The War Of The End Of The World (81 page)

In the trenches, he finds his brother Honório and his wife and sister-in-law as well. The Sardelinha sisters are installed with other women in a lean-to, amid things to eat and drink, medicines and bandages. “Welcome,
compadre
,” Honório says, embracing him. Antônio lingers with him for a moment as he downs with relish the food that the Sardelinha sisters ladle out to the men who have just arrived. Once he finishes this brief repast, the former trader posts his fourteen comrades round about, advises them to get some sleep, and goes with Honório to have a look around the area.

Why has Abbot João entrusted this front to them, of all the warriors, the two men least experienced in the ways of war? Doubtless because this is the front farthest away from A Favela: the enemy will not come this way. They would have three or four times farther to go than if they went straight down the slopes and attacked Fazenda Velha; moreover, before reaching the river, they would have to cross rough terrain bristling with thorny brush that would force the battalions to break ranks and scatter. And that is not the way the atheists fight. They do so in compact blocks, forming those squares of theirs that make such a good target for the
jagunços
holed up in their trenches.

“We’re the ones who dug these trenches,” Honório says. “Do you remember,
compadre?
”

“Of course I remember. Thus far, they haven’t had their baptism of fire.”

Yes, they were the ones who had directed the crews that had dotted this plot of ground that winds between the river and the cemetery, without a single tree or clump of brush, with little holes big enough for two or three sharpshooters. They had dug the first of these shelters a year ago, after the encounter at Uauá. After each enemy expedition they have made more holes, and lately little passageways between each of them that allow the men to crawl from one to the other without being seen. They are indeed defenses that have never undergone their baptism of fire: never once has there been any fighting in this sector.

A bluish light, with yellow tinges at the edges, creeps down from the horizon. Cocks can be heard crowing. “The cannon salvos have stopped,” Honório says, guessing the thought in Antônio’s mind. Antônio finishes his brother’s sentence: “That means that they’re on their way,
compadre
.” The dugouts are some fifteen to twenty feet apart, spread out over an area half a kilometer long and a hundred or so meters wide. The
jagunços
, crouching down elbow to elbow in the holes by twos and threes, are so well hidden that the Vilanova brothers can see them only when they lean down to exchange a few words with them. Many of them have lengths of pipe, thick cane stalks, and hollowed-out tree trunks that allow them to see outside without poking their heads out. Most of them are sleeping or dozing, curled up in a ball with their Mannlichers, Mausers, and blunderbusses, and their bullet pouch or powder horn within reach of their hand. Honório has posted lookouts along the Vaza-Barris; several of them have gone scouting along the ravines and the riverbed—completely dry there—and on the other side without running into any enemy patrols.

They return to the lean-to, talking together as they walk back. The silence broken only by the crowing of the cocks seems strange after the many hours of bombardment. Antônio remarks that the attack on Canudos has appeared to him to be inevitable ever since the column of reinforcements—more than five hundred troops, apparently—arrived at A Favela intact, despite desperate efforts on the part of Pajeú, who had harried them all the way from Caldeirão but had managed only to steal a few head of their cattle. Honório asks if it is true that the expeditionary force has left companies posted at Jueté and Rosário, places they merely passed through before. Yes, it is true.

Antônio unbuckles his belt and, using his arm as a pillow and covering his face with his sombrero, curls up in the dugout that he is sharing with his brother. His body relaxes, grateful for the rest, but his ears remain alert, listening for any sound of soldiers in the day that is dawning. In a little while he forgets about them, and after drifting along on different fuzzy images, his mind suddenly focuses on this man whose body is touching his. Two years younger than he, with light curly hair, calm, self-effacing, Honório is more than his brother twice over, by blood and by marriage: he is also his comrade, his crony, his confidant, his best friend. They have never separated, they have never had a serious disagreement. Is Honório in Belo Monte, as he is, because he believes with all his heart in the Counselor and everything he represents, religion, truth, salvation, justice? Or is he here only out of loyalty to his brother? In all the years that they have been in Canudos, the question has never entered his mind before. When the angel’s wing brushed him and he abandoned his own affairs to take those of Canudos in hand, he naturally presumed that his brother and sister-in-law, like his wife, would willingly accept this change in their lives, as they had each time that misfortune had made them set out in new directions. And that was what had happened: Honório and Assunção acceded to his will without the slightest complaint. It had been when Moreira César attacked Canudos, on that endless day that he spent fighting in the streets, that for the first time he began to have the gnawing suspicion that perhaps Honório was going to die there at his side, not because of something he believed in, but out of respect for his older brother. Whenever he ventures to discuss the subject with Honório, his brother pokes fun at him: “Do you think I’d risk my neck just to be with you? How vain you’ve become,
compadre!
” But instead of placating his doubts, these jibes only make him all the more troubled. He has told the Counselor: “Out of selfishness, I have done as I pleased with Honório and his family without ever finding out what it was that they wanted, as though they were pieces of furniture or goats.” The Counselor provided balm for this wound: “If that is how it has been, you have helped them accumulate merit to gain heaven.”

