“I’m hurting a bit. My foot is going numb again, but the leg still works. Anyway, we must find a place to land and soon.”
Following Hanley’s instructions, the nun pulled a section map of southern Sudan from a webbed pocket on the side wall, opened and spread it over her lap. He asked her to find Kosit and then Mapuordit, which he had marked on the map. She drew an imaginary line between the two with her finger, reading off the names of the village and mentioning roads her finger crossed. Hanley listened for a name that was familiar to him, but found listening difficult.
“Did you mention Shambe?” the American asked.
“Yes, it is along the line. I know Shambe. It is about an hour from Yirol. I know a merchant there. There is a road that has a long stretch which is straight. It is close to the village. There is a telephone in the village. Hanley, can you make it to Shambe? We need to get you medical attention right away.”
“I don’t know. I don’t … we don’t have much choice, do we? It will take about an hour and fifteen minutes to get to Shambe. I can radio ahead to the mission and get them started to meet us there. When I do, there will be much less control of what happens to the children. We will not be near the mission and able to move the children ourselves. You must have considered that.”
“Yes, we will face that later. We must get you medical help. We must get to Shambe,” she said. As she did, the right engine coughed, a heavier, darker line of smoke now trailed behind the plane. Hanley watched the oil gauge, hoping the rate of loss to be about the same as before the engine stuttered. It wasn’t.
31
Feeling as tired as he could ever remember and shivering with chills, Hanley tried to ignore the pain in his back and the numbness in his right leg. Things were getting worse and he knew it wouldn’t be long before his ability to manage a landing would be a problem. He couldn’t think of what would happen if he lost consciousness. They had been in the air for about one hour and fifteen minutes. Hanley needed to stay focused, but was now struggling with the pain and the weakness that was enveloping him. The desire to sleep was suddenly overwhelming. “Talk to me,” he said.
The nun leaned forward to examine his face. “Can you still move your legs?” she asked.
“Yes, but my foot has lost most of its feeling. I’m so tired. I’m very weak.”
Aisha made her way to the door of the cockpit and listened as the nun and the American spoke. “Sister, will we be all right? He is hurt, he flies this plane. Will we be all right?” Aisha asked.
“Yes, he is hurt, but we will be landing soon. The people from the mission will come for us, for you and the children. We will be all right,” Sister Marie Claire told her, her gaze never leaving Hanley’s face as she answered the girl’s question.
As they spoke, Hanley’s head fell forward as if he had fallen asleep. Grabbing his shirt collar, Sister Marie Claire shook him and yelled, “Stay awake.”
Hanley’s head came up and he said, “Sorry, I just wanted to close my eyes for a minute, that’s all. I can do this, you know.”
“I know you can,” the nun said.
Aisha looked at the pilot and said, “You can do it.”
There was never any doubt, once she realized she was being rescued, once she was taken from the factory by the two women, placed in the van and driven into hiding, once she knew hope had been given to her as a gift wrapped in the bravery and determination of strangers, she was never going back to slavery. When the young man in the bright white shirt took her hand to guide her into the plane, when she saw his smile despite the swirling deafening chaos of the rescue, after seeing him dead on the ground, she understood it was her duty to take his place in the rescue of the other children. How could she not?
Keeping the pilot awake until he could put the plane back on the ground was all she could do. Gathering the children around her, Aisha said, “Listen to me. I want you to say ‘You can do it’, ‘You can do it’. Please say it with me.” She repeated the phase several times. A first the children hesitated but as some began, the others soon joined in the chant. It was in Masalit. As its was repeated, the chorus grew louder, guided by Aisha, determined the pilot would hear them above the Beech’s engines.
Hanley heard the voices of the children behind him.. He could hear them as if their voices were coming through his headphones, a chorus of children chanting to him. The voices took on a strange quality, like children, but stronger, the voices otherworldly, eerily harmonic, changing to sounds he didn’t want to hear, he didn’t want to know. He shook his head to clear his mind; he must be hallucinating. “What are they saying?” he asked the nun.
“It’s in Masalit,” she said. “I think they are saying, ‘You can do it’.
Soaked with sweat, gripping the yoke as hard as he could, Hanley sat up straight, the pain in his back as great a pain as he had ever known. The numbness in his foot continued to grow and his legs were slow to move. “Let’s see if we can raise someone at the mission,” he whispered to Sister Marie Claire. “You’ll have to do it for me.”
Tuning to the frequency for the mission radio, Hanley and Sister Marie Claire immediately heard the voice of the young priest,
