MARCH 12, SATURDAY

HUNTING IN INDIA

In January, 1951, I was living in India. I was 13 and my brother, Ted, was 11, my mother was in the United States for medical treatment and my father was traveling, probably also to the United States, and so during the long winter vacation we were shipped to my uncle Bill’s station in Madhya Pradesh to be taken care of. My Uncle Bill, my mother’s brother, was a missionary in central India. I don’t remember anything about where he or my Aunt Mary Lou lived. The big event after we arrived was to go on a jungle hunt with two other missionary families in the Surhi forest.

I do remember the ride to the forest. We were to meet at a crossroads in our army surplus jeeps and my Uncle Bill was in a tremendous hurry to get up and on the road in order to get there first. The reason was because in the dry season the unpaved road was a foot deep of powdery brown dust. The first Jeep to get there would lead the way to the forest. The second Jeep would have to follow behind in a huge cloudy of orange dust. I don’t remember who got there first, I am betting we did, since I can’t remember any dust. But the most significant part of the ride for me was the account by my cousin Bruce, probably five at the time, about the Friendly Tiger, who accompanied us on the ride, sometimes galloping along beside us and sometimes following behind us. He was an invisible Friendly Tiger that only Bruce could see, but that he could see quite clearly with resentment on his part if we questioned its existence.

1951 was four years after India became an independent country but the ways of the British Raj was still with us and the management of the forests was a holdover from British rule. We rented a 10 mile square portion of the forest with a camp spot in the middle. In this camping spot were three or four large tents where we slept with one used as a kitchen. As usual we had a number of servants with us including a cook. How they and the tents and our beds and food got there I don’t know, they didn’t ride with us and the Friendly Tiger. We had rented this portion of the forest for a week and during that time everything was fair game from tigers, to leopards, to large Blue Bull antelopes, to other smaller animals but a limit of one in each category.

My brother and I had been given beebee guns by my father for Christmas. They shot little round beebees propelled by compressed air. I think they could have put out an eye but luckily we never misfired. But I did manage to hit a small bird and felt enormously guilty when I held the limp little bird in my hand. That was the extent of our hunting experience.

But during the hunt I, 13, was given a 12 gauge shotgun and my brother, 11, a carbine. We were told that if we saw a tiger we were not to shoot at it. Anything else was fair game.

My first very clear memory was the whole group of us going on a morning hunt in first light. We were stretched in a long line as we walked silently through the scrub jungle. Someone saw something and signaled. We all stopped in place. I cocked my 12 gauge shotgun, loaded with buckshot that could bring down an antelope, by pulling back the hammer and which would be released when I pulled the trigger and would strike the little round indentation in the back of the shotgun shell to explode it.

But there turned out to be nothing there. So we walked on, our guns in our hands. We hadn’t had any lessons on how to carry a gun and I don’t know where my shotgun was pointed, possibly at a person, when I heard a loud snap. The cocked hammer sprung forward and had struck the shotgun shell but apparently not quite hard enough to to detonate it. I very carefully uncooked the other hammer to the other barrel and we went on. I didn’t see anything to fire at, but Winnie McGavran, my age and the daughter of second missionary family, also with a 12 gauge shotgun and no training saw a spotted deer and managed to hit it and brought it down. It was skinned and tanned so that she could keep it as a trophy and we ate it for supper. It was delicious. But I was intensely jealous of her success and the praise she got and was determined to better.

A second strong memory was a staged hunt that all of us took part in. We were placed with our guns in trees, about ten feet up and about thirty yards apart. Then large number of villagers were hired to make a giant mile wide semi circle of beaters who slowly moved toward us, making noise. Whatever animals were in this huge circle would have to pass beneath our trees. I was placed with a villager who didn’t speak English and I didn’t speak whatever dialect they speak in Madhya Pradesh. In the tree next to me, forty yards away was my brother Ted with a carbine and Winnie with a 12 guage shotgun. We were told we could shoot anything except a tiger.

We waited and waited and finally could hear the beaters in the distance. And then, miracle of miracles, two blue bull, large antelopes, came slowly directly toward me. I cocked my shotgun, put it to my shoulder and as they slowly approached my tree waited until they would be so close that I couldn’t possibly miss.

But in the meantime, humping along toward my brother’s tree was a four foot long scaly armadillo. This was too insignificant for Winnie but she whispered to Ted to fire away. It came right under his tree and so he, also, couldn’t miss, and shot it.

When his shot went off the blue bull were about forty yards away moseying toward me. What happened next is unclear because it couldn’t have happened as I remember it. I was ready and fired once, and then as in my memory the blue bull circled my tree and went on I fired again. On a shotgun there is a bead at the far end of the barrel and a V at the near end. The bead at the end has to be lined up with the V. But in my excitement I think I only used the V and forgot the bead so don’t know where the gun was actually pointed on either shot. But Ted and Winnie both claimed that after one of the shots a shower of leaves came down from the top of their tree which I must have hit with buckshot. My uncle Bill got the armadillo mounted on a board which Ted kept for the rest of his life.

A third intense memory of the hunt that I have was when on the same night a leopard killed a staked out goat outside of a village where an this leopard had caught and eaten several of goats. The villagers were hoping we could kill it. On the same night a tiger had killed a buffalo that had been staked out in the forest as bait. So the next night, Mr. Owen’s, who happened to be Principal of Woodstock School was stationed on a platform built into a tree above the dead still tied up buffalo to wait for the tiger to return. And my Uncle Bill was stationed behind the bamboo hut of village shed to wait for the leopard with the body of the dead goat 30 feet away. My Uncle Bill invited me and my brother Ted and the Winnie McGavran to accompany him. We went before dark, sat behind the flimsy bamboo wall of the goat shed with the goat in front of us and waited and waited and waited. Again I was intensely jealous, because it was Winnie who was entrusted to hold the powerful flashlight with six fresh batteries, not me. Finally in the gloom there was a movement, Winnie spotlit the transfixed leopard, and my Uncle pulled one trigger after another with huge explosions, there was a terrible scream and then silence. We couldn’t see any leopard and afraid it could be lurking out there retreated to our Jeep and drove back to our campsite. The next morning my Uncle Bill drove out and found the leopard not far from where he had shot it.

The last memory I have of the hunt is the last day we were there. My brother had shot an armadillo, Winnie had a blue bull, Uncle Bill had a leopard and I had nothing. On our last day there was one more chance, this time I was alone and as I wandered through the woods I saw a flock of jungle chickens, jungle moorgi, smaller than domestic chickens. I followed them and followed them and finally got one in my sights, V lined up with the bead, pulled the trigger and with a loud blast and jolt to my shoulder I blew the jungle moorgi to bits. There was almost nothing left. I couldn’t face bringing it back and left it there. I ended the hunt empty handed.