General from the Jungle Read online

  If the ground had been really hard, the Rurales could probably have fled and escaped in greater numbers. But now when one merely attempted to wheel his horse and spur it into retreat, five muchachos immediately hung on to the horse’s tail and three clung to the reins and three more dragged the man from the saddle.

  An attempt to set up the machine guns got no further than unbuckling the straps. The crew was immediately torn to ribbons.

  The major and the lieutenant both tried to bellow orders. But no one attended to them. The bugler lay headless in the mud. Horses were trampling on his body.

  “Save himself who can,” shouted the major, to provide himself with an excuse and reason for riding off. His lieutenant was dead.

  The major had fled barely fifty paces and believed himself already hidden, when there burst from the side of the bush five muchachos—some of those who had crept in there on their retreat. It took no more than two seconds for a shot from his elegant gold-chased revolver to miss its aim, and five seconds later his best friend would not have been able to identify his corpse.

  Four managed to escape. They owed it to their horses, which were so scared that they forgot the mud and the holes in the ground and scampered away for dear life.

  The two flanking troops reached the clearing half a minute too late. Otherwise not even the boldest horse could have succeeded in saving its rider.

  Yet in fact the successful escape of the four Rurales was no loss to the muchachos. For the Rurales had thrown away their rifles and ammunition in order to make sure their escape.

  These four fleeing Rurales, in their headlong gallop, met their two comrades who had been thrown off their wounded horses before the advance on the clearing. These two were marching on foot back to the finca. Fortunately for them, several riderless horses were also careering in that direction. The four mounted Rurales were able to catch two of these horses and mount their hobbling comrades, so that these six returned to the sheltering walls of the finca, defeated and humiliated, the only survivors of the troop that had ridden out so proud and elegant.

  The Rurales who had been thrown had not even their weapons left. Their rifles had remained hanging at the pommels when the horses tumbled and flung off their riders. The horses themselves, however, had gotten to their feet after a few moments and, in spite of their wounds, had cantered after the main troop and followed them into the clearing, where later they collapsed from loss of blood, and the muchachos were able to appropriate the saddles and rifles.

  When the booty was counted, the rebels found themselves the richer by six new rifles, eight revolvers, and three pairs of field glasses. In addition, they were now in possession of two new machine guns complete with ammunition. The magazines of the rifles were, admittedly, with very few exceptions all empty, but every one of the fallen mounted Rurales carried forty to sixty additional rounds in his cartridge belt and pockets.

  Among the booty were watches, rings, pocket knives, and other belongings of the Rurales. These objects belonged to those who had overcome and killed the owners, and when this could not be clearly decided, the muchachos did not quarrel over it. Most of them laid no value on getting any of the plunder. All money found was handed over to Professor for the military treasury. There were about 320 pesos, of which more than 250 had belonged to the major and forty to the lieutenant. The rank and file had, in many cases, less than a peso in their pockets, several of them not even ten centavos, for it was six weeks since they had last undertaken house searches in the premises of citizens who had been denounced.

  Colonel, who had arrived with the rear troop, had had experience with machine guns, for he had received training in these weapons in his battalion. His heart rejoiced when he saw these two beautiful, brightly polished ametralladoras. He embraced them and kissed them like sweethearts. “Oh, won’t I tickle you up beautifully, chamacas tan dulces. I’ll make you hop!” he said, stroking and caressing them. “And you’ll sprinkle all those mangy mercenaries until God in Heaven will have to laugh. These are what we’ve been wanting, muchachos.”

  “General,” he shouted, “who are you going to put in charge of these two humble squirts? Their polished brass looks like sparkling gold. Hey, mi general, you must have someone in command of them. What do you say to that excellent suggestion?”

  General walked up and laughed. “You, Colonel. You’re in command of the machine guns. I can’t take care of everything. You’re appointed.”

  “Gracias, mi general. I’ll form a machine-gun company right away and start instructing the muchachos. Que chinguen todas las madres, curse it, now we’re over the hump. I’d take on two of the Cacique’s regiments with these. Hope he sends us two regiments. Or, better still, a division. The more the merrier. We could do with two light field guns as well. What do you think, General, about us acting in such a way that the bloody hangman, sitting on his throne plastered with eagles, has to send out two divisions against us? Perhaps with six field guns? He’d only need to send them out, and we’d soon take them. Then we could march against Tullum and visit the governor.”

  He saw Andreu standing near, and called out good-humoredly, “Hey, Andrucho, what do you think? Do you know enough reading and writing to make a new governor? We need a governor from among our people.”

  Andreu laughed. Then he winked at Colonel, General, Professor, and Celso in turn, laughed again, and said, “We’ll discuss the state of the bridge when we get to the riverbank. It’s a damned long way to Tullum. And between here and the zócalo of Tullum, where the governor’s palace is, there are three battalions of infantry, four cavalry regiments, and probably twenty companies of mounted Rurales.”

