Prologue #2
“And we will be right outside your window then too!” One of them sputtered from between howls.
Samar glanced at the driver. Singh. The one who had dug the first pit.
Samar shook his head, straightening to his full height.
Ragging wasn’t a first for him, having endured worse in medical college.
He gave a begrudging smirk. He just hadn’t expected it in SFF.
“Is it normal here?” He asked the gang, wary of believing the answer that would come.
“Every day.” Singh wiped his eyes. “Daaxsaab, they laugh more than they fight.”
“Only then the balance is restored.” One of the soldiers knocked the side of his head with his knuckles.
“Kaul’s line,” another warned.
“He won’t mind.” The soldier leaned closer to Samar. “Everybody else here will look like a walking-talking duality. Kaul is the duality. Get on his good side, and stay there.”
“Kaul?” Samar frowned. “Commanding Officer Ul Haq heads this base, no?”
“Lieutenant Atharva Singh Kaul. He is the man you need when you need anything. Mosquito repellent or pep talk. But don’t try to be his yes-man, he hates those. And don’t…”
A squeal of tires broke through his next words. Samar gaped as the jeep came to a screeching halt metres away from his feet. A soldier with blood soaking his uniform jumped out from the passenger seat, running around to the back — “Quick, quick, quick!”
“Amol sir!” The men around him began to scamper, some to help the injured soldier from the back, others towards a far-off building. Samar took it all in, unable to move or do anything.
“Get the medics!” The bloodied soldier yelled, and Samar startled out. The stench of blood was ripe. It wasn't new. But it was mixed with something gory. Burnt flesh. Burnt cloth.
“Daaxsaab is here!” MT Singh announced, pushing him into the circle of soldiers who had already gotten the man on a stretcher.
Samar stumbled and got his first look at the body.
His throat tightened. The stomach was open — flesh, innards, blood gurgling with every breath he took, charred, his eyes dark and open.
“Get here quick!” The bloodied soldier bellowed. Men moved for him. Samar took one step. Then stalled, his hands shaking. He had treated patients, performed surgeries, seen it all. This…
“O… sucking… suction…” he managed. “Where is… the dispensary…?”
“For fuck’s sake, come here and see him first!
” The bloodied soldier grabbed his arm and pulled him to the head of the palpitating one.
Samar wetted his drying lips, holding his hands up in the air over the innards.
What would he even suction here? How would he hold down the pressure? Panic set in. My dispensary bag…
“What’s his name?” “Dr. Samar Dixit.”
“Samar!”
He jolted, facing the soldier with blood not only on his uniform but on his neck and ear. His eyes were grey, dark, piercing, holding firm. Not a single blink. A thick scar ran down his cheek.
“Kill the panic.” He ordered, holding his eyes.
Samar took a deep breath. Released.
“Kill the pain,” his voice boomed. Samar tore his eyes from him, glanced down at the man. The patient. The body.
“Kill the fear now.” His words reverberated, and Samar realised how good he was at medicine.
How extraordinary he was at trauma surgery.
He realised why he had come here and his hands hovering in the air automatically clamped down to hold pressure.
Blood, warm and thick, coated his fingers.
Slithery flesh was in his hands. And the patient’s breaths were now under him.
“Ready IV! Fluids!” He called out. The soldiers around him were pushed off as paramedics in uniform like his own took over. Samar glanced at the first face that came into his sight — “Gauze.”
His feet moved with the stretcher, as did everybody else’s. As he rushed the soldier to the dispensary, Samar’s eyes caught the soldier bathed in blood. His eyes had finally blinked.
Samar blinked, and found himself seeing the sun setting, having steadied the soldier, at least till this dusk.
His shirt drenched in the soldier, Amol’s blood, he found himself staggering out of the dispensary, without a drop of water or food in his stomach.
He had to report to his Commanding Officer.
Samar glanced up at the sky, darkening, the birds making shrill sounds as they flew home.
“Daaxsaab.”
He whirled, and the soldier who had brought Amol here was walking down from the barracks. Cleaned up, in a new camouflage uniform, he carried a bottle of water. His face wasn't hard or angry now. He was smiling, a naughty glint in his eyes.
“Did they rag you already?” He opened the bottle of water and held it out to him. Stunned, Samar began to reach for it, then realising he still hadn’t washed his hands, retracted it.
“Here.” He held the bottle up and Samar opened his mouth, welcoming the first gulp of water after what seemed like months. His throat worked thirstily. Samar kept going until the entire bottle was emptied. Then wiped the back of his sleeve across his mouth.
Bolstered after the drink, Samar found a small smile to offer him — “I can’t even remember what happened this morning.”
“Happens.” He capped the bottle. “First posting?”
“Yes.”
“Armed Forces Medical College or Short Service Commission?” He sat down on one of the steps.
“Armed Forces Medical College, Delhi.”
“Where are you from?”
“Jammu.”
The man glanced up at him, and his face stretched into a smile. The scar on his cheek stretched with it, looking aged and baked into his skin. “I am from Srinagar.”
“Sir, what happened there…” Samar started. “I have done this before, I don’t know why I panicked.”
“Happens.” He set the empty bottle by his side, on the one outside of where Samar stood. And Samar found himself lowering beside him. It was after he had sat down that he noticed how just by placing the bottle on his outside, he had made him sit down.
“How is Amol?”
“Stable. We’ve contained the internal bleeding and performed emergency grafting over his abdomen.”
“The fucker will wake up flaunting it.”
“I don’t think so.” Samar huffed.
The man’s eyes rose.
