The Lion with a Bandaged Paw
Sta,—I have just seen a copy of the Spectator for March 23rd, and was extraordinarily interested to read Mr. Usborne's explanation of why
he had chosen the littewith was bandaged paw as this subject for the previous competition. I was interested because I think I must have been the "type" he heard speaking in the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. I was on leave from North Africa at the time (May, 1941) and certainly in the King David for some of my leave. The story which I was telling was perfectly true and did concern a lion with a bandaged paw, though the explanation of the one intriguing sentence Mr. Usborne overheard is less exciting than most of the entries he quoted.
1 shot the lion in Kenya (which, by the way, is not usually thought of as jungle) a few months earlier. I was stationed near Nairobi at the time, and in my camp several of the meti:itad caught and partly tamed some young lion cubs. They had, as far as 1 remember, some optimistic idea of selling the trained lions to circus and zoo scouts. These cubs became a positive menace in time as they grew older, and, since they were tied to the poles supporting the camp huts, which were raised several feet from the ground, they might easily have proved to be as great a danger as they were excellent watch-doss. One of the brutes cut his paw on a piece of rusty metal and was rather badly hurt. This did not, naturally, improve his temper, and he nearly mauled the camp chaplain on his round of visits that night. After that he had (the lion, not the chaplain) to be destroyed, and it fell to my lot to shoot him. His paw was still sore and still wrapped in bandages, provided by his erst- while master, when I killed him. I might say that the story'was probably told, on the occasion referred to, as one of those jokes whose point is an anti-climax, which were so much' in vogue at the time.—I am, Sir,
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