Backlands (66 page)

At first there was nothing to reveal the presence of an occupying army. It looked like a transitory backlands village. The illusion was completed by the dress of the inhabitants. They were modest-looking individuals in peasant dress, shouldering rifles or trailing swords, but wearing tasseled leather hats and sandals. Elsewhere raggedy women were calmly sewing in the doorways or walking with bundles of firewood. A stranger might think that he had strayed into a
jagunço
settlement until he got to the commander’s tent. After climbing the hill at the foot of general headquarters, he would find the engineering commission in a native hut on the summit. If he put his eye to a chink in the wall, which had been reinforced by blocks of stone, he would have a direct view of the church square, one hundred yards away. He was now on the slope where the stockades were located at the base—the most dangerous section of the front. Here the Twenty-fifth Battalion was holding the center. It was the “black line,” the point where the army had reached most deeply into the settlement during the assault of July 18. To the left, under the barrier of the uneven line of huts scattered there, he would arrive at the first-column headquarters. Winding down the southern slope along a ledge, he would find a small cabin belonging to the second column. This would lead him to the quartermaster general’s tent, where the São Paulo Battalion was camped on a sandy floodplain that in the rainy season is filled with the waters of the Vaza-Barris. Continuing along, he would cross the Vaza-Barris under a shelf of stone trenches running from one bank to the other and manned by the Twenty-sixth. Here he would find the outer ring of the siege lines, secured by the Fifth of Bahia, in a deep trench carved out by the Providencia River. Two hundred yards to the left, on a high hill near the Old Ranch House, is the Seventh of September Trench, looking like a hanging bastion.

In touring the camp, the new arrivals were able to gain a clear idea of the situation and they started to lose some of their initial optimism. This sector of the line was still small compared with the size of the settlement, which surprised them. They were used to the dwarfed size of most backland villages and were stunned by this Babylon of mud huts spreading out over the hills.

At that time Canudos consisted of fifty-two hundred houses—later they were counted one by one. The red clay roofs could not be distinguished from each other and they created an illusion of disproportionate size to someone who first looked at the compact huddle of houses around the square. Seen from this perspective, the mass of huts created a strong impression adding to the strange atmosphere of the settlement. It was hard to believe there were so many lives in that place. The closest observer would not see a single individual or hear the slightest sound of any kind. It was like an ancient necropolis, eroded and pitted all over its surface.

However, if the observer exposed himself too much, a rain of bullets would betray the presence of the people burrowed in the ruins. A single shot fired at any time from the top of the hill would evoke the same quick response. Even though the
jagunços
no longer had the advantage in initiating attacks, they responded with the same strength. The siege might be wearing them down but they had not lost their dignity, and it was a point of honor to hide any signs of weakness. It was clear that they were in bad shape. Their town was in ruins; it no longer had its supply of infamous bandits. The population was mostly women and young children, who had been put through a terrible trial of fire and sword for three months. Many times, above the din of the battle would come the sound of pitiful cries. A few days before, shrapnel fired from Mount Favela skimmed over the new church and fell on the huts near the arbor where the prayer services were held. Suddenly there was a heart-wrenching cry, which upset even Colonel Olympio da Silveira’s firing squad. It was a long and tragic chorus of cries. The officer, deeply affected, gave a stern order to cease fire and the cannons fell silent.

Doubly hemmed in between thousands of soldiers on the one side and thousands of women on the other, between the cries of distress and the war hoots of soldiers, between tears and bullets, the rebels were losing ground quickly. It was just a matter of time. The confidence that they were winning led the soldiers to daring acts. A sergeant of the Fifth Artillery crossed the entire square at night to collect two dynamite bombs that had not exploded. A sublieutenant of the Twenty-fifth did more than that a few days later when he set fire to the remains of the old church, which burned to the ground.

