Che Guevara (45 page)

Over the coming days, as they moved from one farm to another in search of food, rest, and sanctuary, Che had to make all the major decisions. Juan Almeida was theoretically Che’s senior in the field, but he was in no shape to take charge. One of Che’s biggest headaches was finding men to carry the wounded. On the third day out, they came across some unarmed soldiers wandering through the bush—the prisoners from El Uvero whom Fidel had set free. After letting them go on their way, Che gleefully congratulated himself in his diary for giving the soldiers the false impression that the rebels “controlled” the countryside. But he also worried that they would soon relay word of his group’s presence in the area.

Help came from what seemed to Che an unlikely source. David Gómez, the
mayoral
on the Peladero estate, which belonged to a lawyer in Havana, offered his services. Che’s first impression of Gómez was not good, but it was tempered by his group’s desperate situation. “D. is an individual of the old
auténtico
type, Catholic and racist, with a servile loyalty toward the
patron
who only believes in electoral ends and in saving for his master all his ill-gotten lands in this region,” he wrote. “I also suspect him of having
participated in the dispossession of the peasants. But, leaving that aside, he is a good informant and he is ready to help.”

In fact, Gómez was already helping. The cows they had been eating were his bosses’ property, killed with his connivance. And Gómez offered to do more. As an initial test, Che gave Gómez a list of purchases to make in Santiago and, craving information from the outside world, included a special request for the latest editions of
Bohemia
. Che’s relationship with the overseer showed that he was becoming more like his
jefe
. Fidel had always understood that one of the keys to success in a struggle for power was to make short-term, tactical alliances, even with one’s ideological foes. Now, as the leader of a group of hunted men in alien territory, Che found he had needs that only Gómez could satisfy, and he was able to swallow his distaste and be pragmatic.

Indeed, his time in Cuba had already shown Che that the revolution was not going to be won by a fraternity of high-minded souls. Among the rebel ranks were any number of scoundrels: former rustlers, fugitive murderers, juvenile delinquents. The corrupt Carlos Prío himself had helped pay for the
Granma
, and the battle of El Uvero had been a success in large measure thanks to the aid of the wealthy and duplicitous Babún brothers, who, though friends of Batista, probably hoped to protect their interests in Oriente by helping the rebels.

When David Gómez arrived back from Santiago with the promised supplies, a more trusting Che sent him on a new mission, this time with messages for the National Directorate. By now, three weeks after the battle at El Uvero, most of the men had recovered from their wounds, and all of them could walk. Thirteen new volunteers had shown up, although only one had a weapon—a .22-caliber automatic pistol. On June 21, Che took stock of his growing force. “The army ascends to: 5 recovered wounded, 5 healthies who accompany the wounded, 10 men from Bayamo, 2 more just joined up and 4 men of the area, total 26 but deficient in armaments.”

A few days later, after beginning a slow march into the mountains, Che observed that his army now consisted of “36 terrible soldiers.” The next day, he gave all those who wanted to leave their chance. Three took up his offer, including one who had joined the previous day. In the succeeding days, more men joined and others left, either deserting or sent packing by Che. But as “terrible” as most of them were, they were the core of a new guerrilla force growing spontaneously under his direction. By the end of June, Che’s small army was functioning autonomously, with its own system of couriers, informants, suppliers, and scouts.

July 1 was a bad day for Che personally—he awoke with asthma and spent the day lying in his hammock—but an interesting one in terms of news,
for the radio reported rebel actions taking place all over Cuba. “In Camaguëy they are patrolling in the streets,” Che noted in his diary. “In Guantánamo, some tobacco deposits were burned, and they tried burning the sugar warehouses of a strong American company. In Santiago itself they killed two soldiers and wounded a corporal. Our casualties were 4 men, among them, a brother of Frank País called Josué.”

