Many people thought that Colonel Bagshot was a bit mad. Some of them were happy to express an opinion in which the word 'loony' was bandied about freely. Most of the hotel staff were convinced that a man who regularly set fire to curtains and furniture and ordered his meals in pidgin Hindustani must have crossed the line where mere eccentricity meets bona-fide insanity.

Cook was particularly insistent upon this point: the Coloncl had demonstrated his opinion that her lamb chops were overcooked by hurling one of them against the dining room window, shouting "Take that you heathen cur!" at an imaginary foe; it had clacked the pane. This, claimed the Colonel, was proof enough. The lamb chop could stop a charging Zulu. Cook, however, thought it proved something else.

I swear 'ee's off 'is chump, so 'ee is. I can't imagine why Mr Quint lets 'im stay 'ere. Did you 'ear whet 'ee said abaht my kippers last week? Said 'ee wanted to nail 'em to the bottoms of 'is boots, said they'd make new soles they was so tough."

Molly the housemaid had more evidence of his madness. She'd tried to be nice to him the other day - it was the first week in April - and so had said, "Good morning, Colonel. Spring in the air." He'd looked at her, quite oddly, and replied "Why the hell should I, you silly young woman?"

The Colonel was himself at least vaguely aware of the common intimations of his dementia. His promises never again to bring a revolver to a meet of the Southdown Hunt had not altered the Master of Hound's resolution to ban him from attending. Nor had his reports of roving bands of Afridi bandits - hairy, turbanned men with wicked knives - lurking among the seafront cafes been well accepted by the Hove police.

Yes, they were a damned long way from home, he insisted, but that was the way with raiders. If they were at home in the wilds of the North West Frontier. he'd hardly be speaking to a desk sergeant about them, would he?

The Colonel had been embarrassed, though, by the time he'd confused the ornately oriental Brighton Pavilion for the Maharajah of Jaipur's palace. He'd taken a quite ordinary coach party of visitors for the glittering Rajput [1] nobility of the Maharajah's court, and demanded to know if his Majesty could loan him a polo pony, as they were great friends. That episode had involved several constables and a good deal of explanation. The servants had seen him returned to the hotel in the company of a uniformed bobby. Damned humiliating.

The Colonel's response to these allegations of senility and worse was usually to explain away the incidents, or conveniently to forget them, or (if absolutely necessary) to blame others for puning a malicious interpretation on events. It was therefore a great day when he found evidence for a valuable discovery: someone he knew was even more absent- minded than he.

It was late when the downstairs bell rang. "It's that bloody old fool" said Cook. She'd settled down for the evening and wasn't about to stir from the fireside. "Go and see what the old codger wants, young George."

Colonel Bagshot as in his sitting room, clearly agitated. He'd just arrived by 'growler' - he much preferred horse-drawn cabs to the newfangled mechanical thingies - from Brighton Station. Under his topcoat he wore full mess dress, the short bum-freezer jacket buttoned only at the top, tight 'overalls' strapped under his feet, the blue and gilt of the Tenth Hussars faded a little by the ears. "I'd have put on my plain clothes for the journey back but I left my trousers on the train. "The fools at Victoria were no help at all." [2]

George knew that the Colonel had been up to London, to the Cavalry Club in Piccadilly. He made occasional day trips to 'town', and usually took dinner there. It wasn't really necessary to wear full regimentals except on the most formal occasions, but the Colonel always did. The old man was positively beaming. "It's Podger Pilkington. He's completely off his head!"

George sat down while Colonel Bagshot poured a burra peg, [3] a very large whisky indeed. he youngster suspected it was by no means the first of the evening.

"You'll have heard me talk about old Podger. Twelfth Lancers. We were at Sandhurst together. That would have been 1873 or 4. Podger was always a ladies' man, had a terrible weakness for women. You may recall the incident with the Belgian Consul's wife. [4] Podger got a good deal of exercise climbing out of hotel windows and hiding under beds.

It got so out of hand that he found himself in thoroughly bad odour in his regiment - it involved the wife of the senior major, or his daughter, or both, I don't remember - that to avoid scandal he turned to extreme measures. He transferred to the Indian Army; well, it was either that or a loaded pistol in locked room.

Surprisingly enough he liked it. It was a good unit, 11th Bengal Lancers, Probyn's Horse; I'd met them before, in Afghanistan, and recommended them to him. Blue coats with red and gold, damned dashing. So it wasn't as if he'd been gazetted to the Madras Pay Department. He liked it.

