(Cont’d from week before last) ‘Arre man, are you mad or something? There is no train now or ever coming from there. Do you understand? Now get going fast, unless you want to get butchered. And stop talking so much on the telephone. If they hear me they will screw me good and proper.’ ‘Ring up by police. Have you rung up “new police station?’ yelled Anthony. ‘You bloody ass, you think I am sitting in a police Thana? And even if I were do you think any police would come out tonight? I can hear something. Hell, what is going on? I am switching off. You push off fast mister with your train if you value your life.’
The line went dead. There was no point lingering on in the cabin so Anthony started to run towards the train. Then he heard the first shot. There followed many other shots in quick succession and then shrieks and screams. Anthony stumbled and fell probably a hundred times, but ran on. There was only one thought in his mind and it wasn’t of Joyce but of the vacuum: Had enough vacuum been built up? Would the train be able to move off soon enough on this damn slope? On the train, all was utter confusion. The marauders came with spears, swords, bamboo lath is, rifles and muskets. When the first wave rushed into the stricken train someone fired into the big engine light and after
There was no light any ere. There were more than two hundred goondas on foot and horseback, camels and cycles, letting off bloodcurdling cries of Allahhoo Akbar, abusing their mothers and their fathers and sisters, laughing sinister laughs that Sang far into the night. The sweat of fear trickled down the necks of the people in the train. The stoker heard the mob coming, shouting, laughing and sneering abusing no one in portico Tar and yet everyone. He jumped into the coal rake and using his shovel as he had never done before, he hastily covered himself with huge chunks of the black mass. This was all he ‘could think of at that time, If Anthony had been there he would have asked him. But now he was all alone and for once he had to make up his own mind.
No one even thought of searching the coal rake. The first lot rushed past the engine and went for Santa Singh’s carriage. By now Santa Singh was letting hell loose with his semiautomatic and firing as fast as he could load. The DFO’s rifle was unable to fire because of the defective firing pin. Everyone abused him, and someone even kicked him in the shins. What was the good of having carried a weapon to the market place day in and day out and being called a license holder, when the damn thing wouldn’t fire when needed? But besides abusing the wretch, they couldn’t do much more. Ashamed and browbeaten, his pride finally shattered, the DFO let off an uncertain, nervous laugh and edged towards the womenfolk for comfort and solace. He dropped the rifle and slid in amongst them.
The gang outside was banging on the windows and breaking the glass and the wood paneling. Only the steel bars kept them at bay. Some were trying to push open one of the doors. The women inside were screaming and the men confused. The latter ran about the compartment upsetting the baggage, tripping over trunks and improvised hold all’s, and only adding to the chaos. Someone from inside shouted ‘Jo bole sonihal, Sat Siri Akal!’ and the cry was taken up all over the train, as if this was the signal they had been waiting for. Little Ajit also heard the frenzied war cries and not understanding a word, shouted it all the same, since everyone else was. Mai Bhajno took the golden toothpick from out of her shrunken mouth and said, ‘Wahe guru. Wahe guru.’ Santa Singh meanwhile shouted another ‘Sat Siri Akal’ and fired off another volley in the direction of the attackers.
By now the knocking on the door was becoming more persistent. The window had been broken open and a hand was trying to get a hold on the door latch from inside. Santa saw this and fired from the shoulder onto the intruder. The man shrieked an unintelligible oath and a splatter of blood came into the bedding inside. The hand, or what was left of it, withdrew in haste. There was a very brief lull in the battle as far as carriage number four was concerned but others around were having no respite. Shots rang out into the night, and confused dialogues between friends and foes ensued. Some children could be heard crying and their shouts were only drowned by the fearsome wailing of the mothers.
The agonizing cry of a young girl rent the air. ‘Hai, hai, they are carrying me off. Hai Wahe guru, save me. Mother save me,’ she cried out in panic. Santa Singh was startled. For the first time the full meaning of the scream hit him. The cry was far away, probably at the other end of the train, and yet so close that he dared not look in the direction of his own fourteen year old Baljeeto. There she sat on the verge of death, calm, unruffled and yet so uncertain of the impending morrow. The eyes of the grandfather and the granddaughter met for a fraction of a second, and so violent was the impact that both looked away. Yet in the fleeting moment the decision had been made and understood by both of them. In the grim drama now being enacted on board the 64 down, this was the only sensible decision to emerge. What worse fate could befall a young unmarried girl than to fall into the clutches of these goondas? And that, too, to be taken right in front of one’s own relatives. Could one ever forget such an experience? Death was preferable. Baljeeto understood all this and opted for oblivion rather than disgrace. Santa Singh had the option of seeing with his own eyes the cries, the sobs and the utter vilification of his blood. Or he could end, with one stroke of his sword, all the miseries that now quite clearly awaited his granddaughter. After that he would wield the sword and the gun as long as there was strength left in his body. Where was the choice? In the ultimate analysis, he had to be his own murderer.
The hammering on the door now rose to a deafening crescendo, and there was no time to lose. Santa Singh raised his rifle to his shoulders, faced his granddaughter squarely for the last time, took careful aim so that the end would be instantaneous, and sobbing, “Baljeeto forgive me. Oh Nanak forgive me,’ pressed the trigger. The shot made one deafening roar, as if of protest, and then accomplished its preordained task. No one in the carriage said anything. Finally an old woman screamed and all was over. Seven year old Ajit didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The blood gushed past them onto the steel trunks. Seeing his own blood, Santa Singh laughed a queer laugh. He crossed the dividing line of sanity and started Taving. ‘Come on, I say, come. O Santa Singh let them come.’
While Santa Singh was thus spending himself in all his fury.
(To be continued)
Article extracted from this publication >> August 28, 1996
