charged point-blank on the next gunner, who fired and missed, but succeeded in
keeping them between the line and the jungle. The fourth gun brought down the
second pig and wounded the boar in the shoulder. Frantic with rage and pain, the
old fellow tore up the ground and grass with his tusks and then, seeming to give
up all idea of escape, wheeled sharply around and with his back bristles standing
erect and his mouth open, charged directly on to the fifth, who was in the act of
throwing the cartridge into the barrel. Taken completely by surprise, the officer
gave one lusty yell and started to run in line with the gun on his right. The boar
was gaining on him at every step when he tripped and fell. The report of No. 6’s
Winchester Express rang out almost simultaneously. For an instant we held our
breaths, wondering whether the man or boar had been hit. It was a splendid shot
and took a steady hand. The boar’s shoulder was shattered and his heart reached.
Two or three angry grunts and he lay quiet. He weighed close to three hundred
pounds. The bristles on his back were white with age. All in all, he was not nice
to look at.
As half of our beaters were Mohammedans and so forbidden to touch pork, the
burden of carrying our pigs the six miles through lallang grass, jungle and
swamp land, came hard on our Brahmists. We knew that the only way to make
them work was to call them “Sons of dogs” and walk off and leave them with a
parting injunction to “get in by the time we did if they wanted their wages.”
This we did without deigning to notice their pathetic gestures, heart-rending
appeals and protestations to the “Sons of the Heaven-Born” that they could not
lift one hundredth part of such burdens.