Backlands (40 page)

It is still too early to try to analyze the social environment that produced him. In cases such as these, time rather than space is needed to bring the historical facts into focus. Therefore let us close this perilous digression.

Following orders, Colonel Moreira César departed for Bahia with his own Seventh Infantry Battalion under the command of Major Raphael Augusto da Cunha Mattos, a battery of the Second Regiment of the Artillery led by Captain José Agostinho Salomão da Rocha, and a squadron of the Ninth Cavalry under Captain Pedreira Franco. This was the core of the hastily assembled brigade composed of three branches of service. It was reinforced by three other corps, all of them incomplete. The Sixteenth, stationed in São João d’el Rei, moved out under Colonel Souza Menezes with 28 officers and 290 men. The Thirty-third had about 140 men, and the Ninth Infantry of Colonel Pedro Nunes Tamarindo was accompanied by a few contingents of Bahian state troops.

The commander of the expedition did not stay long in Bahia. He gathered the forces he had available and left immediately for Queimadas on February 8, just five days after he had left the capital of the republic. Here all the troops were assembled— about thirteen hundred well-equipped men, with fifteen million cartridges and seventy rounds of cannon shot. The expedition had been organized with amazing speed. Leaving Queimadas, the “first base of operations,” under the command of a lieutenant, along with eighty sick soldiers and seventy minors who could not carry a heavy knapsack, most of the troops left for the “second base of operations,” Monte Santo, where they arrived on the twentieth ready to attack.

They arrived under a cloud. The day before, the commanding officer had suffered a violent epileptic seizure. This happened along the way at a farm known as Quirinquinquá. It was so strong that the five army surgeons were concerned about a recurrence and possible dire consequences. The other officers, fully aware of the serious implications of the diagnosis, nevertheless cautiously avoided discussing the situation. Colonel Moreira César was thus moving ahead with the campaign as a condemned man, in the words of his own staff surgeons.

It follows that this campaign was not carried out with the careful forethought and planning that are so essential. The errors of the previous expeditions had plainly resulted in disaster, yet nothing was done to prepare for the very unique circumstances of the mission. Instead the entire plan consisted of launching a thousand-odd bayonets against Canudos as quickly as possible.

The military engineers assigned to the brigade from the headquarters general staff, Domingos Alves Leite and Alfredo do Nascimento, had just one week to reconnoiter the very difficult and unfamiliar terrain. In such a short time it was impossible for them to identify the strategic points to secure the line of operations. The urgency with which most military surveys are conducted was nothing in comparison to what was required of these engineers. They were limited to guesswork, rough estimates based on what was visible with the naked eye, lines measured between distant mountaintops that they could hardly see, and distances estimated by pedometers attached to the boots of hastily dispatched operatives. They tried to get their bearings by asking questions of the few inhabitants of the places they passed through. This was difficult because in the backlands distance was measured in the treacherous unit known as leagues, which local tradition typically exaggerated since the
sertanejo
would brag about the long distances he traveled, and all directions were a confusing matter of local knowledge. If the engineers’ lines were no more than five degrees off, it was considered an accomplishment. The information on the features of the terrain, composition of the soil, availability of fresh water, and the like was completely unreliable. They turned in the results of the survey to the commanding officer, who approved them with no comment.

A new route was selected based on the survey. Running to the east of the Cambaio road, and longer by twenty or twenty-five miles, it had the advantage of circumventing the mountainous region. Beginning at Monte Santo the expedition headed for the settlement of Cumbe, due east by southeast. When it reached this point, it turned and marched north, circling the fringes of the Aracati mountains, along a path that wound gradually north by northwest and came out on the old Maçacará road at the place known by the name of Rosário. As the troops took this road, the officers did not think to turn it into a line of operations by picking out two or three points that could be easily defended. This could have helped them resist if they were attacked and had to fall back or retreat.

Defeat was not even considered to be a remote possibility. The perfunctory advance scouting was a dispensable concession to classical military strategy. The sharp eye of the guide, Captain Jesuíno, was enough to assure them that the road was clear.

