Backlands (54 page)

The bombardment of June 29 did not perturb the
sertanejos
. At daybreak on the thirtieth the troops stormed the entire camp. As before, there was the sudden shock, followed by all the repercussions of a backlands skirmish, and a reenactment of the same events. This signaled another false victory. Coming at them from all sides, the enemy was again pushed back, only to return, and later to be repelled again. At brief intervals there were attacks and counterattacks, in a rhythm like a wave beating against the side of the mountain. The artillery fired a few rounds on the roofs of the town below. As on the day before, this was met with scattered fire from the slopes of Favela and neighboring hills, with no variation at all. Bullets fell on the troops the entire day.

The situation was becoming untenable. The stalemate at Mount Favela was harmful because, as they were losing men daily and getting nowhere, the morale of the troops declined steadily. Their munitions were almost exhausted. To try to abandon their position was riskier than starting open warfare. Some of the higher-ranking officers suggested an immediate assault on the settlement. There did not seem to be an alternative.

Colonel Dantas Barreto describes the predicament in his book
The Last Expedition to Canudos
: “On June 30 our troops were in good order. The artillery was positioned to continue its bombardment of Canudos for a few hours and then it would be possible to attack the citadel. The commanding officers as well as the subalterns and enlisted men approved of this course of action. Their overriding desire was to reach the Vaza-Barris, which for them represented everything they were lacking. They were crowded into a place that was open to attack on all sides and was not big enough for two thousand, much less six thousand, men.”

The commander in chief did not approve this plan, “thinking that a supply train would soon come in from Monte Santo. Only after three days of full rations would he allow the troops to attack the Counselor’s bunker.”

The supply train, did not exist. Colonel Medeiros’s brigade was sent out to meet it on the thirtieth. They waited for it at Baixas, to escort it to camp. When it did not appear they went on to Monte Santo, and there was no sign of it. The army was already beginning to feel the first sharp hunger pangs as the brigade set off. Now it would go through a period of unimaginable privation.

They lived a dangerous, improvised existence. On their own initiative, without asking for authorization, the soldiers began to make dangerous forays through the area, either alone or in small groups. They took what they could find of millet or manioc from the fields. They hunted young goats that had been running wild since the beginning of the war. They rounded up cattle. There was no way to stop them, it was their last resort. As of July 2 they were down to flour and salt, nothing more, and that had to go to the wounded. These hunting forays were necessary, in spite of the risks. Those who participated began to dress in leather like the
jagunços
, and they imitated the
sertanejos
’ subtle way of relating to the land, treating it cautiously and using it for shelter.

We cannot convey every detail of this dark and terrible phase of the campaign. The starving soldier, surviving off his cartridge belt, disappeared into the brush. He took as many precautions as if he were going out to hunt lions. He was soon swallowed up by the wild thickets. He had to hack away the tough branches that were tangled in prickly silk grass. He would spend long hours on his exhausting mission, eyes and ears tuned to the slightest movement or sound. Sometimes he returned to camp empty-handed and depressed. Some were never seen again, lost in the desert wasteland or killed in some primitive struggle that will never be told. The
jagunços
began to lay traps for these inexperienced hunters. The soldiers did still not fully grasp the devious mind-set of the natives and fell prey to their wiles.

Thus it occasionally happened that the starving forager would hear the sound of bells, indicating that goats were near, since it was the custom in the region to put bells on female goats. His energy would pick up for a moment as his hopes were raised. Moving forward cautiously so as not to scare off the game, he would diverge off the path into the thick weeds, following the clear, sharp sound of the bells as they broke through the desert silence. He would follow the sound until it was very close. Then it receded again, only to ring again at a farther distance, from the labyrinth of side pathways. It did not occur to him that he was in danger. He did not realize that the sound was not coming from the goats, but from the treacherous
jagunço
, who was hunting him. The
sertanejo
was creeping flat on the ground with his rifle lock level with his beard. He moved silently through the weeds. At each movement the little bell around his neck would ring. Instead of the she-goat, it was the barbaric goatherd moving in the brush. The game was goading the goatherd. The naive soldier was usually killed by a sharply aimed bullet. He never had a chance to return fire at the man he only glimpsed a moment before his death.