He feels someone shaking him, but it takes him a while to open his eyes. The sun is up, shining brightly, and Honório is standing there with his finger on his lips, motioning him to be still. “They’re here,
compadre
,” he says in a very soft voice. “It’s fallen to our lot to receive them.”

“What an honor,
compadre
,” he answers in a voice thick with sleep.

He kneels down in the dugout. From the ravines on the other side of the Vaza-Barris a sea of blue, lead-gray, red uniforms, with glints of sunlight glancing off their brass buttons and their swords and bayonets, is sweeping toward them in the bright morning light. So that is what his ears have been hearing for some time now: the roll of drums, the blare of bugles. “It looks as though they’re coming straight toward us,” he thinks. The air is clear, and though they are still a long way away, he can see the troops very distinctly; they are deployed in three corps, one of which, the one in the center, appears to be heading directly toward the trenches. Something in his mouth that feels pasty keeps him from getting a single word out. Honório tells him that he has already sent two “youngsters” to Fazenda Velha and to the Trabubu exit to bring Abbot João and Pedrão the news that the enemy troops are coming this way.

“We have to hold them off,” he hears himself say. “Hold them off as best we can till Abbot João and Pedrão can fall back to Belo Monte.”

“Provided they aren’t attacking via A Favela at the same time,” Honório growls.

Antônio doesn’t believe they are. Opposite him, coming down the ravines of the dry river, are several thousand soldiers, more than three thousand, perhaps four, which must be all the troops the dogs can field. The
jagunços
know, because of what the “youngsters” and spies have reported, that there are more than a thousand sick and wounded in the field hospital set up in the valley between A Favela and the Alto do Mário. Some of the troops must have stayed behind there, guarding the hospital, the artillery, and the installations. The soldiers in front of them must constitute the entire attack force. He says as much to Honório, without looking at him, eyes fixed on the ravines as he checks with his fingers to make sure the cylinder of his revolver is fully loaded. Though he has a Mannlicher, he prefers this revolver, the weapon that he has fought with ever since he has been in Canudos. Honôrio, on the other hand, has his rifle propped on the edge of the trench, with the sight raised and his finger on the trigger. That is how all the other
jagunços
must be waiting in their dugouts, remembering their instructions: Don’t shoot till the enemy is practically on top of you, so as to save ammunition and have the advantage of taking them by surprise. That is the only thing that will be in their favor, the only thing that can compensate for the disproportion in numbers of men and equipment.

A youngster bringing them a leather canteen full of hot coffee and some maize cakes crawls up to the dugout and jumps in. Antônio recognizes those bright twinkling eyes, that twisted body. The lad’s name is Sebastião, and he is already a battle-hardened veteran, for he has served both Pajeú and Big João as a messenger. As he drinks the coffee, which restores his body, Antônio sees the youngster disappear, slithering along with his canteens and knapsacks, as swiftly and silently as a lizard.

“If only they all advance at once, in a single compact unit,” Antônio thinks. How easy it would be then, in this terrain without trees, bushes, or rocks, to mow them down at point-blank range. The natural depressions will not be of much use to them since the
jagunços
’ dugouts are on rises of ground from which they can fire down on them. But they are not advancing in a single unit. The center corps is marching forward more rapidly, like a prow; it is the first to cross the dry riverbed and scale the ravines on the other side. Figures like toy soldiers, in blue, with red stripes down their trouser legs and gleaming bits of metal, appear, less than two hundred paces away from Antônio. It is a company of scouts, some hundred men, all of them on foot, who regroup in two compact formations, five abreast, and advance swiftly, not taking the slightest precautions. He sees them crane their necks, keeping a sharp eye on the towers of Belo Monte, completely unaware of the sharpshooters in the dugouts who have them in their sights.

