by Jay Cantor
“Soldiers,” Inti said, “remember you are our brothers. If your superiors force you to fight, come ahead and don’t be afraid. We won’t do anything to you if you throw down your arms, raise up your hands, and shout that you surrender. We won’t harm you then, as we are not harming you now. You will be released.”
The captain, clever man, saw the drawbacks to this offer. What if your superior sees you surrender, and he gets away? Things could go very badly for you when you got back to your outfit. Especially if your superior resents your cleverness and your masculine but musical laugh. Besides, a battle is like a natural disaster. (I was sure this had been the captain’s first. He would remember it vividly as fragments of color and light and wetness and heat, and each fragment still terrified him.) It wouldn’t have made any sense not to fire at the enemy, even if you thought his cause was just. It would be like a rock refusing to participate in a rockslide! Unthinkable!
Inti offered the prisoners a chance to join the Army of National Liberation, to join in the glorious work of freeing Bolivia from Imperialism’s stranglehold.
No one spoke.
During the silence, army planes bombed the area. The soldiers fell to the ground and clung to it, sure that their stupid officers would kill them by mistake. (They would have too, if they could have bombed more accurately.) The explosions were more than a mile away, in the river, but the sound was enormous, deafening. Freddy, one of the guerrillas from Moises Guevara’s group, grabbed Inti’s arm, and shouted something at his face. I couldn’t hear it, but I knew from many such incidents in the past, many men surprised by their own fear, what he was saying. He shouted that he’d been promised a safe camp, a place that would have defenses against air raids. He thought that if he shouted his resentment loudly enough, someone would be forced to protect him. Inti took Freddy’s hand from his arm.
The bombs raised spumes of water and shattered rock. The tips of the spouts were very beautiful, just visible over the foliage.
After the bombing, Inti told the major that he could recover his dead the next day if the burial party returned stripped to the waist. “We won’t take your uniforms,” Inti said, “because it’s cold tonight. But we have to keep your boots and watches and cigarettes. The army will give you others. But we don’t have anywhere to get them at the moment. I’m sorry, but we’ll need those things.” I helped Coco and Camba collect the various objects. I felt like a bandit, and smiled towards Ricardo.
The soldier that Camba had sung to stuck his hand in his pocket. “Wait a minute. I had ten pesos hidden in a cigarette pack.” He must have been ashamed of fainting. He needed a way to show some daring.
I laughed. “You’re a courageous son of a bitch, aren’t you? Shows what happens when we’re nice enough to sing to you.” I could see from his eyes that he had trouble following my words. He flinched at the sound of my voice.
“I told you we were too easy on them,” Ricardo said, laughing too. It is an awful thing to hear Ricardo laugh! “Here.” He handed the soldier ten pesos.
The soldier reached out slowly to take it. And then, ashamed again of his cowardice, said, “I’ll bet it’s counterfeit.”
“You know,” Ricardo said, taking off his glasses and cleaning them on his shirt, “Ponco’s wrong. You’re not courageous, are you? You just don’t know where you are or why. You never have. And you never will. Turn around.” Ricardo put on his glasses. The soldier stared at him. Ricardo had fat-looking eyes behind those lenses. “Turn around, you little bastard!” The soldier turned and Ricardo kicked him in the ass, knocking him to the ground. “All right. You can go now! And,” he said to the man on the ground, “you can tell your superiors how the guerrillas tortured you, but you didn’t give them any information. As if you ever had any to give!”
The prisoners walked off to the river, singing barracks songs—so loudly that they couldn’t carry the tunes. They were surprised to be alive, and they wanted to show anyone waiting in ambush that they weren’t guerrillas. For a little distance some of the men followed after, a raggedy army, abusing the soldiers in raucous voices.
“Good-bye! Do come again! We can use the boots!”
From Guevara’s Journal
2/10/67: The final result: three 60mm mortars, sixteen Mausers, one rifle. Two radios, boots. Seven deaths, fourteen unwounded prisoners, and four wounded. But we didn’t manage to get any food.
