Jim and the Indians

Jim finds himself in the central square of a small South American town. Tied up against the wall are twenty Indians, most terrified, a few defiant, in front of several armed men in uniform. A heavy man in a sweat-stained khaki shirt turns out to be the captain in charge and, after a good deal of questioning of Jim which establishes that he got there by accident while on a botanical expedition, explains that the Indians are a random group of inhabitants who, after recent acts of protest against the government, are just about to be killed to remind other possible protesters of the advantage of not protesting.

However, since Jim is an honoured visitor from another land, the captain is happy to offer him a guest’s privilege of killing one of the prisoners himself. If Jim accepts, then as a special mark of the occasion the other Indians will be let off. Of course, if Jim refuses, there will be no special occasion, and the captain will do what he was about to do when Jim arrived and kill them all.

Jim, with some desperate recollection of schoolboy fiction, wonders whether if he got hold of a gun, he could hold the captain and the rest of the soldiers to threat, but it is quite clear from the set-up that nothing of that kind is going to work; any attempt at that sort of thing will mean that all the Indians will be killed, and himself. The men are against the wall and the other villagers understand the situation and are obviously begging him to accept. What should he do?