The Village in the Jungle

by Leonard Woolf

'And you? What will they do to you? Aiyo, aiyo!'

'What does it matter? What have I ever done for you? It was true when they said that I was a useless man in the village. To creep through the leaves like a jackal; yes, I can do that; but what else? Isn't the bad crop in the chena rightly called Silindu's crop. There was never food in my house. The horoscope was true—nothing but trouble and evil and wandering in the jungle. It is a good thing for you that I leave the compound; when I go, good fortune may come.'

'Do not say that, Appochchi; do not say that! To whom did we run in the compound, Hinnihami and I? What father was like you in the village? Must I forget all that now, and sit alone in another's compound begging a little kunji and a handful of kurakkan? No, no! I cannot stay here. Won't they take me away with you to the jail? I cannot live here alone—without you!'

The sergeant looked back and angrily told Punchi Menika to stop making such a noise. They were nearing the village.

'Hush, child,' said Silindu. 'You must stay here. They will not take you, and what could you do in the big town there? You must wait here for Babun.'

The inquiry began as soon as they reached the village. Silindu went with the magistrate, the Ratemahatmaya, the Korala (who had been sent for), and most of the men of the village to the place where the Arachchi had been shot. The body lay where it had fallen; a rough canopy of boughs and leaves had been raised over it to shade it from the sun. A watcher sat near to keep off the pigs and jackals. When the canopy was removed for the magistrate to inspect the body, a swarm of flies rose and hung buzzing in the air above the corpse. The body had not been moved; it lay on its face, the legs half drawn up under the stomach. The blood had dried in great black clots over the wounds on the back. The magistrate looked at it, and then the Korala turned it over. A glaze of grey film was over the eyes. The hot air in the jungle track was heavy with the smell of putrefaction. The crowd of villagers, interested but unmoved, stood watching in the background, while the magistrate, sitting on the stump of a tree, began to write, noting down the position and condition in which he had found the body. Then the doctor arrived and began to cut up the body, where it lay, for post-mortem examination.

The magistrate walked back slowly to the village, followed by Silindu and the headman and such of the spectators as were more interested in the inquiry than in the post-mortem. The same procedure of inspection was gone through with Fernando's body, which lay under another little canopy, where he had died by the stile of the Arachchi's compound. After the inspection came the inquiry: a table and chair had been placed under a large tamarind-tree for the magistrate to write at. The witnesses were brought up, examined, and their statements written down. After each had made his statement, Silindu was told that he could ask them any questions which he wanted them to answer. He had none. The afternoon dragged on; there was no wind, but the heat seemed to come in waves across the village, bringing with it the faint smell of decaying human flesh. The dreary procession of witnesses, listless and perspiring, continued to pass before the tired irritable magistrate. One told how he had seen Silindu and the Arachchi leave the village, Silindu walking behind and carrying a gun; another had heard a shot from the direction of the chena; another had seen Silindu return by himself to the village carrying a gun. The Arachchi's wife told of Silindu's early visit to the hut, of how he left with the Arachchi, of how later, hearing the report of a gun followed by screams, she ran out of the house to see Silindu standing with a smoking gun in his hand and Fernando writhing on the ground near the stile.

Late in the afternoon the inquiry was over. As the Ratemahatmaya had said, it was a simple case. Silindu was remanded, and would certainly be tried for murder before a Supreme Court judge. For the present he was handed over to the police sergeant, with whom he slept that night in a hut in the village. Next day he was taken back to Kamburupitiya, where he again spent the night in the lock-up. Then he was handed over to a fiscal's peon, who put handcuffs on him and started with him along the dusty main road which ran towards the west. They walked slowly along the road for two days. The peon was a talkative man, and he tried to make Silindu talk with him, but he soon gave up the attempt. He had to fall back for conversation on any chance traveller going the same way towards Tangalla where the prison was.

'This fellow,' he would explain to them, pointing to Silindu, 'has killed two men. He will be hanged, certainly he will be hanged. But he's mad. Not a word can you get out of him. He walks along like that mile after mile, looking from side to side—never a word. He thinks there are elephants on the main road I suppose. He comes from up there—in the jungle. They are all cattle like that there of course. I would rather drive a bull along the road than him.'

They passed through several villages, where Silindu was an object of great interest. People came out of the houses and boutiques, and discussed him and his crimes with the peon. The first night they slept in a boutique in one of these villages. The boutique was full of people; they gathered round to watch Silindu eat his curry and rice with his handcuffed hands. They too discussed him in loud tones with the peon. There were two traders on their way to Kamburupitiya; the rest, with the exception of one old man, belonged to the village. This old man was one of those wanderers whom one meets from time to time in villages, upon the roads, or even sometimes in the jungle. Very old, very dirty, with long matted hair and wild eyes, he sat mumbling to himself in a corner. A beggar and mad, he had two claims to the charity of the boutique-keeper, who had taken him in for the night and given him a good meal of curry and rice.