A GREAT BATTUE 135 



The whole thing was admirably timed. We had 

 just finished luncheon when Clutterbuck wheeled 

 us into line. I think the elephants numbered 

 between sixty and seventy. They were ranged 

 in crescent formation close beside each other, their 

 flanks actually touching. The elephants bearing 

 the " guns " were placed at intervals in the line, 

 and slowly and silently we closed in on the centre 

 of the grass patch. It contained no less than 

 four tigers, all of which were eventually killed. 



The space between the points of the two horns 

 of the crescent of elephants opened on to a stretch 

 of bare ground left purposely at the disposal of 

 the tigers. But the tigers knew well enough that 

 to cross that bare ground spelt certain death, 

 and for quite a quarter of an hour they treated 

 us to a sight never to be forgotten. 



Repeatedly they charged the line of elephants 

 only to fall back before a chevaux defrise of tusks. 

 Roaring and beside themselves with fear and fury, 

 they repeatedly sprang, goat-like, straight into the 

 air. Each time they did so they presented a fair 

 target and were freely shot at. 



So far as I was able to judge, Lady Hewett 

 accounted for one " on her own," and later on one 

 fell to my shot. 



I had been placed at the point of one of the 

 crescent horns, and quite at the last one tiger, 

 the largest, broke out just in front of me and 

 bounded up a bank which flanked my side of the 

 grass patch. I fired, and the tiger came slipping 

 down the bank and lay dead at the foot of it. 

 Atkinson, who was not far from me, also fired, 

 but he insisted that it was I who had killed the 



