Backlands (50 page)

They fell into the trap thinking they were conquerors. They quickly lost their confidence, however. Their ranks were chaotically disrupted when in reply to the cannon boom on one side, the entire range of slopes burst into running flame from top to bottom. A deadly rifle fire burst on them from the hundreds of trenches, as if the ground itself were mined.

It was a mass shooting.

The surprised battalions became a panicked crowd. Hundreds of men ran in every direction, stumbling into each other, trampling on their fallen comrades. They were disoriented, deafened, and blinded by the cannon and rifle fire. They could not go a step farther out into a terrain they knew nothing about and where night was already falling.

It was useless to try to storm the slopes. The
jagunços
fired with impunity, at no risk to themselves. They squatted or lay flat in their trenches. Only their rifle barrels stuck out at the top. The idea of trying to rout them with a desperate bayonet charge up the hill was rejected. This could have exposed the troops to an even worse assault while the rear guard would have been left behind. There was nothing they could do except stand their ground in this dangerous position and wait for morning.

This decision, the only one possible, was reinforced by the enemy. After about an hour the enemy’s fire slowed down and, finally, to the surprise of the troops, it stopped completely. The brigades set up camp in battle formation. The Second took an advance position from center to the right. The First was in the rear. The artillery remained on an opposite hill with the rapid-fire battery on its right and the Whitworth 32 in the middle, guarded by the Thirtieth under Lieutenant Colonel Tupy Caldas. The general, who had commanded this battalion as a colonel, was personally responsible for putting it in this dangerous situation:

“I place the artillery in the hands of the Thirtieth and have complete confidence that it will honorably discharge its duty to defend it.”

The rest of Major Barbedo’s Fifth Regiment took a position on the left, next to Major Carlos de Alencar’s cavalry wing. Near the depression under the summit of Mario’s Hill, the weakest place in their position and later to be named Death Valley, Colonel Flores’s battalions were crowded in. A field hospital was improvised in a gulley that was less open to enemy fire. Here they carried the fifty-five wounded and twenty dead because there was no place to bury them. This brought the total number of casualties to seventy-five for only a little more than an hour of fighting.

A ring of guards was placed around. The troops, officers, and men, lay down on the ground in the most democratic promiscuity, and rested peacefully.

The unexpected quiet of the enemy gave them the illusion of having won. The musicians of the Third Brigade somewhat prematurely played triumphal tunes until dawn, going through their entire repertory. Meanwhile a magnificent moon rose and shed its light over the sleeping battalions.

But the peace was deceptive. The
jagunços
had accomplished their clever goal. Having lured the expedition to this place, they now had the rear guard at their mercy, along with the supply train that carried the rations and ammunition. On the same day they had simultaneously attacked two points, at Mount Favela and Angico. Although the troops had been successful at Favela, they now had to begin their attack on the settlement without munitions; that is, lacking the instruments of war.

This situation did not weigh on those who had so precipitously approached the center of operations. At dawn on the twenty-eighth, as they gathered on the outcrop where the artillery was positioned, they finally had a look at the “bandit cave,” which is how the commander in chief described it in his orders of the day.

Canudos was still growing in size, but only its primitive appearance seemed to have become more accentuated. The same red houses with clay roofs were scattered more widely over the hilltops around the tight nucleus of huts at the bend of the river. On the southwest and northwest, the river created a moat around the town. To the north and east the settlement was cordoned off by rolling hills. In the early morning light, it looked like a citadel that would be very hard to capture. It was evident that if an army corps descended into the maze of gullies, it would be like marching into a minefield. There was not a single point where the town was completely accessible. The Jeremoabo highway, two hundred yards away, entered the village along the dry bed of the Vaza-Barris. The riverbed was flanked by two rows of gullies on either side, hidden by a hedge of wild silk grass. The “sacred” Maçacará road, the one used by the Counselor on his trips south, descended between the hills, along the banks of the Umburanas. It was equally impractical. The Uauá and Várzea da Ema trails to the north were not blocked but they could only be reached after a long and dangerous detour.