They were aware that the road took them through long stretches of
caatinga
, requiring that they clear it with picks. Furthermore, it was common knowledge, or should have been, that a march of twenty-five miles in the height of summer required each soldier to carry his water supply on his back, the way the Roman legions did in Tunisia. To spare themselves this inconvenience, they carried an artesian well with them, as if they had detailed knowledge of the substrata of the ground, when they were hardly familiar with its surface features. Perhaps they had in their ranks visionary rhabdomancers able to point with a wand to the precise place where water might be found. We shall see how this played out later on.

Meanwhile they marched ahead, toward the unknown, along rarely traveled paths. They were in the stretch of territory where all the cross-country trails converge into a centuries-old roadway that connects Bom Conselho to Jeremoabo. It is a winding road that runs east, to avoid the rugged highlands to the north, then slopes gently down to the Vaza-Barris and finally arrives at the divide between that river and the Itapicurú. It is a huge area where there is no water of any kind and the earth sucks up even the most torrential rains like a sponge.

They should have known that their route was long and treacherous. Sixty miles in that place was equivalent to a distance ten times as long. The logical thing would have been to carry the minimum supplies that they would need so they would not be stranded in the desert. At Monte Santo they had left a very weak defense: a few dozen men under the command of Colonel Menezes. The towering mountain above them offered the enemy a position from which a half dozen of them could demolish the camp with a few rounds of fire. This did not happen, but it should have been assumed that it would. All the intelligence being gathered indicated that the
sertanejos
were energetically preparing for the coming battle.

The news was certain. Canudos had grown in three weeks to an extraordinary size. News of the latest victory over the Febrônio de Brito expedition, was embellished by those who recounted it, and expanded into numerous romantic episodes. This overcame the last vacillation of the believers who until then were afraid to join Antônio Conselheiro’s army. As in the early days of the foundation of the settlement, groups of pilgrims streamed in from the hillsides, carrying everything they owned. Many carried in hammocks their sick, dying, or aged relatives who wished to find their last resting place on that holy ground. The blind, paralyzed, and leprous sought a miracle, an instant cure, from a simple gesture of the venerable miracle man. There were, as always, all sorts of people—small cattle breeders and credulous, athletically built cowboys along with all manner of
sertanejo
lowlife, and simple mothers of families in sisterhood with the wildest whores. Invariably at the rear of the procession, walking in aloof solitude, as if they were above it all, were the loose desperadoes and available mercenaries, who were looking for a bigger stage on which to show their impulsive bravery and to slake their thirst for adventure. In the course of the day, pack bearers loaded with provisions converged from all directions down the Calumbi, Jeremoabo, and Uauá roads. The supplies were being sent to Canudos by the faithful who lived at a distance, in Vila Nova da Rainha, Alagoinhas, and all the surrounding towns and villages. There was a great supply of goods and enthusiasm.

At first light work was assigned. There was no lack of hands; in fact, there were too many volunteers. Sentry details of twenty men each were placed along the roads under the command of experienced leaders. They were stationed at the crossroads of the Cocorobó and Macambira highways, in the Umburanas lowlands, and on top of Mount Favela, changing guard with those who had kept watch overnight. The new arrivals, who had just the day before joined the settlement and paid their tribute, went out to perform community labor on the small plantations along either side of the river. Others volunteered for construction jobs at the church. The more experienced, active ones spread out in the direction of Monte Santo, Cumbe, and Queimadas on intelligence missions. Their job was to gather as much information as they could about the new expedition. They conspired with the faithful, who in these parts were easily able to acquire contraband weapons from under the watchful eyes of the authorities. The task of the scouts was to observe what was going on and to find out as much as they could through cautious inquiries.

They were happy as they set off on their tasks. Along the roads, small noisy groups passed by, singing as they went, carrying weapons or work tools. They had forgotten the earlier massacre. Many hoped deep down that they would finally be left alone to lead their simple, quiet lives in the backlands.

