Backlands (58 page)

General Arthur Oscar de Andrade Guimarães calmly assessed the state of affairs. He asked for an auxiliary corps of five thousand and took measures to guarantee the safety of his men. They wrangled this unusual victory out of defeat. This was again a victory that left them in the agonizing situation of being unable to take a step forward or a step back. The orders of the day officially stated that the army had begun to lay siege to the town. The reality was that it was the expedition itself that was under siege. On the west was the settlement; to the south their path was obstructed by the slopes of the Favela, now littered with sick and wounded; to the north and east was the formidable desert. The field of action had now been widened. There were two separate camps, which appeared to give them greater range of movement beyond the confinement of the enemy trenches. This illusion was broken on the first day of the assault. The hills, which they had secured with bayonet charges just hours before, were already manned again. It was very difficult to communicate with Mount Favela. The wounded who tried to make it down a second time were shot. A surgeon, Dr. Tolentino, was badly wounded as he descended the mountain to the riverbank. It was going to be very difficult to cross the terrain that they had won. On the other hand, they again imitated the
jagunço
tactics from their position on the outer edges of the settlement. They crowded into the huts that were like ovens in the midday heat. They would stay there for hours, forgetting the time, practicing the same style of ambush fighting as their opponents. Their gaze scanned the mass of huts. They would unleash fire at any moving target in the labyrinth of alleys.

The last rations were distributed—one and a quarter quarts of flour per every seven men and an ox to a battalion. This was all that they had left of the supply train that had saved them a short time ago. The soldiers now found it impossible to prepare their meager meal. Smoke from a mud roof was a sure magnet for bullets! At night a lighted match would attract a barrage of gunpowder. The
jagunços
were well aware that the thin clay walls would offer no security to the invaders. Colonel Nery was wounded as he entered one of the huts after he and his men had traversed the dangerous combat zone. The troops began to reinforce the walls with stone or wood planks. Then they spent the day lying prone under the thatched roofs, above the food bins hanging from the rafters, their eyes glued to the chinks, fingers clutching their triggers. They were terrified victors lying in wait for the vanquished.

Bullets flew around general headquarters on the opposite slope without doing damage. They were repelled by the reentrant angle of the hill. Throughout the night and the following day, the commander, whose tent was in the center of the camp, could hear the whine of fire from the rifle duel going on between the enemy and the advance lines at the other side of the battlefield. The commanding officers of those detachments, Lieutenant Colonels Tupy Caldas and Dantas Barreto, both fearless warriors, were concerned that disaster was imminent. They realized that “one step backward from any point on the central line would mean total destruction.” No one tried to hide this fear of approaching catastrophe. It was a logical deduction from everything that had happened before. For many days they were preoccupied with this dread.

Colonel Barreto, in his book
The Last Expedition to Canudos
, made the point that “an enemy trained in regulation fighting, who knew how to exploit our tactical disadvantages, would not have let this opportunity for revenge go by. This meant we would become victims of the most savage cruelty.”

But the
jagunço
did not know anything about regulation fighting. He was not really an enemy, which in this context was a euphemism for “bandit,” as he was called in the form of martial literature titled the orders of the day. The
sertanejo
was simply defending his home. As long as his aggressors kept their distance, he would simply surround them with traps to stop them. But if they crashed through his gates and attacked him with rifle butts, he would confront them face-to-face with all he had, unblinking resistance, both for self-defense and to uphold his honor. Canudos could only be taken in a house-to-house search. The entire army expedition would take three months to cross the hundred yards separating them from the new church. On the last day of this unimaginable resistance, which has few like it in history, the last defenders, three or four starving, nameless Titans dressed in rags, would spend their last cartridges on an army of six thousand men!

This amazing tenacity was evident from the eighteenth of July on and never weakened. The attack was over but the battle went on. It was endless, boring, and terrifying, with the same rhythm as when they were on Mount Favela. They either engaged in scattered, occasional fire or sustained fusillades. There were sudden attacks and skirmishes, lasting fifteen minutes, which began and ended suddenly, before the emotional sounds of the bugle alarm had subsided. In these abrupt attacks, which were spaced out by periods of relative calm, the roles were reversed. The attackers were the ones who were being assaulted. The enemy might be cornered but he decided when these sudden engagements would occur.

