Five Past Midnight in Bhopal (41 page)

The deputy stationmaster and his assistant Paridar left the office but were immediately hit in the face by a pocket of poisonous
gas moving at head height. Two or three inhalations were enough to stop any air reaching their lungs. With their ears whistling
and their throats and faces on fire, they beat a retreat, gasping for breath.

Witnessing the scene, the young traffic regulator Rehman Patel had the presence of mind to do the only useful thing possible.
He closed all apertures and turned on the air-conditioning. The gusts of fresh air it emitted brought immediate relief to
the two railway employees who slowly regained their senses. That was when the internal line telephone rang. Sherma recognized
the voice of the man in charge of the Nichadpura Center, a fuel depot a few hundred yards from the Carbide factory.

“There’s been an explosion at Carbide,” announced the panic-stricken speaker. “The whole area is covered with a toxic cloud.
People are scrambling about in all directions. Get ready. You’ll be hit next. The wind is blowing the cloud in your direction
…”

“It’s already here,” replied Sherma.

A vision of horror passed through the deputy stationmaster’s mind at that moment: the Gorakhpur Express was speeding toward
Bhopal with hundreds of passengers onboard.

“Whatever happens we’ve got to make sure the train doesn’t stop here!” he cried to his two assistants.

No sooner had he spoken, however, than he shook his head. He knew what Indian railway bureaucracy was like. An order like
that could not be given at his level. Only the chief stationmaster could issue such a directive. Sherma immediately dialed
Harish Dhurve’s home. No one answered.

“He must be downing a last whisky at the Railway Colony wedding,” he said, frustrated.

There was little point in trying again. He could never receive the necessary authorization to prevent a holocaust in his station.
His boss had been dead for half an hour.

There were no vendors, lepers, beggars, coolies, children or travelers left. Platform No. 1 was nothing more than a charnel
house of entangled bodies, stinking unbearably of vomit, urine and defecation. Weighed down by the gas, the toxic blanket
had draped itself like a shroud over the people chained to their baggage. Here and there, an odd survivor tried to get up.
But the deadly vapors very quickly entered his lungs and he fell back with mouth contorted like a fish out of water. The beggars
and leprosy sufferers, whose tubercular lungs were already weak, had been the first to die.

Thanks to the air-conditioning filtering the air, the three men in the stationmaster’s office and a few coolies who had taken
refuge in their cloakroom had so far managed to escape the noxious fumes. In vain V.K. Sherma frantically cranked his telephones
to call for help. All the lines were busy. At last he managed to speak to Dr. Sarkar. After evacuating the priest and his
family, the railway workers’ doctor had gone back to his office in the Railway Colony. From behind the damp compresses over
his mouth and nose, he sounded confused. He had just spoken to Dr. Nagu, director of the Madhya Pradesh Health Service.

“The minister was furious,” said Sarkar. “He told me the people at Carbide didn’t want to reveal the composition of the toxic
cloud. He tried to insist and asked whether they were dealing with chlorine, phosgene, aniline or I don’t know what else.
It was no use. He wasn’t able to find out anything. He was told the gases were not toxic and that all anyone had to do to
protect himself was put a damp handkerchief over their nose and mouth. I’ve tried it and it seems to work. Oh! I was forgetting
… Carbide people also told the director to ‘breathe as little as possible’! My poor Sherma, pass that advice on to your travelers
while they’re waiting for help to arrive.”

Help! In his station strewn with the dead and the dying, the deputy stationmaster felt like the commander of a ship about
to be engulfed by the ocean. Even if he could do nothing for the passengers on platform No. 1, however, he must still try
to save those due to arrive. Unable to contact his superior to prevent the Gorakhpur Express from stopping at Bhopal station,
he would still do all he could to impede it from running into the trap. The only way was to halt it at the previous stop.
His assistant immediately called the station at Vidisha, a small town less than twelve miles away.

“The train has just left,” the stationmaster informed him. “Curses on the god,” groaned Sherma. “Is there at least a signal
we could switch to red?” asked Patel, the young traffic regulator.

The three men looked at the luminous indicators on the large board on the wall.

“There isn’t a single point or signal box between Vidisha and Bhopal,” Sherma established.

“In that case, we’ll just have to run out in front of the train and signal the engine driver to stop,” declared Patel.

The idea appeared to stupefy his two elder colleagues. “And how are you going to signal the engineer to stop a train going
at full speed in the middle of the night?” asked Sherma’s assistant.

“By waving a lamp about in the middle of the track!” Sherma nearly swallowed his quid of betel. The whole idea seemed outrageously
dangerous. But after a few seconds he changed his mind.

“Yes, you’re right. We could stop the train with lanterns. Go and fetch some able-bodied coolies!”

