Читать книгу Courageous Journey - Barbara Youree - Страница 11

FOUR

FEAR LURKS

They were crossing a large field now. If life were normal, it would be called a beautiful place—open with waving grass. A fine area to play soccer or have wrestling matches. A few scattered trees stood out against the gray sky of early morning. Soon they could rest, but he knew sleep would not come easily. During the day, mosquitoes came to draw blood and leave terrible sickness. Burning heat would replace the cold. Bad dreams and lurking dangers would torment him.

The dawn sky began to turn a rosy pink and Ayuel could see a grove of trees ahead. Just a few more steps.

Suddenly, seven or eight soldiers in drab-green uniforms, carrying long guns, emerged from the trees. I’m dead now, Ayuel thought and stopped as did everyone else. Maybe they were being kidnapped so they could be taught how to fight in the war. He didn’t want to kill anyone.

As they all watched, the soldiers halted and laid down their guns. The tall officer in front stepped forward and raised both arms. He had several things tied around his waist—a black box and some bags—and a belt of bullets across his chest. He took a short metal stick with a black ball on top out of the bag. Ayuel watched as he held the ball in front of his mouth.

“I come in peace,” he said. It sounded like God speaking—very loud and important. The words echoed from the trees at the right of the field: I come in peace.

The crowd of thousands moved closer—merging the groups tightly together. Ayuel’s seventeen were near the front and could see the man clearly. The children stood like statues, stunned. When Donayok sat down, the rest of his group wearily followed, sitting cross-legged and leaning forward. They all respected him as leader and mentor.

“That stick makes his voice sound like that,” Madau said and poked his elbow in Ayuel’s ribs. Ayuel noticed his cousin’s muscular frame had withered like the others.

“How does it do that?”

“Shush.”

“My name is Chol Aruei,” the officer said to the stick. “We have been sent here by John Garang to guide you.”

“Who’s John Ga-rang?” Ayuel could hardly say the words, his mouth was so dry.

“I don’t know. Listen.”

“Colonel John Garang, as many of you know, is the leader of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army, the SPLA. He is leading the fight against the Islamic Fundamentalist government in Khartoum—in the North—so we may again worship whatever gods we choose and not be forced to follow Islam’s sharia laws with their harsh punishments, like cutting off hands and stoning.”

Ayuel remembered hearing his father talk to men in the village about sharia. He knew it was something bad, but the officer’s big words meant little to him.

“Only Muslims, Arab fundamentalist Muslims, can hold government positions now. And a company called Chevron has found oil under our land. That is why the North has bombed our villages. They want to impose a strict Islamic government and they want our oil, but we are fighting back!” The officer turned to talk with the other soldiers in a low voice, not using the stick.

The Arabs have killed my father, because he had a government job, Ayuel guessed. He was a good father and a good commissioner. Anger surged up for a moment, then mixed with the sadness he always felt, but he remained still and listened, trying to understand.

“They don’t look starved like us,” Gutthier said. His ears stuck out more prominently in his starving condition. No one called him “Funny Ears” now.

“But I don’t think they have any food with them,” Madau said, always one to thoughtfully consider a situation.

“Chol Aruei is very handsome in his uniform,” Malual Kuer said. “I’d like to be a soldier.”

“Not me. Hush.” Ayuel was now fascinated by this new turn of events. Maybe he was going to live after all. And wouldn’t be captured, either.

The officer held the stick in front of his face again. “Colonel Garang cares about you. He says you are the hope for rebuilding Sudan after the war, after we have won back our rights and our way of life. I care about you also. That is why these soldiers and I have agreed to make this journey with you.” The officer paused and looked out over the crowd of children. “And also, I believe two of my young brothers are here among you. If so… ?”

Two boys not much older than Ayuel got up and walked to him. Officer Chol knelt down and hugged them, an arm around each. When he stood up, the boys leaned against him, grinning. The officer wiped his bare arm across his eyes and sniffed. The funny stick made the sniff especially loud, and everyone knew he’d cried. The age-mates giggled.

