While she was doing this, Vikram was doing something else. He had found the bus's emergency kit — a red box mounted behind the driver's seat, standard equipment, which he had pried open and was now inventorying on the seat next to the driver in a way that was so methodical that she stopped and looked at him.
"What's in it?" she said.
"Two flares," he said, counting. "A first aid kit — basic. A small fire extinguisher. A fluorescent orange flag, the kind you wave. A whistle. Rope — probably six metres, looks like nylon. A torch — I'll check the batteries." He pressed the torch button. It came on. "Working. And a — it's a thermal blanket. The foil kind." He looked at her. "And a hand radio." He held it up. The specific orange of an emergency hand radio, the kind that ran on batteries and had a limited range but also had emergency broadcast frequencies.
She looked at the radio. "Does it work?"
"Let me check." He pressed the power button. A light came on — a green light, battery indicator. He tried a channel — static, the specific static of a band with no one transmitting on it. He tried the emergency channel, the one that was internationally standardised. Static. Then — and she felt herself go very still, the specific still of someone who has heard something they needed — a voice. Distant, broken by static, but a voice. Words that came through and went out and came through again.
"That's someone," she said. "That's a person."
"Long range station," Vikram said. "It might be — there's a rescue coordination station in Rudraprayag, I think. My father took the same frequency when he was in the field." He pressed the transmit button. "Hello. Hello. This is a school bus on the Kedarpur Valley road. We have been in a flood event. We are stuck on a rock shelf. Hello."
Static. The voice again — closer now, or her ears were adjusting. Then, clearly: "—any stations please confirm — all vehicles on Kedarpur District routes report status — flash flood alert active—"
"Hello!" Vikram said again, pressing transmit. "This is school bus, Kedarpur Valley School, on the gorge road, kilometer fourteen approximately. Thirty-two children, one adult, driver unconscious. We need rescue."
