end of any rescuer. For a half-hour or more, they heard screams of pain and fright. The life-saving water now churned with blood and mud. Bodies of those killed floated in the mire. Those merely hurt crawled to the shade of trees where older boys tied rags around their wounds.
Now that the crocodiles had their fill, they sunned themselves at the water’s edge. The hippopotamuses seemed vindicated, lunged out of the water and lumbered on. The stink was like that of dead fish. Ayuel dared not drink, but he sat down at the edge of the pool in the cool mud. His body sobbed at the sight of death but his eyes lacked the moisture for tears. He scooped up some mud and patted it on his tongue.
When planes had roared overhead a few days before, the thousands separated into smaller bands of hundreds, hoping many targets would be harder to hit. Ayuel, still weak, walked under his own power with his sixteen friends. No protective SPLA soldier was anywhere in sight.
In the distance ahead, Ayuel could see smoke curling up next to a grove of trees. Donayok raised his hand to stop the group. “Something’s burning,” he said.
“Could be coming from an enemy attack,” Madau said who walked beside Ayuel.
“Or someone cooking food,” offered Ayuel. The only other group nearby was traveling between them and the trees.
Suddenly shots pierced the morning air. Ayuel clasped his hands over his ears. More shots. They watched as bodies fell to the ground in the group ahead.
“We’re being massacred!” shouted Madau as he dropped to his stomach. The others followed suit.
“Lie still,” commanded Donayok. “If we run, they will shoot us in the back.”
As Ayuel lay frightened, the aroma of cooking meat mixed with the dust under his nose. The familiar feelings of hunger replaced the constant gnawing pains of starvation. I’d like to eat something before I die. He could feel his heart pounding in his ears. Daring to look up, he watched as the “dead” on the ground up ahead slowly rose and came back to life. “Look.” He shoved Chuei’s arm. “Look, they’re getting up.”
Men in uniform stepped out of the woods with guns pointing skyward. Shots rang out again but no one fell.
“I think we’re saved,” Donayok said, springing up. “They aren’t shooting at anyone. Let’s go see.” The seventeen ran and joined those who had sprung back to life. As they came closer, Ayuel could see a few military men but most were boy soldiers in ill-fitting uniforms, toting guns as tall as themselves.
One of the officers shouted, “What tribe are you?”
“Mostly Dinka,” Donayok yelled back.
“So are we!” called a boy not more than eight years old. “Come eat with us. We’re soldiers of the SPLA.”
“Oyeah! Oyeah! Great is the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army!” the boys shouted as they rushed toward the campfire.
The SPLA group had just slaughtered an elephant and was cooking strips of meat speared to sticks over the fire. A uniformed boy handed Ayuel a stick with sizzling meat. “Eat slowly and not too much,” he said. “As starved as you are, too much food can kill you.” Ayuel noticed these boys were not as skinny as they were.
“Thanks,” Ayuel said, looking the stranger in the eye, grateful to be alive as well as to receive food. Since the meat still sizzled, he held it in front of his face and breathed in the smoke and good smell. Meat had not been part of his regular diet back in the village of Duk. He remembered the festivals when a bull was slaughtered in a religious ritual.
He sat down in a circle with Madau, Malual Kuer, Gutthier and Chuei. They all had received a portion too. “Remember the wedding of your sister’s friend?” Ayuel said to Madau as he pulled off a small bite with his fingers. He popped it in his mouth and licked his fingers. Still too hot.
“Sure. They butchered a bull and danced around it—an Animist sacrifice. It was the groom’s family that worshiped spirits. I wonder if that couple is still alive—and my sister and her husband.” With a sigh, Madau bit into his portion of food.
“This doesn’t taste much like beef,” Chuei said. “Ever eat elephant before?”
“No,” Ayuel said, chewing slowly. “Don’t eat so fast, Chuei.” He worried about his cousin who used to make jokes. Now he looked the worst of any of them, with his sunken eyes and bloated stomach.
As they sat and gnawed the last strings of meat from the bones, a group of older Dinka boys in uniform emerged from the bush, dragging parts of another slain elephant.
“Look,” a boy soldier sitting next to Ayuel called out. “I see our brothers are back from the hunt.”
“There are more elephants waiting for us at a watering hole,” one of the uniformed hunters announced proudly as he let go of his burden. He shaded his eyes and looked out over the crowd of new arrivals that had swollen to nearly two hundred. He turned to his fellow soldiers and said, “Looks like many guests have come to our feast. Cook this and we will return with more.” The eager young hunters waved bloody spears and disappeared into the thicket.
Ayuel and his group, along with others, stayed in the camp several days, filling their stomachs, drinking from the watering hole and swapping stories. Some boys, at the officers’ urging, joined the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army to become boy soldiers so they could eat well and carry guns. But the seventeen all decided to go on to Ethiopia, where their Officer Chol had assured them that food, clothing and shelter awaited them. When they took their leave, each child carried a bundle of dried elephant strips, enough to last several days.
By the end of the month, the thousands again traveled together and converged on the town of Pibor, home to the Murle tribe. Since the area had been spared bombs from the Khartoum government, grass huts stretched for miles. Made of mud and straw with pointed thatched roofs, they resembled the tukuls of Duk. Skinny Dinka children wandered among the healthy Murles.
“They look even worse than us,” Gutthier said.
“We’re just used to looking at each other,” Ayuel said. He could almost imagine himself back home as he looked out over the multiple compounds, pole fences lashed together with reeds and women stooped over large black cooking pots or pounding maize into flour. Fields of sorghum and herds of cattle edged the village. A wave of homesickness washed over him, but this was not home.
He and Gutthier stopped in front of a woman cooking maize in a pot over a charcoal fire. They stood and watched, their hands clasped behind them. “Please, Mama,” Ayuel said, for Dinka children traditionally called all women mama.
The woman looked up and wrinkled her brow into a frown. “I can’t feed the whole world, you know,” she said, dipping the cooked maize into a large pottery bowl. “We are overrun with hungry Dinka offspring. But I’m sorry your villages got destroyed.” She glanced about in all directions. “Don’t tell where you got this,” she said as she handed them the bowl.
The boys scooped up small bites from the common bowl, then handfuls, being careful not to appear greedy. The mush felt smooth and warm in Ayuel’s mouth and tasted just like what his own mama used to make.
“Now, go on and don’t come around again,” the woman said, placing