“I—I’m here to help you,” he said. “I couldn’t bring food for all of you—there must be about 4,000 children here. There are thousands more ahead of you and thousands more being chased from their homes behind you. With our guns, we will try to protect you from the Arabs.

“You are right to travel east, but you are too far north to reach the refugee camps in Ethiopia. I will lead you through the bush. There will be water soon. And probably some wild fruit. We will shoot any animals we find, and the different groups can cook them.” His voice was gentle and kind.

“Why would they bomb us for oil?” whispered Gutthier. “I never saw any oil in Duk.”

“My mother uses oil when she cooks the maize.” Chuei grinned and put his hand over his mouth. It sounded like a mock confession, as if her cooking had caused all the misery.

Ayuel laughed and pushed his cousin. The old Chuei was back with his funny sayings, but Chuei suddenly turned angry and pulled away. He dropped his face into his hands and sobbed.

In the bush they found water and berries. The group of seventeen cooked a small antelope—shot by the soldiers—over a fire. In their cooking pot, they boiled roots and leaves, which together with the meat made a real feast. There was enough to satisfy all seventeen with leftovers for another meal.

As they sat licking their fingers, Ayuel said, “Officer Chol is very smart. I think he speaks the truth. Do you think Ethiopia is on the other side of this forest?”

“Nah, but I think we will be there in two or three days,” Malual Kuer said as he sucked on a bone. “Then we will have milk to drink, bread and maize to eat, chicken and rice. Maybe mangoes.”

The sun became hot. Ayuel lay down next to his friends in the shade, his heart full of hope and a better kind of hurt in his stomach. Wrapped in a newfound security, he fell into deep slumber, muttering, “Abba Father, I am thankful…”

Ethiopia was not on the other side of the forest, nor two or three days away. Nothing but barren land stretched for miles and miles. After another two weeks, there was no food of any kind. Nor water.

Officer Chol called the assembly together using his microphone—the name the boys had learned for the talking stick. “My brothers and sisters, you are brave and courageous. You must never give up. You can and will survive anything. Anything, trust me. When we come to trees or bushes, pick and eat the leaves. Carry leaves and bark with you to eat later, for, as you can see, this is desert land with very few plants.

“We are just now leaving the larger region of Bor to start a long journey east. It is not a short distance to Ethiopia. It will take us two, maybe three months to get there. You will be safe in Ethiopia, and there will be enough to eat for everyone. Be strong.”

But Ayuel was not strong. Madau, his cousin, and Malual Kuer, made him walk between them, his arms across their shoulders for support. His knees refused to stay straight to support him, and the heat made him dizzy. Ayuel felt ashamed of his weakness, but he would not give up. He knew Madau and Malual were using up their energy to help him.

When they came to some scraggly plants, his friends picked leaves for him. No one knew if they were poisonous or not. Who could tell by moonlight? But they needed to eat. So they nibbled the half-dried leaves that stuck to the inside of their mouths. The strong taste was unpleasant and lingered a long time.

“We need leaves with moisture in them,” Donayok, their fourteen-year-old leader, said. He squatted down beside the younger ones, sniffed the dry leaves and pitched them away.

No one answered him. Of course they needed moisture.

Toward morning, as they walked, the ground was not so dry. Tall grass came up to the boys’ knees. Here and there grew a few green vines. Ayuel’s friends laid him down gently in the dry grass. He could hear his own breathing rattle in his chest. He closed his eyes and rested.

“Here, chew on this,” said Malual, who sat beside him and offered the leaves from the vines. They weren’t dry, but they could be poisonous. Ayuel chewed slowly, drifting in and out of sleep.

“Madau and Gutthier have gone to find more leaves—and water might not be too far…”

Malual’s voice faded away and Ayuel slept.

By noon, the sun was too hot to lie out in the open to sleep, so they continued the journey. Ayuel felt a little better and could walk by placing his hands on his friends shoulders.