Sometimes it was in the middle of the night that a large rocket would be launched into the air with a harsh whizzing sound that would make a tear in the dark sky and light up the cornices of the churches that swarmed with a black mass of humanity. This would interrupt the brief repose of soldiers in the advance guard who had dozed off with their heads on their rifles. The battle would go on in the dark to the intermittent glow of gunfire. At other times a surprise attack would come at dawn or in midmorning on a bright warm day.

A detailed log of the first days of the battle gives an idea of its extremely barbaric nature. We will try to give a general picture of the situation until July 24, which did not change from that time on.

 

July 19:
The enemy fire starts at five in the morning. It continues all day and part of the night. The commander of the first column decides to bring up two more Krupp cannons from the rear, so we can strengthen our attack against the enemy. We have to mount the cannons at night. At 12:30 P.M. the commander of the Seventh Brigade is wounded in his hut while resting in his hammock. At 2:00 P.M., after aiming and firing the right cannon at one of the towers of the new church, Lieutenant Thomas Braga dies from a bullet wound. In the afternoon a few head of cattle are brought down from Mount Favela with great difficulty to feed the troops. As they cross the Vaza-Barris, they receive fire and the herd stampedes. Our men laboriously round them up, losing just a few. At the sound of taps, the
jagunços
fire at our lines and keep this up until 9:30, with occasional shots continuing into the night. An officer is wounded, a subaltern is killed, and we suffer ten or twelve casualties.

 

July 20:
The camp is suddenly assaulted at reveille. Shots are exchanged all day. We can only mount one of the cannons. Same number of casualties as the day before: one man killed.

 

July 21:
Dawn is peaceful. There are few attacks today. The cannons on Favela keep up a bombardment until nightfall. It is a relatively calm day with few casualties.

 

July 22:
Without waiting for the enemy to take the initiative, the artillery begins to fire the cannons at five in the morning. This provokes a virulent return fire from the sharpshooters who are hidden in the walls of the churches. The last of the wounded are taken from the field to the camp on Mount Favela. This is not easy. Lieutenant Colonel Siqueira de Menezes reconnoiters the area. When he returns he reports that the enemy is strongly entrenched. We have control over just a few of the many houses in Canudos. We can only distribute rations at night to the soldiers in the front lines since during the day the enemy is always on watch. At 9:00 P.M. there is a violent assault on both flanks. There are twenty-five casualties.

 

July 23:
The day starts quietly. An hour later, at six in the morning, the
jagunços
impetuously assault our rear guard after having moved around our flanks unnoticed. They are pushed back by the Thirty-fourth Battalion and the Police Corps. Fifteen dead are left behind, an Indian woman is taken prisoner, and we find a bag of flour. There is heavy firing at night. The three cannons fire only nine rounds because we are running out of ammunition.

 

July 24:
Bombardment begins at dawn. In a deviation from its customary response, the settlement does nothing. The shrapnel from Mount Favela explodes in the town but it is as if the place is deserted. For a long time the cannonade continues to batter the town, without any reply. At 8:00 A.M. a few shots are heard on the right and there is an assault on the cannons on that flank. A hand-to-hand combat breaks out and spreads rapidly. Bugles are heard sounding up and down the line. All the troops fall into battle formation. The attack is aimed at cutting off the rear guard from the front of the line. It was a daring scheme. If they had succeeded, the
jagunços
would have been able to take general headquarters and place the army in the middle of two lines of fire. This was Pajehú’s idea. He was now in command. The assault lasted half an hour. The enemy, not succeeding here, returns a few minutes later and attacks furiously on the right. Held off again, with considerable difficulty, he moves back to the houses not taken by our troops and begins a barrage of heavy fire. The fallen in this engagement include the commander of the Thirty-third, Antônio Nunes de Salles, along with many other officers and men. At noon the agitation stops.