The recent arrivals to this unequal contest started to worry once again that they would not have the chance to test themselves against the enemy. The iron-muscled new brigades were chafing at the chance to put down the rebellion in its last thrashing moments. The soldiers who had been there during the previous months had received more than enough glory. They were tired of the whole thing and now that they were well fed, thanks to the daily supply trains, they thought that no more lives should be thrown away to speed up the enemy’s surrender. They remained irritatingly aloof.

In between attacks, which were occurring at greater intervals, the camp had the order of a well-policed town. Nothing indicated that a terrible war was being fought. At the engineering quarters, General Arthur Oscar de Andrade Guimarães, who was open and good-natured, would give lectures on a number of topics having nothing to do with the conflict: memories of the past, funny stories, and lengthy discussions of politics. At the same time, others who were persistent in recording details of the battle would note hourly temperature readings and barometric pressure, always recording a zero for cloud cover as they checked their hygrometers with long faces. In the military pharmacy the student volunteers would joke around and recite poetry. Voices and laughter could be heard through the thin walls of the huts made of
juazeiro
branches. The few bullets that did fly around were harmless as they bounced off the hillsides. Nobody paid any attention to them anymore. Their precision and the rhythm with which they were fired indicated that there were still sharpshooters whose job was to remind them that the
sertanejos
were still watching. They did not cause concern, although some would hit the canvas of the officers’ tents. Heavy fire still occurred occasionally at night, when our men least expected it.

Life was becoming normal in that abnormal situation. At times it took on bizarre dimensions. Sometimes the soldiers in the black line, the trench closest to the settlement, would in the early morning have long conversations with the
jagunços
. The man on the army side would stand at the edge of the trench, facing the square, and call out some remark and add a name, the first he could think of, in a friendly voice as if calling for a friend. Usually someone would answer from the huts, or closer by from the rubble around the church, in a soft, somewhat ironic twang. An unusual conversation would begin in the shadows, an exchange of information about all kinds of matters: baptismal names, birthplaces, family, and details of their lives. Occasionally they would exchange an obscene joke and there would be a burst of laughter. This banter would continue until there was a difference of opinion, and then suddenly a few loud insults would be exchanged in colorful slang and the conversation would come to an end with a gunshot.

The soldiers of the Fifth Police Brigade would while away the time with songs that expressed their homesickness for the banks of the São Francisco. If they were interrupted by shooting from the enemy, they would make a dash for the firing line, unloading their rifles and fighting like devils, still singing their love songs but now to the time of bullets. Some would fall dead, a song on their lips. After the battle was over others would continue with their diversion, languidly strumming their mandolins and singing their love ballads as if they were on a pack drive and taking a noonday rest.

Everyone was adapting. The daily exposure to death had fostered a disrespect for life. Toward the end of the campaign, the soldiers would walk from one end of the camp to another without taking any precautions. As they emerged on an exposed hilltop they would not even bother to walk more quickly as bullets fell around them. They would laugh at the newcomers, who would be terrified when fighting broke out. The sight of them dodging and ducking was very funny to them. The newcomers were unable to keep themselves from jumping as a bullet sped by with a low hissing sound. They were also unable to hold back their feelings when the dying were carried back from the front lines.

Some of the soldiers were just making a travesty of courage; it was a kind of arrogance. In their uniforms, with their stripes and buttons shining in the sun, they would stand in an open place completely exposed to enemy fire or on top of a hill within about a mile of the settlement, to test the
jagunços
’ firing range. The long exposure to the fight had hardened them. They would tell their war stories to the newcomers, embellishing the dramatic details. They retold the episode of Mount Favela and its many battles, describing what they had gone through there. There was the case of the sublieutenant who died when he broke his fast by stuffing himself with handfuls of flour after not eating for three days. There were the wild hunts for goats and having to pick dried berries off dead shrubs. They ended by saying that there was little more to do. The enemy was dying. All that was going on now was just a party, nothing more.

