Menoyo and his men crouched down and positioned their rifles. Taking aim at the looming stone structure, Menoyo eyed the windows, the doorway, the guards. Then he threw up his hand: “Fuego! ” he shouted.
The men squeezed the triggers of their rifles, bullets flying into windows and the yard around the structure. They took turns, careful not to expend all their ammo, trying to make each shot count. Menoyo fully expected a return volley from the soldiers in the garrison. But what he didn’t expect—what he didn’t rehearse while planning the attack—were gunshots in the distance.
The soldiers weren’t just in the garrison. They were in the street, just beyond the plaza, firing at his men. The strike team led by Anastasio Cárdenas Ávila had started to bolt from the buildings to join the main unit, but these soldiers had surprised them. Men in uniforms jumped out from the buildings, firing into the street. Others seemed to come from nowhere.
What the rebels didn’t know was that Batista’s commanders had just sent 150 reinforcements before they arrived. Add that to the 200 soldiers entrenched in the garrison, and they were up against a group the size of the entire Second Front.
The rebel who was most in trouble was Cárdenas, pinned down with his men on a street called La Reforma. They tried to escape but couldn’t. One of his men, Hector Rodriguez, was clutching a .12-gauge shotgun that protected him but split in two when hit with enemy fire. Cárdenas wasn’t as lucky. He died, along with five others. The other guerrillas tried to help, but the soldiers fired on Cárdenas and his men, riddling their bodies with bullets.
Across town, Menoyo was beside himself. He grabbed the twenty-pound bomb that he and the others had built from sticks of dynamite. He lit the fuse and heaved it into the side of the barracks. The sticks exploded, tearing a giant hole in the side of the wall and sending chunks of cement flying across the street.
But the soldiers didn’t let up. With all the ammo that money could buy, they kept firing into the rebel groups from all directions. The rebels didn’t have a choice: They had to retreat.
Menoyo pulled the radio close, calling the other teams. It was time to pull out, he screamed. Pronto. Each team knew what to do. Some converged at the north side of town where they had parked the trucks borrowed from the farmers. Some of the men jumped into the vehicles, while others bolted into the brush beyond the outskirts of town. But the army wasn’t done. The soldiers gave chase, firing at the rebels on foot.
Morgan kicked into gear. He could see that the others were in trouble, and he ordered his men to set up their own counterattack.
Gripping his Sten, he stood as the soldiers were charging and fired into the unit, unflinching. He didn’t give a damn how much ammunition he expended. He needed to hold back the soldiers.
Keep firing, he yelled to his men. Don’t stop. After several minutes, the soldiers were forced to run for cover and halt their pursuit. Menoyo and the others had a clear road.
The Second Front lost six men, including Cárdenas, one of its comandantes. Eight other rebels were shot up, but still breathing. They had less ammunition than before and were retreating. But they had done something that no one—not even Castro—had accomplished. They had entered a major city and boldly inflicted casualties on Batista’s army. Dozens of soldiers lay bleeding in the streets. Morgan in the rear guard ensured that most of the rebels stayed alive.
20
Menoyo had already decided: He wasn’t going to take his column. He wasn’t going to take his full complement of bodyguards. He wasn’t going to call on Morgan or the other comandantes. He would meet with Che Guevara alone.
One word, one crossed look, and it could all end. The two sides already hated each other, and the situation was getting worse. If he didn’t reach some sort of an agreement with Guevara, a civil war would form between the two largest rebels groups of the revolution.
Too much was at stake.
With a personal guard of two men, Menoyo walked east down the long hill from the camp toward El Pedrero. He felt the fate of the revolution on his shoulders. He had hoped to have seized enough weapons and ammo at Trinidad to arm all the rebels, but that didn’t happen. He had hoped to have pulled the soldiers into the upper mountains, but that didn’t happen either.
He had tried to stop the bombings, but now Batista was sending even more planes over the eastern mountains. Then there was Guevara, skulking in the background like a moonlight shadow.