Actually he liked two things. He liked going up to the hill stations in the hot weather, and he liked tiger shooting. The hill stations are those cool, Himalayan towns - English towns, almost where the servants of the Raj send their wives and kiddies when the hot weather comes in about April. The Government of India moves from foetid Calcutta to alpine Simla, and every officer who can get away from the plains does so. At least, they used to.

The cantonments were always half empty of British officers as the garrisons sweltered under the hammer blows of the Punjab summer. It was an ideal arrangement for Podger. Simla and Darjeeling and Mussoorie and all these other places were overrun by English women - grass widows we celled 'em - whose husbands were stifling away in 130 degree heat a few hundred miles away and a few thousand feet below.

Pilkington was what some might call a Casanova, and dashed good at it too. Somehow he ways got leave to go up to the hills. I 'spect his colonel kept his own good lady close by and said he admired her for the way she put up with the heat.

That Podger should take up tiger hunting was quite usual for officers in India. He became extremely good at it, or at least told really good stories about his crack shooting. Of course, it is not generally considered nice to talk about seducing other men's wives, so tiger- shooting was ways a good topic for after dinner discussion.

I hadn't seen Podger in years. I didn't recognize his voice right off. I was standing looking at the painting of Captain Oates of the Inniskilling Dragoons, a gallant fellow as you'll doubtless recall. He gave his life to try and save Captain Scott [5] and the others; couldn't walk what with frostbite, and was holding them up something terrible. They wouldn't abandon him, of course, being officers and gentlemen, so he ups and says - and this in the middle of an Antarctic blizzard, with the tent half blowing away - "I may be gone for some time." Then he slips out and is never seen again. No body found or anything. Sacrificed himself that others might live, though actually they all died anyway. Damned moving.

"He only went out for a pee. Terrible bladder problem. Meant to come back all the time!"

I turned, furious. Who would say such a thing, such a gross calumny against a great British hero, here in the Cavalry Club? Podger Pilkington would.

"Ha ha! Got you there, Binky! I was looking at a picture over there" - he gestured down the hallway where there's a painting of a cavalry officer viewing a woman bathing naked in a river through his binoculars, just Podger's style - "when I saw you doing the same thing over here." Damned cheek, comparing the two of us, my recalling brave Oates, him lusting over some damp bint - but I forgave him when he said, "can I stand you a drink?" Which he could.

The cellar of the Cavalry Club has always been a credit to the service, cheapest Moet-et-Chandon in London. However, not being a champagne in the aftemoon type of chap, I ordered a burra peg of Talisker while he took a pink gin. Vile stuff.

"Do you think there's a telephone in here, Binky?"

"No idea. Never use the things myself. Almost deafened once when the chap I was talking to was blown up in an explosion at the other end."

"In Palestine, was that? Or on the Western Front?"

"Brighton, last year. Fellow from the butcher's shop. A gas main went up outside. Glass everywhere. Never got my sausages."

Podger looked at me furtively. "Only I'm expecting a call from a lady friend. I've let the staff here know to find me when she calls. Mrs Ffyffe-Winters. Remember her?"

The name rang a bell. A small, muffled bell.

"Don't you recall, Binky? Simla, '96. The year before the Jubilee and the Calcutta earthquake and the big tribal rising. Husband was a civil service wallah somewhere on the Ganges. Public Works, irrigation projects, something of that sort. Celia F-W and I had an affair de coeur during the hot weather. We'd ride out to the Maidan, or down to the Temple of Hanuman the Monkey God on Mt. Jakko, avoiding the gossips at Peliti's [6] and, ah, getting to know one another."

I did recall, yes indeed. "The laundry room at the Viceroy's Ball. You had me stand guard, you blackguard. You told me you had to borrow a clean shirt. Got me into all kinds of trouble."

Pilkington laughed. "You do remember her! Strapping filly! Well, she's in London with her husband for a few days, and promised to call me the moment she can slip away from the old duffer for a few minutes."

I remembered Pilkington, a man in his forties at that time, senior captain in a regiment of Bengal lancers, mooning over the woman like a love-struck schoolboy. Sickening, it was. All the other affairs, nothing, then Mrs F-W, and he's a whimpering puppy. Made me want to vomit, then and now. She had been gorgeous, though, if you like that kind of thing. Tall, willowy, good teeth.

