Caesar: The Life Story of a Panda-Leopard Read online

  CAESAR

  The Life Story of

  a Panda Leopard

  PATRICK O’BRIAN

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Foreword

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  About the Author

  The Works of Patrick O’Brian

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Foreword

  It is a curious experience looking back from a distance of more than seventy years at the little creature who shared one’s name, bones, and indeed a good deal of one’s essential being, as far as it can be made out at all objectively. Curious and by no means entirely agreeable: I doubt if my present self would have liked the twelve-year-old boy who wrote this tale — he was certainly not very popular among his brothers and sisters. Nevertheless, that remote being and myself, his aged descendant, are linked by a common delight in reading: the boy read voraciously, often in bed, by the light of an electric torch. And when he was very young his stepmother, the kindest of women, took him to see her sister, who gave him the Reverend Mr Wood’s Natural History, a mid-nineteenth-century edition illustrated with a fair number of engravings. Since he was already something of a naturalist (an admired, much older brother had practically invented birds), the boy devoured the book, which was written by a sensible, well-informed, scholarly man. The boy was also something of an invalid, which interfered with his education and worried his father, a bacteriologist in the early days of vaccines and electrical treatment: the young fellow (pre-adolescent: a sort of elderly child) therefore spent long sessions in the incubator room, sitting at a glass-topped metal table and doing the simple tasks set by his tutor. But the tasks left a good deal of time unoccupied, and since it was obviously unthinkable to bring a book to read, the boy, by some mental process that I can no longer recall, decided to write one for himself, thus discovering an extraordinary joy which has never left him — that of both reading and writing at the same time.

  It may seem absurd and pretentious, above all apropos of this piece of juvenilia, to say that writers, once they have experienced this intense delight, live fully only when they are writing fast, at the top of their being: the rest of the time only the lacklustre shell of the man is present, often ill-tempered (deprived of his drug), rarely good company.

  PATRICK O’BRIAN

  Trinity College, Dublin 1999

  One

  First you must understand that I am a panda-leopard. My father was a giant panda and my mother a snow-leopard.

  I will begin my story at the first things that I can remember.

  My early days were spent with two brothers and a sister in a large cave, high up in the side of a mountain.

  Of my father I remember little, except a hazy recollection of a very large shape which brought food to my mother in the first few days of the opening of my eyes.

  The first thing to make any great impression on my mind was the killing of my sister.

  It happened like this — the day was very cold, we were huddled together for warmth, and mother had gone for food, when I heard a scratching noise outside, and somehow it frightened us, for the others had heard it too.

  Then a head appeared in the mouth of the cave. It was that of a large black bear.

  The face seemed to split almost in half as the bear roared, and this sent us into the back of the cave, all except my sister, who sat petrified with fear in the middle of the floor.

  The bear came right into the cave, and then shot out one of his great paws, and struck her a blow which laid her dead at our feet.

  Then he picked her up and went out growling terribly.

  Scarcely had the bear gone, when mother returned carrying a tough old pig.

  She smelt around for a little, and seemed worried. Then she noticed my sister’s absence, and with a low growl she went straight out of the cave, following the tracks of the bear.

  She came back late in the evening with her white fur splashed with blood, both her own and the bear’s, and in her mouth she carried two bear cubs, both quite dead. She was very tired as she had kept up a running fight for miles before they had reached the bear’s lair, where mother had killed him.

  We ate the bear cubs.

  Next day passed uneventfully, but I missed my sister in a dim sort of way. We played as usual, but I noticed that one of my brothers stayed out of our games and seemed unhappy.

  As the night approached he was more uneasy, and mother licked him to soothe his whimpering, and this calmed him; but by nightfall he was howling and crying, as if in pain, and mother looked anxious.

  We tried to make him play, but he just sat still, not even retaliating when I bit his tail.

  Soon after this I went to sleep, as there was no fun to be got out of him.

  Next morning we found that he was gone, and we saw by his tracks that he had gone straight out of the cave, down the mountain-side and over the frozen stream at its foot. Here we saw the signs of a struggle. A hyena had got him.

  Two or three weeks passed quite happily, but the snow did not melt, and food was getting rather scarce, and then one day mother took us out to hunt.

  We went down the mountain-side and on to the stream which was still frozen stiff, and here my brother and I slipped and fell many times before mother showed us how to walk on ice.

  On the other side we rested, for our little legs soon got tired, and then we went on again.

  A snow-hare jumped up about ten yards away, and I, wildly excited, set off after it, but the next moment I received a cuff on the side of the head that sent me sprawling as mother shot by me after the hare. She secured it in a few seconds, and we ate it where we were, as it was only a small one.

  As we were eating it I took my little piece behind a fallen bough, and after I had finished it I looked at the branch more closely.

