Backlands (37 page)

At this morning hour the mountain was a scintillating sight. The sun beat down on the splintered slabs of rock, throwing off blazing rays over the heights and giving the illusion of intense activity as the refracted light glanced off the gleaming weapons. It looked as if a great army was performing rapid maneuvers. Binoculars scanned the empty mountainside. The only sign of the enemy was the threatening appearance of the earth. He was busy digging himself in. He was lying flat on the ground, burrowed into his dugout—rigid, waiting, finger on the trigger. The
sertanejos
waited in silence, peering through their rifle sights, their vision fixed on the still-distant columns below as they followed the cautious scouts.

They made slow progress until they reached the first steep slopes about halfway up the side. Held back by the heavy cannons, the soldiers panted and strained as they took turns with the struggling mules that dragged them up the incline. It was here the enemy surprised them. A burst of gunfire sprayed out from scattered dugouts and clumps of bushes. Lying flat on the mountainside, the gunmen made their presence known.

The entire expedition was trapped in the trenches of Mount Cambaio.

The opening fire was accented with loud shouts and vivas to Good Jesus and our Counselor. These were mixed with curses and obscenities. A defiant taunt would be repeated throughout the campaign and would become an ironic chorus: “Step it up, you government sumbitches!”

The entire line wavered. The vanguard stalled and was about to retreat. An imperious voice stopped them. Major Febrônio de Brito broke through the frightened ranks and mobilized the resistance with a resounding response, which was impressive given their disadvantage. They quickly loaded the cannons and bombarded the gunmen. This was the first time they had ever seen anything like these powerful weapons that could shatter rocks. They turned and ran.

The hundred or so men of the Thirty-third Infantry immediately went on the offensive. Tripping, sliding on the rock slabs, leaping and running, tearing through the gullies from every direction, the soldiers clambered up the slopes. A battle line for an attack was formed, an irregular undulating one, stretching from the Ninth Battalion on the right to the Sixteenth Battalion and the Bahian police detachment on the left.

The battle broke out in minutes. Predictably, the lines broke as they encountered the obstacles of the terrain. It was a chaotic advance. The soldiers charged noisily, without any semblance of formation, battalions and companies mixing in confusion. They clawed up the cliffs with their hands, their weapons jangling, their rifles slung in their bandoliers, knocking them in the teeth. Waves of men, a crush of bodies, rammed against the hills. Bursts of rifle fire and ear-splitting explosions mixed with the high notes of the bugle.

On the slope below where the artillery was, the frightened mules and their drivers broke through the firing line. Throwing off their cargo, they galloped away or went tumbling down the steep slope. They were followed by the rest of the drivers who, ignoring orders given at gunpoint, took flight, adding to the confusion.

The
sertanejo
gunmen reappeared on the crest of the hill. They had two kinds of fighters. Some ran quickly along the roads, ducking in and out of sight. Others stood at their positions high on the mountain. Making the most of their location, they had an ingenious way of compensating for their shortage of weapons and the slow process of loading the ones they did have. They sat in groups of three or four in the bottom of a trench around a single sharpshooter. Hidden from sight, they would hand him the loaded weapons. If a marksman fell, another was ready to replace him. The soldiers below would see the same figure rise up immediately and again point a rifle at them. They would fire another round and once again see him drop and rise up again, the terrifying phantom shooter.

This ploy was soon discovered by the small attack parties that were able to make it to the highest positions one or two at a time. The unique character of the enemy and of the terrain imposed a tactic that was more suited to the conditions and this, along with the limited range of the enemy’s fire, gave them some protection. The difficult terrain was the biggest obstacle to the assault. Their fire was stopped by the cliffs. The
jagunços
did not wait around for them. Aware that their crude weapons were inferior, they seemed to want to get the enemy to use up the bullets meant for Canudos. They pretended to engage in open warfare. Moving among them was a strongly built but agile black man holding a rifle in his hands. He was their leader, Big John. He called out their maneuvers, using all his skills as a backlands bandit. His men imitated his savage movements, his running charges, jumps, and leaps. Dispersed or in groups, or in successive lines, they advanced, fell back, scattered and regrouped, crawled, rolled, ran up and down, and some fell dead in their tracks. The badly wounded rolled all the way down into the thick of the soldiers, who hit them with their rifle butts. Sometimes they disappeared completely.

