The Battle of Tomochic_The Battle of Tomochic Memoirs of a Second Lieutenant

by Heriberto Frías

  Clearly the troops were up to the task, but the bloodshed would have been overwhelming. The general had been given the strictest orders to avoid that. He preferred to test the men’s ennui and endurance, rather than chance the loss of more men.

  Cruz’s dwelling was constructed of adobe so thick that cannon fire launched from three hundred feet away didn’t even make a dent in it, and the door had been bricked up with stone and mud. Since not even the faintest glimmer of hope remained for the besieged inside, they would be defending themselves to the death. Nor would they let themselves go cheaply.

  What’s more, the last stronghold, dominating all roads and surrounding fields, was located at the dead center of the besieged town. All paths converged there. Men from the Sonoran and Chihuahuan “national troops,” the public security troops, and the 12th Battalion took advance positions, occupying the dwellings that surrounded the “little barracks” to form an invincible ring.

  From the ruins of the church and dwellings, thick spirals of smoke from smoldering fires continued to unfurl into the blue sky. At night the black horizon was stained with bloody reflections even more intensely beautiful and abundant than on previous nights, illuminating with even more tragic ceremony a valley overflowing with savage graves.

  CHAPTER 33

  Prisoners of War

  The dawn broke in despair, with mist and smoke indistinguishable. The valley was deathly quiet as Tomochic languished in ruins. The only signs of life were in the Medrano dwelling occupied by general staff and what remained of the 9th and 11th Battalions. A number of other buildings housed squadrons of the Twelfth and a few Sonoran national troops, but the silence was terrible.

  At general headquarters, three or four marksmen, who were relieved every hour, stood in wait outside the patio walls. Meanwhile, the implacable, stationary Hotchkiss cannon on its four-footed stand stretched its neck through an opening in the wall.

  At nine o’clock in the morning, when the rations of meat and flour were being divided among the remaining troops, an emaciated man ran out of Cruz’s house. He was a prisoner who had been locked in the shed in the courtyard of the “little barracks.” The prisoners had managed to crack open the shed door, but none wanted to be the first to flee for fear of being shot by one side or the other.

  Colonel Torres, second in command, interrogated the fugitive and then ordered that he receive whole food very gradually, as he had subsisted on nothing but raw corn. Shortly thereafter, astonished marksmen surrounding Cruz’s home watched as a woman materialized on the threshold of his door. Advancing slowly, she jumped over scattered pieces of wood from the destroyed dwelling. Then the woman began to wander through the fields, a stunned expression on her face. Nothing if not a ghostly apparition, filthy, dressed in rags and with disheveled hair, the woman waved her arms wildly and repeatedly crossed herself.

  Finally she wandered meekly in the direction of the Medrano dwelling, and the general ordered that she be treated humanely. When a Pima took her arm to escort her inside, all turned to stare, horrified at the sight of her frail, stooped body with its gloomy halo of ash-gray, unkempt locks that seemed to float around her head. Her eyes glassy and bloodshot, she was wearing a threadbare blue petticoat and old rawhide boots. She was unable to utter a single word.

  “Well, well, if it isn’t the negotiator to officially hand over the keys to the city!” joked Castorena when he caught sight of the unlucky woman, who was fixing her dumb gaze on the general.

  “They’re surrendering, at last, those devils are finally surrendering!” came the voices of those who believed that Cruz had sent an emissary to dialogue with them. Soon the soldiers learned that the old woman, half crazy over the death of her grandchildren, had decided to search for their corpses and return with food for the wounded, many of whom were her children and grandchildren.

  After finishing the bowl of soup the general offered her, she stuttered out her story. At first Cruz had forbidden her to leave, but as she was the oldest female in all of Tomochic and had engendered the most fighters in the cause of Our Lord, ultimately Cruz felt he had no choice but to set her free. As he did so, he entrusted her soul to the Holy Virgin. Some say Colonel Torres asked her, “What are people doing in there?”

  “They pray and pray,” replied the old woman.

  “And Cruz, what does he do?”

  “He prays and prays.”