The new church was now almost completed. Its two tall towers rose proudly over the low-roofed huts. It added to the impression of the town being an impregnable fortress. The church towers had a dominant view of all the roads, hills, and valleys. A sharpshooter positioned on its heavy cornices had no reentrant angle to worry about. All that was missing to make it look like a fort were cannon openings and battlements.

The uplifted, rugged land that descended to the river from Mount Favela on the north side opened on the left into the big depression that led to Mario’s Hill and the line of peaks descending in the direction of the Old Ranch House. The Third Brigade took up a position here. It formed into columns, with the artillery on the promontory to the right. Afterward followed the Second and First brigades. The troops were in battle formation by dawn. Because of the tactical advantage of their position, they felt the battle had to be started and sustained by the artillery. They thought that with cross fire on the village four thousand feet below, they would be able to achieve complete victory in a short time.

All hopes were centered on Colonel Olympio da Silveira’s batteries.

Expectations were so high that just before the first round was fired at six in the morning many men from other detachments grouped around the cannon for a view of the terribly dramatic scene to follow: Canudos burning under the curtain of fire sent down by the artillery. The entire population would be crushed under the ruins of five thousand huts.

This was one more illusion that would be rudely broken.

The first shot was fired by the Krupp on the extreme right. Its effect was in fact theatrical.

All night the
jagunços
had slept in their trenches on the hillsides next to the troops. When the cannon went off, it was their presence that was felt and heard.

Later on, in retelling the event, the commander in chief of the expedition confessed that he was at a loss to describe the “rain of bullets that fell from the hills and came up from the low-lying plains with a horrible whistling sound” that stunned the troops. The commander of the first column stated in his plan of the day that he had never seen anything like it in his five years in the Paraguayan War.

The
sertanejos
were showing a surprising steadiness in their attack. They delivered consistent fire. The bullets flew in a violent stream, exploding on the sides of the hills as if they were coming from a single train of gunpowder. After attacking the vulnerable troops in the depression below, they turned to the artillery and wiped out its ranks. Dozens of soldiers fell, along with half the officers. The men left manning the guns stood their ground. In the middle of it all, Colonel Olympio da Silveira strode up and down between the batteries, as unfazed as if he were conducting training on a firing range. His calm saved the situation. In a crisis such as this, if they had abandoned the cannon they would have been utterly defeated.

The alarm sounded through the ranks. With no orders and no definite aim, three thousand rifles blasted away at the same time against the hills. It all happened in just a few minutes. In the confined area where the troops were helplessly moving about, there was the most regrettable disorder.

No one thought clearly. Everyone was in action. Not knowing what they were doing, with no room to charge or maneuver, the overwhelmed platoons fired in all directions at once, aiming high so they would not kill each other. They were firing at a frightening, invisible enemy attacking them from all sides. Yet he was nowhere to be seen. In this madness, the Third Brigade on the left flank, in full battle formation, with the Seventh Battalion in the lead, began to move down the slope in the direction of the Old Ranch House, where the heaviest fire was coming from. Four months earlier, the Seventh had come up the same road, running in defeat and leaving behind the body of Colonel Moreira César. They now wanted to make up for this disgrace. Accompanying the Seventh on this special mission was the Ninth, which had also been with it on that terrible occasion. Major Cunha Mattos led the advance guard.

The defeated soldiers from the earlier expedition now had an unusual chance for revenge. They had a leader who was very much like their fallen commander. Colonel Thompson Flores was a superb fighter. While he lacked the clarity of mind that is an essential quality for a commander, he was a very brave man. He held contempt for any foe, however strong or bold. This made him a strong leader in stressful situations. In the bold attack that he was now single-handedly trying to lead, he was acting entirely on his own. He had no orders. He was grimly trying to lead his men in a single charge all the way to the square with the churches, where the same men had been wiped out just months ago. His brigade started to attack, swept up by the enemy’s direct fire. They had advanced just about one hundred yards when the advance broke up, every man for himself. Colonel Flores, at the head of the column, dismounted to personally direct the line of fire. In a surfeit of bravery, he refused to tear off the stripes from his sleeves, which made him a favored target for the
jagunços
. Later they found him dead of a wound in the chest.

