by B. TRAVEN
11
The general wasted no time in finishing his breakfast properly. He decided that the punitive battalion was to be ready to march off at four o’clock.
While he was giving his orders, he interrupted himself twice every three minutes to intone his slogan: “To sully my holy mother, that vermin, that animal, that shooter of dog filth, to sully my holy mother.”
After his orders had all been relayed and the troops were getting ready for departure, Colonel Viaña considered it advisable to waft a cooling breeze over the general. “With your permission, General, if I may presume to take the liberty, I would advise ordering out at least two battalions and a machine-gun section. We don’t know how strong the rebels may be.”
“My dear Colonel,” replied the general, “don’t, please, make yourself ridiculous. Originally I wanted to send only half a battalion against that mutinous pack. That would have been more than sufficient. But my chief ordered out almost a whole brigade—the devil knows why; perhaps it puts another five thousand pesos in his pocket or something—and as his subordinate I have to obey and lead a brigade into the field. I’d be ashamed to the end of my life and never be able to look a decent officer in the face again if I were to set out with a brigade against a gaggle of dirty Indian vagabonds. All right. I’ve brought the brigade as far as this, in obedience to higher orders, as a defense for Balun Canan. But that doesn’t mean that I’ve got to take a brigade with me to collect the scalps of that mongrel pack.”
“You are my commanding general, sir, and I am bound to obey you. But I’d still like to make the suggestion that you take at least half a regiment of cavalry with you.”
“Well, just to calm you, Colonel Coldfeet—all right; I’ll take some cavalry with me, seventy men. Give Captain Ampudia the necessary orders. He’s the drunkest. It’ll cheer him up a bit.”
“A sus órdenes, mi general.”
The colonel saluted and left.
The general then summoned Lieutenant Bailleres. “How are you feeling, Lieutenant? Ready for action?”
“Tired, sir. But I beg permission to take part in the expedition.”
“You shall, Lieutenant. You’ve got a personal debt to settle with those savages. And I wouldn’t like to do you out of it. You’ll be very valuable to me. You know the terrain there and roughly their dispositions. You will lead the first company, Lieutenant.”
“Thank you, mi general.”
“We’ll camp for the night on the way. Then you’ll be able to get a good sleep. In your opinion, could our troops be on their playground about the middle of tomorrow afternoon?”
“Without doubt, sir. And that seems to me the best time for our attack, because at that hour no one there expects an attack. In the afternoon they’re out hunting, and those that aren’t hunting or training are sleeping. So far as I could discover, they’re not counting on any attack out there, but nearer the cliffs, where we’re waiting for them. If there is to be an attack from our side, they are convinced that it will happen either early in the morning or shortly after nightfall when they think that we shall assume that they’ll all be tired, squatting by their fires, dancing, sleeping, eating, and lying with their women. That’s all I could gather from their conversations, sir.”
“We’ll whip them all right. To sully my holy mother with their filthy, stinking tongues, those swinish animals of Indians! To drag my holy mother in the muck—!”
At three o’clock the general saw that the time had arrived to occupy himself with another sustaining meal. While he ate, he complained of the burdensome duties of a commanding general, which had prevented him that morning from enjoying his breakfast in peace and finishing it with his customary pleasure. The repast this time was not embellished by the general’s witty remarks. It was dealt with more seriously. Not that the general and the officers who sat with him at the table bothered to take this opportunity to discuss plans of the campaign. No, the seriousness of the forthcoming drubbing that he was proposing to administer to the rebels found its expression in the general’s beginning every second sentence that he uttered, in the midst of chewing and swallowing, with: “I’ll thrash these lousy swine who’ve sullied my holy mother with their stinking tongues; first surround them all, then club them down, then bury them up to their necks, and then each company will march over them, followed by the cavalry. It was excellent advice of yours, Colonel Viaña, that I should take some cavalry with me. I should have missed galloping those swine’s heads into the earth.” Then something else occurred to him: “Actually, I must confess, gentlemen, that I am ashamed to have to march against such filthy curs. A sergeant could do it. Am I not right, gentlemen?”
“In every way, General.”
Shortly after four o’clock the punitive expedition moved off. Before seven they had reached a rancho where the general ordered camp to be pitched for the night, in order to continue the march on the morrow full of fresh energy. It was not advisable to march farther through the night, for it was possible that the rebels might evade the army by slinking around them.
