03:02 (7 page)

‘Dogwatch squad here as ordered.’

I began to smile but then nodded at Pandey, who stood at ease. I explained what I had in mind to the guys. Back in the day, this was a drill we trained in all the time—managing a constant sentry duty of at least two hours at a stretch through the night so that the camp was guarded at all times. It meant the relief crew had to master the art of short naps, people had to get from groggy to alert instantly, and build up stamina to stay this way for days on end, if needed, in a combat zone. Falling asleep while on dogwatch meant instant punishment.

I was not dealing with cadets or troops, and I had no formal authority over them, but we needed to keep watch, and relying on just Pandey and myself to do it all night meant risking that one or both of us would lose our concentration or fall asleep when we most needed to be on guard. Subin and Prashant seemed pretty excited at the idea. Subin sniggered, ‘Better down here playing soldier than listening to my mother crib about how she’s missing
Big Boss
since the TV is not working.’ Raju seemed far less enthusiastic but I suspected Pandey had left him little choice in the matter.

The plan was for Pandey and me to be on watch for three-hour blocks while the others rotated through two-hour watches. We would get through till daybreak without anyone having to be totally without sleep and with at least two pairs of eyes watching our building at any given time.

‘What about me?’ Nitish asked, after I’d outlined the plan.

‘You play an important role, but your talents are better suited to things other than being just a sentry.’

We chatted briefly about what I had in mind and he got to work. It was fun seeing him tinkering with gadgets and lights. He was really in his element and I got the feeling that his real talents had been wasted in his day job as an IT analyst in some multinational firm. But then, how many of us was that not true for? I had made my choices and been happy with them, but why had I been more buzzed over the last couple of days than I remember being for years? Why was the adrenaline rush I had felt on seeing the men at the police station and in contemplating what was to come at night something a part of me had welcomed?

My uncle had once told me that the Army was in our blood; that a soldier somewhere deep within himself fell in love with war, and that even when there was no war to be fought, it would somehow seek him out. I remember my father arguing with him over the influence he had on me, saying something about my uncle suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

‘We’re done.’

I was snapped back to reality by Nitish and when I saw his handiwork, I had to shake his hand.

‘You, my man, are a genius at this.’

Our building was really exposed only on three sides. The rear of the building was next to a thick concentration of trees, the remnants of the forests that had once thrived here. On the two sides were other buildings separated from us by narrow alleys, but both ended up in dead ends, so that anyone coming towards us would be spotted if we watched the approach roads. It was the front of the building that was most vulnerable, facing the main road and with two smaller approach roads leading into it, one weaving through small shops, where it would be hard to spot movement even in good light.

Nitish had set up two small table lamps—one from my apartment and one from his—with long wires attached to a power point the generator was providing juice to, to cover the two sides. They were small lamps, but with no streetlights and both adjacent buildings without any power, they served their purpose as makeshift searchlights well. It was, however, on the front wall that he had truly displayed a touch of genius. He’d borrowed a tall, heavy floor lamp with a swivelling head from one of the families and—with the gawking kids and parents gathered to watch him at work—Nitish had attached it to the power, placed it close to the wall and then attached to its head a thick piece of rope about six feet long. So, if we wanted a look at who or what was outside our front gate, all we had to do was turn on the lamp and then use the rope to swivel it around without getting too close to the boundary wall. For all intents and purposes, we now had a remotely-controlled roving searchlight with which we could have a look outside without getting close to the wall.

Pandey and I did have torches, but holding those in our hands while looking out for potentially hostile intruders was an idea that Pandey had dismissed. ‘If anyone has a gun, they’ll aim at the light and you don’t want to be holding it when the bullet comes at it.’

We had taken his advice to heart and were happy that Nitish had managed to rig up something that gave us a light source that could cover a pretty wide area without exposing us to risk. Nitish was justifiably proud of his handiwork and I asked him to reward himself with a good night’s sleep. He went back to his apartment, but I wasn’t sure just how much rest he would actually get.