When evening came they discovered a jungle up ahead. They ate some of the lush leaves and drank from puddles of swamp water. The long, thick vines that hung from the trees were scary in the dim twilight. Ayuel thought some might be snakes, from the way they moved.

The screeching of hawks warned of danger. There were also sounds that the boys did not recognize—strange bird and animal calls. The seventeen held hands as they wove their way single file through the tangled mass of tall grass vines and sharp rocks on the ground.

Ayuel had trouble keeping his mutkukalei on his feet, but he was glad he’d brought them. Some of the others muffled cries of pain from stepping barefoot on the rocks.

All light quickly faded in the thick jungle but the crowd kept tramping—thousands of feet marching through the undergrowth. Ayuel felt pursued by the beat, even though he was part of it.

A low growl not too far away stopped the children. They stood silently listening. Ayuel’s heart pounded in his throat. He dared not even breathe deeply. The growl came again, louder, more like a roar. The seventeen stood frozen in total darkness. Only far away the rustling of marchers continued.

Another loud roar. Angry now.

A pause. Then the shrill cry of children: “Oh, eeyo, oh, ee-yo, no-oh!” More low growls. Crunching sounds. Then silence.

The group sat huddled together in the grass for a long time, not risking talk.

In the distance, they could hear the howling of different animals, like dogs, only more terrible.

“Hyenas,” whispered Donayok.

The howls became louder—and closer. Again screams of children. Snarls. Thrashing about. Screams. More snarls. Quiet.

Ayuel and his friends shivered in the darkness, startled by every bird screech and every rustle in the grass. With thousands of people crouched in the jungle, no one could be sure if movements were by human or beast. They dared not close their eyes—though it was impossible to see anything. Squatted close together, terrified, they waited through the long night, hoping to be alive in the morning.

“Ayuelo, get up.” Gutthier, his half-brother, was gently shaking his arm and whispering in his ear. Pale light filtered through the trees, and waking birds chirped innocently. Ayuel could hear voices over where the terrible night noises had come from.

“What? What?” Ayuel said too loudly. He had fallen asleep on Gutthier’s shoulder for a few minutes just before dawn. Startled, he felt sick and vomited the green leaves he’d eaten the evening before. “What’s going on?”

“Let’s go see.”

The boys pushed their way through the thick vines to a place where lines of people filed past, some lingering, but mostly they shook their heads and went on. Some cried, others talked softly.

Ayuel and his friends stretched their necks to get a look. Bloody bones of six or seven children lay among shreds of clothing in the grass. Flies buzzed.

“Lions.”

“And hyenas over here.”

The seventeen chose not to go look at the second place.

Some of the SPLA soldiers were standing nearby. One said, “We’re sorry. We are here to protect you… we… There just aren’t enough of us.” He turned his head away.

Officer Chol said, “We must walk through the jungle by day so we can see the dangers. We’ll lie still at night. He shook his head and blew his nose on his shirttail. “We can get out quicker going this way. Follow me.” He turned and began walking, his two young brothers trailing close behind him. The officer took a little black box from his belt and held it close to his ear.

“What’s in that little box?” asked Madau, always the curious one.

“I think it’s a radio,” Ayuel said. “My father has one at his office.” If he has an office—if he’s alive.

“He listens to BBC,” Malual said.

“What’s that?” Ayuel wanted to talk about anything except what they had just seen.

“All I know is, it’s not in the Dinka language.”

“Then it must not be important.”

The boys shrugged their shoulders and followed the officer.

The children soon learned, as gossip spread, that wild animals had attacked many throughout the camp that night, leaving similar bloody scenes. As the daytime heat rose, it became difficult to breathe the humid air. Ayuel felt faint, but he held to vines and scrub trees to pull himself along through the thick underbrush. More than once they came across a shallow pool. Each time Ayuel untied his calabash from around his waist and drank the stagnant water.

