THE BOY BIGGLES

by Captain W. E. Johns

NB - IN THIS BOOK BIGGLES IS REFERRED TO AS “JAMES” BUT FOR THE SAKE OF THE STORY SUMMARIES; I HAVE REFERRED TO HIM AS BIGGLES.

XII THE FOOLISH TIGER (Pages 158 - 171)

“It may seem strange, considering that he lived in “tiger” country, that only once did James have to face a charging tiger”. One day, Biggles is out for one of his constitutional walks up the hill to the tea estate to see Sula. He has taken his rifle with him as usual “more from force of habit than any expectation of having to use it”. Sula walks part of the way home with him and they are at a place known as the Plains when a woman rushes past them shouting “tiger – tiger”. Sula decides to turn back and leaves. Biggles continues on his journey home and sees a tiger rise from the grass not more than thirty yards away from him. “More than once the Skipper had told him that to make a sudden movement, or to run away, was the most certain way to provoke a charge”. Biggles can’t help sneezing and the tiger advances. Biggles notices that it is limping. The tiger charges him but Biggles stands his ground and shoots at it twice. Firing yet again, the tiger swerves past him “so close that he could have touched it”. The animal goes into a belt of jungle and disappears. Biggles sees blood on the grass. Biggles goes home and tells his father what has happened. “James’ father looked serious. “This is bad. A wounded tiger can be the very devil. Something will have to be done about it or we shall have trouble. Shortly after, Captain Lovell arrives. He is on a quest for a tiger as well: “The one that’s been making a nuisance of itself at Delapur”. Biggles tells Captain Lovell that the tiger he saw was limping before he shot it and it sounds to Lovell like it is the same tiger. The following morning, Biggles’ father and Captain Lovell go out to get the tiger. Biggles is allowed to watch from a tree at a safe distance. A dozen Gonds assemble as beaters. “It was their unpleasant task to drive the tiger from cover into the open. They were unarmed. Instead of a weapon each man carried an old bucket or a tin can of some sort, anything to make as much noise as possible. These men knew they would be taking their lives in their hands, but for that they were prepared; anything to get even with their hereditary enemy”. Biggles’ father and Captain Lovell take up position fifty yards apart and the same distance from the belt of jungle where the wounded tiger went. A whistle is blown and the beaters drive the tiger out. Biggles “never forgot the picture of his father standing there, cool, calm and collected, waiting for striped death to emerge. Did this have any effect on the life he was to lead a few years later when he himself would be going out daily to meet death in a very different form, in the air? Possibly. No doubt it set a standard that he would feel he had to live up to”. The tiger bursts out of the jungle and charges Biggles’ father who kills it with one shot. “The Skipper called: “Good shot, Bigglesworth. Great work”. An expression James often used later”. The Skipper notices that there is a porcupine quill stuck in the dead tiger’s paw. It was badly swollen. “An examination of the body revealed that two of James’ shots had struck it, although neither was likely to prove fatal. One had scored along its ribs, and the other, entering the mouth, had torn a strip of skin off the side of its face as it came out. That, no doubt, was the shot James had fired point blank, and may have caused it to swerve”. “This was probably the tiger James had in mind when, some time afterwards, he was interviewed by the Headmaster on reporting to his school in England (see “BIGGLES GOES TO SCHOOL”). At the same interview the Head said: “I believe you got a leopard, saving a man’s life”. To which James answered: “It was nothing, sir. He was an old man and the leopard went for his goat. I happened to come along with a rifle”. So James made light of an incident which, as the following chapter will show, was not quite the simple affair he implied”.