It was now close to midnight and our second night in the darkness had begun.

I had been dozing in the guard cabin when Raju woke me up.

‘Pandeyji asked me to call you.’

I walked over to where Pandey and Subin were crouched near the front wall.

‘What’s up, Pandeyji?’

He looked at me and motioned for me to get down.

‘There is some movement in the road up ahead. We heard it once a few minutes ago and then again just now. I’ve woken up the others as well.’

I walked up to the wall and turned on the lamp and the road ahead was suddenly bathed with a beam of light. I motioned to Pandey and he walked slowly, sweeping from left to right, gently pulling on the rope. The lamp’s head moved, as did the beam of light, and within twenty seconds we had scanned the area outside our front gate. I had been watching all the time, as had Subin, and neither of us spotted anything, which of course did not mean there was nothing out there. I looked at my watch. It was one in the morning, and after one more sweep of the area, I asked Pandey to stop.

‘Guys, could have been an animal. Nothing more.’

Pandey and Subin were about to walk away from the wall when I thought I heard something and quickly motioned for them to stop and squat down. We waited in silence, and then I heard something again. A shuffling sound that may have been nothing more than a rat or cat walking in the night, but then it stopped and started, again and again.

A cat pausing to look at something on the ground, or something more?

Pandey was sitting with his back against the wall, his stick in his hands. Subin had no real weapon and he looked terrified, all the fun he had thought he would have during guard duty disappearing. He was sweating profusely despite the chill in the air and I could see Raju and Prashant standing dumbly by the parking lot, seemingly paralyzed by what was happening. The sound seemed closer, and for a second I thought it was several pairs of feet shuffling along on the ground. We had to do something—I didn’t want to just hide and wait to find out if someone was indeed approaching our building. I stood up, turned on the lamp, and shone it outwards.

Standing just about a dozen feet from me were five men. I recognized two of them as the men I had seen at the police station. All of them were armed, carrying iron rods or knives, and were wearing police uniforms. One of them, the large man who had come out of the station carrying the bloodied sword, was still carrying it. The men were blinded by the sudden light shining in their eyes and I shouted out to them: ‘Go back. We are armed and we will fight. Pandeyji, get the gun here!’

The man with the sword seemed to be looking straight at me. I’m not sure if he recognized me, or if he could even see with the light shining straight at him in the darkness, but he stood there for a few seconds. I sensed Pandey standing next to me, and he was hefting his stick in his hands. Subin was standing as well, and Prashant had come up and was waving a chair over his head. I don’t know if a half-broken plastic chair would have intimidated the men we faced, but their leader, which is what I supposed the large man to be, didn’t move. He just continued to look in my direction. Then he nodded and walked away. I heaved a sigh of relief and sat down. Pandey and Subin looked even more relieved than me and I could see that Prashant’s hands were shaking.

I tapped him on the shoulder. ‘Thanks, that was cool.’

‘Man, I was shit scared.’

‘So was I, but being scared is okay as long as it doesn’t stop you from doing the right thing.’

We kept the lamp on, worries about conserving the generator paling before what we had just seen. After that incident, there was little question of any of us getting much sleep. In fact, others had seen and heard the exchange from their windows or balconies and someone shouted out, ‘Have they gone?’

Slightly irritated at people looking on from the comfort of their homes, Pandey snapped back, ‘Come down and check for yourself, and while you’re at it, bring Aadi’s imaginary gun.’

It wasn’t all that funny but it helped to defuse the tension all of us were feeling and we broke out laughing. We kept laughing uncontrollably till we were stopped by something that sobered us up instantly.

It was the moment when we heard the first screams.

Six in the morning. The sun barely up over the horizon, and all of us standing near the walls, our nerves frayed, and our eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep. People were now streaming down. Many of them had seen and heard the confrontation at our gate—no TV or cars meant that our voices carried easily to every apartment and, I suspected, most people were not getting much sleep in any case.

And then, of course, every single one of us had heard the screams. In the days that followed, I saw and heard, and indeed did, many things that still trouble me, but those screams still haunt me.