Menoyo got word from the guajiros near Sancti Spiritus that Che had been going from village to village, trashing the Second Front, telling the farmers that he represented the one, true rebel unit. Guevara even found a way to drive a wedge between the Second Front and the Directorio by signing an agreement with the latter group on December 1, declaring that they were now joining military forces.
He was also making waves on other fronts. He had disrupted the national elections in Las Villas Province weeks earlier by mobilizing his column and blocking access to voting booths in key areas.
Now, he wanted the Second Front.
After trudging across the tree-shrouded mountain near Pedrero, Menoyo could see the camp just over the hill. At the top stood the wood farmhouse covered with palm branches that had served as Guevara’s Escambray headquarters. He had launched a rebel newspaper from the house, the Minuteman, setting off a propaganda machine with one goal: Pull the region under Fidel’s control.
Menoyo nodded to the sentries as he passed, yanked on the straps of his M3 submachine gun, and inched closer to the house.
Both sides were eyeballing each other already. Guevara appeared in the doorway, standing next to his men. The two rebel leaders shook hands, sizing each other up like gunslingers in a Western. Then they ducked into the dark bohío.
They immediately went to opposite sides of the table. It was obvious that neither man liked the other. It didn’t help that Guevara began by ripping into Jesús Carreras and the shabby treatment that he had shown Guevara and his men.
“He’s one of my comandantes,” Menoyo responded with a shrug. “You were coming into our territory. He had a right to challenge you.”
Guevara’s eyes narrowed. “No,” he fired back.
Guevara represented Castro. They had launched this revolution. They had every right to be in the Escambray, and they didn’t need Carreras’s approval.
Che had called this meeting, he reminded Menoyo. He wanted to cover important ground and had waited for this moment. First, Che spoke of his sojourn across the mountains near Sancti Spiritus all the way to the Las Villas border. He had two words: land reform. The land in the Escambray needed to return to the guajiros. They toiled on the plantations, but they weren’t getting anything back—barely subsisting. The plantation owners were drinking the blood of the peasants.
Guevara wanted Menoyo to implement a plan to carve up the land and divide it among the workers. Only then would there be a true revolution. No one would own one thousand acres anymore, as it was now with many estates scattered across the mountains.
“No,” Menoyo said, shaking his head and pushing back from the table.
Menoyo had long thought about what was best for Cuba, and in his mind, the landowners were far from the worst people. Some of the biggest landowners in the mountains had supported the revolution. They had supplied food and guns. They had fought for their independence generations earlier against Spain. Menoyo suspected Guevara of Communism—it was that simple—and he despised all forms of Communism.
“I cannot do that—and I will not,” said Menoyo.
Neither man was going to back down.
Menoyo had slept in countless dirt-floor bohíos across the Escambray. He had broken bread with its families. He knew their struggles better than this interloper. Menoyo reminded Guevara that when the Second Front was driving out the soldiers at Charco Azul and Rio Negro—paying with their own blood—the 26th of July Movement was off in another mountain chai
n. Menoyo and his men had fought this war on their own.
Che looked up, frowning. If Menoyo persisted in opposing him, it was going to mean war. The enemy was in Havana, Che insisted, and it was critical that all rebel groups fall under one roof. The revolution had reached a point at which all the rebels needed to go on the offensive—in the Escambray. This is where the revolution will be won, he said. This is the time to strike, he added.
“I know that,” Menoyo shot back. That’s why the Second Front had staked their claim in the heart of Cuba, not at the far end of the island. “This is our territory.”
Before Menoyo could finish, Che lit into the Second Front. Within seconds, both men were ready to go for their guns. No one moved. This was exactly what Menoyo feared would happen. Even he couldn’t control himself. Both men stared at each other, each one waiting.