"Podger", I said. "If I may quote the book of Sirach [7], which is in the Apocrypha and therefore a piece of Scripture you may be unaware of; 'I hate three kinds of people, and I loathe their manner in life, a pauper who boasts, a rich person who lies, and an old fool who commits adultery.' that's from the Almighty himself"

"Oh, don't be so hard", replied Pilkington. "She was quite young at the time. I doubt that she'd be much past sixty today."

* * *

Podger and I had taken our drinks into the smoking room after a couple of turns at the billiard table. I had wretched luck; hit a passing major of the Scots Greys with the black. He seemed to take it well enough, and ice will take a swelling down. Bent cue, no doubt of it. We were talking: Podger was telling tall stories about India while I gave detailed and useful anecdotes about the charge at El Teb [8] and why you should always wear a cholera belt in the tropics.

We had a fair gathering of young officers about us, anxious to hear about the great days. Damned discouraging to be a young subaltem of horse today, with the bloody war office threatening to sit you inside one of those absurd 'tank' thingies. Not me, thank God. Pilkington wanted to show off with one of his tiger hunting stories.

"Oh yes. It was a village in the Central Provinces - prime tiger country y'know - in '87 or '88. I'd taken my squadron out on maneuvres in the wild jungle country above Jubbulpore [9], the foothills of the Vindhya range. Really challenging terrain for cavalry.

Anyway, a deputation of the village headmen came up to our camp and asked if, please, we had a sahib with a gun to shoot a man-eater? Apparently this particular beast had a nasty habit of ambushing the villagers on their way to the river, or the well, or the fields. She - the females are always the cleverest would maul her victims good and proper, take a light snack off the remains, and wander off with the leftovers on public display. In recent weeks the tigress had become more daring and even more cunrung, which was saying a lot. She's taken the village blacksmith - a huge fellow by all accounts - out of his bed while is wife and kiddies were asleep, bitten his arms and legs off very neatly, and resumed the remainder of him to the bed.

I don't think she tucked him in, though. A few days later she'd hidden inside one of those outlandish Hindu shrines they have in woodland groves. She'd eat individual pilgrims as they came for their heathen devotions. put the leavings away in a sort of larder in the nearby jungle. and wait for the next meal to come bumbling along. Even licked up the blood so as to present a neat and orderly appearance. Most restaurants couldn't match her for hygiene. Damned smart cat.

So, having been told this story by the village tahsildar [10], I fetched my rifles. This was in the days before cordite and small bore weapons; I had a fine double express by Henry of Edinburgh, black powder, stolen by an Afghan a few years later, and a light Gibbs single barrel. I rode down to the village with a daffadar [11] who'd volunteered to serve as gunbearer. Apparently the tigress had a habit of lurking around the village goat pens (in as much as she showed any habits at all) since they provided good cover for lunching on the villagers, and the chance of a quick snack whenever she felt like it.

The villagers had taken the kind of decisive action that suggests why peasants don't rule the world; they'd taken the goats indoors but continued to walk past the pens on their way to the well, or the fields or the river. However, none of them were willing to act as decoys for me when I asked; you mention it would be helpful if they would just stand around a bit, looking casual in case a man-eater drops by, but they won't do it. English people are no better in that respect, I've noticed. Still, they did get a couple of the village lads to build a machan - that's a secure shooting platform - in one of the big deodar trees overlooking the goat pens.

After a bit of an argument between the headmen, the tahsildar agreed to let me have a sickly white goat as bait. Apparently one of the other men had offered his mother-in-law, which would have been accepted, but for the fact that she was another fellow's favourite aunt. I thought there'd be fisticuffs.

So, that night I was up there with the Henry double rifle and a fresh box of .450 cartridges. The silly buggers had made the platform too small for myself and the daffadar, so he said he'd stand at the foot of the tree with my second gun. Happy to do so, sahib. I do rather regret that part now.

It was midnight. There was a hatf moon above the trees, golden and generous in its light. But the shadows through the village and under the deodars were deep and black. It was very still. The headmen had tied up the poor goat, which was too terrified even to bleat piteously. I was peering into the darkness, rifle at the ready, hoping for a glimpse of movement.

My muscles were like coiled wire as I gripped the Henry, my mind clear of all except the thought of the tiger. The night was cold - it was the hills, remember - and damned quiet. There was no gust of wind, no rustle of leaves. It was as silent as the grave."

I have to say old Podger was laying it on pretty thick. Melodrama. Penny-dreadful stuff. I swear he steals his stories from other people. I'd never do that myself But the room was hushed with breathless lieutenants anxious for every detail. They'd laid in more drinks, though, so I staved off malnutrition with a bit of Stilton. Podger glowered at me when I crunched a cracker rather loudly. The Cavalry Club keeps an exceptionally good cheese board. He was off again.