Mrs Khatri came up to me. ‘Where do you think that came from?’

Pandey ventured the names of a couple of buildings in the direction of where the screams had come from, but in my gut I knew it was not an apartment building the gang had attacked. Once they had realized that people in neighbouring buildings had no doubt heard us and that they no longer had the element of surprise, they would have gone for a softer target. I remembered the huddled groups of foreign tourists outside the Meluha; I remembered the female voices screaming for help in a foreign accent.

‘Aadi, are you okay?’

I barely heard Mrs Khatri’s question and I barely saw that Pandey was reaching out to me, trying to steady me. My eyes were clouding over with tears; tears of anger; of regret and impotent rage. I pushed Pandey’s hand aside, grabbed a bicycle and rode out. I could hear Nitish and others call out to me, ‘Come back. It may not be safe.’

I didn’t care anymore. I had to see what had happened. I had seen the foreigners there, I had thought about how lost and helpless they looked. I had seen the gang at the police station and seen what they were capable of. Yet I had been so focused on my own sorry ass and getting food and supplies for our building that I had not even thought about warning them. We had passed them again when we had gone to Haiko, but they had been a blind spot. I had not even noticed them, not bothered to share our supplies or homes with them. I had left them there, helpless, alone in a foreign country.

I got off the bike at the entrance and entered the hotel lobby. There were no signs of a struggle here; indeed there were no signs of any of the guards who would normally be on duty. It looked like they had left. I saw two bodies lying behind the reception counter; both young men in the hotel uniform. Poor sods had been brave enough and conscientious enough to stay back and try and protect their guests, and had paid for it with their lives.

The lifts were not working and I was about to take the stairs up when I heard sobbing coming from the left, from the direction of the restaurant and the kitchen beyond it. I went inside and, when I saw the scene, I collapsed to my knees and then retched, the little tea I’d had for breakfast rising up in my throat. Two young women lay dead, their skirts pulled up around their waists, their throats slit. Two men were also lying dead in a corner, perhaps killed when they had tried to resist the attackers, and six more tourists—an elderly couple, two kids of no more than six or seven and a couple of middle-aged men—sat in a corner, shell-shocked, bloodied and in handcuffs. The old woman was crying and the two kids were still sobbing for their parents. The mutilated bodies lying in front of me.

I had let this happen. If only I had bothered to warn them. If only I had thought of something beyond my own survival. I looked at the old man, who was the only one who seemed to still retain some semblance of composure, but when he spoke, his voice broke. ‘Everyone else left yesterday. Some to find friends and relatives, some to see if things were better elsewhere. We were the only foreigners and had nowhere to go, so we thought we’d be safe here till the lights came back on. Then some men came. We thought they were policemen but then…’

He broke down. I looked at the men, both had severe bruises on their faces and had perhaps tried to resist before being subdued, probably after seeing the two other men killed.

‘All of you, come with me.’

I put the two kids on the bicycle and pushed it along, while the others walked slowly and fearfully behind me. When we reached our society, a small crowd gathered and people looked on sceptically as our new guests walked in. I called Pandey aside and told him what had happened.

‘Those poor people deserve a decent burial at least. Will you help me?’

He just nodded. I introduced our guests to the people gathered there, and the old woman broke down as she was hugged by Mrs Khatri.

I spoke to the old man. ‘Sir, can you and your wife help care for the kids? They’ve been through a lot.’

He nodded and held out his hand.

‘I’m Dr Guenther and this is my wife, Marie. Thank you for taking us in.’

I didn’t tell him that I wasn’t owed any thanks. If anything, I had let them down. I next addressed the two men, who looked tired and terrified. I gave them my apartment key and said, ‘Clean up and get some sleep.’

I was about to set out with Pandey for the grim task of burying the bodies when I heard Suri mutter something about guests when we were already stretched for food and resources. I spun towards him; he was about to say something else, but stopped on seeing the look in my eyes.