Backlands (44 page)

“I am going to show those fellows a thing or two.”

He was no more than halfway there when he lurched forward in his saddle. A bullet had struck him in the stomach. His staff circled around him.

“It’s nothing, just a superficial wound,” he said, trying to assure his dedicated comrades. He was, in fact, mortally wounded.

He did not get off his horse. He returned with the help of Lieutenant Avila to the place where he had been stationed, when another bullet struck him. He was out of commission now and Colonel Tamarindo, who was given immediate notice of the disaster, should have taken over. He was so busy trying to save his battalion on the other side of the river that he could not think of taking over command.

He was a simple, good-natured fellow, averse to showmanship. He was almost sixty and he looked forward to a peaceful retirement. He had been assigned to the expedition against his will. Even if he had the ability to handle the crisis, there was no way to improve the situation.

In the meantime, the police were following the precedent of their comrades in the other part of the town and were destroying houses and setting them on fire. It was chaotic and there was no sign of military discipline. This was not an assault; it was the battering of a monster barrier, which became even more terrible as every moment passed and more buildings fell and went up in smoke. Beneath the rubble in the streets, the
sertanejos
were better able to get away or find secure hiding places.

Another, inevitable and greater, difficulty was about to come. Night fell on the tangle of battle. The men were exhausted from five hours of fighting.

Even before night fell, the troops had begun to retreat. On the left bank the first of the detachments could be seen running away in confusion. Others joined them, breaking ranks completely, emerging from the corners of the churches and behind the huts on the riverbank. Officers and men mingled together; they were filthy, burned, their uniforms in tatters. They ran wherever they found a break in enemy fire. They were reduced to a terrified, screaming, staggering, running mob.

The movement spread from the left wing to the far right. Forced to move back to its original positions, the battle line, strafed by enemy fire, was pushed back to the riverbank. It was now a squirming mass of men. With no commander, every man had to fend for himself. As they approached the river, small groups would break off to set fire to the nearest huts or to engage in brief struggles. The others, wounded and without weapons, only wanted to get across the stream. It was over.

Suddenly, in their panic and confusion, the men deserted their platoons and jumped into the river. Struggling with each other, trampling the wounded, fending off the crippled, drowning them, the first of the retreating soldiers made their way up the right bank. Grasping at the thin clumps of grass, using their weapons to leverage their climb, and hanging on the legs of the men ahead of them who were already making it up to the top, they merged into a fleeing mass on the other side. It was a boiling heap of screaming bodies up and down the river. It was as if the Vaza-Barris had suddenly overflowed its banks, in a foaming, raging torrent.

At this moment the bell ringer in the old church interrupted the chaotic scene. In the dead clarity of twilight the first notes of the Ave Maria were melodiously sounded.

Baring their heads and throwing their leather hats or bright blue caps to the ground, the
jagunços
fired a final shot and turned to their evening prayers.

After they had managed to cross the river, the soldiers regrouped around the artillery. They were a terrified mob, with nothing in common with the army that had been so anxious to face the enemy. The hill where they were now located was much too close to the enemy. They might be attacked in the dark and so they had to leave the place. Making no attempt to maintain order, they dragged the cannons behind them and headed for Mario’s Hill, which was about four hundred yards ahead. Here they attempted a square formation, with their decimated ranks, officers, ambulances filled with wounded, the artillery and supply trains. In the center of the “camp” their commander in chief was dying in the ruins of the Old Ranch House. All that was left of the expedition was a rough assembly of men, animals, and weapons huddled in a hollow of the hill.

Night had fallen. It was a very bright night of the type common to the backlands. Every star, fixed in the heavens, seemed to radiate heat. The horizon would light up at intervals from the lightning of distant storms.

The settlement was invisible except for the glow of smoldering fires or lanterns of people moving slowly through the dark, as if searching for something. The lights indicated that the enemy was keeping watch, but the firing had stopped and it was completely silent. The bright starlight made it possible to distinguish the outlines of the church buildings. The rest of the compact mass of the settlement, the surrounding hills and mountains, was invisible in the dark.

The terrible situation of the camp contrasted with the peaceful setting. Wounded men, suffering from pain and thirst, twisted in agony or crawled on their hands and knees. They were in danger of being trampled by the frightened horses. It was impossible to treat them in the dark. Lighting a match would have exposed them to extreme danger. There were not enough surgeons. One had disappeared that afternoon. He was dead, lost, or captured and would never return.

What was missing was the firm hand of a commander. This was too much of a burden for Colonel Tamarindo. He cursed the turn of events that had put him into this terrible position. He made no attempt to plan. When asked by an anxious officer what he intended to do, he replied with a popular country saying: “When it’s time to die, each man goes alone.”

That was his only order. Sitting on a drum box, sucking at a long pipe, he would give the same reply or mutter a few monosyllables to anyone seeking his advice. He had completely let go of his duty to revitalize this demoralized mob by forming them into fresh combat units.

There were certainly courageous men among them, and there were officers still willing to make sacrifices for them. The old soldier’s intuition convinced him that the individuals willing to make the effort were far fewer than the total number of men. He could not foresee the outcome of the events that could undermine even the best of them. He thus remained impassive and aloof, surrendering his command to the rank and file.

The tenacious officers took matters into their own hands to the best of their abilities and addressed the most urgent needs: They tried to put some order into the square formation in which men from all companies were now randomly mixed. They organized an ambulance train and ordered stretchers. They tried to lift the men’s spirits.