“What are you waiting for,
compadre?
” Honório says. “For them to see us?” Antônio shoots, and the next instant, like a multiple echo, earsplitting shots ring out, drowning out the drums and bugles. Thrown into confusion, the soldiers mill about amid the smoke and dust. Antônio squeezes off his shots slowly till his revolver is empty, aiming with one eye closed at the soldiers who have now turned tail and are running away as fast as their legs will carry them. He manages to make out four other corps which have crossed the ravines and are approaching in three, four different directions. The shooting stops.

“They haven’t seen us yet,” his brother says to him.

“They have the sun in their eyes,” he answers. “In an hour they won’t be able to see a thing.”

Both of them reload. They can hear scattered shots, from
jagunços
trying to finish off the wounded whom Antônio sees crawling over the stones, trying to reach the ravines. Heads, arms, bodies of soldiers keep emerging from these. The lines of soldiers curve, break up, scatter as they advance across the uneven, shifting terrain. The soldiers have begun to shoot, but Antônio has the impression that they still have not located the dugouts, that they are aiming above their heads, toward Canudos, believing that the hail of gunfire that mowed down the spearhead has come from the Temple of the Blessed Jesus. The shooting makes the cloud of dust and gunsmoke even denser and every so often earth-colored whirlwinds envelop and hide the atheists, who keep advancing, crouching over, bunched together, rifles raised and bayonets fixed, to the sound of drums rolling and bugles blaring and voices shouting out “Infantry! Advance!”

The former trader empties his revolver twice. It gets hot and burns his hand, so he puts it back in its holster and begins to use his Mannlicher. He aims and shoots, seeking out each time, amid the enemy troops, those who—because of their sabers, their gold braid, or their attitudes—appear to be the commanding officers. Suddenly, seeing these heretics and pharisees with their panicked faces who are falling by ones, by twos, by tens, struck by bullets that seem to be coming out of nowhere, he feels compassion. How can he possibly feel pity for men who are trying to destroy Belo Monte? Yes, at this moment, as he sees them fall to the ground, hears them moan, and aims at them and kills them, he does not hate them: he can sense their spiritual wretchedness, their sinful human nature, he knows they are victims, blind, stupid instruments, prisoners caught fast in the snares of the Evil One. Might that not have been the fate of all the
jagunços?
His, too—if, thanks to that chance meeting with the Counselor, he had not been brushed by the wings of the angel.

“To the left,
compadre
,” Honório says, nudging him in the ribs.

He looks that way and sees: cavalrymen with lances. Some two hundred of them, perhaps more. They have crossed the Vaza-Barris half a kilometer to his right and are grouping in squads to attack this flank, amid the frantic din of a bugle. They are outside the line of trenches. In a second, he sees what is going to happen. The lancers will cut across the rolling hillside to the cemetery, and since in that sector there is no line of trenches to stop them they will reach Belo Monte in just a few minutes. On seeing the way clear, the foot soldiers will follow them into the city. Neither Pedrão nor Big João nor Pajeú has had time yet to get back to Belo Monte to reinforce the
jagunços
behind the parapets on the rooftops and towers of Santo Antônio and the Temple of the Blessed Jesus and the Sanctuary. So, not knowing what exactly he is going to do, guided by the madness of the moment, he grabs his ammunition pouch and leaps out of the dugout, shouting to Honório: “We must stop them, follow me, follow me!” He breaks into a run, bending over, the Mannlicher in his right hand, the revolver in his left, the ammunition pouch slung over his shoulder; it is as though he were dreaming, or drunk. At that moment, the fear of death—which sometimes wakes him up at night drenched with sweat or makes his blood run cold in the middle of a trivial conversation—disappears and a proud scorn for the very thought that he might be wounded or disappear from among the living takes possession of him. As he runs straight toward the cavalrymen—who, grouped now in squads, are beginning to trot in a zigzag line, raising dust, whom he can see at one moment only to lose sight of them the next because of the dips and rises in the terrain—ideas, memories, images fly up in his head like sparks in a forge. He knows that these cavalrymen belong to the battalion of lancers from the South, gauchos, whom he has spied roaming about behind A Favela in search of cattle. He thinks that none of these horsemen will ever set foot in Canudos, that Big João and the Catholic Guard, the blacks of the Mocambo or the Cariri archers will kill their mounts, magnificent white horses that will make excellent targets. And he thinks of his wife and his sister-in-law, wondering if they and the other women have been able to get back to Belo Monte. Among these faces, hopes, fantasies, Assaré appears, his native village in the state of Ceará, to which he has not returned since he fled from it because of the plague. His town often comes to mind in moments like this, when he feels that he has reached a limit, that he is about to step over a line beyond which there lies nothing but a miracle or death.