The projectiles of the Mannlichers continued to ping uselessly against the bony wall of the mountainside. The advance detachments rapidly gained ground in their ascent up the mountain until they were met with another frontal or side attack from the enemy. Some stopped and others fled in panic. Their demoralized officers made no attempt to stop them. Their names did not appear in the official reports but they were not spared the disdain of their comrades. Most of the troops made it through the fire and attacked the fanatics at close range, cleaning out their ranks and terrorizing them, sending them flying over the hills in all directions.

Finally, the primitive rebel leader began to assemble his men for what he seemed to think would be a decisive hand-to-hand combat. His apelike profile could be seen at the head of his suddenly reassembled band. They moved heroically against the artillery. They were pushed back by an explosion of case shot, which blew up the first of their ranks and sent the rest flying back to their earlier positions. These were now controlled by an advance guard of the army troops. Mixed contingents from all the corps jumped into the last of the trenches to the right. They lost their commanding officer, Wenceslau Leal.

The mountain was taken in three hours. The victory was due to blind courage and total lack of discipline in the way the troops fired. The plan of the day that was issued later gave the credit to the men in the ranks. Small groups of soldiers without any officers in command rained aimless fire against the retreating
jagunços
with the ferocity and determination of hunters on the last leg of a wild boar hunt.

The
jagunços
ran away. They were pursued.

The artillery down below was being dragged up the slope.

The mountain crossing had been accomplished. Aside from the dispersion of ammunition, there were few losses: 4 dead and some 20 wounded. In exchange, the backlanders left behind 115 dead.

It was a slaughter. A tragic event followed it in a theatrical ending.

It happened as they approached the last spurs at the base of the mountain.

The soldiers came upon a huge stone slab on the rough slope, which was held up by two other rocks and slanted at a sharp angle, one end almost touching the ground. It had the appearance of a fallen boulder. This rude shelter was propped up against a wall of sheer rock and inside was huddled a large number of backlanders, about forty according to Dr. Everard Albertazzi, the surgeon accompanying the expedition. They were probably the ones with the last of the ammunition for the blunderbusses. The land gave the vanquished this last bunker.

They took advantage of it. They opened a spray of fire at their pursuers, which briefly stopped them, as well as at the artillery in the rear, which now prepared to bombard the renegade group. All that was needed was one grenade. It missed its mark slightly and hit one of the rocks supporting the slab, splitting it open from top to bottom. The stone fell heavily, with a dull thud, on the unfortunate men under it, crushing them.

The march was resumed. Fire from the retreating defenders of Mount Cambaio grew less frequent, probably a sign of their exhaustion. They finally disappeared.

The columns arrived in the afternoon at the tablelands that were at the edge of the settlement and pitched camp. They failed to press the advantage of pursuing the enemy. They were exhausted and starving, having gone without food since the night before. They were barely able to slake their thirst in tiny Lake Cipó. Perhaps encouraged by their illusion of victory, they started to relax. They did not notice that the
jagunços
had surrounded them. The news of the battle had reached the settlement with the survivors. In order to preempt an imminent attack, a large number of fighters had left the village. They quietly positioned themselves in the
caatinga
, closing in on the camp.

Night enfolded them. The troops slept under the terrible watch of the enemy.

Dawn did not betray their presence. The quickly formed columns set off for the final assault on the settlement after a quarter-hour march over level ground.

They had a small problem before they got under way. A piece of shrapnel had become stuck in the bore of one of the cannons, and they were unable to dislodge it. Their solution was to fire the Krupp in the direction of Canudos.