By the third nightfall, they were out of the thickest part of the jungle with no more nearby attacks. “We must walk until we come to safe cover,” the soldier with them said. After struggling through the vines all day, the children wanted to lie down, but the soldier told them it wasn’t safe yet. Not only the animals posed a danger, but also some had died in the jungle from eating too many of the wrong kind of leaves.

“Let’s stay here just a little while,” said Akon, the only girl among the seventeen. “I’m so tired.” She sat down and then fell over and lay still. Images of his little sister sleeping, curled up safely on her mat, crossed Ayuel’s mind.

He stood over her a couple of minutes. Her bare feet, scratched and caked with dried blood, stuck out from under her soiled cotton dress. “There are wild animals here. Remember? They will chew you up like they did the children the other night. Come on.” Though weak himself, he took her arm and pulled her up.

Six weeks had passed since the beginning of their journey to Ethiopia, and again they were completely without water and without food. With no shelter in the desert, they now must walk by day and sleep in the open at night. Like sticks, the legs and arms of the children seemed stuck to their bodies, skin pulled tight over ribs and swollen stomachs, sagging elsewhere. Hair that their mothers had kept neatly cropped now stood in clumps with patches of orange. Those who still could moved slowly, moaning in agony.

Every now and then a child fell, writhed and groaned in the dirt until laying forever silent. Some gave up and laid down quietly to wait for death. With no time for sacred burial, friends of the dead piled dry brush over the bodies as they had seen earlier. Such makeshift graves lay everywhere, some exposing decaying flesh and bone, all covered with buzzing flies. The scorching sun bore down on the naked and near-naked bodies of the living. Unrelenting. No refuge anywhere from the heat and stench of death.

In desperation, Officer Chol shot his gun into the air and screamed this prayer: “Oh God, don’t do this to these children! Please, God!” His cries seemed to fall on deaf ears of the Almighty.

Ayuel dropped to the ground under a tree whose bare branches gave no shade. He moved his lips to say I can’t go on, but his mouth and tongue were too dry and swollen to utter even one word. The sun blinded his eyes and the caked earth burned his skin. Death clutched at his neck trying to choke off his life. He curled his toes inside his mutkukalei. Some child would find his “dead and gone” sandals and pull them from his lifeless feet.

As he lay there on his side, Malual Kuer knelt on the hot ground beside him and put his hand under the side of Ayuel’s face. Ayuel could see that his best friend’s eyes were sunken into his skull, like his own must be. He let his eyelids drop shut, content to give up.

He could feel the vibration of someone running toward him, but he didn’t turn his head. “I heard he was down.” The voice belonged to their leader, Donayok. “I came as soon as I could.”

“He’s not well,” Malual said.

“You must live,” Donayok whispered. He untied the calabash from around Ayuel’s waist. “You must pee in this… and drink it.”

Ayuel’s forehead wrinkled, even in his weakness. How disgusting!

“I’ve done it. Others are doing it,” he urged.

Ayuel tried, but his body was too dehydrated to urinate.

Others walked past him, moaning and crying. A boy gave one long lament, then toppled over dead only a few feet behind him. He could hear the rustling sounds of dried brush, quickly gathered to cover a fallen comrade. Ayuel didn’t want to be buried like that. Donayok knelt beside him and waited. Akon, the girl, stopped a few moments, then respectfully moved on.

Ayuel tried again. This time a few drops of urine came—perhaps a spoonful.

“Here, sit up,” the leader said. He helped him lift the calabash to his dry lips.

He drank it.

The bitter taste lingered in his mouth. Then, miraculously, clouds moved across the sky, blocking the searing heat of the sun and providing shade.

“God is with us,” whispered Malual, the minister’s son. “You can go on now.” He helped Ayuel to stand on wobbly legs. Donayok hoisted him onto his back. Instead of dying, Ayuel traveled five more miles that day, sometimes walking, sometimes on the back of the good leader—until an oasis appeared in the distance.