  Then General Rangel and Colonel Torres attempted to convince the woman to communicate the hopelessness of their position to the enemy and advise them to surrender. Even, they stressed, if their reason for surrendering was nothing but compassion for the women, old people, and children dying of starvation in that hellhole. If they weren’t dying of starvation, then surely they were at risk of disease from the corpses decomposing in the courtyard. The corpses, they continued, must provide a spectacularly frightening vision of death to the huddled families, piles of rotting flesh left against walls supported by nothing but obstinacy and fanaticism. The horror!

  The old woman’s stunned ambivalence betrayed her fear of the chief. He had forbidden her to communicate with the “heretical sons of Lucifer.” Finally she returned with a communiqué signed by General Rangel demanding the unconditional surrender of Cruz’s people. He warned that were his orders rebuffed, every shred of resistance would be squelched to the last drop of blood, although he would spare the lives of the women, children, and elders who left the house.

  A half hour later the old woman came back with the Tomochic chief’s reply. He responded unequivocally that he would not surrender and had no intention of releasing the last families, since he had no reason to believe that the general would keep his word and ensure their safety.

  The attackers were offended that they could not even be trusted with the lives of the women and children. The general insisted that it was heresy for them to continue suffering in that inferno. Finally Cruz conceded by releasing the relatives of the mortally wounded.

  To the astonishment of the soldiers and officers who stood and watched the fantastic procession, a motley group of women straggled through the low doors of headquarters, dressed in dirty petticoats and tattered clothing that barely covered skin and bones. A low buzz of moans, groans, coughs, and whimpers came from the children who followed after them.

  The scene paralyzed all who saw it. The soldiers and thick-skinned Sonoran Indians felt great pity for this group of shipwrecked victims, a handful of wretched beings who traipsed by bleeding, Tomochic’s last dying drops. Some of the officers grew pale, while the soldaderas were speechless. Miguel couldn’t remember reading anything so utterly painful or pathetic in any novel or play.

  Looking on in awe, all made room for the tragic parade of victims.

  Leading the group was a hunchback with long white hair who supported himself on the shoulders of an emaciated girl. A bullet had pierced one of her hands, and a large black stain seeped through the dirty bandage covering the wound. Next came an ancient woman who was moaning piteously, her face smeared with blood from a gaping head wound.

  Then came a tall woman with big black eyes. Standing very erect, she cradled a month-old baby in her arms. The men guessed that several of the young women were very beautiful, draped in their colorful mantillas or red-and-black checked shawls. As a six-year-old boy limped by, his knees dripping blood, his two eyes brimmed with tears though he did his best to force them back.

  Next a blur of stick-thin bodies paraded past with pale, withered faces and fevered black eyes. Bringing up the rear of this procession—this flock of widows and orphans, this pile of human misery—came the ancient emissary, that stammering woman who had supplied high chief Cruz with so many of his martyrs.

  These disaster victims and pariahs didn’t even make up the entire group. A few women whose husbands and sons were still alive obstinately remained in Cruz’s house.

  Miguel thought of Julia. Was she one of those unhappy souls parading past? Could she be among the living? He observed, as closely as he cou
ld, the faces of all the women as grief oppressed his soul. He feared that he might see his long lost love, his melancholy bride.

  But most of the women covered their heads with coats or tattered shawls, and soon they disappeared behind an old gate. Visible behind it was a rundown shed that had served the Medranos in better times. They passed into the shed and were swallowed by the shadows.

  Miguel saw tears in the general’s eyes as he mutely gestured for Dr. Arellano, who was at his side, to attend to the wounded. Flour, meat, and potatoes were brought to the prisoners, and the medicine cabinet was opened so the first patients could be attended to. Gathered in small groups, the soldiers silently contemplated the ruckus emerging from the storeroom. Sounds of groaning and wailing competed with the despondent cries of children and coughing of the elderly. A guard was posted at the entrance with orders to bar entrance to all, even the officers. These were prisoners of war.