Lieutenant Bailleres, however, stated that he did not believe the rebels would march on a direct route toward Balun Canan, because they knew that they would thus run into the arms of the Federals, and they had as little reason for involving themselves in a night battle as had the army.
The general twisted his mouth in a sarcastic grin, so as to convey the triviality of the whole thing to the few officers whom he had taken with him merely in order to let them partake in a little pleasure. It was purely a matter of pleasure, for the slaughter of a pack of rebels can never earn laurels, or even medals, for an honorable soldier. And through his twisted lips he said, “Battle? I hear nothing but battle, Lieutenant Bailleres. Battle! You mustn’t speak of a battle with those ragged bandits. One doesn’t do battle with mutineers, with rebels, with strikers. One thrashes them and hangs them, or else buries them alive to save the rope and the hangman’s trouble. Battle! When I hear that from an officer, it makes me feel sick enough to vomit. But let’s have a drink before the filthy supper that will be served to us here. Miserable ranch. Eat nothing here but beans, tortillas, and chilies. Don’t know the meaning of coffee; and boil up some sort of vegetable they pick from trees and call the brew tea. And that’s what they name a rancho here. The Devil knows, that old nut-cracker on his throne up there doesn’t worry a damn that in this godforsaken wilderness a general who’s been sent out against lousy Indians has to suffer from fleas and not a soft cushion under his behind, and getting up in the morning with aching bones. Dios mío, let’s get this whipping over with and back to garrison, where a man has some peace and his own proper bed. Don’t you agree, gentlemen?”
“Absolutely right, General,” answered Captain Ampudia in the name of the younger officers, who nodded dutifully.
The troop camped in the patio of the rancho. The officers were in a room in the owner’s house. This was a miserable daubed structure that was already beginning to lean askew and that had only two rooms. The kitchen was in the yard, in a hut built with thin stakes and a palm-leaf roof.
The patio itself was surrounded by a wall made out of rough stones. About fifty paces beyond this wall lay the wretched palm huts in which lived the three Indian families who worked as peons on the rancho. The horses of the troop were in a meadow where, with their forelegs hobbled, they had to forage for their food. The ranchero received five centavos grazing money for each horse, just as he got twenty centavos for each man. All in accordance with regulations and in accordance with the receipt he had to sign. How much he actually received in hard cash depended on how much the paymaster was short in his funds. However, the ranchero knew his fatherland and also knew the habits of all petty dictators whom the great dictator has to keep satisfied. For that reason the ranchero did not bother about how many men and horses his meager rancho had to fatten. To have to worry about it or even to have written it all down in his little notebook would merely have given him a headache, without making him a single
peso the richer. No one looked at the billeting voucher that was handed to him. It was stuck up on an old nail until the nail rusted through, or the paper disintegrated or was eaten up by cucurachas. Only a six-year-old child would have taken the voucher to the garrison paymaster for cashing. Everyone over six years of age knew that the voucher would be continually disputed until the ranchero had meantime grown so furious that he would tear up the paper before the eyes of the paymaster and throw the scraps at his feet. For what is the point of a dictatorship if there are no perquisites?
The gate in the stone wall surrounding the patio consisted of six stout poles that were rammed crosswise between two posts set in the ground and that the boy, when he brought the cows home in th evening, dragged out in order that the cattle could spend the night in the patio, where they would be better protected against jaguars.
Now there stood before this gate a sentry with fixed bayonet, who marched up and down, and when he saw anyone approach, he took his rifle in both hands and shouted, “Quién vive?” If the challenged answered, “Amigo!” he was allowed to pass. Should he, on the other hand, answer, “Enemy!” he would immediately have been shot.
It was not necessary to post any other sentries. One doesn’t post sentries against rebels. That would mean recognizing them as soldiers. Besides, it was superfluous to tire out a lot of men, and thereby make them unfit for the next day’s hard march, by curtailing their night’s rest with patrolling and sentry duty. The infantry slept in the open patio. Outside the patio, near the huts of the peons, slept the mounted troops. All the men lay in the open, fully clothed, near their weapons.