  General made a long face, then a wry one, and then eyed from foot to head the officer in charge of the machine-gun section. “Did you hear that, Colonel?” he asked. “There are twenty companies of Rurales between here and Tullum.” He smiled ironically.

  Colonel glanced around to see what sort of faces the muchachos were making. They were impassive. They did not worry about their future. Regiments and battalions might stand in the way, or they might not. They would be attacked when they were met. So long as they were not met, it was all the same whether there were eight regiments or eight hundred to be conquered.

  The fight, as rapidly as it had developed, and as successfully as it had ended for the muchachos, had nevertheless taken its toll. If General’s plan had succeeded in its entirety, it might have been possible to overwhelm the Rurales before they were able to fire off even ten rounds.

  Although the majority of the shots fired by the surprised troops had gone off into the air, without doing any harm apart from a few tattered treetops, enough of the soldiers, all trained men, had found an opportunity to blaze off their full magazines into the close-packed throng of muchachos before they were torn down. But even if the machine guns had been set up and ready for action at the moment of the attack by the rear guard, the defeat of the Rurales would still have been inevitable, for the muchachos had occupied the bush on either side in sufficient strength, and in the bush the best machine gun is useless. But the losses on the rebel side would probably have been of such a magnitude that perhaps half of all the muchachos would have been left on the battlefield.

  When the men had collected their dead, they found that nineteen had fallen. More than thirty were wounded, the greater number by bullets and a minority from saber cuts and the hoof blows of terrified horses. Before evening eight of the wounded died, so that the number of dead mounted to twenty-seven.

  They were buried without much ado. When they had all been interred and a few muchachos had gabbled one or two remembered prayers over them, the dead were forgotten.

  Professor said to the men standing around the little mounds of earth, in which crude crosses were stuck, “We’re rebels, aren’t we, muchachos?”

  “Tierra y Libertad!” they shouted in reply.

  “Right, camaradas, tierra libre para todos. Tierra sin capataces y sin amos. And because we’re rebels, we haven�
��t any time now to mourn our fallen brothers. We’ll remember them when we’ve won the revolution. And then we’ll remember them with honor, with devotion, and with gratitude, because they fell in the cause of the revolution. But now we have no time for that. Now we must think of the living and of victory. The fallen can celebrate no victory. To the victors belong the celebration. Only the living can enjoy the results of a victory for our revolution. The muchachos, our true comrades, who now lie buried here, must fall in order that we may conquer. They were not the first to die for land and freedom against the Cacique, and they will not be the last to die so. One thing I can promise you, muchachos, and what I promise you here will one day come true. Of all of us who stand here today at the graves of our dead brothers, not two dozen will be left alive when the revolution is finally won. But that is no matter, brothers. We are not the first men on earth, and we are not the last. After us there will come hundreds, thousands of generations, and these generations that will come after us will live in freedom from tyrants, oppressors, and dictators, and they will give us thanks and honor, we who died for their freedom. That, too, is worth something, to be honored by future generations. But these—these Rurales who are now lying about in shreds and pieces—fallen as mercenaries of the dictator for the sake of keeping him in power so that he can feed the people with lies, they will soon be more forgotten than that broken branch lying over there. The coming generations will remember them not as fighters, not as faithful soldiers, but as tools of the executioner, as torturers, as uniformed slaves, whose wisdom consisted of being the obedient lackeys of El Caudillo and his aristocrats and scientificos. The tyrants and dictators and oppressors of men occupy but a brief part of the history of mankind, even though that part is ever the richest in terror and fear. But to us, as to all fighters for freedom, for human justice, for democracy, to us belongs the whole history of man. We are the helpers, while these menials are the hinderers of time; they are the enemies of peaceful progress. And thus, camaradas, we take leave of our fallen brothers. Let us all remove our hats in honor to our brothers who have fallen for our revolution. Let us each take up a handful of earth, and then let us lay this earth upon the graves in which our brothers now sleep. And after that we will shout: Tierra y Libertad! Viva la revolución proletaria! Abajo los dictadores y los tiranos! Tierra y Libertad!”

  When the muchachos had shouted this invocation which Professor had declaimed before them, and kept a second’s silence, Professor raised his hand and said, now in a quietened voice, “Adiós, muchachos. Que duerman bien. Adiós, muchachos. Dulce es morir por la revolución de los pobres. Sleep well, children. It is sweet to die for the revolution of the poor. Sleep in peace.”

  He put on his hat and walked over to General. In a completely changed voice he said, “Now—to the finca!”

  General leaped onto a horse in order to be better seen and called across the crowd, “A la finca, muchachos! Adelante!”

  As the last man in the mob heaved up his pack and set out on the march, following the advancing muchachos, the mangled remains of the Rurales were already swarming thickly with red ants.

  High above the bush one could see a troop of vultures wheeling around, gradually nearer and nearer, until at last they formed a narrow circle over that part of the clearing where the battle had taken place.

  Far ahead, leading the troop, marched General, who had dismounted from the horse, together with Professor and Celso.

  Around General’s neck were slung the major’s field glasses. He stopped, peered through them toward the finca, focused them, looked again, and then let them fall to the extent of their strap.