  I poked it and rolled it over, and then all at once a lot of bees came buzzing out. One stung me on the nose, and I fled howling dolefully to mother.

  She licked the place, but she did not seem to think, as I did, that I was in any immediate danger of death.

  Soon after this incident we went home, as my brother and I were quite tired out by our exertions, which chiefly consisted of getting in the way and eating the food which mother had killed.

  About a month passed before anything happened. We were quite well and growing very fast, when my brother began to behave rather strangely, and his moping put me in mind of my other brother, who had run away a long time before.

  One afternoon when I was teasing him to make him play, I received a blow from mother that sent me sulking into a corner for the rest of the day.

  This seemed to cheer my brother somewhat, and he ate a little piece of the goat which mother brought in that night. After this he made one attempt to run away, but mother brought him back before he had got beyond the stream, which had thawed.

  Next day mother brought in two little grey apes which we ate, but they did not agree with me, however, as I had horrible dreams all through the night. I have never eaten apes since.

  On the following morning my brother was sick, and after this he got rapidly well again, being a strongly constituted young animal.

  I awoke rather late in the day and found that mother had gone out,
my brother killed a mouse and was immensely proud of it. I thought that it must have been both blind and paralysed, but it made no difference to his pride.

  Mother soon returned, carrying with her a sambhur faun, and we ate some of it. Then mother took us out for exercise. We took the same path as before, but almost immediately after stepping out of the cave I missed my footing and started to roll down the slope, gathering speed as I went, but mother caught me before I had rolled any distance, and set me on my feet. I was quite giddy and sorry for myself, so when my brother suddenly pushed me from behind, I tripped and started rolling off towards the stream, into which I fell with a loud splash. As all the ice had melted I found nothing to hold on to, but instinct made me strike out — but not, however, before I had consumed what seemed half the water in the stream.

  I swam towards the opposite bank, but the current washed me out into mid-stream and I went under again. Then I heard a splash behind me, as mother jumped in.

  She soon had me by the scruff of the neck and swam ashore with a few powerful strokes. Once on dry land she shook all the water out of her fur, and I copied her. Then we trotted down the stream, and as we went I wondered why water was so wet, and why one could not breathe in it. Also why it was cold and unpleasant. I was very puzzled by the time we reached the ford, where mother stopped and walked in. It only reached to the top of her legs in the middle, so I plucked up my courage and followed her. Looking round I saw that my brother would not come in, so when mother and I had got to the other side and walked up the bank, she went back through the water, and taking him by the loose skin on the back of his neck, she carried him in; but when she had got to mid-stream, she lowered him in and he gave a dismal howl, which, however, was choked by water.

  After this, he kept his head above the water and walked with her. As he scrambled up the bank, I remembered how he had pushed me down the slope, and I knocked him back again. He soon scrambled out, and after mother had licked us we set off again into the forest, mother leading the way.

  We went in single file, mother leading; and my brother kept nipping my tail until we came to an opening in the trees, where I fell upon him and mother separated us.

  She showed us a lot of short, cropped grass in the clearing, and taught us that it had been eaten by deer. Then she showed us a little piece of fur on a thorn, which she made us smell and taught us that this was the smell of sambhur. We found the trail, and here and there a little fresh-cropped grass. After we had followed this trail for about a quarter of a mile into the forest we saw a cross track, a lot of little double-pointed footprints, which smelt different from deer. Very silently we followed the trail, which was quite fresh. The trails crossed and intercrossed it, but the peculiar scent always distinguished it.

  At last we came to a big, muddy clearing where a sounder of wild pigs — as a large family is called — was feeding. The sentinel pig saw us, and gave the alarm. The sounder fled at once, but with one bound mother caught up a little sucking-pig, and tossing it into the air she broke its neck. She picked it up in her mouth and began to go home. I very much wanted to chase the pigs, but it was not to be: I got a few steps after them, when mother picked me up and drove me in front of her. When we reached the ford, mother carried us over, as we were very small and tired.

  When we got home we just had the energy to consume the pig, and then my brother and I went fast asleep.

  Two

  About one month later I saw my first human being. Mother had taken us out as usual, but we returned rather late. Imagine our surprise when we saw five things that looked like big apes in our cave, all gathered round something that was smoking and smelling under a lot of sticks. I did not understand it, but I feared the smoky thing, instinctively. The effect it had on my mother was extraordinary. She crouched on the ground with her ears flattened back and her tail twitching. She was growling terribly.

  Then instead of charging the apes (humans) as I fully expected, she turned round and went down towards the stream. We followed her, and together we went upstream away from the ford; and soon we found ourselves at the mouth of another cave in the side of the bank of the stream, which had cut itself very deep.

  Here we halted and mother went into the cave. I heard a roar, followed by the sound as of a scuffle, and two jackals shot out howling. Then we went in, and after snuggling down in the dried fern in the back of the cave we went to sleep.

