Garratt didn’t speak on the ride out. He didn’t know Askew from Adam, and the man was, after all, under sentence for striking an officer. Had he been longer with the regiment he might have probed him a little, but he was still strange to many of its ways.

When they reached the village the syce found the headman and told him they’d come to kill the tiger that would surely return to feast off their fold – again and again – and they wished to slaughter a goat as bait. This he was able to explain easily enough, but the headman said they were poor people and could not give up one of the fold without silver.

‘If the sahib here does not kill the tiger, you will lose many goats rather than just the one,’ argued the syce.

‘Accha,’ said the headman, ‘but that would be by the will of Shiva, whereas I am lord of the single goat’s fate.’

The syce told the major of the headman’s hesitation.

Garratt studied him for a moment or two, brow furrowed, eyes narrowed. He was more than used to sharpers, malingerers and chancers, but here was either folly of a high order or else equal cunning; or yet, perhaps, a wholly genuine display of religious scruple. How was he to know?

Whichever way, he wasn’t inclined to spend time investigating. ‘How much does he want?’

‘Sahib, I say you offer one rupee.’

‘Very well.’ He sighed; he’d probably end up paying double – two Arcot rupees for a goat with no more meat on it than …

Two minutes’ bargaining followed – in truth a minute doubled by the need for translation.

Eventually honour was satisfied. ‘He say “thank you”, sahib.’

Garratt shook his head. He was better off than he’d expected to be, and yet he still wasn’t sure of the bargain. He supposed he’d never understand the ways of this country. He gave the man a silver rupee, nodding sternly.

‘But as we are here in the service of his village, we shall choose the goat.’ (He had every intention of making a meal of mutton when it was all done.)

The syce told the headman, who protested loudly; but he’d taken the silver, so there was little he could do. Garratt felt that honour was now even, and chose a yearling.

They then retraced the steps of the evening before – doubling back eastwards to begin with so as not to lay any trail between the village and the likely line of approach – until coming on the place of the previous night’s execution, of which there was now neither sight nor scent. Standing in the saddle atop the little mound, Garratt searched the country first with the naked eye – by which any movement was best detected – and then with his telescope to examine shadow and shape in the sea of lemon grass. He could see the further track which the villagers used plainly enough, and the one where he’d gone with Fairbrother – not so much a track as a trail, the lemon grass parted rather than trampled or cleared – and, fifty yards or so beyond and towards the village, a lone tree that he reckoned would serve as the baiting place. Here the grass became low scrub; a tiger wouldn’t be able to crouch unseen before springing. Private Askew would have a fair chance – a closing shot, yes, but more time therefore, and no aiming off.