  Now there was little to keep federal troops from annihilating the headstrong enemy who remained holed up in their last stronghold having decided to die on their feet, proud and unvanquished, defying the troops who dared not launch the final assault.

  The only sign of life in that stronghold was the flag waving in the wind whose three colors lent a happy countenance to the bleak panorama: The irony of the heroic, tricolored Mexican flag floating above the ruins of a veritable tomb! They had stopped firing from the openings in the walls and had stopped yelling too. A morbid calm spread through the isolated valley.

  The abandoned cattle had wandered into the Sierras, leaving behind the flustered pigs and dogs. The pigs picked their way through the rubble, chasing the chickens and hungrily devouring corpses. The dogs howled pitifully, piercing the dead silence of the countryside.

  The general knew that the besieged would have to venture out at night to forage for the corn, potatoes, and beans growing in the fields, and to fetch fresh supplies of water from the river. To prohibit the stealthy movements of the enemy under cover of nightfall, he ordered all forces to split into guerrilla units and to surround the Cruz Chavez home or inhabit the next dwellings over.

  Each unit, under the command of an officer, had its own bugler so passwords could be answered when headquarters gave the signal. To avoid confusion with the Sonoran or Chihuahuan national troops, they were to remain dispersed and march rapidly in whatever direction they were commanded to go. To make sure they were recognized as they approached their posts, they were to respond with the appropriate password.

  After sunset, at six in the evening, the guerrilla units took off for their designated sites disguised in the dimness of oncoming night. Out of formation, they crouched behind the slopes of uneven ground, taking extraordinary precautions not to be seen by the eerily silent enemy holed up in a tiny fortress that could hardly be seen among shadows lit by a single sliver of moon that shed white, icy light in the cold sky.

  Shattering the silence in the depths of the valley with its penetrating notes, the bugle call sounded at eight o’clock that night. As soon as the last vibration had died away, the call was repeated at the far end of Cerro de Medrano hill and again on Cerro de Cueva hill.

  Simultaneously from all positions throughout the valley reveille rang out, producing a strange litany as it echoed through the mountains repeating and multiplying in a vague, melancholy decrescendo, finally expiring in the mysterious depths.

  It was intensely cold. Posted behind the adobe bricks of a partially razed home, Miguel stood wrapped in his greatcoat, peering straight ahead at the black walls of the Cruz dwelling, some 150 feet away. A slice of moon illuminated the horizon with pale light and enveloped the landscape in a nightmarish veil. Miguel felt infinite sadness reawaken in his soul. The image of his disgraced mother came to mind. Her life would end without her ever savoring one moment of pleasure, without faith or love. Then he thought of his own destroyed future and his own unlucky fate in matters of the heart, his own poor soul, so naive, sincere, and lyrical.

  His bitterness disappeared when he thought of the horrors he had witnessed in Tomochic. Were the fanatics who were waiting for death and eternal life in paradise happier than he? He felt hopeless, crushed. And Julia, the lovely adolescent with her dark, melancholy eyes … a strange passion.

  In his thoughts, he evoked their idyllic union again.

  With just a few words from her, he had guessed her sad history; smiling beatifically, she had played the role of the martyr waiting to be escorted to heaven. How abjectly she had endured his drunken advances as he gave in to his most bestial passions and possessed her. It had come over him like a temporary madness. Worse, he had then absolved himself of all guilt. For her own part, she had succumbed to the young, virile Miguel. Then, awakening to her adolescence, she experienced her first voluptuous pleasures.

  Suddenly the night was rent with the strident peals of martial bugles. A fantastical, almost unbelievably prolonged chorus then began: one bugle communicated to the next until the last position in the smoke-filled church had been alerted.

  Finally the last few notes of the reveille, which also reached the ears of the handful of sublime fanatics, echoed through the mountains. In this remote corner of nineteenth-century Mexico, they belonged to the past: a heroic generation whose feats had been immortalized by yesterday’s epic poets.

  The young officer woke nervously from his reverie when the company’s young bugler shot upright and played the return call into the wind. Now all positions were on alert.