The men of the Auxiliary Division were not resigned to the minor role they were given. Was this why they had traversed seventy-five miles of backland terrain, just to look on as spectators at the slow death of the enemy by strangulation, without the satisfaction of a battle?

The blockade of the town was incomplete. There was still a wide opening to the north, so the enemy was not yet down to its last resources. The Várzea da Ema and the Uauá trails were still unprotected. They branched out into many side trails over the plains, meandering toward the wide basin of the São Francisco. They would go through remote places until they reached the tiny villages along the banks of the river between Chorrochó and Santo Antônio da Glória. Here the
jagunços
got their supplies, and fresh reinforcements found no resistance on their way to Canudos. These roads went in the most favorable direction, across the vast territory linking the backlands of six states, from Bahia to Piauí.

This gave the
sertanejos
their best escape route, leading to the very place that the revolt had started. If they had to flee, the desert would protect them.

But they were not leaving, even though they understood that the army was gaining strength while they were getting weaker. Their top fighters were gone: Pajehú, who died in July; João Abade, who fell in August; the sly Macambira, recently killed; José Venâncio, and others. The key men left were Big Peter, the ferocious defender of Cocorobó, and Joaquim Norberto, who was made a commander because no one else was available. They were running low on food. Every day the imbalance between the number of fighting men and the women, children, sick, and crippled grew greater. This useless majority restricted the movement of the fighters and deprived them of food. Some of the weaker ones could have departed a few at a time via the open trails, leaving the others free to fight and sparing themselves a certain death. But they chose not to do this. Of their own free will, the ones who could not help, aware that they were burdens, stopped eating to save their defenders. They would not desert them now.

Life in the settlement was unbearable. This was proven later on by the horrible state of emaciation and misery of the six hundred prisoners taken. The inhabitants spent days in terrible suffering, even though the doors to life and freedom were still open to them. This stoicism would have never been understood had the story not been told by those who went through it. It was simple enough.

On August 22, Antônio Conselheiro died. His death was caused by the destruction of the churches. As he saw them fall, the Sanctuary ruined, relics strewn on the floor, and the Good Jesus dismembered on the floor, he suffered a shock that was too much for him to survive. From that moment on he began to die. He now refused to eat at all. One day they found him in the destroyed church, lying on his face, his forehead pressed to the ground and a silver cross on his chest. His body was cold and rigid when Pious Anthony found him there.

This event seemed to give new life to the rebellion instead of ending it, as might have happened. It could have been due to the quick thinking of one of the leaders, who could foresee the terrible consequences, or it could have been the power of suggestion when the faithful became upset by their leader’s absence. Whatever the source, the following story emerged, as told by the people taken prisoner later on.

Antônio Conselheiro had gone to heaven. When he saw his leaders being killed and the number of troops growing, he decided to appeal to God. The ambassador was now in God’s presence. He had taken care of everything before he left. That is why the soldiers were unable to leave as they had before. They were stuck in their trenches. They had to remain here on the scene of their crimes to pay for their sins. The prophet would return with millions of angels, their flaming swords glowing in the heavens, and they would descend like a flock of heavenly birds and smite the invaders. The Day of Judgment would begin.

This gave them great relief. The believers prepared for the final penance, which would be their salvation. None noticed that some of the population, people like Villa Nova, abandoned the settlement, taking off for unknown parts.

They left just in time. On September 24 the situation changed.

That morning, the left wing and the cannon on Favela launched a heavy attack to distract the enemy. Lieutenant Colonel Siqueira de Menezes went off on an expedition, followed by the Twenty-fourth, Thirty-eighth, and Thirty-second battalions under Major Henrique de Magalhães, Captain Afonso Pinto de Oliveira, and Lieutenant Joaquim Potengy; the Amazonas unit; the right wing of the São Paulo detachment, under Major José Pedro de Oliveira; and a cavalry wing under Sublieutenant Pires de Almeida. They were going to the section that was not under their control, fighting along the way small bands of
jagunços
in the last houses on that side of the settlement.