It would be their knock on the doors of the village, loudly announcing the unwelcome and dangerous visitor.

In fact, they fired the cannon. And the troops were attacked from all sides! The episode of Uauá was being reenacted. Tossing aside their archaic firearms, the
sertanejos
grabbed poles, wagon grates, machetes, pitchforks, prods, and long-bladed knives. They charged screaming as if the cannon had been their signal to attack.

Fortunately, the troops, in column formation, had their weapons ready, and they returned rounds of steady fire on the enemy.

But the
jagunços
did not retreat. The confusion of the fray thrust them into the gaps between the platoons. For the first time the soldiers were able to see close-up the dark faces of their prey, which until now had been hidden from them, faces that showed their fugitive mountain existence.

The first victim was a corporal of the Ninth Regiment. He was impaled by a cattle prong, and his assailant was pinned by his bayonet as the attackers trampled the two bodies.

Leading the charge was a burly
mameluco
with a bronzed, freckled face and the body of a gladiator. He towered above the rest. This fierce fighter would remain unknown to history. His name was forgotten. But not the curse that he shouted and that was heard over the roar of battle as he jumped onto the cannon to the right and wrapped his strong arms around it as if he were about to strangle a monster.

“You scum, watch courage!”

The gunner shrank back terrified, while the man dragged away the hostage weapon.

It was a near disaster.

The commanding officer, who was probably the best soldier in the unit, assessed the situation. He shouted encouragement to his astonished men and ran after the cannon kidnappers. A brute hand-to-hand combat ensued. It was a whirlwind of entwined bodies, struggling with no weapons, just fists and strangleholds and the sound of groans, death rattles, and crashing bodies.

The recaptured cannon took its original position. Things did not improve, however. The
jagunços
had not been repelled. They had chosen to fall back and now circulated in the thin underbrush. Their faces could be seen briefly, appearing and then disappearing in the clearings. Once again scattered and impossible to reach, they threw crude projectiles at the enemy: horn tips, stones, nailheads, objects no longer in use, taken from their death arsenal. They continued the battle from distant positions, using their muskets and long-barreled rifles against the modern arsenal. They were falling back on their custom of prolonging the battle indefinitely. This was a more deadly way of fighting than the violent charge they had just led. The struggle would now become a cruel waiting game, a monotonous repetition of small events that would gradually weaken the enemy. Like a hangman with blood on his hands, he would lose his will to kill. Men’s lives were being thrown away in meaningless scuffles.

The situation was becoming untenable.

The invaders had a desperate recourse available to them. It would be to quickly change the field of combat and take the town. They were likely to have the fierce gunmen on their flanks and possible reinforcements lying in wait for them at the entrance to the settlement. But the short trajectory of about a mile and a quarter between them and the settlement might exhaust their munitions, so thoughtlessly wasted on Mount Cambaio. They would not be able to reach their goal without weapons. The starving soldiers were burdened with approximately seventy wounded. Their presence would only add to the confusion.

A preliminary bombardment was out of the question. They had not more than twenty rounds of ammunition left.

The only option was to retreat quickly. The commanding officer called a quick meeting of his staff and outlined the situation. He informed them that they had to choose the lesser of two evils: Either continue the fight and die or walk away. The choice was to retreat, under the express condition that they leave not one weapon behind, not one wounded soldier or unburied body.

This retreat, however, was in complete contradiction to the results of the battle. As on the day before, the losses of the enemy were far greater than those of the troops. Only four government soldiers had been killed and about thirty were wounded. While the number of casualties was not known, the
jagunço
ranks had been decimated. Dr. Everard Albertazzi, one of the surgeons, quickly counted more than three hundred bodies. The fouled waters of Lake Cipó were now red. The sun beating down on the lake made it look like a giant bloodstain against the gray-brown of the parched earth.