Guevara broke the stalemate. If Menoyo wasn’t willing to agree to everything that Che was proposing, it was important that the groups reach a military accord. If they could move on Batista now, they could move him out. But they had to do it now. Camilo Cienfuegos Gorriarán, one of Castro’s trusted column leaders, would take the northern part of Las Villas Province. Guevara would sweep across the center to Santa Clara. The Second Front would take the southern end, including the city of Cienfuegos.
“We need everyone,” Guevara said.
Menoyo listened. He knew his men could march to Cienfuegos. They could take the army fort at Topes de Collantes. He thought for a moment about what his men had endured. This plan offered them a chance to finish the fight in their own territory.
He nodded. “You have an agreement,” Menoyo said.
Guevara presented a document that he had prepared in advance. They wouldn’t sign the agreement for land reform, but they would settle on the military pact.
Menoyo read the document and signed it. Guevara countersigned and handed it back to Menoyo. His signature at the bottom read simply: “Che.”
Menoyo looked up. “What’s this?”
Guevara replied that it was his favored name.
Menoyo angrily crossed out his name and wrote above it “Gallego,” his own nickname, which meant Galician.
Even in the agreement, the two men had disagreed. Both sides knew that each man would lead his unit into battle—but it was just a matter of time before they turned their guns on each other.
21
Morgan slipped into the olive-green shirt and fastened the buttons, closing each one except for the top. Reaching over the cot, he grabbed his belt with the large silver buckle and pulled it through each loop on his pants. He picked up his .38-caliber Smith and Wesson, spun the chamber, and snapped it into place before tucking it in a holster on his right side.
Olga watched as her husband reached down to tug on his boot laces, making sure they were tight. He dug into his pocket and yanked out a rosary, unfurling the beads and placing them around his neck.
“Be careful,” she said.
She had watched him many times as he readied to leave the camp, but this was different. He and his men would be leaving for days—forty miles from camp—in an offensive that would be either disastrous or the boldest move of the revolution. There was no room for mistakes.
Once again, she felt herself growing anxious. She promised herself this wouldn’t happen, that she wouldn’t fret about him leaving. But she couldn’t hold it back anymore.
Morgan placed his arms around her. “Please, don’t worry,” he told her. “I will be back.”
It was another suicide mission: thousands of soldiers waiting in Santa Clara, B-26s circling the skies, barricades set up along major roadways. Sooner or later, their good fortune was going to end. Morgan would be lucky to get to the first town in the next province without a firefight. From there, he still had to descend into five more towns along the north–south highway between Santa Clara and Cienfuegos. She had heard the plans. Each time, her heart beat faster, and she pretended not to listen.
Menoyo’s plan was to sneak across the river valley to Topes de Collantes, a sprawling white tuberculosis sanitarium that Batista had built a few years earlier before it became a military stronghold now housing 150 soldiers. Artola and Carreras would join the attack and then take up with 26th of July Movement forces to the north.
In the coordinated sweep, Che would move with his men thirty miles across the center of the province, Camilo Cienfuegos would position his men even farther north, and Jaime Vega and his men would ride in from the east—the units all trying desperately to stay in step. Castro would remain with his men in the Sierra Maestra.
Across the camp, Menoyo ordered his men to pack their gear. They were anxious to begin their march, packing all the ammunition they had. But before they could even gather in the center of camp, a messenger barged into the middle of a commanders’ meeting.
Menoyo walked over and grabbed the paper the man was carrying. The leader paused for a moment, puzzled. The note was from Che Guevara: Stay put until further notice. Do not mobilize. Menoyo turned to his commanders. Why would Che put the brakes on?
There was no reason to pull back. In fact, army leaders were feuding among themselves, and rumors were running rampant that one of the generals was secretly meeting with Castro in Oriente Province to remove Batista. It was time to strike. Menoyo ordered a messenger to stop at the next Directorio camp that had aligned itself with Che to find out what had happened. The Second Front still had friends in the unit.
