rate: Hussein swam beside him, for he knew that Jehangir must be feeling nervous. The strong current swept them down-stream quite a long way, but they got over without any mishap.

      As Hussein was scrambling up the bank he cut his foot on a sharp-edged stone; Gill, on the elephant’s back, did not see it, or he would have put iodine and a bandage on it. They had followed the river for some way when they saw some black-buck feeding under a clump of trees. They were up-wind of the elephant, so they had not smelt the men. Gill whispered to Hussein to make Jehangir kneel, as he wanted to stalk one for the pot. Hussein was to wait with Jehangir by the river, where he could easily be found. Accordingly, as soon as Gill had slipped away among the bushes, Hussein turned Jehangir back to the river. He went along the bank until he reached a grove of bamboos. Here he got off Jehangir, and plucked some broad leaves, which he wrapped round his foot, to cool it.

      Then he wandered in the shade, vaguely looking for fruit trees. Jehangir went back to the river, but Hussein knew that he would come back at a call. Quite soon he found a very large mango tree standing among the bamboos. Its smooth trunk stretched high up without a branch within reach, so he had to get up by means of a rather shaky bamboo that was growing beside it. He was waving about alarmingly at the top of the bamboo by the time he reached the lowest branch, but he managed to reach it in safety. The mangoes were very good, but monkeys had eaten most of them. Hussein climbed to a comfortably broad crotch, where he lay along a branch with his head to the trunk. The deep green shade of the myriads of leaves was very restful: millions of insects buzzed, making a deep, steady note all together.

      A mynah came and whistled in a branch over his head, but a small grey monkey chattered at it, and it flew away. A brilliant green tree-frog clung to the underside of a broad leaf above him: it looked as though it had been glued there and painted. Suddenly its neck swelled, and it made an utterly disproportionate noise like the yapping of a small dog. Hussein threw a mango stone at it, and it vanished to another leaf, where it yapped again. Another mango stone flew, and it was quiet. Far away he could hear Jehangir splashing in the river, and once he trumpeted, perhaps to a wild elephant, for they lived in those parts. A sowar of wild pig grunted among the fallen mangoes for a while, but soon they went. A minute, gem-like beetle crawled laboriously on to his big toe, and flew away. Hussein slept.

      Away by the bank where they had crossed, a dhole sniffed at the stone on which Hussein had cut his foot. The wild dog put back his head and howled. Another dhole answered him, and soon there were half a dozen of them on the little beach. Now and again one of them would raise his muzzle and give the calling cry to the rest of the pack. Far away, from among the red sandstone of the caves, where the pack lived, an answering howl came back.

      More dholes came, and they followed the scent until it became confused at the place where Hussein had mounted Jehangir. The wild dogs scattered, and cast about until one of them picked up the trail again at the spot where Hussein had wandered off by himself. The dholes came together again; the scent of blood was easy to follow, so they ran along the trail. They were fierce red wild dogs — bushy-tailed, stoutly built, and rather smaller than wolves. They hunted in much larger packs than wolves, and there was nothing that could withstand them; a tiger or a wild boar would run from them, and even an elephant would turn aside when they passed.

      Hussein heard a sound in his sleep, and stirred uneasily; then he yawned, and opened his eyes. In the open space beneath the tree there were about a dozen dholes. More were coming quietly through the undergrowth: they were all watching him.

      He started to his feet, and instantly the nearest dhole leapt up at him, snapping his teeth just under the branch. As they reached the end of the trail the wild dogs had kept silent, but now they gave tongue. Several more leapt up, but fortunately for Hussein the branch was about a foot out of their reach. Many more came through the bushes and sat beneath the tree. Hussein counted fifty of them.

      At intervals they howled; it was something between the howl of a jackal and that of a wolf, but more fierce than either. Hussein reached up and grasped a branch above his head; he swung himself higher, and the dholes stopped jumping up at him: they sat in a wide circle round the tree. They were quite capable of waiting there until he dropped from exhaustion.

      Hussein heard a sound like an old rusty watch ticking very loud and fast: with a shock he realised that it was his own heart beating. He climbed higher and higher. Every time he seized a higher branch he felt a wave of fright go through him; he had never felt anything like it when he had been climbing before, but now his nerves were upset by the certain knowledge that if he lost his hold and fell, the dholes would be there. At length he crept out to the end of a long branch from which he could see a part of the river, and he called, ‘Ohé, Jehangir.’ His voice was rather squeaky and wavering. He waited a moment, and then called again, ‘Hitherao, hathi-raj. Ohé Jehangir!’

      The dholes howled beneath him, and suddenly he felt giddy: he lay flat along the bough, and gripped it with all his strength. He shouted until his voice grew hoarse, and at length it failed him altogether — when he shouted only a croak came; but he saw no sign of the elephant. He crawled back along the branch, and sat with his back to the trunk, a-straddle the crotch.

      Hussein pulled himself together, feeling rather angry at his weakness; but, indeed, the great circle of dholes, all glaring up at him with furious eyes, and all lusting hotly to eat his flesh, was enough to make the bravest man shiver a little.

      A strong musty odour drifted up to him — the smell of the dholes — and he spat down at them. He called again — his voice had come back — and this time there was a despairing note in his cry, and the dholes sensed it: they howled.

      Some time before, while Hussein was asleep, Gill had come back to the river with a small black-buck over his shoulder. Jehangir, standing shoulder-high in the stream, had seen him, and had come out on to the bank; they waited for Hussein in the shade of a twisted tree among the rocks. After some time the Englishman blew on his whistle; Hussein, in his tree, heard it, and shouted back. But the wind was in his direction, and although it carried the sound of the whistle to him, it carried his own voice away. Nevertheless, he felt rather better now that he knew where Gill was, for the sound obviously came from the river bank some way to his right. Hussein stopped his ears with a piece of bread that he still had in his dhoti, so that he might not hear the howling of the dholes, for it seemed to melt the strength from his bones, and he climbed down to a branch that touched a limb coming from another tree that lay towards the river. As he crawled out to the thin end of the bough, it bent down and swayed so much that it just brought him within reach of the leaping dholes for a moment: one of them, snapping at a twig growing from the branch, hung there as it swung up again. Then the dhole scrambled on to the branch and rushed at Hussein. Luckily the rounded branch gave the dog no foothold, and it fell to the ground before reaching him. Before the branch swung down again, Hussein had caught hold of the other one; he swung himself on to it. Although it was much stouter, it still swayed up and down a great deal, so that one moment he was practically in the jaws of the dholes as they leapt up, and the next he was far above them. The wild dogs were furiously excited: the noise was appalling. As soon as he could steady himself, Hussein scrambled along the branch to the trunk, where he rested, and pulled the bread from his ears, for his first panic was over, and he felt master of himself again.

      There was a dead creeper on the tree, and he broke off

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