Beasts in My Belfry

  ‘Mind, John dear, don’t get in the keeper’s way . . . John, do you hear?’

  And so on, until we reached the tiger cage, where Jum and Maurena would be slithering up and down the bars in frantic eagerness.

  Feeding these two tigers was always more interesting, from my point of view, than feeding Paul and his mother, for in the pit the meat was simply flung over the side to them, but with the bottom tigers the proceedings were more intimate. We would stab a joint of meat on the fork, and the thin end, usually the knuckle bone, would be inserted through the bars. Jum, with a perfect display of gentlemanly instincts, would snarl and cuff at his mate should she try and bite on this. Grasping the end of the joint in his mouth he would brace his feet against the stonework, and with arched back and swelling muscles he would start to pull. It was incredible and rather frightening, this display of strength, for the joint was dragged through the bars inch by inch, the bars bending to allow it entrance. It would come free suddenly, throwing him back on his haunches and then with the joint in his mouth and his head held high, he would swagger off through the bushes to eat it down by the pond.

  Jum and Maurena fed, we would retrace our steps to the pit in order to replenish our buckets. Again we would be followed by a knot of onlookers and have to face the barrage of silly questions that tiger feeding always seemed to bring on.

  ‘Why is the meat raw?’

  ‘Would they eat it if you cooked it?’

  ‘Why has a tiger got stripes?’

  ‘Would they bite you if you went in with them?’

  This sort of question was generally asked by adults; the children asked much more sensible questions as a rule.

  Although Paul was my favourite among the tigers, Jum and Maurena were, I had to admit, the best show. Moving against a green background of bushes and trees, their colour seemed more vivid than ever. They were a bad-tempered pair, however, and I never ceased to marvel at the speed of mind and body that could change them from indolent, swaying animals to hissing, snarling personifications of anger.

  Another thing that endeared Jum and his mate to me was the curious little chats they would have with each other, employing a most unusual method of conversation. This was so far removed from the range of sounds they produced when growling or snarling that it could be classified as a separate language. It consisted entirely of sniffs, and prodigious, bubbling, nose-quivering sniffs they were, too. It was quite incredible the variation they could achieve and the different meanings they could impart (or that I imagined they could impart) by means of this simple noise. The only time they conversed in this way was when we were trapping them up or when they had just been released from the traps.

  They had two distinct ways of producing this sniffing, and each was capable of variation according to circumstances. With the first method, the noise was prolonged and sonorous, like a quietly muttered conversation; with the second, the sniffs were startlingly loud and interrogative. Both the tigers took part in these chats, and when one delivered itself of a questioning sniff the other would always give some sort of an answer. At first I could only distinguish the two main themes, as it were: the mutter and the question. By listening carefully, however, I could hear that each of these themes seemed to vary slightly as it was delivered, so that each sniff seemed to have its own meaning and each seemed different from the other. At first, when I heard one of these conversations, I merely thought that the tigers were sniffing, then it seemed to me that they were really talking to each other in a very primitive form of language. I was so intrigued by this idea that I spent a lot of time mastering a few of the more simple sniff sounds, and then went back to the pit and practised on Paul. When he came to his door to talk to me I filled my lungs with air and gave forth a rich, prolonged questioning sniff that I was sure could not have been done better by Jum himself. I was hoping that Paul would answer me. He stopped, obviously startled, and retreated a few steps. I gave another sniff, almost as good as the first, and with less waste of spittle; I felt I was getting into my stride. I looked at Paul hopefully. He directed on me a look so full of scorn that I almost blushed; then turned his back on me and slouched off back to his bed. I felt that I should have practised a bit more before trying it on him.

  It was during the time that I was trying to master this tiger language that I first met Billy. I had been down to look at the lions and on the way back I was practising my tiger sniffs. I rounded a corner, giving vent to a really full-blooded sniff and almost ran into a tall, lanky youth with a mop of red hair, circular blue eyes, a snub nose, his upper lip and chin covered with a fine egg-yolk-yellow down.

  ‘Hallo,’ he said, grinning at me ingratiatingly, ‘you’re the new bloke.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Who are you?’