Departure is now extremely difficult for our guests. We will have to get them out of this zone. I received the impression that Debray was not the least bit pleased about this when I told him; though, once again, it did not affect his game.
Clearly we were betrayed. We should have been able to stay here a long time. But by whom? Monje? Algaranaz? Someone else?
Too many candidates. In any case,
I miscalculated somewhere.
From My Journal
2/10/67: It is unbelievable! Che simply goes on playing chess with Regis, and listens to radio reports about us. (Barrientos announced that there are no guerrillas … that they exist only in people’s imaginations.… Then: that an unknown group with automatic arms treacherously attacked a group of soldiers who were surveying a road … that the nation must join in a fight against local anarchists with money and arms from Castro’s communists … that the nation must prepare to defeat the guerrillas led by Ernesto Che Guevara, the Cuban bandit and adventurer.)
How do they know already that Che is here? He did not show himself after the battle. Someone has talked! But who?
And why does he not see that it’s time to go? It’s time to get a move on. It’s time to hit the road. I told him that. He waved me away and went back to playing chess with Debray, that old young man, that young old man. But it is crazy to stay here now! Did that little bit of bloodshed exhaust him? After the wolf eats a little it goes right off to sleep. But we were once used to much bigger meals than those few soldiers!
Or is he angry at himself because he made a mistake? (That is his usual behavior under that circumstance. Like his father, lying on the floor, hands by his sides.)
Did he make a mistake?
MARCH
From Guevara’s Journal
3/2/67: Radio battles. Phantom battles. The Bolivian radio announced that there are five hundred guerrillas. But they are already completely surrounded by two thousand soldiers, and the encirclement is closing in. They are being attacked from the ground, and by napalm from the air. Ten to fifteen guerrillas have been killed.
3/6/67: Debray and I spoke of the miners, Moises Guevara’s men. Inti has just told me of Pacho’s disobeying orders, and Freddy’s disgraceful outburst during the bombing.
“These men are dregs, Regis.”
“Yes. The pro-Peking miners wouldn’t cooperate with Moises in the end. They have their own line, that there must be more preparation before hostilities begin. Moises enrolled unemployed miners, and personal friends. He promised them money and comfort. These men are of unknown political background, except for Simon Cuba, the one you’re calling Willy. They are weak. The most important support for a guerrilla is his ideological conviction. Moises’s men lack ideology. They joined to escape poverty. Except for the miners like Willy, and the middle-class Communists like Jorge and Coco, there is the danger that recruits will see the guerrillas as a way out of poverty, a good job with a chance for rapid advancement. Then, instead of appealing to them politically, Moises told them you might be here. It was effective. Your name was another big come-on. But as I say—and I’m sure you’ll agree—it’s no substitute for ideological conviction. Militants from the BCP would have been better.”
“I thought you hated them. It was you who were in favor of collaborating with Moises.” I was enraged with him. But the only thing I could think about was how calm he was. When he was delivering an analysis his face became impassive. The rest of the time he tied his hair in knots and was ready to leap out of his skin.
He said, “I’ve changed my mind.”
“You know, Regis, eve
ry time something happens you’re sure it couldn’t have happened any other way.”
“Of course.” He was chewing some meat from the plate in front of him. It got on my nerves.
“Then it turns out the next thing has happened some other way than the only way it could have turned out. And you have a perfectly coherent, very convincing explanation about why it happened that way instead, and why it had to happen that way, and couldn’t have happened any other way, and should have happened that way.” Regis was smiling at me, and smoothing down his mustache. It was so characteristic of him that I couldn’t help smiling, too. I like Regis, really, though he’s a little frightening; I think he has an interpretive mania.
He’s very vehement lately about how useful he could be outside.
3/8/67: The radio brings us some very good news: Barrientos announced that military missions from the United States, Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay have arrived to study the guerrilla movement, and to make joint plans for combating it.
Radio Havana announced that Hoan Bich Son, Chief of Mission for the NLF, has declared that the armed struggle in Bolivia is “a stimulant for the South Vietnamese Revolution.”