Sometimes a group of ravenous soldiers would spot a corral with oxen in it at the top of a hill. This, too, was a clever decoy. The soldiers, however, did not suspect a thing. They would rush at the oxen, ready to slaughter them. As they reached the corral they were assaulted by a barrage of bullets.

Oftentimes the sound of heavy fire reached the camp from a distance. There came a time when the hunting parties were required to follow regulations. The orders of the night before would specify which battalions were allowed to participate in the hunt on any given day. These were armed but inglorious sallies. The army advanced without banners or trumpets through the wasteland. The enemy lines lay ahead of them—scattered, invisible, and deadly. The detachments would make their way quietly through the clearings. For a long time they would carefully search the countryside where the dry season was already evident in the dying foliage. They would be fired on at least a dozen times in a single outing. They would go back exhausted and discouraged.

The lancer squadron was the only one to have some degree of success. It would roam for long distances over the trails. On their crippled mounts, which would break into a limping canter at the nudge of the spurs, the gaucho-soldiers performed the work of cowboys. They galloped through a region that they were completely unfamiliar with. When they were able to find a few wild oxen they herded them into a corral next to the camp. They were not free of harassment on these forays. In addition to having to round up the frightened beasts, they had to make sure that the enemy did not scatter them in a sudden attack. On those occasions they had the double duty of preventing a stampede and returning enemy fire. They would come upon ambushes when crossing the lowlands. They never abandoned the herd but rode around it and kept driving it forward, in a stunning show of courage and horsemanship.

The eight or ten head of cattle they managed to bring in each day were not nearly enough to feed the Minotaur with its six thousand stomachs. To make matters worse, the meat was barely edible since they had to boil it in brackish water without salt or other seasonings, or broil it on spits. It was repugnant to even the hungriest man. The small portions of millet, beans, and manioc that took the edge off their hunger were soon dried up, and they had to find other sources of food.

Like the unfortunate drought refugees, the soldiers had to turn to local plants. They dug up the
umbú
trees for their swollen tubers. They searched for the
uricuri
fruit, cut up the soft stems of the
mandacarú
, or fed off cacti, which helped both hunger and thirst. This was dangerous even for those experienced in the use of natural plants. Some died of poisoning from eating the wild manioc and other roots that were unfamiliar to them.

Finally, even their water supplies dried up. More than one thirsty soldier was killed by the enemy while seeking water from the streams in the Umburanas valley. Every day their distress mounted. From July 7 on, they stopped giving rations to the wounded. Now the crippled, sick, and mutilated had to rely on the doubtful charity of their comrades.

As these misfortunes multiplied, others arose that were just as grave. The discipline of the troops had eroded. The common soldier had lost patience and did not want to accept the situation. There were surly mutterings of protest. The officers, who could not control the men, pretended they did not hear them. They could do nothing.

It was irritating to see that their defeated enemy was abundantly supplied with provisions. He hardly had the need to use the supplies that he had captured. The Fifth Brigade, on the way to Baixas, found bundles of smoked meat and bags of flour, coffee, and sugar beside the road, next to the embers of a bonfire where the
jagunços
had just made a meal. This was certainly a sign of their brutal arrogance. They certainly did not have so much abundance that they could justify such waste. The fact was that these crude fighting men were extremely frugal. In times of peace they would go through the day with just a few handfuls of
paçoca
and a drink of water. In wartime abstinence became a matter of discipline, and he carried it to such an extreme that he developed an extraordinary degree of physical endurance. Our soldiers did not have that capacity. At first they handled it well and even joked about their hunger. The dangerous foraging expeditions and the hunt for food in abandoned farms distracted them. As soon as the alarm was sounded they rushed to the firing line. In spite of their enforced fast, they had not lost their fight. But they began to weaken. It was a combination of physical exhaustion and anxiety about the future. The First Brigade had gone out to look for a supply train and never was heard from again. This increased the low morale. Every day that went by without news of the detachment caused more distress. In addition, the insistence of the enemy attacks seemed inhumane. There was no respite. At night, in the morning, all through the day—there would be one attack after the other, and always when they least expected it. Sometimes it was directed at the artillery and at other times the flanks. In the most serious instances, the entire force would come under fire, bullets flying from all sides. The bugles would sound and the men fell into line with hardly any attempt at tactical formation. They would nervously continue the fight until their attackers had again been pushed back and the mountain was again silent. But the enemy was always there, watching the “victors.” The attack stopped but every few minutes a bullet would fall into the ranks. The direction of the shots varied constantly until, after a while, all the units had been hit. The missiles came and went, sometimes tracing a large, terrifying circle. It seemed that a single marksman, on some hilltop, had decided to be the single-handed executioner of the army. And, in fact, that is what he was. Brave men, fresh out of a battle, would cringe with fear when they heard the whine of those bullets. They were random shots at a huge target and they were sure to find their victims in the thousands that were there.

The days passed. Rapid, fierce firefights were broken by days of calm. There was always the staccato rap of bullets.

Sometimes the attacks did not stop as they normally did but would escalate and compel the entire force to engage. During one of these battles, on July 1, the
sertanejos
penetrated the camp and went straight to the artillery post. They hated the cannons that were destroying their temples. They had come up with the incredible plot to kidnap the largest one, the Whitworth 32, which they had nicknamed the Killer. Not many participated in this exploit, about eleven, led by Joaquim Macambira, who was the son of the chieftain with the same name. This band was about to face full battalions. The bugle blared and the men charged at them in full ranks, as if they were about to charge a legion. When it was over, all but one of the
jagunços
were on the ground. Amazingly, one had slipped right through the troops in the confusion. The troops had the small consolation of another win, but it was not one they could be too proud of. It only increased their respect for the enemy.

The enemy grew in stature with every day that went by. The soldiers could see the trenches that surrounded their camp and were slowly encroaching on it. On the left they cut off the exit to the Old Ranch House. On the right they impinged on their corral by reducing the small pasture around it where their cavalry and draft horses were kept. In the rear the trenches ran along the Rosário highway. The detachments detailed to destroy the trenches had no difficulty. But the next day they would have to do it all over again because they had been rebuilt overnight and were now even closer to the camp.

Since their days were spent in this manner, they buried the dead at night. This was a sad and dangerous task. Sometimes one of the burial party would himself fall dead on the job and take his place with the bodies in the common grave he had helped to dig.

It is not surprising that morale and discipline suffered. Even the artillery was limited in what it could do since it had to save ammunition. It was down to two or three rounds a day.

They were still hoping for the return of the lost brigade, which would have saved them. If the enemy had cut them off in Rosário or Angico, which was entirely possible, there would be no hope for the expedition. This was generally accepted. The troops could keep up a weak defense but they could not last a week longer. Only the influence of certain officers kept the army from falling apart completely. Discipline was nonexistent, but personal loyalty to commanders of some brigades kept things together.

General Arthur Oscar de Andrade Guimarães had insisted that they remain where they were. At first he believed that a supply train would reach them. Then he vetoed an evacuation. He was proving his impressive quality as a military leader. He dug into any position he had won. This contrasted with his personality, which was exactly the opposite. He was restless and blunt. He thought of the military as a knightly profession, full of sound and fury. He was an unabashed braggart when it came to relating his own exploits. He was unbeaten in planning surprise attacks. At the most critical point in the narrative he would find some expletive, robustly expressive of his jovial nature and framed in a picturesque slang, and it would be greeted with an instant, appreciative response. He had always had a strong nervous temperament and was known for his impatience. This same general turned into another being in the present circumstances. To the chagrin of those who knew him, he insisted on just one tactic: Stay put. He would not listen to anyone; he simply held out.