Supping With Panthers Read Online Free PDF Page A

blood to us – an unsettling dream – ‘Durga’ – a soldier’s wretched death – Kalikshutra -a grisly ritual.
    My men, I knew, would relish the scrap ahead of us, and it was in high spirits that we set off the following morning. Even as we moved forward, however, I was carefull to cover my back. The swiftest of my soldiers was dispatched down the path we had just climbed with a message for Pumper and his regiment, telling them to advance with all God’s speed; two other of my men were left to guard the summit of the road. The seven remaining soldiers accompanied me, and alongside them came Dr Eliot. We would need a guide, he had told us, for the way was rough; he would take us as far as the Kalibari Pass, which he described as the gateway to Kalikshutra itself. I gave him a service revolver; he refused it at first, saying that he would never use it, but when I insisted he eventually gave in. I was glad of his company, for he was a stout fellow and the path did indeed prove very treacherous. As I have mentioned elsewhere, I was a pretty keen game-hunter out in India and I’d seen some thick jungle in my time, but nothing that ever compared with what we had to pass through now. A more effective barrier Nature couldn’t have designed, and I began to get the queerest sense that man wasn’t meant to penetrate it. Call it soldier’s superstition – call it what you will – but all of a sudden I had a bad feeling about what lay ahead. Naturally I didn’t let this show, but it worried me all the same, for I had noticed this instinct for danger in myself before while out hunting tiger and other big game, and I had learned to trust it. And now we were hunting the most dangerous game of all – man! – for at any time our quarry might tum and we, the hunters, become the prey!
    We had a hard day’s travelling. Not until nightfall did the jungle start to thin. At length I hauled myself up a rock face and Eliot, who was just behind me, pointed ahead. ‘You see that crag?’ he whispered. ‘That’s the cliff that looks over the Kalibari Pass.’
    I stared at it. Beyond the Pass, I could see a road winding steeply up the mountainside. It was fearfully exposed, yet was clearly the route we would have to take, for on the other side of the Pass the mountain rose skywards in a sheer wall of rock, up and up for hundreds of feet It seemed to form a plateau at the very top.
    Eliot too was staring at it. ‘Kalikshutra is beyond the summit,’ he said.
    ‘Is it, by George?’ I muttered. ‘Then it seems we’re in for a fearfull ascent A more perfect spot for an ambush I have never seen,’ And indeed, at that very moment the silence of the jungle was split by a shot I turned and plunged back into the undergrowth; I could see pale forms ahead of me, like ghosts amongst the trees. My men formed a line about me; we began to fire and I saw the figures start to drop. Our shooting was deadly and fast Soon the Russians had melted quite from view, either downed or fled. The jungle seemed as hushed in its stillness as before.
    We continued our advance towards the Kalikshutra road, but had not advanced more than half a mile before they were at us again. Once more though, we repelled them, and again we were able to resume our advance. At length we reached flat and open ground, where the mountain road met the foot of the jungle, and I knew that if we went any further we would be entering the jaws of a fatal trap. I looked around me. There was a line of rocks along the edge of the road; I ordered my men to take position behind them, and no sooner had they done so than the air was chilled by a most unearthly cry.
    ‘My God,’ muttered Eliot.
    Rising up from the shadows, almost it seemed from the very soil was a line of men – their faces pale, their eyes like pricks of burning light. I steadied my troops. ‘Fire!’ I bellowed. There was a deadly crackle, and seven of the enemy fell back into the dust. ‘Fire!’ I repeated, and again