“I’m volunteering,” announced Patel. “So am I,” Sherma’s assistant, Paridar, said. “Okay, but it will take at least four or
five of you. Four or five lanterns will be easier to see in the dark.”

Patel rushed to the sink at the far end of the room to soak his gamcha. After wringing it out, he plastered it over his face
and went out. Two minutes later he came back with Padmini’s father and Satish Lal who had escaped the gas by taking refuge
in a first-class waiting room and shutting the windows. Sherma explained their mission to them, emphasizing how vital it was.

“If you can stop the Gorakhpur, you may save hundreds of lives,” he told them. Then he added, “You’ll be heroes and be decorated
for it.”

The prospect brought only the faintest of smiles to the four men’s faces. Sherma pressed his hands together over his chest.

“May the god protect you,” he said, inclining his head. “You’ll find some lanterns in the maintenance store. Good luck!”

The deputy stationmaster was overcome with emotion. Those men, he thought, are real heroes.

Guided by Padmini’s father who knew every turn of the track by heart, the little procession moved off into a murky darkness
filled with invisible dangers. Every five minutes Ratna Nadar would raise one arm to stop his comrades, kneel down between
two sleepers and, for a long moment, press his ear to one of the rails. There was as yet no vibration from the approaching
train.

Huddled with her two sons on the seat of one of the forty-four train cars, Sajda Bano was counting off the last minutes of
her interminable journey back to the city where her husband had been Carbide’s first victim. When she felt the train slow
down, she moved nearer to the window in order to gaze out at the illuminated outline of the factory that had put an end to
her happiness. She had dreaded returning to Bhopal but she had little choice. Her in-laws were determined to get their hands
on the fifty thousand rupees’ compensation the factory had given her. Sajda had experienced all the hardship of being an Indian
widow. No sooner had her husband been buried than her father-in-law had thrown her out of the house, on the pretext that she
was refusing to renounce her inheritance. Out of her mind with grief and despair, the young widow had responded with her first
act as an independent woman. She had torn off the veil she had worn since she was nine years old and rushed to the bazaar
to sell it. The one hundred and twenty rupees she received in return were the first money she had ever earned. Since then
she had never again worn a veil. Overcoming the triple handicap of being a woman, a Muslim and a widow in a country where,
despite all the progress, customs could still be medieval, she embarked on a struggle for justice. She knew that she could
count on the support of the kindly H.S. Khan, a colleague of her husband’s, who had taken her and her children in after her
in-laws had put her out on the street. She had stayed with him while she looked for lodgings and hired a lawyer. Now she very
much hoped that Khan would be on the platform to greet her. Poor Sajda! Having killed her husband, Carbide’s gas had just
struck down her benefactor on his way to the station.

Holding their lanterns at arms’ length, the four men progressed with difficulty. Without realizing it, they were passing through
a multitude of small residual clouds that were still lurking between the rails and along the ballast. They stumbled over corpses
twisted into horrible attitudes of pain. Here and there, they could hear death rattles, but there was no time to stop. Then
a great roar rent the darkness, accompanied by the same shrill whistle that made the occupants of the Kali Grounds tremble
in their sleep. The train! Brandishing their lanterns, the four men ran to meet it. Very swiftly, however, they ran out of
breath. In the end the toxic vapors had penetrated their damp cotton compresses. Hyperventilating with the effort, their lungs
craved more and more air, the same air that was poisoned with deadly molecules. The weight of their lanterns became unbearable.
And yet they kept on going. Staggering between the sleepers, suffocating and vomiting, the four men desperately waved their
lights. The engineer of the Gorakhpur Express did not understand the signal. Thinking they were revelers fooling around the
railway track, he kept on going. By the time, in a horrifying flash, he saw the men yelling at him from the middle of the
rails, it was too late. With its engine cowling spattered with flesh and blood, the Gorakhpur Express was entering the station.

The headlights of the locomotive surging out of the mist made the deputy stationmaster jump. V.K. Sherma realized that his
men had failed. The train glided smoothly along the rails of platform No. 1 before stopping with a deafening grinding noise.
There was still one last chance to prevent the worst.

Like all large stations in India, Bhopal was equipped with a public address system. V.K. Sherma dashed to his console at the
far end of the office, turned on the system and grabbed the microphone. “Attention! Attention!” he announced in Hindi with
as calm and professional a voice as he could. “Because of a leak of dangerous chemical substances, we invite all passengers
due to get out at Bhopal to remain in their carriages. The train will depart again immediately. Passengers may get out at
the next station, from where buses will transport them to Bhopal.” He repeated his message in Urdu. All too quickly, he was
able to gauge the success of his announcement. Doors were opening, people were getting out. Nothing could threaten the lives
of pilgrims coming to celebrate Ishtema. They were secure in the knowledge that Allah would protect them.