The Great Downpour

Chapter XIII

Chapter XIII

This was a heavy downpour. In a matter of just ten minutes, there was water-logging in and around the area of the Reserve offices. The teachers were imploring the students to proceed towards the buses for their journey out of the park. The rope-bridge was wet and swayed dangerously in the strong wind. The students were disheartened and did not know how to go over it. The waters down below seemed to be dancing manically as the fury of the rain continued to increase with each passing minute.

It would take at least an hour for all the students and the staff to evacuate as the surface of the bridge had also turned slippery and students would have to pass over it in groups of eight to ten, holding hands and holding on to the side ropes for stability. Sandesh and Sunny had accepted the role of helpers; they were helping their colleagues to cross over.

In the meantime, telephonic links were being re-established with the Seoni Police station and Forest Departmental offices. The police Inspector General was also informed about the incident and was at this moment organizing a trip to the Pench National Park with selected officers and a few key bureaucrats of the Forest Department. A conscious decision was taken to keep the matter under wraps as media exposure might create a panic situation in Jabalpur and a stampede by parents who would want to know the whereabouts and condition of their wards.

Back at the Park, the surviving dacoits were being tied up and secured so as to be handed over to the authorities. The injured policemen of the Forest Security Force were being administered First Aid by some of the senior Science students and Mrs. Braganza. The bags containing the robbed stuff were being shown around to the students who took back whatever they had yielded to the dacoits. Principal Anthony’s dead body had been moved inside the Office of the C.F.O. The Office itself was being cleaned up by some of the students and staff of the college. The bodies of the C.F.O. and one of the hawaldars were also kept on one side along with the body of the Principal.

It was late afternoon. The rain continued to pour relentlessly as evacuation procedures continued. By 5:30 p.m., only some of the staff and students remained in the Reserve Office area. The team from Seoni arrived as the last of the students made way to the rope bridge. This group consisted of Sandesh, Sundeep, Rati, Yash, Seeta, Nanda, Chand, Farhad, Nazima, Muhammad and Bhairavi, along with two peons of the College. Between them, they had to help the peons carry out the last few pieces of luggage as well as the body of the Principal, which the police had allowed to be shifted to Seoni city for a post-mortem. An ambulance stood by to receive all the dead bodies.

The rope bridge swayed this way and that as the team stepped on it. A few steps ahead and Rati was the first to slip and fall. Then one of the peons could not balance himself and fell, the Principal’s body slipping out of his hands; the body skidded on the surface of the bridge for nearly 8-10 feet before some of the other hands reached out and stopped it. The peons retrieved control of the body and walked ahead of the students, who held hands and proceeded. The waters were wild down below and one glance at them convinced Bhairavi not to look down at them and be anxious about it.

Then disaster struck. Suddenly, the far end of the bridge gave away. The students felt a premonition of it when a large gust of wind shook the bridge and made it sway nearly a metre in both directions. They prayed to God that they be allowed safe passage. But it was not to be. The ropes at the far end snapped and the bridge broke. Six out of the thirteen people as well as the Principal’s dead body went out into the stormy evening. The remaining seven hung on to the slats and to the flimsy ropes for a few more minutes. With strong determination and courage, Sundeep, always the sporty one, managed to climb the remaining few metres and hauled himself to safety. He kept screaming for others to come and grasp his outstretched hands, but no one was within holding distance. The near end of the bridge also gave way with the next gust of the wind and the rest of those on the bridge were swept out into the waters.

Sundeep couldn’t believe his eyes. Ten of his best buddies, including his sister, had just been swept into the roiling waters below! And he had no idea what to do. He ran to the bus parking area to inform the other teachers about it.

To his utter surprise, he discovered that only one bus remained waiting for his group. This bus had two peons and their teachers Arun Chatterjee and Peter Mathias.

“Sir, you have to come with me, quick!” shouted Sundeep.

“Come? Where?” asked Arun Chatterjee.

“My friends … they’ve all been washed away by the stream under the rope bridge …”

“What? Is this true?” asked Mathias.

“Yes, sir, and so are both the peons, Gangadin and Mahadev. The Principal’s body has also been carried away by the water to God knows where …” Sundeep was drenched in rain and felt scared and chilled to the bone. He started crying.

Mr. Arun Chatterjee stepped out of the bus and was followed by both the peons.

They went up to the chasm that divided the bus parking area from the rest of the Park. The waters had already risen a foot from where they had been just 10 minutes ago, or so Sundeep thought. There was no way to communicate with the policemen now in the Reserve Office.

“They are doomed, Sir!”

Chatterjee looked down at the angry stream of water and said, “Of course, you may be right, but I doubt that they will die or something. I am sure they must all have waded out of the water and must already be on the way to the Office. There is nothing we can do from this side. I suggest that we sit in the bus and start driving back to Seoni. As soon as we are within range of mobile network, we will start calling up people and organize their rescue.”

Sundeep was torn between Chatterjee’s logic and his urgent desire to ensure that all his friends were all right. He decided that Chatterjee was right. But he couldn’t just leave his friends to Nature’s fury without any assistance, should any of them manage to come back here, could he? He began to shake his head and argue with the teacher to be allowed to wait here, but the teacher anticipated his reaction and silenced him with a finger on his lips.

“Don’t even think about it. You’re my responsibility. Let us go back soon. That is the only way.”

Sundeep followed Chatterjee and the peons back to the bus. The bus moved out of the parking area and reached the main road within an hour. As soon as Sundeep realized that they were nearing Seoni, he took out his mobile phone and began to dial the National Police line on 100. The ring would not go through, despite his repeated attempts.

While he was making all these attempts, the other staff member, Peter Mathias kept looking out at the rain with a far-away look in his eyes. I erred in helping the dacoits. My greed caused so many needless deaths back there! His eyes misted at the thought that the Principal would have still been with them had he not warned the dacoits that they were coming and had he not extended so much assistance to them. I must give up to the police. The unbidden call of his conscience surprised even him, but he knew that if he did not give himself up, one of the captured dacoits would squeal and give his name away.

Sundeep gave off a yell of frustration when his calls continued to remain unanswered. He was forced to reach the conclusion that either the service was ineffective or the phone had gotten to be non-working due to the heavy rain and the beating it had got when he (Sundeep) had almost fallen into the water.

He tried to raise an alarm on Arun Chatterjee’s cellular phone, but that was dead too. Peter Mathias offered his phone but when Sunny approached him to take it, Peter mumbled something like, “Not working, son,” and put it back in his pocket. Sunny gnashed his teeth in anger and sulked in one corner of the bus as the vehicle rolled down the highway toward Seoni.

***

Inspector Dubey arrived just as the students left to go back to Jabalpur. He saw the city police troops and immediately surmised, correctly, that a lot had happened in his absence. He saw the dead or dying dacoits, the two dead police from his force, and put two and two together. He saluted the Seoni I.G. and stood waiting for the inevitable questions.

The enquiry was going nowhere with Dubey as he explained how he had been sent by Captain Shastri to weed out the tigers who, he feared, had ventured very close to the Reserve Office. The I.G. was flustered, but he knew there was no way to get more details from the Inspector and he excused the inspector. He continued to ask questions to the surviving policemen. He hoped to unravel the knot of what had actually happened here today.