Backlands (60 page)

When they arrived in the town, the travelers avoided the bats that infested the abandoned houses and set up camp in the one village square. It was a large quadrangle. They contested for the shade of an old tamarind tree next to the fair booth. They left quickly the next day, each man for himself, heading out for Queimadas. This required another long, exhausting desert crossing. Queimadas was a good forty miles away, six or eight days of terrible hardship under a cauterizing sun. The journey would be broken up only by brief stops at the waterholes: Quirinquinquá, consisting of two sad dwellings surrounded by silent
mandacarú
trees on a ledge of exposed granite; the tiny village of Cansanção, consisting of about a dozen huts with stagnant pools of water nearby; Serra Branca, a festive-looking structure reminiscent of a pack driver’s ranch, shaded by densely foliated
uricuri
trees; by the Jacuricí. In fact at all lakes and waterholes, the water was brackish and polluted.

The road, which had previously been populated, became a wasteland. The deserting bands tramped through and destroyed the area, like a caravan of crippled savages. Sick and wounded, screaming and cursing, they formed menacing gangs that would invade the huts along the highway and demand the unconditional hospitality of those who lived there. At first their requests were angry demands. Then they would openly assault the residents. The peaceful scene of those poor homes, where the people of the backlands lived quiet existences, infuriated them as they saw the contrast with their own tormented existence. It pushed them to acts of destruction. As if in a hypnotic trance, they battered down doors with their rifle butts, while the terrified
sertanejo
family ran for safety to the nearest patch of weeds.

Then they needed a stupid distraction from their suffering. They would throw lighted torches on the roofs thatched with
sapé
ferns, which would immediately burst into flames. The stiff gusts of winds from the northeast would scatter the sparks over the dried brushwoods. In a short time, fanned by the wind, fires that were impossible to extinguish would spread fast for miles around, spiraling upward in clouds of smoke and flame, curling down the ravines, encircling and consuming the slopes and hilltops with the flash of spontaneous volcanic craters.

The fugitives, now safe from the enemy, could only get through the last stage of their tortured journey by indulging in vandalism of this type and widening the circle of destruction of the war as they headed toward the coast. They were at the same time miserable and mean, and they inspired pity and hate. They were horribly victimized and, in turn, they brutally victimized others. They arrived in Queimadas a few at a time, exhausted and dying. There they boarded the train that took them down to Bahia.

Their arrival was greeted with anxious curiosity. Finally, the first victims of the conflict that had gripped the entire country were returning. A huge crowd had assembled at the Calçada rail terminal, spilling out to the nearby streets all the way to the São Joaquim de Jequitaia fort. Every day they witnessed the return of these unhappy heroes. They never imagined that they would witness something as dramatic as this.

They experienced emotions they had never felt before.

The wounded arrived in miserable condition. The repulsive backwash of the campaign that had rolled down the backlands trails, a hideous wave of rags and human carcasses, now spread through the city streets.

It was a cruel procession. Officers and soldiers, all wearing the same uniform of misery, had lost all distinction of rank. They were dressed in the same ragged clothes: Old socks strung together to form loincloths, torn shirts, ragged dolmans on their shoulders, overcoats in tatters draped over their concave chests made this a tragic picture. As they dragged themselves painfully along on crutches, stumbling, falling, their emaciated features told their own story of this campaign. For the first time it would be seen for what it really was, in these starved and mutilated bodies torn by bullets and the thorns of the
caatingas
. They kept coming, hundreds a day: on August 6, 26 officers and 216 men; on the eighth, 150; on the eleventh, 400; on the twelfth, 269; on the fourteenth, 270; on the eighteenth, 53.

The citizens of the capital greeted them emotionally. As often happens, individual impressions were exaggerated by collective sentiment. The great number of people swept up in the same emotion set the tone for individual feelings. All hearts beat as one; they all became infected with the same thoughts and images, and individual personalities were submerged in the anonymity of a sorrowing crowd such as has never been seen in history. The large city became one huge home. Patriotic committees were formed to collect donations, which came in freely. Infirmaries were set up in the armory, the medical school, and the hospitals. Even the convents and monasteries opened their doors. In each location mutilated soldiers were put under the sponsorship of some famous name: Esmarck, Claude Bernard, Duplay, or Pasteur never had such a tribute from posterity.

Without waiting for the government to intervene, the people became the guardians of these patients, opening their homes, showering them with attention, encouraging them, guiding them in their hesitant steps to the street. On visiting days they invaded the hospitals in large groups, keeping a religious silence. They would approach the beds as if old friends lay there. With those who were not too sick to talk, they discussed the hardships suffered by the troops, the dangerous events that had happened. After these terrible stories of trauma and brutality, told by the sick and wounded men, they would leave feeling that they finally had a clear idea of the most brutal conflicts of our times.

But, as contradictory as this may seem, the profound sympathy was paired with a vibrant enthusiasm. These martyrs were being treated as conquering heroes. It would happen spontaneously: quick demonstrations that were over in fifteen minutes and were purely impulsive. The days were filled with noisy crowds thronging through the streets and gathering in the parks, shouting and laughing, crying and sobbing, in the midst of which solemn tribute was paid to the nation’s heroes. The wounded were a painful revelation but an encouraging one. They represented the strength of a race. The men, who had come back slashed by the
jagunços’
claws and the thorns of the backlands, represented the vigor of a people that had been put to the tests of the sword, fire, and hunger. They were traumatized by the war, yet the superficial layers of national pride had uncovered the deep qualities in these resigned, stoic Titans. More than this, an unspoken but dominant thought was present in everyone’s mind: admiration for the bravery of the crude backlanders who had been able to hack entire battalions to pieces.

