Ladhya
...
I cannot expect you who read this safely at your fireside to appreciate
my feelings at the time. I had been among them, living beneath the clouds
and among the thorns, for ten months. The province, though often beautiful,
was difficult to govern, and I often had recourse to the rifle. The
people, stubborn and dirty, ranged through the hills at will, herding
their stinking oxen, gathering wood and fruit. Whenever I entered Ladhya,
though, I noticed a young woman who though trifling and idle seemed
a little cleaner than the rest. After a few visits, I resolved to speak
to her.
...
It was a decision that would have tragic consequences. I knew nothing
of tigers and succeeded only in getting several of my men mauled. Overrun
and desolate, we retreated to Ladhya on the 16th for rest
and supplies. There wasn't the slightest bit of liquor in any of those
pitiful huts. I began to doubt I would ever shoot a single tiger, much
less the dozens my position required of me. Tired of the endless heat
and dust and boredom, I called for the girl.
...
The village women assembled in the courtyard. I read a short proclamation
regarding the use of the Ladhya commons. The girl arrived on a donkey.
After fishing her little hollows which I found to be full of black stinking
water, I lay down flat in the open, twenty yards from the crowd. She
put her hands together and stooping down, touched my feet, making me
feel a wretched imposter. This was a complication with which I could
not deal, so I left the solution of it to the assembled women.
...
Accompanying me was a tall gaunt fellow with a terribly disfigured
face. Late the evening of the 22nd , after another fruitless
search for a tiger, he returned to the compound with us and lit a small
smoke-dimmed lantern, and as he passed through the gates he horrified
the villagers by telling them, in reply to their questions, that he
was looking for the Ladhya girl. Did they suspect then that he would
return with nothing more than a few bloody rags and splinters of bone?
Whatever compelled him kept him out through the night. But he rejoined
us by morning and took up his load like the rest of my men. Now that
he's gone, all the more do I credit him for his act of heroism, and
for not being at all conscious that he had done anything unusual, or
worthy of notice.
...
After one last meeting with the village headman, we set off on the
25th , pushing on to the east through the Chuka highlands.
I led the way, followed by my remaining three men, the rear being brought
up by two villagers each with a ghooral strapped to his back. Our progress
was slow, for the villagers were carrying heavy loads and the trail
was excessively steep, and the heat terrific. Trotting my pony along
the fire-track, my attention was arrested by a vulture perched on the
dead limb of a sal tree. Nearly violet in the strong light, he seemed
emblazoned, even iridescent, and I toppled him with one shot from the
Mauser as my little horse skittered and pranced in the trail-dust. I
kept three of his feathers for my hat-band and I entwined them with
hair from the Ladhya girl.
by Joe Ahearn