A sudden silence falls over both camps. At 1:00 P.M. a new attack is initiated, this one even more impetuous than the others. All battalions assume their formations. They are like a battering ram. The enemy is beating at our right flank. The daring Pajehú has been badly wounded. There are many casualties on our side. Lieutenant Figueira of Taubaté is dead. Among the wounded is the commander of the Thirty-third, Captain Joaquim Pereira Lobo, along with many officers. As a distraction, the commander in chief decides to call the left flank into action. The entire body of the column now fires on the settlement. A machine gun is brought in to reinforce the right. The entire artillery on Favela thunders on the village.

The enemy is repelled. All night there is constant firing until dawn.

 

July 25:
Today, as on other days, similar incidents occur with little change. This represses the campaign with a painful monotony. The trenches that constitute the line of siege are built in between engagements. Rations can only be consumed at night by the starving soldiers. Only then do the thirsty men dare to take their canteens and buckets down to the riverbed to search for water. The days go by. . . .

These facts reached the leaders of the state and federal governments in a completely garbled state. This was inevitable.

Since not even the soldiers themselves could make sense of the contradictory series of events, it was understandable that those who were far away from the drama in the backlands would have been taken in by conjectures that were not only unreliable but completely false. At first there was talk of victory. The crossing at Cocorobó had indicated that the army would quickly stamp out the rebel uprising. In addition, word from the front as well as terse telegrams from the commander in chief assured them that it would be taken care of in a few days.

When two weeks had gone by, it was clear that this was just wishful thinking. There were reports that the
jagunços
had gotten through army lines more than once. While the expedition was fighting to exhaustion on the wasteland of Mount Favela and bleeding to death at the gates of Canudos, public opinion was engaging in extravagant rumor, and the press was publishing far-fetched opinions on what was going on. The phantom of monarchist restoration was rising again on a stormy political horizon. Despite the official orders of the day, which were crows of victory, the
sertanejos
again looked like the Chouans after Fontenay. Looking at history through this inverted lens, the crude Pajehú seemed like a Chatelineau, and João Abade was a Charette in a leather hat.

From July 18 on, nervousness mounted. The news of the attack that day, as on previous days, began as an ode to victory but gradually died down, leaving serious doubts. Now the people were convinced the army had been defeated. Meanwhile, from the war zone the telegrams kept coming with their falsified version of the news. They were all alike: “Bandits surrounded. Victory certain. Canudos will be in our hands in two days. Fanatics are finished.”

But they would soon have the truth. Starting on July 27, living proof of the catastrophe arrived on the seaboard, bound for the capital of Bahia.

It was becoming urgent to evacuate the sick and wounded to Monte Santo.

The first groups of them left under the protection of infantry soldiers as far as Juá, on the far south of the danger zone.

The backwash of the campaign began a sorrowful journey along the highways. Mount Favela was spewing them out. Every day, countless bands of disabled soldiers, everyone who was no longer of use, left the camp. The most gravely ill were carried in hammocks of caroa fiber or on rude wooden stretchers made of rounded stakes. Others rode limping or unfit horses clearly in pain. Some were piled into carts. Most went on foot.

They left to cross the war-wasted territory with no provisions, in a weakened condition, exhausted from the terrible privations they had suffered. They were resigned to their fate.

It was the beginning of summer. The
sertão
was starting to turn into a barren desert. The sun-drenched trees were drying up and shedding their leaves and flowers each day. On the ground was a dark gray cover of parched weeds, already foreshadowing the latent presence of the drought and its mute fires. Day would burst forth in gold and after scorching the earth for hours would snuff out at nightfall. The water level was falling and the few streams were running dry. Their pebbly beds contained tiny trickles of water, almost invisible to the eye, as in the African wadis. In short, the superheated air and the dusty, cracking earth were giving clear signs that the drought was taking over this unhappy region. The temperature was showing enormous variations. The searing heat during the day was followed by bitter cold nights.