July 2 marked the seven-month anniversary of the
Granma
’s landing. Che spent it leading his weary men up a large mountain. During the day two men deserted, and by the time they pitched camp that evening, three more asked permission to leave. To forestall any more desertions, Che gave anyone who wanted to leave another chance to do so. Two men accepted the offer, but by that afternoon three new men had arrived, each with a weapon. Two were former army sergeants from Havana, and Che didn’t trust them. “According to them they are instructors,” he wrote in his diary that night, “but to me they’re a couple of shit eaters who are trying to accommodate themselves.” Despite his suspicions, he let them stay.

The next addition to Che’s band was none other than Fidel’s friend at the Babún Company, Enrique López, who decided to join the armed struggle himself. Another man showed up, telling Che he had a “fantastic plan” to attack a guard post where he said there were forty soldiers without a commanding officer. He also asked for two men to go and “skin a
chivato
.” Che turned him down: “I told him to stop fucking around ... to kill the
chivato
with his own people and then send them here.”

In order to meet up with Fidel, who had returned to their old haunts around Palma Mocha and El Infierno, Che was moving his force westward across the sierra toward Pico Turquino. His runners brought word of a large troop presence in the direction they were heading and of heavy combat near the army base at Estrada Palma, and a report that Raúl Castro had been wounded—a rumor that later proved unfounded—but Che decided to forge on, taking a tougher route over the mountains to avoid the enemy.

On July 12, Che’s guide, Sinecio Torres, and another rebel, René Cuervo, deserted with their weapons. After a fruitless chase, Che learned new details about the two men. Both, it was now revealed, were
bandoleros
, fugitive outlaws, and they had probably gone off to raid the marijuana plantation owned by two other newcomers to his force, Israel Pardo and Teodoro Bandera. Suspecting that the two
marijuaneros
would desert next to defend their interests, Che decided to get rid of them by ordering them to go in pursuit of the deserters; he didn’t expect them back. The next day brought a new problem, when Che learned of a mass-desertion plot being hatched among a small group of men. Their alleged plan was to escape with their weapons, rob and kill a
chivato
they knew, then form an outlaw gang to carry
out more assaults and robberies. Che spoke with several of the men implicated in the plot, each of whom denied his role and blamed a man called El Mexicano. When El Mexicano realized that his plan had been discovered, he came voluntarily before Che to profess his innocence. Che found his explanations wanting, but wrote: “We let it pass as if it were the truth so as to avoid more complications.”
*

During their trek, Che also made his debut as a dentist. He used what he called “psychological anesthesia,” which consisted of cursing at his patients if they complained too much. His treatment succeeded with Israel Pardo, but not Joel Iglesias. Che wrote later that a stick of dynamite would have been needed to extract Joel’s rotten molar, which remained in his mouth, broken in several places, until the end of the war. Although Che suffered from a toothache himself, he wisely left his own teeth alone.

By July 16, they were back in familiar terrain on the western flanks of Pico Turquino and reached Fidel’s camp the next day. Che saw that the rebel army had matured in the past month and a half. There were now some 200 well-disciplined and confident men. And there were new weapons. Most important of all, they now possessed their own “liberated territory.”

The reunion was dampened for Che when he learned that Fidel had just signed a pact with two representatives of the bourgeois political opposition—Raúl Chibás and Felipe Pazos—both of whom were staying in Fidel’s camp at that moment. Their pact, “The Manifesto of the Sierra Maestra,” was dated July 12 and had already been sent out for publication in
Bohemia
. The “Sierra Pact” was Fidel’s cleverly timed repudiation of Batista’s schemes to stay in power. A reform bill had been passed that provided for presidential elections on June 1, 1958. Despite Batista’s avowal not to stand as a candidate himself, widespread skepticism persisted as to his true intentions; most observers suspected him of intending to manipulate the elections on his behalf or that of a handpicked successor. The election initiative was repudiated by Carlos Prío’s Auténtico Party and Chibás’s Ortodoxo Party, but breakaway factions from both formed a coalition with a grouping of smaller parties and announced their intention to run.

