Backlands (55 page)

Completely immobilized by the enemy, he resisted with obstinate inertia. He did not even attempt to harass the enemy with sallies or bayonet charges. He did not fight the foe but simply attempted to tire him out. He did not beat him down but made every effort to exhaust him. From the beginning of the campaign he had his eye on the final phase of the conflict. He ignored intervening circumstances. He never considered the possibility of failure or the need for a withdrawal. He had one plan only and that was to march on Canudos. Everything else was secondary to that goal. He would not retreat. He would go on with his six thousand bayonets to the banks of the Vaza-Barris and win the battle. He changed just one word in the famous Roman phrase: I came, I saw, I stayed.

If his mistake of leaving behind the supply train was enough reason not to attack on the twenty-eighth, he certainly should have done so by the thirtieth, if we believe his aides. But he did not. This was in spite of the fact that the two columns were now united and the settlement was within easy rifle range below them. He made a second mistake by taking an unsustainable position, which he might have gotten out of if not for the unexpected events that followed. He was not discouraged and remained stoically entrenched.

“Don’t give in, boys!” This was his favorite phrase, which he would use like a whip to cut short complaints and rumors.

The men felt differently. They felt trapped by a seemingly immune enemy whose supple battle lines had the capacity to regenerate almost immediately after being broken. They were exhausted by their continuous attempts to charge an enemy they could not crush. They knew their situation was becoming more precarious and they did not want to hold out. In fact, they were weakening. Their feelings were expressed in angry remarks and innuendos regarding individuals they thought were responsible for their plight. The quartermaster general’s deputy became the scapegoat. The men grumbled that he was the only one to blame. They did not consider that this irrational accusation was a reflection on the commander in chief. He was guilty of not having exercised his authority as head of the expedition, but the fact is that the commander still held their full respect.

Meanwhile the commander kept them there, marking time on Mount Favela. He spent the time dreaming up solutions to the supply problem. He made equations of the men’s hunger, with formulas calculating the distribution of bags of flour and bundles of dried beef from supply trains that were purely the product of his imagination.

This was his only effort. They had still not heard from the First Brigade. The battalions sent out daily as far as Baixas would come back without having seen a trace of it on the empty roads. The Fifteenth, under Captain Gomes Carneiro, returned to camp from its futile search of July 10 with a solitary ox, a starving animal that could barely stand on its legs—just a mouthful of meat for six thousand empty stomachs.

A stultifying monotony engulfed them. The same events occurred in the same order at the same time of day. This gave the tired soldiers the feeling that time had stopped.

At the rare times in the day when there was a lull in the
jagunços’
attack, the men would distract themselves by gazing at the elusive settlement. Sometimes they would creep along in single file, keeping a safe distance between each other, to some sheltered location where they could get a good view of the jumble of houses below. They became concerned as they counted: one, two, three, four, five thousand huts! Five thousand or more! It might be six thousand! There were about fifteen thousand to twenty thousand people dug into that Babylonian weed patch. They were all invisible. Occasionally they were able to see a narrow alley branching off from the huge empty square, but then they lost sight of it. All this in a biblical landscape, set against sadly barren hills, where there were no trees. A dry riverbed, winding around the town, was turned into a long, dusty highway. In the distance, commanding the four points of the compass, was a rolling line of mountains, also deserted. They stood out sharply against the bright horizon, like the giant frame of a huge picture.

It was an impressive view, and it seemed as if ancient dramas were being repeated here. It brought to mind remote locations in Indumea, the legendary region south of the Dead Sea that lay barren under the prophet’s curse and drought from the blazing plains of Yemen.

The “four-square” settlement was similar to the plan of the cities in the Bible. It completed the illusion. As night fell, waves of sound came up from the village, spread across the desert, and faded into distant echoes. It was the Ave Maria.

