Acts of faith (110 page)

“Who are these?” He had to shout to be heard—the battle for the ridges was reaching a crescendo.

“Spies!” Kasli yelled back. “Americans! I shot them! There are two more foreigners over there!” He pointed at the crowd of captives, among whom the foreigners were easy to pick out. “A doctor and a nurse. I spared them because I thought they could be of use.”

“Have you seen the radio operator?”

“No.”

What was going on? What was he supposed to do? Hold the town? Withdraw? A Brother brought him a riderless horse. Ibrahim mounted, deciding that the wisest course would be to regroup as many murahaleen as possible and wait to see what happened. As he pulled bands of men from here and there, the noise of the battle subsided and soon ceased altogether. The quiet, after so great a racket, was unsettling. He’d no idea what it meant—victory or defeat or merely a lull. His lungs burned from breathing smoke; he judged that he’d lost more men in this fight than in any other. Dead Brothers were sprawled on the ground beside dead horses and dead Nubans, while wounded men pleaded for water. He could use some water himself; his throat felt scorched.

He mustered about half his force and was rounding up more at the western end of the town, where the attack had begun, when he saw the side of a ridge to his right dotted with figures: tens and tens of figures, running downhill in his direction, firing as they ran. Rebel soldiers, counterattacking. In moments more gunfire erupted at the opposite end of the town, mixed in with the detonations of rocket-propelled grenades. Once again bullets pierced the air, and men and mounts were falling everywhere he looked. He was enlightened. He understood. The rebel commander had not fallen for the ruse; he had held his men in position and stopped Colonel Ahmar’s assault, and now Ibrahim and the Brothers were trapped. The colonel had abandoned them to draw fire and thus cover the militia’s retreat.

Wheeling, he rode back to the church. In the desperation of the moment, an idea had come to him, a gamble that could get him out of this fix or get him killed. It would be win all or lose all. At this point, he wasn’t sure if he gave a damn which way it went.

“R
UN
,
MISSY
,
RUN
!” Negev cried, holding her hand, dragging her behind him.

Well ahead, files of people were moving over the grass-covered knolls and knobs. She clutched for breath, her mouth was dry, her dress soaked with sweat. Negev urged her to run still faster. She stopped to take off her sandals, thinking it would be easier to run barefoot. She was wrong—rocks cut her feet. Negev flung himself to the ground, taking her with him, as mortar shells burst a hundred yards away. Now they heard the hammering of machine guns and automatic rifles.

“Negev!” she said, raising her voice over the din. “It’s all open ground ahead. I know a better place.” She pointed to the pinnacles, off to their right. “They’ll never get horses up there.”

They made for the high rocks. Never had she run so far so fast. But what was this doing to her baby? An embryo, probably no bigger than her thumb; yet she was aware of it in a physical way and slowed to a quick walk, afraid that more violent exertion would cause her to miscarry.

Negev nearly jerked her arm out of its socket. “No walking! Running!”

And so she ran again. They had picked up a following—a score of women, most with children and infants. The uphill path went from dirt to solid stone, on which Quinette’s feet left bloody prints. Far above the valley the path leveled off and led them to the small granite plateau. All of them fell to their knees around the cistern, dipping their heads to drink like wild beasts at a water hole.

“In there,” Quinette gasped, gesturing at the grotto. They all crowded inside. That this had so recently been the scene of pleasure and joy seemed impossible. Quinette’s head throbbed, her slashed feet burned. She crawled out to the cistern and plunged them in. Healing waters. As she crawled back, she saw that Yamila was in the group. Clad in a barega, she was examining a scrape on her arm. She shot Quinette a quick glance, its meaning opaque, if it had a meaning.

Explosions and gunfire echoed from the town, hundreds of feet below, hidden from view by the tall pinnacles. The air smelled as it did at the end of the dry season, when grass fires were lit.

“A very big battle, missy,” Negev said, guarding the grotto’s entrance. “If murahaleen try to come up here on foot”—he slapped his Kalashnikov—“one by one I kill them.”

He stood and moved off.

“Where are you going?”

“To look to see what is happening,” he said.

Curiosity, or perhaps the inability to wait in ignorance, compelled her to follow.

Lying side by side in a cleft between two of the finger rocks, they peered almost straight down to see, through torn sheets of smoke, Arabs on horseback, shooting, grabbing people, dragging them by ropes. It was like a scene from the fourteenth century, though the slavers of that time would not have been armed with assault rifles.
Murahaleen.
The raiders she had heard of so often and now saw, like mounted ghosts in their white robes and turbans. Pale riders. The church was directly below, still intact, but the tailor shop had been blown up, and the school’s roof had collapsed in flames, leaving a jumble of charred beams speckled with embers. She felt such a helpless fury.

“Oh, with one of the big machine guns, I could kill all of them from here,” Negev said.

“I was just thinking the same thing.”

“Come, missy, down. Maybe someone will see us.”

Seated again in the granite sanctuary, she gazed at the forlorn women, cradling their children, whispering to them. Her thoughts flew to the refugees in the tent-camp, in flight again, or killed, or taken prisoner. She was physically and emotionally spent; a deadness was in her heart.

I
BRAHIM DISPERSED HIS
men to form a perimeter around the church and its outbuildings, ordering the Brothers to fight on foot. They crouched behind dead horses and live ones, pulled down to lie on their sides. All the while bullets popped overhead, but nowhere near as thick as before. The rebel soldiers seemed to realize that the captives and the murahaleen were now bunched together, and they feared killing their own people. He ordered Hamdan to bring the captives into the church and to post men inside and out. His friend grinned through his beard, grasping what Ibrahim was up to. His first duty had always been to preserve his Brothers’ lives, for to preserve them was to preserve the future of the Salamat, of all who belonged to Dar Humr. He didn’t know the number lost today, but he would save the rest—and get what he wanted in the bargain. Inshallah.