Menoyo didn’t like taking orders from Che, but he had to abide by the pact that he had signed. They had gone over the map numerous times, studying the roads and trails where the men would travel as they moved toward their targets. The rebels were on edge, pacing the camp, waiting.
The messenger returned. The look on his face said the answer wasn’t good. What the rebels learned infuriated Menoyo: Che had tried to sabotage the Second Front’s plans. While the Second Front was waiting, Che had ordered Raúl Nieves, one of the commanders of the Directorio, to attack Manicaragua, a key city.
It was all a ploy. Manicaragua lay in the center of the area reserved for the Second Front.
“¡Hijo de puta!” yelled Menoyo. It was clear the 26th of July was trying to take credit for everything and wanted to leave the Second Front out completely.
“Take your column, go to Manicaragua,” Menoyo ordered Artola. “Get there before those bastards.”
Che had broken his word. For all of his pontificating about loyalty to the cause, he had crapped on his own pact.
“It’s time to fight,” Menoyo ordered his men. The Second Front might not live to see the New Year, but at least it would die with honor.
Morgan slung the Sten over his shoulder and stormed onto the trail. Nothing was going to stop him and his men from reaching the first town, Cumanayagua. From the edge of the camp, Olga watched as her husband’s green fatigues faded into the trees. In just hours, the column would march into the valley of death.
More than a hundred miles to the east, government troops had ambushed a 26th of July column, killing eighteen rebels and wounding eleven. But no one knew when the army was going to attack the southern positions. During these tense, unsure moments, Morgan stared straight ahead, clenching his weapon like a sacred object. For most of the march, he kept to himself, looking occasionally at the map to make sure he was keeping pace with Menoyo. Every now and then, a messenger on horseback pulled up to the unit, giving bits and pieces of information on the locations of the other comandantes.
In the distance, the tops of the buildings of Cumanayagua rose above the long road. The town lay just a dozen miles from Cienfuegos, the major port city and lifeline for the government.
Morgan instructed his men to break into teams—just as they had done in the mountains—and enter the city at different points.
Their first target would be the garrison for the army’s weapons and ammo. In addition t
o encountering government troops, it was Christmas Eve, so there might be civilians on the streets. The men needed to stay hidden as much as possible, using the storefronts for cover, and they needed to take one street at a time.
Leading his team, Morgan moved along the side of a road that ran directly into the city. Coming from above, the rumble in the air began to get louder. As the rebels looked up, two B-26s broke from the clouds.
Some of the men froze. Morgan didn’t flinch. He quickened his pace for the town and then ducked into a row of stucco storefronts. Moments later, the planes swooped over the town and let loose a barrage of bullets across the dusty road. Pedestrians ran for cover, jumping into stores and hiding under trees. Suddenly, the other rebels watched as Morgan appeared on a roof.
With his silhouette against the sky, he screamed while lifting his Sten in the air, firing upward at one of the planes. Even as the plane veered and flew away, Morgan kept aim, firing round after round.
As quickly as they had circled in, the planes disappeared.
The town’s pedestrians saw the crazy gunner on the rooftop and applauded. The rebels soon learned that most of the soldiers had left the town for Cienfuegos before they had arrived. The few who remained surrendered. William Morgan had taken Cumanayagua.
Menoyo and his men trudged along the trail, flushed and tired from moving under the glaring sun. As they broke through the brush at the base of the mountain, they spotted the looming structure. To the rebels, it looked like a battleship on the peak of a mountain. Few of the guerrillas had ever seen anything like Topes de Collantes.
The science fiction sanitarium was everything it was billed to be. Set in the middle of nowhere, the sprawling building was created as a grand experiment by the government to treat tuberculosis patients half a mile above sea level. Once holding one thousand beds, the ten-story tower now held government soldiers guarding the road to Trinidad. Built on a peak of the Escambray, the concrete edifice was nearly impenetrable. But if the rebels were to win the southern mountains, they had to take it.
The Yankee Comandante Page 11