  Afterward Miguel returned to his private meditations, pacing under the light of a waxen moon as it was about to dip behind the mountain’s crest. Julia! Was he truly in love with her or were his feelings a neurotic manifestation of something else? Perhaps he associated her with the tragic destiny of Tomochic? Who could say? He did know one thing: she still occupied a place in his heart. It tormented him that he had not gotten a good look at the abject women who had arrived that morning! When those unhappy souls had passed by, though he had not seen her among them, he realized he might not have recognized her.

  Sitting or pacing back and forth, Miguel spent half the night absorbed in his wandering thoughts. At five-minute intervals the bugle played the reveille, sounding sorrowfully, rhythmic as a giant pendulum, in the stillness of the night. It echoed in the solitude of the moonless valley as well as in his dark, solitary soul.

  CHAPTER 34

  Praying, Singing, and Killing

  It occurred at midnight. Although the moon had disappeared more than an hour ago, a few shadows could be discerned moving toward the river.

  The marksmen surrounding the area opened fire. Echoing through the mountains again and again, the shots cracked open the dark’s heavy silence. Within moments the Sonoran irregulars were on the scene. Although everyone had thought this must be an enemy foray, soon the shadows disappeared, replaced by two tanks of water.

  By lantern light, the men could make out spots of blood in the brambles. “Pray to God that those poor devils got to drink one drop of water!” a compassionate voice murmured—a soldier’s voice.

  At dawn on October 28, the guards came back from the Medrano dwelling. Behind the dwelling a line of marksmen closely observed Cruz’s home. From the roof the tricolor flag waved in the light breeze blowing from the northeast. That same morning members of the 5th Regiment escorted another convoy of provisions from Guerrero, bringing with them detailed instructions from General Márquez.

  When the sotol that had arrived with the convoy began to flow like water, the ebullience and revelry of both troops and officers began to revive. The soldiers’ songs once again burst from the adobe brick courtyard of the former dwelling of the Medrano brothers. Solemn Tomochic accordions accompanied the plaintive songs, as the fragrance of incense and funeral candles drifted on the wind. The melancholy tones of the accordions contrasted starkly with the happy, gluttonous faces and feverish din that rose in the crisp air beneath an immaculate blue sky. Though winter had barely set in, its stinging chill could be felt in the ear
ly mornings and at night.

  Once again thick plumes of smoke rose from the cooking fires. The ragged soldaderas were frying pork, and in addition they had found chickens and turkeys in the corrals adjoining the deserted smoke houses of Tomochic. There was grilled meat, fried chili, grilled potatoes, salsa, and corn tortillas. Life was improving. Rarely had they eaten so well.

  Someone who was listening very carefully might have heard a murmur emanating from the shed as a bored guard paced back and forth, rifle on shoulder, in front of it. Inside, the prisoners—women and children—prayed, coughed, and moaned.

  At ten o’clock in the morning guerrilla contingents composed of thirty Pimas each slithered on their bellies through the fields toward Cruz’s dwelling and the soldiers held prisoner in the shed outside. In the end, it was the Sonoran Indians who drilled through the wall and managed to save them.

  Two prisoners had died of thirst. The others, including a second lieutenant from the 12th Battalion taken prisoner on October 20, managed to return unharmed to general headquarters, escorted by the valiant sons of Sonora. These rugged, tough Indians were worthy rivals of the mountain criollos1 of Chihuahua.

  Because the former prisoners had subsisted on nothing but a diet of toasted or raw corn for weeks, their food was strictly rationed. As for the Tomochic fighters, holed up in Cruz’s house as though buried alive, they still had not uttered a single word. Proudly, obstinately they continued to defy death.

  Everyone pitied and admired that handful of crazy heroes dying a slow death by starvation and thirst. Would they surrender? No, they were one with their sacred earth, praying, singing, killing.

  The young officers could easily envision a group of men expiring in a dark, noxious space, with a rosary or small guitar in one hand and a loaded rifle in the other. Their remaining cartridges had been blessed by the Saint of Cabora and the leader of their earthly battles, he who in heaven would conduct them, as promised, to the right hand of God.