Читать книгу The lost boy - Aher Arop Bol - Страница 15

We boys stayed in Pochella for some time. The situation was almost as bad as it had been in those early days at Panyido. However, once again, after a few days the elders took charge and called out group and unit numbers to return us to our original groups. As more gunships were expected, we were then transferred to a part of the forest a ninety-minute walk from the town. In that dense and gloomy place we were to hide from the eyes of the enemy. We were not allowed to spread white shirts on the ground or to pitch tents. Fires were also forbidden. Although we were now safe from attack, we, the survivors of the 1987 famine, were once again starving.

The communities of refugees who had remained at Pochella were no better off. There were masses of people and no supplies. Nor were there any villages nearby where clothes might be exchanged for food. Every kind of leaf and fruit had been tried and what was edible had been eaten. There was nothing left.

This was our second famine and we were well aware of how many had died the first time. My friends, Gor Koal and Kout Deng, and I decided that we would live. One morning we left the minors’ camp to pay the communities a visit, but we quickly realised that there was no one there who could assist us. We would have to fend for ourselves.

We had been told that there was a cattle camp somewhere in the dark forest, so the three of us set off in the direction of Ethiopia to look for tracks that might lead us to the cows. We did find spoor and followed it towards the forest, hoping we wouldn’t have to go too far, for the forest was a dark and frightening place and all we had with us was one small knife. After a while we stopped to discuss our situation. “Let’s follow the tracks for another hour,” Gor, the eldest, suggested, “and if we haven’t found anything by then, we’ll turn back.”

I was the youngest, but they knew that I was committed and would enter that dark place where no human voices could be heard, only the calls of birds. Kout also agreed to the plan and we continued on our way, following the cattle trail until we reached a valley where many tall trees grew.

Suddenly we saw something moving in the bush. It was a kind of tawny colour – like a lion! We told ourselves to be brave. “Don’t run! Let’s see what it is first,” Gor said.

We knelt down for a closer look. It had horns! Lions do not have horns, so we took heart and approached it very cautiously. It was a cow – a sick one, but a cow.

But how to kill it so that we might eat it? The problem was our knife. It was very small and blunt. After much discussion, we agreed that the cow was dying anyway so we might as well wait until it was dead. It would provide us with food for many days and we could just stay there and eat and eat. We praised God for the gift of a cow that was near death.

There we sat, in the undergrowth, concealed by the branches of tall trees.

“We are wasting our time. Why don’t we just kill the cow?” Kout suggested after an hour or so. By now it was about four o’clock and the forest was fast growing dark.

Gor disagreed. “Suppose the owner comes and accuses us of stealing his cow? We’d better wait.”

“It will take too long,” I protested.

As we were two against one, Gor agreed to let us try. We approached the cow gingerly, hunger lending us courage, then touched its body to see if it would react. It was indeed very weak, but when we touched it, it suddenly stood up on its four legs and looked at us with wild eyes.

“Okay, let’s wait for it to die, as Gor said,” I ventured.

But we had scarcely sat down again when the cow started ambling away. We jumped up, but, weak or strong, the cow ran faster than we were able to.

“Let’s follow it anyway,” Gor said. “Maybe it knows where it has come from, and we can sleep there.”

The cow, however, vanished into the darkness of the forest, and we were afraid to follow because it might take us to a place where there were wild animals like lions.

We just stood there, trying to remember how to get back to the camp. Then Kout reminded us that we had been walking since early morning and would never get back before dark. There also might be lions on the way – we could hear them roaring behind us – and we agreed it would be better to walk until we found a sturdy tree to sleep in.

We walked right into three lions!

Gor was two years older than Kout and he immediately took charge. “Don’t run,” he whispered. “Lions hate cowards. If one sees you acting like a coward he will attack you. We’ll be safe if we stay together.”

So we pretended to be brave. We kept walking, watching the lions as they disappeared into the bush, then appeared again. We were terrified, but didn’t allow ourselves to walk any faster. We even made an attempt to sing, but it didn’t sound too good. At last we came to a big tree. They pushed me up first, then followed – just in time, for a few seconds later a huge lion moved proudly under our tree, stretching himself.

We were trapped. There was nothing we could do. Later, when we heard a gunshot and some cattle lowing, we called as loudly as we could, but no one came to our assistance. We spent the night talking, and sleeping as best we could.

The next morning the lions were gone. “We’d better stay where we are,” said Gor. “It’s a trick. They will attack us as soon as we climb down. Let’s shout again. Maybe someone will hear us.”

So we shouted until we heard people approaching, firing their gun. Suppose they walked right past us! We kept shouting until three soldiers appeared.

They were the enemy – bandits who had killed some of our people. Would they shoot us too?

We spoke to them in Arabic and told them what had happened to us. They said the cattle were not far and escorted us part of the way.

It was early morning when we reached the cattle camp. Many other minors had also found their way there, looking for meat. There were five dead cows, and their owners had dragged them away from the live cows to skin them. Each carcass was surrounded by children, watching, waiting to see if they would be given anything. My friends suggested that the three of us should wait at different carcasses, so that if one man did not want to give us a piece of meat, another might.

Gor and Kout were lucky. They each received a share from the first four animals while I was still waiting for the fifth to be skinned. When they came to show me their booty we concluded that Gor should take the meat some distance away and stay with it, while Kout and I waited for more.

The man I was watching explained that he would keep half the meat and divide the other half among the seventy-three minors who were still waiting for a share. There was an atmosphere of eager anticipation.

Then Gor appeared and pandemonium broke out.

When he joined the queue the number of boys increased to seventy-four and the owner of the cow had to reapportion the meat. The boys got impatient and started snatching pieces from the piles.

I was sitting on my haunches, guarding my portion, but someone grabbed it and made off with it. All I could do was to find someone I could rob in return. I saw some boys running off with meat. They were looting someone’s share. I joined in. Then I heard Gor shouting and I realised that the meat I was stealing was our own. Kout heard Gor too and threw away the meat he was carrying to rush to Gor’s assistance. Gor got hold of a lung, while Kout was chasing a boy who had stolen a large portion of our share.

Soon I found myself fighting a boy my own age over a small piece. He was thin but determined. When the general brawl abated a man appeared and offered to solve our problem by cutting the piece of meat in half. “No!” cried my opponent, and we resumed our struggle. When someone else suggested the same solution a little later, it was I who refused. I heard Kout’s voice urging me on: “Come on! If you lose that meat we’ll have nothing left!” he said.

“They are the same age. Let them fight until the stronger one wins,” someone said.

But we were getting tired and in the end we agreed to let an older man divide the meat between us.

I sat down with my friends, but I was still so angry that I started blaming Gor for not guarding our meat. Accusing him did not make things better, though. We needed to roast our meat and eat. A boy was using a tin he had found to boil some meat in. We liked the idea so we promised him two bits of cooked meat for the use of his tin, and traded one small piece for some salt. By then it was raining, but we were not deterred and soon we were having our meal.

When our hunger had been satisfied, we started wondering what to do next. We might as well return to our camp, we concluded, as the cattle herds were leaving the area. Many of the other boys agreed. They knew the way back, so we tagged along.