“We’ve taken healthy skin from his thighs. If anything, he will be screaming for the next two months because those nerves are alive and the sites are a road rash.”
“You picked SFF or they saw your skill?”
Samar stared at him, surprised. The man’s eyes smirked — “They don’t commission a doctor who is not extraordinary to 4 Vikas.”
“I didn’t even know such a Force existed,” Samar chuckled, holding his palms open under his eyes. The blood had dried, seeped into his skin, the lines of his palms darkened. Nothing new.
“Then you have been pushed in blind here, my friend.”
A full laugh spouted out of his mouth — “I see that now, sir.”
“What is this sir-sir? Do I look that old to you?”
“Oh, no.” It was then that he realised — he didn’t even know the name of this soldier, forget his designation. Samar was shocked to hear his next words.
“Lieutenant Atharva Singh Kaul,” the soldier held his fist out, seeing as his hands were bloodied. “If anything, you trump me in age and designation.”
Samar grinned. “Captain Dr. Samar Dixit, Regimental Medical Officer.” He fisted his bloodied right hand and bumped it with Atharva’s.
“Welcome to the land of Mavericks. We always need a doctor here.”
“Doctor!” A soft, panicked screech turned the orange dusky sky green.
Scrubs. His own? Samar breathed, feeling the beat of his own heart in his ears.
The pain was searing now, excruciating. Burning.
A fortress on fire. The green in front of him set ablaze and suddenly all was white.
Cool. Cold. Snow. The chopper blades were making a whirring sound behind him and his footsteps were heavy, quick, wading over stuck snow.
“Atharva!” He yelled, the dawning sun and his torch guiding their way.
“Atharva Bhai!” Fahad yelled.
“Atharva!”
“There!”
They ran to an alcove, framed by fronds of pine, Atharva climbing his way out.
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! You are ok, Bhai!” Fahad launched himself at him. “Fuuuck!”
“I’m alive.”
His voice was crusty.
“Where’s Iram?” Fahad asked.
That name. It made Samar feel his entire body lock up. Iram. Haider.
The Trojan Horse.
The woman out to destroy not only his party but his party president.
“She is safe.”
Samar gaped in horror as Atharva cleared the leftover pines. Iram, buried in ice, face pale as ice.
“We need a stretcher. She has broken her thigh,” Atharva ordered.
Samar stepped closer, closer and closer. The Trojan Horse. Their enemy’s daughter. Handprints on her face. Purple. Her mouth was cut. Dried blood on her chin. Smoke charred on her cheeks.
Shock paved way for training. “Get her blankets, someone!” He shouted back. He reached her forehead. Cool to the touch. Pulse was low.
“Water too,” Atharva coughed behind him.
“Promise me…” she mumbled. Samar’s eyes widened. “Go… go.”
“What? What did she say?”
“Just ramblings,” he muttered, ducking out of the alcove.
“What happened to you?” Samar pulled down the bag under his eye. “Your eyes are blood red!"
“Inhaled smoke while saving her. I think there might be smoke poisoning. Breathing has been difficult, my chest hurts too…”
“You fool, start moving!” He ordered. “Can you walk?”
“Not without her.”
“She is coming on the stretcher, you start moving right now!”
“No. I’m not leaving her alone… I can’t…” Atharva sagged, looking at him like only he would understand this helplessness. “I won’t spare any of these bastards."
“What did they do to her?”
Not what I am thinking. Please, not what I am thinking.
“They molested her, hit her, tried to rape her, a gang first and then Sufiyaan Sheikh.”
His eyes cut to her.
“They tried to burn her alive.”
Samar whirled his eyes back to Atharva.
“He has made this personal now.”
Samar stared into unyielding resolve in grey eyes.
A stretcher was brought, and the girl he had handed over to the enemy with his own hands was carried to safety, beaten and brutalised.
Sufiyaan Sheikh, you betrayed me.
What was there to come back from that for?
Samar made a roaring sound inside himself, wanting the white mountain to open up and swallow him whole.
The chill was burning his skin. It wasn’t numb anymore.
Flames were licking at it and the pain was unbearable.
Did she feel this inside the fortress? Did she feel death was better than burning too?
Death.
He did not panic.
Kill the panic.
Kill the pain.
Kill the fear.
Death.
“Samar.”
Samar. Jang vich sir te khadi maut.[12]
Apne putt da naam maut te rakh ditta tussi.[13]
Jang ch sab marde ne. Jo mar ke phir khada ho jaave… oh Samar, biba.[14]
“Samar.”
He blinked his eyes open. No dark torture chamber. No beautiful sky. No white desert. Only one pair of eyes. Cerulean blue eyes, round red mouth pressed into a thin line. She compressed her mouth even more, pushing the dimple in the centre of her cheek deeper.
“You are ok,” she patted his hair, whispering. “You are ok.”
“Let me go.”
“No.”
The pain was unbearable now that he had opened his eyes.
His chest was pressed to the bed, aching.
Everything he could see over his shoulder below his neck was covered in a glass box, a sheet over it all.
The way he was burning everywhere, there was no staying back here.
He knew third-degree burns. What he had was worse.
He glanced at the time on the wall clock.
15 hours down. Dehydration was imminent.
He could already feel the effects, even with the IV line he noted going into his body.
He just hoped he could go in peace. Samar began to turn his head away, closing his eyes again when something pressed into his hair.
“No.” Her mouth murmured into his hair, her tears wetting it.
He did not have the energy to say it again.
“You will live again.”
Not everybody is reborn after imminent death.
“You will live again.”
Her mouth wouldn’t leave his hair.
“You will live again, Samar.” Amaal roared quietly into his being.