  He waved his arms about like windmills and giggled.

  ‘I’m Billy,’ he said; ‘just call me Billy. Everybody calls me Billy.’

  ‘What section do you work on?’ I inquired, as I had not seen him before.

  ‘Oh, all over,’ said Billy, glancing at me sideways, slyly, ‘all over.’

  We stood in silence for a moment while Billy stared at me with the avid interest of a naturalist who has come across a new species. ‘That’s a very bad cold you’ve got,’ he said suddenly.

  ‘I haven’t got a cold,’ I said, surprised.

  ‘You have,’ said Billy accusingly. ‘I could hear you sneezing all down the path.’

  ‘I wasn’t sneezing. I was sniffing.’

  ‘Well, it sounded like sneezing,’ said Billy aggrievedly.

  ‘Well, it wasn’t. It was sniffing. I was practising my tiger sniffs.’

  Billy stared at me, round-eyed.

  ‘Practising your what?’

  ‘Tiger sniffs. The tigers talk to each other in sniffs and I’m trying to learn how to do it.’

  ‘You must be balmy,’ said Billy with conviction. ‘How can you talk in sniffs?’

  ‘Well, the tigers do. You should listen to them sometime.’

  Billy giggled. ‘Do you like working here?’ he inquired.

  ‘Yes, very much. Don’t you?’

  He glanced at me slyly again.

  ‘Yes, but it’s different for me; I have to be here,’ he said.

  I decided at this point that as every village was reputed to have an idiot, I had stumbled across the one belonging to Whipsnade.

  ‘Well, I must be getting along.’

  ‘I’ll see you later,’ said Billy.

  ‘Yes, I expect so.’

  As he loped off through the elder bushes he suddenly burst into song in a shrill, ear-splitting voice.

  ‘A wandering minstrel I

  A thing of shreds and patches . . .’

  I made my way back to ‘The Haven’, where I found Joe manufacturing a trout fly for himself.

  ‘I’ve just met the village idiot,’ I said.

  ‘Village idiot? Who’s that, then?’

  ‘I don’t know. A tall, red-headed boy called Billy.’

  ‘Idiot?’ said Joe. ‘He’s no idiot. Don’t you know who he is?’

  ‘No,’ I said curiously, ‘who is he?’

  ‘He’s Captain Beale’s son,’ said Joe.

  ‘Good lord! I wish you’d warned me.’

  I hastily ran over in my mind my conversation with Billy, trying to remember whether I had said anything particularly insulting. ‘Well, where does he work?’ I asked. ‘Which section?’

  ‘He doesn’t,’ said Joe; ‘he just drifts around . . . gives a hand here and there. More trouble than he’s worth sometimes but he’s a nice boy.’

  My meeting with Billy soon faded from my mind, for I had other, more important things to occupy me. Maurena, the tigress, had come into season and now I had the pleasure of watching the tigers’ courtship. Luckily, it happened on my official day off so I spent the whole day down at the bottom tigers concealed in a strategic spot, making copious notes.

  From early morning Jum had been following his mate around like
a tawny shadow, belly-crawling, abject, heavy with passion. From where I stood among the trees I could see them in the chequered shadows of the bushes, the sun glinting on their flanks as they moved. Jum walked behind and a little to one side of his mate. He kept his distance, for early in the day he had approached too close and she had resented it. His muzzle bore three deep red grooves as proof of her reticence. She seemed to have changed overnight from the timid, servile creature she was normally, to a slinking, dangerous animal that dealt with his premature advances speedily and ferociously. Jum seemed to be puzzled by this metamorphosis; to have their positions reversed so suddenly and completely must have been a considerable surprise to him.

  They paced up and down among the elder trunks, and presently Jum’s love overwhelmed him again and he moved closer to Maurena, giving a purring moan in his throat, his eyes frosty with desire. Maurena did not cease her leisured pacing at his approach but merely lifted her lip over pink gums and chalk-white teeth. The moan died quickly in Jum’s throat and he returned to his former position. They continued to pace back and forth, their tawny coats glowing in the shadowy twilight of the bushes. It seemed to me, waiting uncomfortably among the nettles, that she would never yield, and I marvelled at Jum’s patience. Maurena seemed to relish this mastery over her mate, for another half-hour’s pacing was indulged in and Jum’s movements were getting more and more jerkily impatient with every minute.