  At about midnight I awoke shivering. I heard mother growl uneasily, then the wind blew into the cave and I knew why I had awakened. It was the smell of fire. My brother soon awoke, and together we left the cave. All the forest on our left was blazing, and behind us and on our right the shrubs and long grass were burning furiously. The fire which the humans had made had spread and caught was to run south. So we ran.

  After about five minutes we had caught up and passed many animals. There was a family of wild pigs led by a splendid old boar, and many goats who had come down in the evening to drink at the stream, and who had been caught by a wing of the fire.

  We also passed two leopards, innumerable rats and mice and one old bear. How many animals there were to the left and right of us and in front I would not care to say, but there must have been thousands.

  At last we found ourselves well in the van, the only beasts in front were the deer. Then my brother stepped on a porcupine, and filled his paws with quills. The startled beast lashed out with its long tail, filling my flank with the sharp points. We waited while we got most of them out.

  But meanwhile the fire was fast overtaking us. About half a mile in front of us could be seen the waters of a lake shimmering in the moonlight. Not a large lake, but big enough to stop the fire. If only we could get there we would be safe.

  Many animals were in the water already, but there was room for hundreds more. We put on an extra spurt, but we cubs were very tired and were getting rather too large for mother to carry. Soon the sparks were falling on us, and I felt almost suffocated by the smoke. My brother stumbled and fell, I ran on but mother stayed and lifted him, then I turned and between us we got him nearly to the lake.

  By now the trees were burning all around us, and with a crash a burning pine-tree came down. I had barely time to leap for my life when another fell across my mother’s back, pinning her down. Then the fire swept over them, and I was forced into the lake.

  Three

  After the death of my mother I naturally had to fend for myself. Of course, mother had shown me how to kill and how to hunt properly, so I managed fairly well for some time.

  At first I only got rats and small deer. I also put up with lizards, but soon all food became very scarce as all the grass for the game had been burnt by the fire.

  At first the larger animals moved south, and after them all the smaller ones, the process being gradual; but in about three weeks I decided to change my quarters, so early one morning I set off up the stream. After following it for five miles I found myself going up a considerable hill. At last I got to the top, and there I saw a large plateau stretching in a grassy plain in a circle of about three miles in diameter. Here I saw no traces of the fire whatever. But in about the centre of the plain I saw a number of things that resembled very large boulders, and there were creatures moving around them. Then the wind veered in my direction and blew their scent towards me, and I knew that they were men. I also caught the scent of goats and pigs, and I saw that there was a large herd of them in a small copse of trees about a quarter of a mile away.

  As the wind was favourable I approached them, taking advantage of all the cover there was. I had very little difficulty in getting quite close. Then to my dismay I saw that there was a man with them.

  Being very hungry I decided to take a risk, and as a small pig came unsuspectingly almost to my nose, I sprang on to his back, breaking his neck. Unluckily, the pig had time to squeal, and this attracted the man who, with a cry, picked up a stone. His arm went back and the stone flew towards me like a bird. It hit me on the nose and hurt me more than the bee
-sting which I had had when a cub. It hit me on the same tender place which had never quite got better, and it angered me beyond words, and dropping the pig I charged, running low along the ground. Then I sprang straight at him.

  With a shriek of fear he struck at me with a stick, and missed. We fell together, but his skull was cracked like an egg-shell. It was ridiculously easy to kill him.

  Then something inside me made me want to roar, and tell the world that I had killed a man. So I roared for the first time. I was almost frightened at the sound I made, and the effect I made on the pigs and goats who had not already disappeared was magical. They ran for the boulders like the wind, and I never thought there was such speed in a pig until I saw them run that day. It was wonderful.

  Then I looked down at the man. He had the strangest skin I had ever seen. It was loose and of all colours. Later I got to know that they were clothes, but at the time I was puzzled. He also smelt very strongly, so I left him and went to seek the pig which also smelt of men, but not so badly.

  But I was hungry and made no bones about it. I dragged it under a bush and made a good meal, but before I had got half-way through the pig I observed a number of men coming out of the huts — for such were the boulders. It was evident that they were coming to investigate the cause of the sudden return of the flocks.

  I saw that they were too many for me to deal with, so dragging the pig into some bushes, I made for a cluster of rocks which would hide me and yet allow me to see what was going on. Once among the rocks I was quite safe, for my coat matched the dull grey perfectly, so I lay in a sort of natural tunnel in which I was invisible. But through a small hole in the farther end I could see what was happening.

  The men approached the body of the herdsman, which I had forgotten to hide. This seemed to anger them, and then they examined my tracks, and one old man, a hunter I believe, followed them as far as the place where I had left the pig. It was plain that these men were very foolish, for the wind was blowing from me to them. And if they had had any sense at all they would have smelt me at once.