  Professor, too, had glasses, while the third pair was carried by Colonel, who once more was leading the rear troop, supported by Andreu as commissary and quartermaster.

  “It’s a fine thing having such good glasses,” said Professor, affectionately tapping his binoculars, which, like General’s, were hanging on his chest at strap’s length.

  “I suppose so,” replied General indifferently and thoroughly uninterested. “I suppose such a piece of tin’s a fine thing. But it’s not worth a lot. When one can only see the swine through the things one’s too far away to manhandle them. When they’re near enough to be given a hot reception, there’s no need for any glasses. And when they’re so near that you can run a machete into their stomachs, the lousy things only dangle around your waist and get in the way. What would I do with such muck? It may be all right for those hirelings, but not for a rebel.”

  He removed the glasses from around his neck and handed them to Celso. “Here, take them. You’re a colonel and can use them properly.”

  “Hell,” answered Celso. “I don’t need any glasses. I can see well enough with my own eyes. And at five hundred paces I can see a little bird sitting on a twig, and I can tell you what sort of bird it is.”

  General laughed. “There, you see, Professor, no one will have the things as a gift.”

  “All right. Give them to me. The glasses I have are so full of bubbles and flecks, I’ll be glad to have yours. I can use a good pair. My eyes aren’t as sharp as yours. Give them to me.”

  “With pleasure,” said General.

  Professor removed his binoculars, took those offered him, hung them around his neck, and called to the marching muchachos, “Here, who’d like some field glasses?”

  Nobody said a word.

  Professor stopped for a moment and looked about him. Then he saw little Pedrito striding determinedly toward him. The lad had his small pack slung on his back.

  Beside him marched his young aunt, Modesta, also carrying her pack. She was a Tsotsil girl, about seventeen years old, and it did the eyes of a man good to look at her.

  “Hey—chamaco!” Professor called him over. “Here’s a present for you—two little tubes nailed together. If you look through them, you can see the men in the moon canoeing on their rivers.”

  The lad turned to his aunt. “Is it true, verídico, tía, that with these little black cotton-reels one can see the people of the moon in their canoes?”

  “I don’t know about that, m’jito,” answered Modesta, smiling at him. “But take it, when Professor gives it to you. Professor’s a very clever and educated man. If he says you can see the people in the moon through those tiny tubitos, then it’s so.”

  Professor hung the glasses around the boy’s neck. The lad felt as if his teacher had decorated him with a medal. Beaming, he beckoned to another somewhat older boy who was marching in their troop and showed him his new toy.

  The older boy examined it from all sides and then said contemptuously, “You couldn’t even shoot a broken-legged hare with that. I want a rifle. And that’s what I’ll get for myself in the next battle. You just watch how I win it. With my pocket-knife here I’ll get myself a rifle. All through this march I’ve prayed morning and evening to the sacred Virgin that we’ll come quick upon some Rurales. What you’ve got there is just a toy for little boys like you, not for men like me. Soy un rebelde, and I’ll get myself a rifle.”

  This lad was ten years old, but he carried a pack that must have weighed sixty pounds.

  But Pedrito wasn’t going to have Professor’s present despised. He nudged Modesta’s arm furtively. “Is there a moon tonight, Aunt Modesta?”

  “No mi vidita. I don’t think so. It won’t shine till next week. You’ll have to wait till then before you can see the men in the moon paddling their canoes.”

  “Aunt,” he said after a moment of silence, “then perhaps I can see the departed who live on the stars?”

  “Perhaps, my son. We’ll have a good look tonight to see if the stars come out. And then we’ll find the biggest of them, which has the most lanterns burning, and maybe we’ll be able to see the people who make the clouds for us, and paint the flowers and birds so brightly.”

  4

  The rain, after the brief battle, had gradually eased. It had not lasted as long as the muchachos had expected. But it had come very opportunely for them an
d had stopped as they were burying their fallen comrades.

  Great tatters of dark clouds scurried above them and dispersed. And as the troop now marched toward the big finca, the sun stood rejoicing in a blue sky.

  The finca was, like a fortress, surrounded by a high wall. Outside, at a distance of about 150 yards from the wall, and, from the viewpoint of the finca, to the north, lay the peons’ village.

  The troop came marching toward the finca from the east. General, Professor, Celso, Andreu, and some ten other muchachos had sought out horses for themselves and were now mounted on them. They were horses that had been captured from the Rurales. The great majority of the remaining horses, mules, and donkeys of the troop were saddle-sore from the packs and famished and exhausted from the long march through the jungle swamps and over the rocky heights. Many had collapsed on the way and had had to be unloaded in order to be able to progress at all. Many more had been lost by plunging from the narrow mountain paths, while others had sunk into swamps or been drowned at river crossings because they had been too exhausted to swim through the swirling currents.

  The muchachos who were farthest forward in the troop and were in a position to have a good view of the finca, particularly those who were on horseback, found the finca buildings remarkably quiet. Not a soul was visible.