The cannons on Mount Favela bellowed once again, awakened by the simple notes. The belfry was their target. Shrapnel exploded above and around it. Yet the notes of the hymn continued, at half-minute intervals, slowly and serenely over the cannon fire. The impassive sexton did not waste a second of that sacred interval. He did not miss a note. Once its religious duties were done and as the last stroke was still echoing, the same bell began to ring discordantly, sounding the alarm. Huge tongues of flame shot from over the cornices of the churches and spread quickly up the side of the hill. At that moment a violent burst of fire from the enemy on the mountain made the bombardment stop. Both camps fell into utter silence. Then the soldiers could hear the mysterious rhythm of prayers, wafting up through the thick walls of the ruined temple of worship.

This show of stoicism impressed the troops. It obsessed them. Since they shared the same native beliefs and superstitions, they started to waver in the face of an enemy who had that connection to Providence. They imagined the enemy to have special resources. Their bullets burst with a loud, cracking noise as if shattering into thousands of splinters. The men began to believe the rumor that the
jagunços
used explosive bullets. There was evidence this was so. Then they hypothesized that the bullets shattered because the metal they were made of expanded more rapidly than its steel shell. This was seen in the nature of the wounds they inflicted. The bullet entered the body, leaving a small round opening, but would tear a huge gap as it came out through shredded bone and tissue. The men did not understand the physical law that explained these phenomena and were convinced that the enemy had weapons especially designed to inflict barbaric pain.

The desertions began. They were heroic and unbelievable, done at great risk under the ever-watchful eye of the enemy. On July 9, twenty privates of the Thirty-third abandoned their comrades and disappeared into the desert. Daily, others followed them, one by one, preferring a bullet from a
jagunço
to this form of slow death.

Everyone was obsessed now with finally leaving this terrible place on top of Mount Favela. The battalions sent out on forays were the envy of those who had to stay behind. The ones who stayed envied the danger, the ambushes and situations the outgoing would encounter. At least there was the possibility of finding booty and getting away from the miserable camp, even if for a short time.

As in the legendary sieges of former ages, the most mundane things became incredibly valuable. An
umbú
root or a cube of sugar was worth as much as a rare dish. A cheap cigarette was the most valued prize.

Sometimes there was talk of retreat. This was started by some desperate soul as a rumor and quickly spread through the ranks. It would spark angry protest and debate, and then simmer into sullen silence. Retreat was not an option. A light brigade might be able to go for a short ride and return skinned by only a few skirmishes. The army could not do that. It was encumbered by the artillery, ambulances, the dead weight of the wounded—it was an invitation to disaster. Their last and only option was to stay where they were. But if the First Brigade did not show up within a week, they would not be able to hold out. The men were completely finished, and the
jagunços
would eventually break through their line of fire.

On July 11 a cowboy with an escort of three cavalrymen suddenly showed up at camp. He carried a message from Colonel Medeiros saying he was on his way and asking for additional men to protect the supply train that he was bringing.

This was an electric shock for the dying expedition. There are no words to describe it. The good news took hold of the troops as it spread from one end of the camp to the other. Despondent faces were transfigured; men straightened their shoulders; they ran about in every direction, embracing each other and exclaiming. Flags were unfurled; the bugles sounded reveille. All the detachments formed ranks. They sang hymns.

The primitive leather-clad cowboy gazed in amazement at this display. He sat on his sweating, snorting nag and grasped his long cattle prod in his hand like a lance. His stocky but athletic build contrasted sharply with the lean bodies crowding around him. He was like a gladiator in the midst of bushmen.

The torrent of excitement reached the field hospital. The wounded and dying stopped their moaning and started to chant, “Viva!”

A strong northeaster rippled the flags. In the settlement below, the
jagunços
could hear the metallic sound of martial music, accented by shouts of joy from thousands of voices.

Night fell and waves of sound rose from the village and diffused across the desert wasteland. It awoke them from their dreams. Then it dissipated into the echoes of the mountainsides. It was the Ave Maria.