"Suddenly there was an odd, strangled sound from below, followed by a soft thud, and silence once again. A shiver coursed through me. A tiger kills quickly, quietly and without fuss; the massive paws, teeth, sinews working together to overwhelm the victim in an instant. The object of a man-eater's attention never stands a chance. And, as I crouched, seeing nothing, the smell of death wafted gently up on the slightest of night breezes. The tigress had done for my daffadar."

Smell of death on gentle night breezes, my arse. I cut off a nice bit of Double Gloucester.

"I heard the ruffle of huge feline steps through the greenery. The great beast was taking my poor gunbearer off into the bush to eat. A tall, strapping fellow he'd been --- still, no match for four hundredweight of murderous cat. She'd carry him - not drag, carry - him a half mile or more into the tangled hill jungle, to feast at her leisure. I stared, searching the darkness. A glimpse of movement, a shifling shadow, anything I could connect with the tigress. I changed position, the rifle ready for a shot. If only I knew where.

As the moment passed I felt the tension slacken, my muscles in my throat loosen, and I knew that I'd missed my chance. the tigress had slunk triumphantly into the night. Alas, my poor daffadar! Gone, slain in his loyalty to me and to his sense of honour. I would go to his village, see his family, give some money to the mosque - he was a Rolhilkand Mussalman [12], very devout - make sure his belongings went home. Taken in the night for a tiger's dinner!

And yet, somehow I knew, I was wrong. Shifting position once again on the machan, I scanned the ground below. A watery shaft of moonlight caught something pale stretched on the earth. The kid? No, the kid was still there, hushed and terrified. Then I understood. It was the body of the daffadar, the pale khaki of his uniform kurtal [13] showing against the dark soil.

But then --- where? My fingers locked around the stock of the Henry, paralysed with shock. Fear gripped me as I understood - understood deep in my soul - that the hunter had become the prey. The tigress was with me, close. Very close. Seeing me with her perfect night vision while I gaped sightless into the darkness. Into the void. It was then that I felt her hot breath on my neck --"

The steward leant forward over Pilkington's shoulder. I heard his confidential whisper. "Lady for you on the telephone, sir!"

"Back in a moment, chaps. Yes, another gin would be much appreciated."

It was a full ten minutes before Podger resumed. I instantly knew that expression, that idiotic dreamy look of an old fool in love. His head was full of Simla thirty years past, of romantic tonga rides at midnight, trysts by the temple of Hanuman the Monkey God, Celia Ffyffe-Winters in the deep mauve gown she'd worn at the Viceregal Ball. His bent old body was within the smoking room at 127 Piccadilly, but his mind was with that beautiful woman on a summer's night in 1896. He took three fingers of pink gin and fumed to the throng of young men in the room.

"Now, where was I?"

"Ah, 'her hot breath on my neck', as recall, sir," said one, all agog with the excitement of it all.

"Er, ye-es", replied Pilkington, still miles away. Years away. Bloody idiot.

"Well, what happened next?" demanded another.

"I dragged her into the laundry room, pulled down me britches and we went at it like rabbits on the Viceroy's fresh ironed sheets. And, I tell you, I'm having dinner with her at the Savoy Grill tomorrow evening!"

There was silence, utter stillness, and then somebody dropped a crystal decanter.

* * *

The Colonel was laughing fit to burst. "Podger Pilkington! Mad as a hatter. Or is it a March Hare? He'll not live this one down. Probably won't be able to walk down Piccadilly without some individual asking about his dinner with the tigress at the Savoy Grill. And people say that I'm eccentric!"

It was six weeks later that the Colonel visited London again. Southem Railways had still not found his trousers. But he had seen Podger Pilkington, though not at the Cavalry Club.

"Good Lord, no. He'll be avoiding the place like the plague.. No, I saw him outside Hamley's, the toyshop in Regent St. I had to get some reinforcements."

A box of model soldiers, marked 'CBG Paris' stood unopened on the table.The Mignot company. The label said something about 'Tambours des Zouaves' or somesuch. French, thought George.. George spoke no French.

"Anyway, with a straight face, or close to it, I asks him, "And how was your dinner with the man-eater?"

He just looks at me and replies, "Very pleasant indeed, Binky. But you ought not refer to a lady of character and distinction in such common terms! You're getting quite uncouth in your old age."

And then he just stumped off towards Oxford Circus."

Notes: