A family of wild boar broke cover startled by the noise and began to run towards the opening where our lookout was. The horsemen intercepted them almost midway cleanly sticking a few from the flanks. I saw a horse stumble and the rider take a mighty fall. Just as a huge black boar turned around to attack him, another rider was able to nail the tusker down with his spear and keep him there with a superb display of strength and horsemanship. The rest of the noisy, ugly bunch was now racing towards where the ground ambush was set up. As they came close, men in the foxholes stood up fixing their lance rear ends firmly on the ground, held between their hands pointing directly at the incoming sally of pigs. This was even more dangerous as a miss could cost a life or a grievous injury. Wild boar has a habit of charging directly into the challenger. Taking advantage of their breakneck speed and this aggressive trait these men received them on the points of their lances, stuck them with powerful jerks and lifted them off the ground under their own momentum, throwing them yards behind their foxholes. It was something of a pig pole vault. A few of those in the foxholes did not get a wild visitor. That was a great and a rare show of magnificent gamesmanship in real old style. A wild boar can cut you up deeper and better than a master swordsman if given a chance. The horse that had stumbled was actually gored by the boar and lost a hind leg. The hunting hounds were missing form the fray for a good reason. Wild boars are known to be more than a match for the dogs and cause unacceptable casualties. The rally was followed by a great feast and a lot of talk about the ‘how’ and ‘whys’ of this and that kill and fascinating tales from other such hunts. One of them showed us a deep gash under his shinbone received during one such meet, which had healed. No quarters are sought or given in this sport, and in any case this hunt is not for the feeble-hearted. A different version of a wild boar shoot I came across much later in 1981 at Hyderabad, Sindh. A friend had offered to set up a wild boar shoot for us in the kutcha area of River Indus near Hala. We drove down to a rendezvous off the metal road from where we were led through the dense forest on to the shoot area. Our hosts had cleared about 70 yards long and four yards wide fire lane with a makeshift lookout for every firer. We duly occupied a fire lane each. My gun handler asked me if I would prefer to shoot from the perch, which I declined and opted to shoot from the ground taking cover behind a big bush. Long ago I had disposed off my father’s semi-automatic shotgun on a kind of ‘ideological difference’. I maintain that the hunter and the hunted should get a fair chance. That in my opinion comprises a double-barrel shotgun and the flying bird or a charging wild boar at the business end. Anything other than that is meat collection and not shikar (hunting). In any case, there is a kind of sensuality attached to handling a quality double-barrelled shotgun as its balance, aim and swing are unique. They had sprinkled diesel oil quite lavishly, which strangely enough is the wild boar’s favourite perfume. They wallow madly in it perhaps to relieve their severely itchy bodies. Soon a mad din of beating drums, empty cans and all sorts of noisy gadgets began and we got ready for the shoot. They had used white niwar tape to channel the prey towards our fire lanes. A wild boar does not cross the tape for some unknown reservation of its own and begins to trot along. The shooting had begun. I saw a medium-size greyish boar with dreadful looking tusks enter my lane and burst into a sprint as he spotted me. My buddy was already atop the perch and shouted, “Watch out sahib, he is coming for you.” At 30 yards I fired the first LG shot, which it took upon its chest, slowed down a bit but kept coming shrieking viciously. The second barrel barked at not more than five yards away just as it veered slightly to avoid the bush that I was behind. It got the boar on the side of its neck and the impact of such a close shot toppled it over. That determined beast got up and charged into me again but the bush and the deadly shot laid it flat only a few feet away. Had it succeeded, the beast would have availed its fair chance as I could not have reloaded my gun so quickly. My misplaced valour almost cost me dearly. However, our Japanese friend filled up his freezer van with tender ones and was happy to have bagged so many. He thought those were the best ones found anywhere. I noticed his freezer was half-filled with red wine, which according to him was necessary to treat pork to kill a particularly nasty bacteria. (Concluded) The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistan Army. He can be reached at clay.potter@hotmail.com