The supply train arrived at the top of Mount Favela on July 13. The next day the brigade commanders met in General Savaget’s tent to plan for the assault on the settlement. The general was still recovering from the wound he had sustained in Cocorobó. The date, July 14, was favorable; it was a national holiday celebrated in Brazil, Bastille Day. That morning they had fired a salvo of twenty-one rounds to commemorate the occasion. The backlanders were jolted out of their hammocks—they were caught by surprise and ran dizzily around their wretched bunks. All this was because a little more than a century ago a group of dreamers had talked about the rights of man and had gone to war for the marvelous utopia of the brotherhood of man.

It was urgent to attack the settlement.

The commander of the First Brigade had returned to report that their first base of operations no longer existed. He said that he found nothing there and he had a hard time with the supply train he managed to bring back. These supplies would soon be depleted. A war council was convened. While they had different opinions about the details, they agreed there should be a mass attack on one flank only. The commanders of the Third, Fourth, and Fifth brigades thought they should leave Mount Favela for a position closer to the town, where they could launch their attack. Others, influenced by the three generals, had the opposite opinion. They wanted to leave the field hospital and artillery on Favela with two brigades to protect them.

There was little difference between the two plans and the generals prevailed. Once again they were making a mistake. First, by setting up a confrontation between the flight-prone, elusive enemy and the massive force of the brigades. Most of them still had no concept of what should have been done from the start of the campaign. The combat troops should have been split up. They should have understood intuitively that the best strategy was to attack from two sides: from the Jeremoabo highway and from the far left. The artillery should stay in its current position to continue the bombardment of the town center. The context of the battle was not taken into consideration. The two columns assigned to the assault were to do a flanking march for about a mile and a half to the right of the camp. This, they assumed, could be done without interference from the enemy. Then they were to take a slanting course to the left, down to the Vaza-Barris. From there, they would again turn left and attack the square where the churches stood. This was called a “wheeling maneuver” and would end in a direct-line assault. Assuming this worked, the
jagunços
still had three avenues of escape. They could safely retreat to inaccessible positions on the Caipã hills or some other location from which they could continue their resistance.

This was certain and should have been obvious.

Recent events should have reminded them of this. The last two weeks of bombardment and the arrival of new supplies to the army had not discouraged the enemy but, in fact, had given them new energy. On July 15, as if to mock the arrival of the supply train, bands of
jagunços
were seen driving many head of cattle to the settlement. The Twenty-fifth Battalion was sent out to attack them but did not succeed in reaching them. The same day, the now well-nourished expeditioners were forbidden to meander around the camp at will. To cross from one side to the other was a death sentence. The sergeant adjutant of the Ninth and a few privates were killed this way. The pasture, just a few steps away from the second column, was attacked and several cavalry horses and draft animals were taken. The Thirtieth Infantry was dispatched to retrieve them but they were unable to do so. On the sixteenth the
jagunços
again made a show of their bravado and attacked their well-provisioned antagonists all down the line. The engineering commission had to fight its way through a reconnoitering mission, even though it had a strong escort of two battalions, the Seventh and the Fifth. This proved that the enemy would put up a tough fight. Since they did not know what resources the
sertanejos
possessed, they should have taken the precaution of not engaging all their men at once. It was certainly not appropriate for the circumstances of that particular combat zone.

From the heights of Mount Favela, the route they had chosen seemed easily accessible. The terrain, with its undulating hills and gullies, made rapid maneuvers impossible. They would have to stage a unified attack due to the scattered configuration of the terrain. This would only be possible if they eliminated any plans for a mass bayonet charge up the hills and if there were an effective reconnoitering foray by a single brigade in loose formation. The compact ranks were useless here. This advance guard, clearing the way while under fire, should have been followed rapidly by the other detachments. They would have provided reinforcement at strategic points until the attacking forces, following closely behind the retreating enemy, reached the settlement in the appropriate strength of numbers.