From My Journal
3/8/67: Che thought the Barrientos and Vietnamese statements cause for a celebration. The struggle is already on its way to being continental. The U.S. will begin by sending advisers and end by sending its own troops. We are creating another Vietnam. He had rum distributed—though he presided over the party from his hammock. He won’t get out of that fucking hammock except to shit. I’m surprised he doesn’t just open his fly and piss from there, too. Anyway, we were drinking, to ourselves, to Vietnam, to solidarity, to the Continental War of Liberation, to whatever, when Chingolo suddenly started to sputter and spit his rum out all over Coco’s shirt. “What’s wrong?” Coco said, instead of “You stupid bastard,” which is what I would have said. Coco is a considerate person, better than most in my opinion, and slow to anger. I like his full, smooth face.
“I don’t know,” Chingolo said, “but suddenly the rum started to taste really funny. It wouldn’t go down.”
“An omen,” Camba said in his squeaky voice, not loudly, but there was an unfortunate lull, so everyone heard. “Definitely an omen.” Something will have to be done to straighten that little prick out about how it’s not O.K. to say out loud everything you think.
“You know,” Ricardo said, “you guys …” He paused—I think he was about to say “you Bolivians” and corrected himself. “… you guys with omens are full of shit. Omens don’t mean anything to me. Ranger corpses, those are my omens.”
It was enough to make everyone laugh nervously.
Che had more rum distributed.
Why the fuck won’t he get up?
From Guevara’s Journal
3/9/67: News from the vultures: the corpses haven’t been picked up. The army is afraid of us.
3/10/67: Coco reported to me about the army’s attack on the Tin House, which he watched from the Bear Camp observation post. From the sound of it they used a full division. First they softened up the empty house with mortars and aerial bombardment, blowing up the outhouses, the corral, the vegetable garden, the henhouse, the few hens, and the rooster. “The rooster,” Coco said, “screamed and screamed.”
“Every scream,” Ricardo said, “will be counted as a casualty and added to the number of guerrillas killed.”
After decimating the poultry, the army retreated.
On the radio this evening General Barrientos announced that the guerrillas have been exterminated.
From My Journal
3/11/67: Fireworks! But the sound has cured him of his disease. He rose up and announced that we must leave the camp, drop off the visitors, regain our contact with the outside. We will need supplies for the battles to come. He gathered the men together. The war has begun. We are the Army of National Liberation.
THE ARMY OF NATIONAL LIBERATION
Aniceto Marcos
Camba Miguel
Che—called Ramon Moro
Chingolo Pacho
Coco Pombo
Dario Ricardo
El Rubio Rolando
Inti Turna
Julio Urbano
Leon (Regis Debray)—called Danton;
Loro contact with Cuba
Luis (Bustos)—contact with Argentina
Nato Joaquin
Pablo (Tania)—liaison with
Pedro—also called Pan Divino the city network
Ponco Ernesto
Raul Freddy
Victor Moises
Willy Negro (El Medico)
Eustaquio Alejandro
El Chino—combatant and Paco
liaison with Peru Polo
Antonio Braulio
Arturo Eusebio
Benigno Serapio
From Guevara’s Journal
3/12/67: The march begins. I had the excess supplies stored in the caves we’ve prepared: arms, bullets, documents, photos, film, books, dollars, cameras, tape recorders, typewriters, clothing, blankets, the boots we took from the soldiers, medicine (the epinephrine for my asthma). My plan is to draw the army out of the zone, and, when necessary, circle back to Nancahuazu to retrieve the medicines and other things as needed.
From Coco’s Journal
3/12/67: When Nato and I unwrapped the radio for broadcasting messages from its protective canvases, we discovered that it had been destroyed by water seepage. I told Che. He said nothing, but his jaws tightened, and he looked over my head. I think it must be a serious problem for us.