Their leaders however, held no illusions. They were not going to take any chances and focused on the urgent task of preparing the defense. Throughout the hot days, the
sertanejos
could be seen on the hilltops and along the roads, rolling, carrying, and piling up stones, hacking at the earth with pick and spade in constant labor. They were building trenches.

This was an ideal way to construct makeshift fortifications. They dug elliptical or circular cavities in the earth, where a shooter could hide and move around at will. Along the edge of the cavity were rows of stones with openings for the rifle barrels. The talc schist rock slabs allowed easy extraction of stones of all sizes and types. It explains the extraordinary number of holes in the ground that fanned out around Canudos at regular intervals and took on the shape of a monstrous fortress without walls. They were situated in the crossline of fire, commanding the approaches to the town and along dry creek beds. This would make it very difficult for even the best and most agile troops to get through. And as if they predicted that the enemy would seek to avoid a direct passage and assault border trenches, they constructed secondary trenches on the hilltops, as well as more distant ones arranged in the same pattern, so that gunmen driven back from the front lines could retreat there and continue the battle. Thus, no matter whether the enemy kept to the highway or abandoned it, he would be trapped in a web of rifle fire.

The insurgents needed no training to make these preparations. The earth provided the model for their task. Jagged ridges of rock rose up like fortresses around them. Rivers carved out their beds in the form of tunnels and trenches. As far as they could see, the
caatinga
unfolded into natural tree fortifications. The
jagunços
picked the tallest shrubs with the thickest foliage and would skillfully weave the inner boughs into a hammock or platform that would comfortably hide one or two sharpshooters just six feet above the ground. This was an ancient strategy, used for ages in ambush warfare against the wild panther. The native
mutans
, platforms where the hunter waits for his prey, were scattered about and completed the line of trenches. Occasionally they would build heavier fortifications. They would find hills with huge piles of stone on the summit. They cleared out the openings between the rocks, which were filled with tangles of thorny thickets and bromeliads, forming narrow windows shielded by a dense curtain of grass. Then they would clear the space inside the rock enclosure until they could freely move within a huge parapet with a commanding view of the trails and highways.

Their preparations did not stop here. They repaired and cleaned their weapons. The village clanged with the beat of a strident orchestra of hammers and anvils. They straightened scythes, sharpened their cattle prongs, tempered the long, broad blades of their scraping knives, and braced their bows, which were a hybrid of the savage hunting bow and the medieval crossbow. They oiled the locks of their old muskets and double-barreled shotguns. From the forge fires burst a giant metallic roar of an active arsenal.

The supply of gunpowder from neighboring towns was not sufficient. They made their own. They had charcoal. They harvested saltpeter from the surface of the earth. To the north, near the São Francisco, they had laid up a supply of brimstone. The explosive was perfectly made, rivaling commercially made products used by hunters.

They did not want for bullets. The big mouths of the blunderbusses took any kind of projectile: pebbles, nailheads, horn tips, broken glass, and rock splinters.

Finally, there was no shortage of legendary fighters whose adventures were told around the entire backlands. The universality of religious sentiment, on a par with the instinct for violence, had gathered individuals not just from Bahia but from the border states as well. In addition to the
jagunço
from the São Francisco region, and the
cangaceiro
of the Carirí, every type of outlaw showed up there. The call to arms attracted strongmen from former backlands conflicts and petty feuds, with comically common names such as “the lizards,” “the hampers,” and “the baskets.”

Every day odd-looking strangers arrived. They came ready to fight, their cartridge belts supplied with bullets and their powder cases full. Double-barreled shotguns were stuck into their belts, from which dangled the inseparable
parnaíba
. Their bell-mouthed blunderbuss hung from a bandolier. They just showed up, and they made for the town square without being stopped, as if they were old friends. The cunning João Abade greeted them there. His violent history matched theirs but he was smarter and had a little education. He had gone to public school in one of the provincial capitals of the North but had been forced to run after he killed his fiancée, which was his first crime. He was the man to keep these desperadoes under control and to enforce discipline. His title was “commander of the street,” an odd one in that maze of alleys. But without ever leaving the compound he kept total control over the entire countryside, which was patrolled by his fast-moving scouts.