Self congratulation begins a bit too early
When mister Adam told me that the threat of "Wild animals and wild people" was keeping the train to Wau parked in the middle of nowhere until daylight, I immediately thought to myself 'You guys are really chicken-hearted, c'mon, lets get on down the track to Wau where I may be able to find a shower ! ', but I didn't say anything at all, keeping my opinions to myself. I lay down on the ground, wrapped up my head in my Al Fatah towel, and went back to sleep.
Finally the sun oozed above the dusty trees to the east. The railway crew diddled about for another half hour, and we continued south, through the forest with the dangerous reputation. This third day's journey was much like the previous two, moving through flat landscape, mostly dry thickets made up of individually thin but densely packed trees. As before, we stopped at every desolate grass village, and as before, my focus was on trying to stay comfortable and hydrated.
Just before noon we stopped at a small nameless village in a good-sized clearing. I was maneuvering into position to refill my water bottle when I heard a commotion at some distance, and moved to a point where I could see what was going on. There at the far edge of the clearing, about 200 yards away, I could see seven men just KILLING two soldiers, who were already lying on the ground. The wild-looking attackers each had an ironwood fighting stick, and they were standing in a circle around the two inert forms pounding them WHACKWHACKWHACKWHACK with all of their might! They were putting so much power into the blows that it seemed their feet were lifting off the ground with each strike !! Yowee !! Two of my fellow communards took their identical fighting clubs and ran to the rescue. I grabbed an unsatisfactory tree branch from the dirt and ran in the same direction. Fortunately, by the time I arrived, the fight was over. The seven original assailants, seeing about 30 people running to the rescue, only waited for the first few to arrive, did a little face-saving stick-fighting, and then ran into the bushes, chased by three of the most stalwart from the train.
So, there we were, the proud group of rescuers standing around at the edge of the forest, with everyone talking fast. Dinka and English and Nuer and Swahili could all be heard, but it all had exactly the same tone. Everyone was telling each other the same thing - "Ain't we COOL !?! Did you see those suckers RUN from us ?!? Man, we really showed those guys, didn't we !! "
Soldiers arrived from the train out of breath and began to blanket-carry their two unconscious comrades back towards the rails. I ditched my branch and watched them. But, there was something strange going on back at the distant train, now that I looked at it. - - - - Yep, no question about it, the folks on the roof were getting down from there, and there was nothing calm about it, they were coming down IN A HURRY and PACKING themselves bodily into the already packed carriages, and the big heavy wooden shutters were dropping down "Clump, Clump, Clumpclumpclump, Clump" sealing the windows.
Now I figured from up there they could probably see something that I couldn't see from where I was. So I started walking casually, back in the direction of the train, - gotta maintain "cool". Just about that time the three passengers who had chased the bad guys into the forest zoomed past me RUNNING FLAT OUT for the train, looking back over their shoulders with their eyes bugging out !!! Well, I am here to assure you that it is very easy to get "sucked along" in a situation like that, and I was moving at my best speed before I ever looked back. Sure enough, the local wild men hadn't run too far back into the forest, they had only gone back to their huts to get their spears, and now they were back chasing us toward the railway !! And those guys were not fooling around, they were spearing people!
At that point, running hard for the train, I was feeling awfully conspicuous. I was slower than the running Sudanese, and I had much broader shoulders, and with everyone else in sight wearing either khaki or black skin, I had on a yellow T-shirt !!! I MUST have been the greatest target available, but I don't think any of the nasty javelins were aimed at me personally, because none landed close. I made it to the train unspeared !! But there was still a problem. There were SO many people now packed into the carriages that no more could fit inside, and the only room available was on the bottom step at the end of a carriage, facing outward with my back against a solid mass of humanity, watching the locals run up and throw their lances at the train !! It was completely amazing, and I could hardly believe my eyes ! Inside my head I was shouting - "This isn't 1975, it could be 100 years ago!"
The word got up to the engine, and we pulled chuggingly away. At that point the spear-chuckers started jumping around wildly, waving their remaining javelins over their heads, and chanting joyously. And I could tell from the familiar tone exactly what they were saying. Of course it was - "Did you SEE all those boys RUN from us ? ! ? We REALLY scared those buggers ! ! ! They'll learn not to mess with US, won't they ! ? !"
I am pretty sure that we did not leave anyone behind when we departed, but I cannot begin to imagine how much worse the situation would have been if the same scene had been enacted in the darkness. I now understood why we had waited until daylight to pass through that region. I silently apologised to those controlling the movements of the train for ever believing they were chicken-hearted.
We rode for about a half hour and then stopped again, and everyone was busy getting sorted out, and back up onto the roofs, and finding their belongings. During this confusing time mister Adam appeared at my elbow, saying " Men are hurt, mister Chih-Kuh, and you must come to see them." I didn't know what he was talking about, but accompanied him a few carriages down to where the casualties were being collected.
That was when I discovered that out of 1500 people on the train, my white skin and tiny 1" by 1" by 3" first aid kit tagged me the best we could do for a doctor !! Well, alright then, I went back to my Boy Scout and hospital-orderly training, and began administering as best I could. I found six little glass ampules in the kit, four red-brown and two white. The red brown ones proved to be mercurochrome, and I broke them open one by one and used them to treat spear damage, happily all flesh-wounds. One poor guy had taken a javelin in the front of his shin, and the point was in the bone so solidly that I could not pull it out. So I disinfected it as best I could and wrapped a little gauze around the entry point. I used dabs of antiseptic creme and band-aids to treat a couple of contusions from the stick fight. Then Adam took me up into one of the carriages where the two badly-beaten guys were lying. Those two were still mostly "out", and one of them had been hit so hard in the back of his head that his nose had bled profusely. From my two summers spent as an emergency-room orderly I knew that to be a very bad sign.
What could I do for them? Not much, Ok, put their feet up higher than their heads to treat them for shock, but that seemed pretty unsatisfactory. Then I discovered that my two little white ampules were smelling salts, exactly what I needed in my three cubic inch first aid kit! I broke one open, and held it under the noses in turn, and they both sputtered and snorted and came groggily awake. I left solemn instructions, through Adam's translation, that the nosebleeder's friends were NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES to allow him to go to sleep until we reached the doctor at Wau. I was very much afraid that if he went to sleep, he would slip into a coma, and die before we could do anything else.
Apparently I was lucky, and it worked, because everyone was still alive a day and a half later when we reached Wau. Well, everyone, that is, if we do not count the two men who were killed by falling off, but those were not my responsibility.