It was tonic for their souls and they drank deeply of it. Full of enthusiasm, they made pilgrimages to the Palma barracks, where Colonel Carlos Telles lay wounded. They went to Jequitaia, where General Savaget was recovering; when he could take a few steps out to the street, commerce in the Lower Town came to a standstill as a huge ovation broke out that spread rapidly and gathered the people around the heroic chief of the second column, turning an ordinary workday into a national holiday.

The frenzy was interrupted on a daily basis by disturbing details. The full extent of the disaster was finally made public, with mathematical precision. It was astounding.

From June 25, the day when the first shots were exchanged with the enemy, to August 10, the expedition had a total of 2,049 losses.

The official reports gave details.

The first column had started with 1,171 men; the second, with 878. The numbers were as follows:

 

First column—artillery:
9 officers and 47 men wounded; 2 officers and 12 men killed. Cavalry wing: 4 officers and 46 men wounded; 30 officers and 16 men killed. Engineers: 1 officer and 3 men wounded; 1 private killed. Police Corps: 6 officers and 46 men wounded; 3 officers and 24 men killed. Fifth Battalion of Infantry: 4 officers and 66 men wounded; 1 officer and 25 men killed. Seventh Battalion: 8 officers and 95 men wounded; 5 officers and 52 men killed. Ninth Battalion: 6 officers and 59 men wounded; 2 officers and 22 men killed. Fourteenth Battalion: 8 officers and 119 men wounded; 5 officers and 42 men killed. Fifteenth Battalion: 5 officers and 30 men wounded; 10 privates killed. Sixteenth Battalion: 5 officers and 24 men wounded; 10 privates killed. Twenty-fifth Battalion: 9 officers and 134 men wounded; 3 officers and 55 men killed. Twenty-seventh Battalion: 6 officers and 45 men wounded; 24 privates killed. Thirtieth Battalion: 10 officers and 120 men wounded; 4 officers and 35 men killed.

 

Second column—
1
general killed. Artillery:
1 officer killed. Twelfth Battalion of Infantry: 6 officers and 126 wounded; 1 officer and 50 men killed. Twenty-sixth Battalion: 6 officers and 36 men wounded; 2 officers and 22 men killed. Thirty-first Battalion: 7 officers and 99 men wounded; 4 officers and 48 men killed. Thirty-second Battalion: 10 officers killed and 65 men wounded; 1 officer and 15 men killed. Thirty-fourth Battalion: 4 officers and 91 men wounded; 1 officer and 22 men killed. Fortieth Battalion: 9 officers and 75 men wounded; 2 officers and 30 men killed.

 

The casualties kept mounting daily, an average of eight per day. The enemy, on the other hand, seemed endowed with extraordinary resources.

The reports were being wildly exaggerated by overactive imaginations. The federal senate had come under the sway of public emotion and had issued a strongly worded demand for clarification on a rumored arms shipment to Buenos Aires, allegedly bound for the ports of Santos and Salvador, where it was rumored they were going to the Conselheiristas, or supporters of the Counselor. This incident, fed by the general hysteria, was taken as reality.

The opinion of the American republics on the situation was being voiced in their most prestigious newspapers. The news reports appeared to back up some of the rumors, such as the one just mentioned, and added to the public hysteria. One article, from
La Nación
in Buenos Aires, one of the most influential papers in South America, after referring to some of the curious events of the campaign, added details that had a strange and awful significance:

These reports were taken seriously. In the rebel territory, the fourth expedition was cut off and facing annihilation. This was from reliable sources. It was said that from the municipality of Itapicurú alone, three thousand fanatics had left for Canudos following a priest who was going to spread the word of the rebel leader. Thousands of armed thugs had gone through Barroca, all headed in the same direction. The names of these new rebel leaders were as clownish as those of the Chouans: Peter the Invisible, Joe Buck, Gold Snout, and still others.

Real news filtered through that aggravated the rumors. The
sertanejos
were making bold attacks throughout the backlands. Led by Iron Anthony they attacked the Mirandela territory. They had surrounded, taken, and pillaged the town of Sant’Anna do Brejo. They were everywhere. The scope of the campaign had now broadened, and it was clear that the
jagunços
were pursuing a firm strategy. In addition to the settlement, they had two new positions that were well located for defense and well manned. These were the chaotic slopes of the Caipã and the line of low hills around the river plain called the Várzea da Ema. Spreading out from Canudos, the rebellion was consolidating along the sides of an enormous triangle, capable of closing in on fifty thousand bayonets.

The supply trains sent from Monte Santo were constantly attacked even though they were guarded by brigades, not battalions. When they reached Aracati, they had to request escorts from Canudos—two or three battalions were necessary to protect them as they made for the camp. The deadly stretch of road from Vicar’s Farm to Baixas was bad enough to terrorize even the toughest veterans. It was the classic place where the rebels would suddenly open heavy fire on the pack trains, causing the herd to stampede and trampling entire platoons in their crazed flight.

In the course of these skirmishes, which were deliberately staged to disrupt the line of march, our troops began to discover a new type of
jagunço
who was giving direct aid to the enemy. They would catch a glimpse of him through the clearings where the brush had thinned out. He dashed about swiftly like the guerrilla fighters. Then they would see the shine of buttons from a uniform and a flash of red socks.

The starving deserter was attacking his old comrades. This was a terrible development, which added yet another dimension to a campaign that was becoming graver and graver as these events multiplied.