By allying himself with Chibás and Pazos, two respected Ortodoxos, Fidel hoped to obtain a moral high ground and secure a broader base of support among Cuban moderates with nowhere else to turn. Writing in his diary on July 17, Che was circumspect, but it clearly didn’t please him to find Pazos and Chibás wielding influence over Fidel. “Fidel was telling me projects and realities; a text has already been sent out that calls for Batista’s immediate resignation, rejects the Military Junta, and proposes a member of the civic institutions as a candidate for the transition, which should last no more than one year, and elections [should be] called within that time. It also includes a miminal program in which the foundations of the Agrarian Reform are outlined.” Then he added, “Fidel didn’t say so but it seems to me that Pazos and Chibás have polished his declarations a great deal.” The truth, of course, was more complex. Fidel had
sought
the support of Chibás and Pazos, and if he signed a manifesto less radical than his true aspirations, it could only help him in the short term. This pact, like so many others Fidel was to sign in his life, was merely one more tactical alliance—to be broken at the first opportunity.

If he thought any more about the Sierra Pact at the time, Che didn’t make note of it in his diary. His chief concern was a new command, which Fidel had bestowed upon him on July 17, the day Che arrived in camp. He had been promoted to captain and he was to head a group of seventy-five men. In addition to the men he had arrived with, he was to take command of the platoons led by comrades from the
Granma
, Ramiro Valdés and Ciro Redondo; and another led by Lalo Sardiñas, a sierra merchant who had recently joined up after killing a stranger at his house. Lalo Sardiñas was also to be his deputy. They were to hunt down Captain Angel Sánchez Mosquera and his men.

Che’s new position represented Fidel’s seal of approval. Che had fought hard to obtain recognition for his abilities, and the process had matured him. He had been given a difficult mission to accomplish on his own—bringing the wounded men to safety—and he had succeeded. He had fulfilled his doctor’s duties by returning the men to health while managing to avoid battle and the risk of new casualties, had added to the strength of the Rebel Army by building up a new column, and had made invaluable contacts among the civilian population at the same time. He had shown himself to be a strict taskmaster, harsh with slackers and cheats, and to be scrupulously honest himself. Above all, Che had shown he could be a leader of men.

Che went to work immediately, leaving the next morning to take up a position on a hill between two rivers, the Palma Mocha and La Plata. It happened to be the same place where the executed
chivato
Filiberto Mora was buried, and he named it after him: “the summit of Filiberto.” The next
three days were spent preparing ambushes and sending scouts out to look for soldiers. On the morning of July 22, a rebel accidentally fired his gun and was brought before Fidel, who was in a newly hardened, unforgiving mood, and he summarily ordered the man to be shot. “Lalo, Crescencio, and I had to intercede with him to reduce the sanction,” wrote Che, “because the unfortunate didn’t deserve a punishment as drastic as that.”

Later that morning, all the rebel officers signed a letter being sent to Frank País, expressing their condolences for the recent death of his brother. Without any advance notice, Fidel chose that moment to give Che another promotion. When his turn came to sign the letter, Fidel told him to put down
comandante
as his rank. “Thus, in a most informal manner, almost in passing, I was promoted to commander of the second column of the guerrilla army, which would later become known as Column No. 4,” Che wrote.
*
“My insignia, a small star, was given to me by Celia. The award was accompanied by a gift: one of the wristwatches ordered from Manzanillo.” It was a great honor.
Comandante
was the highest rank in the Rebel Army. The only other
comandante
was Fidel.

“There is a bit of vanity hiding somewhere within every one of us,” Che wrote afterward. “It made me feel like the proudest man on earth that day.” From then on, to all but his closest friends, he was Comandante Che Guevara.

Che’s orders were to pursue Sánchez Mosquera, but he soon learned that his prey had already left the mountains. As he pondered his options, he set about imposing control over his unruly and heterogeneous fighters. He instituted a hierarchy. Novices were
descamisados
—shirtless ones, named after Juan Perón’s working-class supporters—who did grunt work before earning recognition as
combatientes
. Many of the men in his troop were
descamisados
. Almost immediately, he was plagued by desertions, and he responded with severity. When he sent two fighters to track down a fugitive, he gave them orders to kill him if they found him. His wariness about newcomers increased when he received a message from his overseer ally David Gómez warning of the army’s plans to send
chivato
assassins to infiltrate the guerrillas.