  Then, as I watched, Maurena’s walk became slower and more flaccid, her back curved until her pale honey-coloured belly almost brushed the ground. She swayed from side to side, and the expression in her eyes changed from one of weary preoccupation to the dreamy, mysterious expression that tigers assume when they drowse and muse after their food. Languidly, seeming more to drift, she came down from the tangle of trees, down to where the grass was long and thick by the pond. Here she paused and pondered with drooping head. Jum watched her eagerly from the edge of the trees, his eyes like frozen green leaves in the fierceness of his face. Maurena started to purr gently, the tip of her tail twitching among the grasses like a great black bumblebee. She yawned delicately, showing the pink inside of her mouth and the scalloped black edge to her lips. Slowly her body relaxed, and she toppled over and lay on her side in the grass. Jum moved swiftly towards her, rumbling interrogatively, and she answered with a blurred vibration in her throat. Quickly he was astride her, back arched, paws paddling along her ribs; as she raised her head, he bit with savage tenderness along the line of her arched neck. She seemed to melt under him, to become softer, until she was almost hidden in the grass. Presently they lay close together, asleep in the sun.

  A thing that Jum used to do which I never saw the other tigers imitate, was to lick his meat. The rasp-like qualities of a tiger’s tongue have to be seen to be believed. Once we fed Jum when he was confined in the trap, and so I could watch him eating within a foot or so of me. First, he nibbled off all the tatters and shreds on the joint. Then he held it between his paws and started to lick the smooth red surface of the meat. As his long tongue curved over the flesh it made a sound like sandpaper drawn slowly over wood. The meat was literally shredded off by the abrasive qualities of his tongue, and where the flesh had been smooth it became rough and stood up in little points and tufts, like the pile on a carpet. He continued this for about ten minutes, and at the end of this time he had licked off about half an inch of meat. With such a formidable tongue, tigers need hardly use their teeth when feeding.

  The only drawback to trying to observe the actions and habits of Jum and Maurena was that they had a large and thickly overgrown area in which to live, and this made any consistent watching difficult. However, they were perhaps the best of tigers to watch for they lived a very natural life. With Paul and Ranee you could never be sure if some habit was natural or something that they had invented because it fitted in with their unnatural life in the great concrete pit. Bathing was one of these things. I never saw Jum or Maurena enter their pool, nor, for that matter, did Paul ever do so. But Ranee, during the spells of hot weather, would take herself down to the pool and submerge her striped body in the cool water, leaving only her head and the tip of her tail out. She would sprawl there sometimes for half an hour, looking very coy and daring and occasionally twitching the tip of her tail to send the water splashing over her head. This most un-tiger-like action would provoke much comment and speculation, among the members of the public who observed it.

  ‘Agnes, come and look at this tiger in the water.’

  ‘Oh! Isn’t it sweet?’

  ‘Wonder why she does it.’

  ‘Dunno. Maybe she’s thirsty.’

  ‘Well, what she want to lie in it for?’

  ‘Dunno. Maybe she’s ill.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Bert.’

  ‘Maybe she’s a water tiger. Kind of special type, ay?’

  ‘Yes I suppose that’s it. Isn’t she sweet?’

  ‘Throw her a bit of bread, Bert.’

  A large crust of bread would hit Ranee on the head and she would look up with a growl.

  ‘No, she won’t eat it’

  ‘Try a peanut.’

  Now, it may be difficult to believe, but the above conversation is not a figment of my imagination. I wrote it down as it was spoken and I have someone who was witness to it. The sight of Ranee lolling in the water produced the weirdest theories on the part of the great British public. They would cluster round the rail and stare down at her with intense concentration. They could not have displayed more interest if it had been a street accident.