As Brothers prodded the captives with rifles, shouting “Move, move, inside,” Ibrahim flew about the perimeter, shouting to his men to cease firing. Under the circumstances, it struck them as a strange command. Some obeyed, others did not, but gradually they stopped shooting. And when they did, the enemy did.

“Ya! Kasli, I may need you,” he said, finding the Nuban near a fire-blackened building, huddled behind a pile of tables and sewing machines. Ibrahim took off his guftan, tied it to his rifle barrel, and raising it high, waved it back and forth.

“You fool!” Kasli hissed. “What are you doing? They won’t take us prisoner, they will kill us all.”

“They are going to kill us all regardless. Be quiet. I am getting us out of this.”

A voice called out, “You Arabs, do you surrender?”

“Ah, I will not need you after all, Kasli. That one speaks Arabic.” He peered over the mound of sewing machines and spotted a man crouched beside a house, red on his shoulder—an officer.

“Ya! You,” he yelled. “I am Ibrahim Idris, commanding these murahaleen. No surrender. A truce.”

“You shall have it. The truce of the grave.”

“Esmah! We have a great many of your people captive in your church. There are two foreigners with them, a doctor and a nurse. If there is no truce, we will burn it down with all who are in it.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“No? Will you believe me if I show the foreigners to you? Or do you prefer to see for yourself? Come alone. I promise your safety. We know our situation.”

Several minutes passed, then Ibrahim heard the officer speaking in Nuban.

“What is he saying, Kasli?”

“He is speaking to the commander on the radio, telling him what you have said . . . Now he is asking what he should do.”

In a short while, the officer came forward, cautiously.

“Kasli, escort him into the church. Show him.”

When this was done, the officer approached Ibrahim. “What is it you want?”

“As I said, a truce. And to present my terms to your commander and to no one else.”

The man left, had another conversation on the radio, and then called, “Ya! You will come alone and unarmed.”

“I have a guarantee of safety?”

“Yes.”

“If I am harmed, not one hostage will see the end of this day.”

“Stop talking and come to me, without your rifle.”

Ibrahim took the guftan off the rifle, tied it around his head, brushed the dirt from his jelibiya, and straightened his cartridge belt. He would present himself as a man of the Humr, omda of the Salamat, commander of proud murahaleen.

“Ya, Kasli,” he said. “Tell Hamdan that if I have not returned by sundown, kill them all without hesitation. Allah yisalimak.”

Ibrahim stepped forward, the longest and riskiest step of his life. Win all or lose all.
Whatever Allah wills,
he thought,
so it shall be done.

“W
HAT TIME IS IT
?”

Negev turned his wrist toward her. One o’clock. Services had let out at ten-thirty. Already that seemed like days ago.

The battle subsided. Random gunshots, an isolated explosion, and then total silence. Negev climbed again to the lookout, returned, and stated that he had seen a number of murahaleen surrounding the church, but a greater number of SPLA surrounding the murahaleen.

“I think we win,” he said.

Quinette stood. A breeze blew through her sweat-matted dress, chilling her. “I’m going to find my husband.”

“No!” Negev said. “I don’t know who is win, only think it is us.”

“If we’ve won, then the danger’s over; if we’ve lost, Michael is either dead or taken prisoner, and then I don’t give a damn what happens to me. I am going to find him.”

She started off, hobbling on the sides of her feet. Negev came behind her, muttering what she assumed were curses. He had more reason to curse later on. The climb down had so injured her feet that she couldn’t walk any farther. He carried her piggyback toward the headquarters. His fidelity to her and to his duty touched her—it was an affirmation of humanity amid so much inhumanity. They passed a tukul that had been struck by shellfire. Two torn bodies lay outside, covered with flies. Negev came across a pair of discarded sandals and set her down, sighing with relief. She didn’t think twice about wearing a dead person’s sandals. They were too big, but she managed to keep them on by squeezing the thong between her toes.

“Looks like we won,” she said, pointing at the SPLA flag, with its green, red, and white stripes and yellow star, flying above the headquarters building.

“Yes, missy. This time.”

Dozens of soldiers were gathered outside in an atmosphere of tense expectancy. With Negev, Quinette went inside, where Michael, his back to the door, was conferring with his officers. The sight of him, alive and injured, sent an electric current through her. An officer called his attention to her. He turned and looked, wearing his battle face, blank and affectless.

“What are you doing here?”

“I had to see you.”

He scolded Negev, then rebuked her. She should not have taken such a risk, not knowing the situation. She should realize she wasn’t one any longer, she was two. She took her spanking, apologized, and dropped into a chair. When Michael saw the condition of her feet, he summoned a medic, who swabbed the cuts with rubbing alcohol. The sting made her grimace, which softened her husband’s expression.

“I hope we never see another day like this,” he said, inclining his head. “But if we do, you will go where you are told and stay there until you are told that it is safe. For now, I think you’re as safe here as anywhere.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, as the medic taped gauze to one foot. “Is it over?”

“I don’t know. We have several hundred Arabs trapped in town, but they are holding a great many hostages inside the church. Manfred and Ulrika, too.”

“No!”

“I am afraid so.”

“Fancher? Handy? What about them?”

“Dead,” he replied, almost with indifference. “Executed. By Kasli, I’m told.”

“Kasli?”

“He’s with them. An officer reported it to me.”

These two pieces of news struck her viscerally. Whatever had been holding her in one piece these past three or four hours gave way, and she wept.

“Stop crying!” Michael said almost savagely. “A lot of people died today. More may die. The murahaleen commander has asked for a truce. He is being brought here. We will see what he has to say. You might as well stay.”