Many of them were animated by the thought of a new assault. At dawn they would launch another full-force attack on the fanatics. They would feel the brunt of an even stronger bombardment than they had gotten the day before. Inspired by this idea, they got together to make plans that would remediate their defeat. Victory must be won, at all cost. Within the four sides of their misshapen square, the future of the republic was in their hands. They had to win. They were disgusted and humiliated by their deadly yet ridiculous situation. They were surrounded by the best modern weapons, sitting on cases full of cartridges, and yet cornered by a band of crazy backwoodsmen.

Most of them looked at the situation analytically. They had no false hopes. They only had to compare their assessment of the situation a few hours ago with the picture that now confronted them and it was clear that there was only one solution—to retreat.

There was no other option—they had to retreat immediately.

It was eleven o’clock at night when the officers unanimously agreed upon this plan. A captain of the infantry was delegated to communicate their decision to Colonel Moreira César. At first he was surprised and disappointed. He spoke calmly about their military duty and pointed out they still had enough supplies to attempt another attack. Then he became agitated and began to criticize the scum who would drag his name in the mud forever. Finally, he could not contain himself and he shouted: No! He would not be the victim of such terrible cowardice.

In spite of him, the officers stuck to their plan.

This added insult to the unfortunate hero’s agony. Disgusted, he gave his last order. Put it all in writing, leaving space in the margin for him to write in his protest, along with tendering his resignation.

The painful reprimand of the wounded chief did not budge the staff from their decision.

They had hundreds of perfectly able soldiers, perhaps around eight hundred. They also had two-thirds of their ammunition left and they were physically located in a position looking down on the enemy.

But that night the backlands battle had begun to take on a mysterious dimension that it would have until the end. Most of the soldiers were mestizos, the same race as the backlanders. Disheartened by their baffling defeat and the loss of their leader, who was supposed to be invincible, they became victims of the power of suggestion. They were filled with irrational terror and in the events of the last few hours they discerned elements of the supernatural.

The bloodthirsty
jagunço
was now a phantom. Many of the fighters, even those wounded in the recent battle, had not ever laid eyes on one of them. Others from previous expeditions were astonished to see that two or three of the guerrilla leaders who had allegedly died at Cambaio were back in action. For all of them, even to the most skeptical, there did seem to be something abnormal about these ghost warriors. They were rendered impotent by them and had caught just a glimpse of them as they darted through the alleys and ran unhurt through the fires of burning huts.

Many of the recruits were from the North and they had grown up hearing Antônio Conselheiro’s name as the hero of childhood stories. His extravagant legend, his miracles, his deeds as a sorcerer without equal, now appeared entirely believable in light of this catastrophe.

Around midnight their apprehension grew. The guards who had been posted to watch the loosely organized camp were suddenly awakened and they gave cries of alarm.

The silence had been broken by a strange sound coming up the mountain. It was not the heavy thud of an attack party. It was worse. The enemy below, in the invisible village, was praying.

This extraordinary phenomenon, particularly at that time of night, was formidable. Mournful chants intoned by women’s voices, rather than men’s, rose up from the ruins of the battlefield. The effect was heightened by the fact that it was contrary to what would have been expected. The mournful kyries were more frightening than direct threats. They were eloquently being given the message that they could not compete with an adversary transformed by religious faith.

Retreat was imperative.

At dawn another shocking announcement made it urgent. Colonel Moreira César was dead.

They beat a hasty retreat. At first light a contingent of men from all the corps formed a vanguard, which was followed by supply trains and the ambulances and stretchers carrying the wounded. On one of them was the body of the unfortunate commander of the expedition. It did not look like a serious military operation.

In reality, the retreat was a flight. Climbing to the pass of Mount Favela and then going down the steep slopes on the other side along the road there, the troops spread over the hills in a long irregular line, with no appearance of military formation.

They turned their back on the enemy below. The
jagunços
had made no move to interfere with them. They seemed to put all their confidence in how fast they could move to extricate themselves from their predicament. There was none of the defensive-offensive staging typical of these types of military procedures. They simply beat a retreat at top speed, with no attention to order or direction. One division alone, with two Krupps commanded by a brave subaltern and reinforced by an infantry detachment, held a position for a while on Mario’s Hill to discourage the inevitable pursuit.

When this detachment finally did move out, it was brutally attacked. The enemy had the advantage of the offensive and was now aware of the fear it had instilled in the retreating troops. With loud and joyful vivas, he launched a violent attack by encircling his enemy. Below, the bell was tolling insistently. There was an explosion of rifle fire out of the new church. The entire population of Canudos crowded into the square or ran to the hills to witness the scene. Thousands of voices mocked the retreat with a prolonged, shrill, and deadly series of whistles and catcalls.

One more time, the terrible drama of backlands war ended in hooting and hissing.

The evacuation happened quickly. The final division of artillery returned fire for a few minutes and then slowly rolled away down the slope, in final retreat.

It was afternoon. As far as one could see, the expedition spread out along the roads was escorted by
jagunços.

It was a rout. The men were running now, tossing their rifles, dropping the stretchers on which the wounded lay writhing, shedding their belts and equipment so they could run faster. They ran in any direction they could, alone, in bands and small groups. They ran down the road and on trails into the
caatingas
, scared out of their wits. They were terrified men without a leader.

Among the litters left on the side of the road was the one carrying the body of the commander. There was no attempt to honor his remains. There was not even a token effort to push back the enemy they had not seen but heard—raucous shouts and shots at irregular intervals, like a hunter in the wild. At the first sound of gunfire, the battalions dissolved.