He was replaced by Major Cunha Mattos, who continued the foolhardy attempt. The Seventh was the only detachment that could not fall back in that terrain. His command was short-lived. Shot by an accurate bullet, he was replaced by Major Carlos Frederico de Mesquita, who was also killed soon after. The command of the brigade then went to Captain Pereira Pinto.

The engagement was a disaster. In a half hour 114 men, along with 9 officers, were killed or wounded.

The ranks of this detachment had been reduced by a third under the relentless fire. Similar destruction occurred at other points. As the minutes went by, commanders were dying and being replaced by men of lower rank. The Fourteenth Infantry, moving up to reinforce the line on the right flank, had advanced just a few yards when its commander, Major Pereira de Mello, went down. He was replaced by Captain Martiniano de Oliveira, who was soon hit and carried to the rear. Captain Souza Campos was the next up and he had taken just a few steps when he was killed. The Fourteenth was now under the command of a lieutenant.

The slaughter continued down the line. What was worse, after two hours of fighting without any attempt at tactics, the munitions were depleted. The artillery, its ranks decimated, still stood its ground on the promontory, but it had fired its last round and the cannons were now silent. Half the officers had been lost, among them a commissary captain of the Fifth Regiment, Nestor Vilar Barreto Coutinho.

The headquarters staff was now receiving urgent demands for more munitions for the battalions.

Captain Costa e Silva, assistant to the quartermaster general’s deputy, was sent to the rear to do what he could to speed the supply train. It was too late. A couple of adjutants who were dispatched after him came galloping back after they had gone but half a mile. They could not get through the fusillade. This meant that the rear guard was completely cut off. In the din and confusion and the sound of fire all around them, the troops on Mount Favela could hear the distant fire of the Fifth Police detachment, who were in hand-to-hand combat with the
jagunços,
five miles away.

The entire first column was trapped. However strange this was, the victors could not leave the position they had won. The commander admitted to this: “The supply train was under attack and it was impossible for a single man to get through. There was nothing we could do except to send a cavalry detachment to General Cláudio do Amaral Savaget to try to get a supply of munitions from him. This was against my better judgment. I knew that no detachment could get by the enemy fire on our left flank.”

Thus, attacked on the right, where the cavalry detachment was beaten back and had to turn back; attacked from the rear, where two auxiliary units had not been able to get through; attacked on the left, where the Third Brigade was making a valiant stand; and finally attacked on the front, where the decimated artillery was silent, the expeditionary forces were completely under the control of the enemy.

There was just one, very dangerous, way out. They could try to leave this valley of death on top of Mount Favela at bayonet and sword point. However, one alternative could be attempted. A secret messenger was sent out through the
caatingas
in search of the second column, which was stationed about a mile to the north.

General Cláudio do Amaral Savaget and his troops departed from Aracajú, and after a march of about 175 miles, they stopped in the vicinity of Canudos. They had come through the interior of Sergipe, one brigade at a time, as far as Jeremoabo. Here the column was united on the eight of June. It proceeded to move out on the sixteenth for the scene of operations.

The column was 2,350 men strong, with an artillery bearing two light Krupps. It moved at a leisurely pace and in an order that was best suited to the situation.

The general was not an authoritarian type of leader. This would have been counterproductive. Without any breach of military discipline, he chose to delegate parts of his command to his three immediate aides: Colonels Carlos Maria da Silva Telles, Julião Augusto da Serra Martins, and Donaciano de Araújo Pantoja, commanders of the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth brigades. These commanders led an exemplary march to the first houses of the settlement that stands out from the rest.