From My Journal
3/13/67: We are making a diversionary move to the north. On the way out we passed the as yet unburied bodies of the soldiers killed in the ambush. A Bolivian ranger wears a black beret, jackboots, a leather belt, light-green sunglasses, and a brown-bordered white neckerchief tied with a silver loop. The vultures, in tearing at the flesh, have turned the shirts and neckerchiefs to rags. (Imperialism and the War of Liberation have turned the soldiers to garbage.) Most of the corpses, lying in the mud, still wore their black berets and sunglasses. The flesh left here and there on the top of part of the body and face was black and puffy. The Bolivian ranger also wears pants stuffed into his boots, so their legs had been protected. Or wasted. The vultures couldn’t get at them. But the river could. Bits of very white waterlogged flesh had come loose from their clothes and floated downstream. I could see it stuck here and there among the rocks.
3/15/67: We’ve lost the way, encountered some steep cliffs, and been forced to double back. We should be south of the Rio Grande. You wouldn’t think it would be hard to find such a large river!
From Guevara’s Journal
3/16/67: Inti and I have tried a few talks with the peasants in the region near the river. Unsatisfactory comedy. We don’t frighten them certainly, but we don’t impress them much either. They listen, and hang their heads, and listen, as impenetrable as stones. Or they reply evasively, as if they hadn’t understood our goals. But they’ll sell us food—if the price is right. (So many minutes of playing catch per piece of candy.) The answer is more victories: our violence will give these stones ears.
There has been one exception among the local peasantry, a man named Honorato Ispaca, who lives near the river. He invited us into his home, a thatched hut. There was little light, and a great deal of smoke inside. On the floor a child clutched his stomach, and moaned, a high breathy sound, terribly plaintive. Ispaca, forgetting his visitors at the sight of his son, left us to kneel by the boy’s head, so he might pray.
The boy told me that an animal jumped around inside him, and that every time it jumped it hurt him terribly. His face was down to bone, his eyes enormous. Blue and red and green candles had been placed by his head—the work of magical curers—and white candles by his feet, from the church. He looked already dead. Candles burning like this during the day for their magical effect, a father kneeling near his son’s head—it reminded me of my childhood, when the light had l
ain on me like a heavy weight. There was a pungent pine smoke that stung my eyes and made the air thick and difficult to breathe.
An old man sat in a wooden chair near the boy’s head, opposite the father, chanting words in Quechua, rocking back and forth. Behind his words, a light accompaniment, I heard the strongly rushing waters of the Rio Grande. A cooking fire burned fitfully in the center of the room, and smoke drifted out slowly through a hole in the ceiling. Four women in wide bright overlapping skirts leaned above two metal pots on the fire. They looked up when Inti and I came in, then returned to their stirring, wailing along with the man’s chant in softer voices. Three more young children in dirty white shifts stood near the women, staring at us. One of the little girls, about six years old, carried a baby in a black-and-red blanket tied to her back. She talked to the infant, describing the skinny strangers. In a corner, a whole litter of black kittens mewed and crawled over each other. The air was heavy with smoke, pine resin, sweat, and the smell of the river.
Ispaca, kneeling, spoke. The child had become ill because of a quarrel he had had with a man nearby. The man had loaned him some money for drinks at a festival, and when Ispaca had grown sober again, he couldn’t pay his debt. He had dreamed of the man a week ago. The man had come to him in his field and said, “You owe me an ear of corn, a new ear, and you haven’t paid.” Ispaca had said, “But I don’t have it.” The man said, “Yes, you do.” And when Ispaca had looked down there was a new ear of corn in his hand. “Now I’ll take it,” the man said, “whether you want to give it to me or not.” That corn had been his son’s soul.
Ispaca sobbed, holding the sides of his own face. His enemy must have gone to one of the men who know such things, and had him put an animal in his son’s stomach.
From his chair the old man stopped chanting to listen to Ispaca and nod in agreement. “There was an owl hooting all night,” the old man said, smiling, as if he were gratified by the bad omen—for it made sense of things, displayed a coherence to the world, however unfortunate for Ispaca’s son.