  Before going to work at Whipsnade I never realised how ignorant people are about even the commonest facts of animal life. The keepers, however, were supposed to know the answers to everything. Were tigers born with stripes? Would the lions bite you if you went in with them? Why had a tiger stripes and a lion none? Why had a lion a mane and a tiger none? Would the tigers bite you if you went in with them? Why were polar bears white? Where did they come from? Would they bite if you went in with them? These questions, and hundreds of others, were asked every day of the week, sometimes twenty or thirty times a day. On a crowded day the wear and tear on one’s temper was quite considerable.

  Many visitors I chatted to were surprised and rather disappointed to find that we did not spend our days cheating death by inches at the claws of a lion or a bear. I had no livid scars to show for my work and this seemed to make me, in their eyes, something of a charlatan. You got the impression that it was an insult to ask them to believe that life among such animals was, on the whole, a very peaceful affair. According to them, my clothes should have been in tatters, my head bloody but unbowed, and my day one long series of hair-raising experiences. On looking back, it seems to me that I lost an excellent opportunity of making money. If I had slashed my coat to ribbons, rubbed myself all over with a few gory joints, and then staggered out of the pit every half-hour or so remarking nonchalantly, ‘That tiger’s the devil to groom!’ I might have been rich by now.

  Visitors, on the whole, caused us a lot of trouble and, sometimes, a lot of amusement. Two things I shall always remember. The first was a small boy who, after watching me feeding the tigers, approached me, wide-eyed, and asked in a hushed voice, ‘Mister ’ave you ever been ate by one of them buggers?’ The other incident was when a small boy, his face red with excitement, came dashing down the path towards the pit. He looked over the side hastily, saw Paul pacing up and down, and turned to shout to his family. ‘Mum!’ he yelled. ‘Mum, come here quick and look at this zebra.’

  It was some days after I had met Billy for the first time that I saw him again. He came down the path that led to the lions, bouncing and clanking his way on an ancient and rusty bicycle. I had just finished cutting a thick bed of nettles that were overgrowing the path and was pausing for a much-needed cigarette.

  ‘Hallo,’ said Billy shrilly, clamping the brakes on his bicycle so hard that he almost shot over the handlebars. He straddled the bicycle with his long, gangly legs and gri
nned at me inanely.

  ‘Hallo,’ I said cautiously.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Cutting nettles.’

  ‘I hate that job,’ said Billy. ‘I always get stung, sometimes in the most peculiar places.’

  ‘So do I,’ I said with feeling.

  Billy glanced about him nervously.

  ‘I say,’ he said in a conspiratorial whisper, ‘you haven’t got a cigarette on you, have you?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, and gave him one.

  He lit it inexpertly and puffed at it vigorously.

  ‘You won’t tell anybody, will you? I’m not supposed to smoke.’

  ‘Where are you off to?’ I inquired.

  Billy swallowed some smoke the wrong way and coughed violently for some time, his eyes streaming.

  ‘Nothing like a good smoke,’ he said hoarsely.

  ‘It doesn’t seem to be doing you much good.’

  ‘Oh, but I enjoy it very much.’

  ‘Well, where are you off to?’ I asked again.

  ‘I’ve come to see you,’ he said, waving his cigarette at me, the end of which was now dangling, limp with spittle.

  ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘what do you want to see me about?’

  ‘Daddy wants you to come to drinks this evening.’

  I stared at him with astonishment.

  ‘Your father wants me to come to drinks?’ I said in amazement. ‘Are you serious?’

  Billy, having imbibed another lungful of smoke, was seized with another paroxysm of coughing and could only nod his head wildly, his red hair flapping up and down.

  ‘Well, what does he want me to come to drinks for?’ I asked, greatly puzzled.

  ‘Thinks . . . gasped Billy, ‘thinks you might be a good influence on me.’

  ‘Dear God,’ I said. ‘I’ve no intention of being a good influence on anybody and, anyway, I could hardly be called a good influence when I’ve just given you a cigarette and you’re not supposed to smoke.’

  ‘Don’t tell anybody . . .’ croaked Billy. ‘Secret. See you at six-thirty.’ Still gasping and choking, he clanked off into the undergrowth on his bicycle.