At sunset the general had sent out three reconnaissance patrols in different directions, all of whom returned with the report that they had not seen so much as a lame mule, not to mention a man. Indian peasants who chanced to pass the rancho were stopped and asked for information, but all avowed that they had seen no rebels, although they had indeed heard that far away there was a horde of bandits who were robbing, plundering, and stealing all the cattle.
“Then there’s no doubt, gentlemen, that these stink-hogs are still hanging around where Lieutenant Bailleres visited them. It’s a pity they haven’t come nearer and saved us at least half that long march there. There must be a good seven or eight hours’ march facing us tomorrow.” The general yawned, poured a generous measure down his throat, filled his glass again, and pushed the bottle on.
Two more bottles were brought.
The general was playing dominoes with three officers. Ever since the ranchero had produced the dominoes, he had thought better of the man and regarded him as a civilized being; for men lacking in culture and intelligence have no conception of the mental effort which a domino player has to exert in order to deduce what spots are still out and which of his opponents has them lined up before him. It is a game worthy only of great strategists and similar masterminds. Half-wits occupy themselves with chess. But what is chess? One doesn’t have to guess, to deduce; all the pieces are standing in full view; one can see what the opponent has and observe exactly what he does. A game for schoolboys and idiots! But dominoes! The general knew very well why he regarded dominoes as the most intelligent game ever invented by man.
When one of the officers preferred to make a fourth at a game of cards, the general invited his host, the ranchero, to join their dominoes.
“Forgive me, Don Facundo, for having been mistaken in you,” he said with a friendly smile as the ranchero sat down opposite him. “I just assumed that you were merely the usual stupid, petty landowner, of whom we have such numbers in this state, who only think of cows and nothing else. I’m delighted to find a pleasant exception in you, a man of intelligence and talents. Salud! Your health, Don Facundo. Well, and now let’s see what I have here.” With a mighty pounce of his fist, the general slammed his piece on the table and matched a five with a five, as if nobody else on earth could have laid a five against another five. When he had accomplished this feat, he clapped his hands, rubbed them fiercely, and looked with greedy eyes at the pieces on the table to see what the next player would add. As soon as the piece was in place and he found that at both ends a six was awaiting its mate, he felt justified in downing another glass in reward.
It was eleven o’clock when he decided that it was at last time for him to rest and thus give the other officers the chance of retiring for the night.
By midnight the land on which the rancho stood shook with snores. Indeed, the sentry at the gate could not long resist so much snoring. He leaned comfortably against one of the posts and let his rifle with its fixed bayonet slip down between his legs. Even supposing, he thought as he nodded drowsily, the captain were to come with a relief sentry and find me asleep, he’ll only slap me twice in the chops and give me another two hours’ duty. A few slaps more or less won’t make me a sergeant with better pay, and there’s thousands of times I haven’t dozed on duty, and still I’m not a captain, so what’s the use of standing here and looking stupid when all the world’s snoring and I alone have to stay awake? What lovely plump, fat legs Gabina has. It’s bound to be at least another six days before we get back and I can swing her around in a dance. And Don Teodulo always has a good band when he gives a dance, and he ladles out damned good comiteco. Hell, my eyes are burning as if they were full of sand. Yes, the music at Don Teodulo’s—there’s nothing like it. It’s good. And Gabina, with her fat, meaty, bulging calves. And tomorrow, to have to stride out all day like madmen. Dios mío! If only in God’s wide world there’d sometime be an end to a soldier’s life, when one could peacefully lie on one’s mat if one wanted and never be hit in the face by an officer without being able to hit back three times at his crooked face. God knows, I’m tired as an old sow.
At these words he wriggled himself into a more comfortable position, pressed his back against the post, and drew his head down between his shoulders in order to feel a little warmer.
12
No one, whether officer or soldier, was able to say precisely whether he had been sleeping for only fifteen minutes or for four hours. No one remembered exactly whether it was one o’clock in the morning or four o’clock. However, it was cold and windy, and from this anyone who knew the country concluded it must be nearer four o’clock than one. And, astonishingly, no one, not even an officer, thought of simply looking at his watch to find out what the time was. Each man feared to light a match or turn on a flashlight, for each man feared that he would betray his whereabouts and so lose his life. The attention of all was so riveted on other things that it would have seemed absurd to know what hour of the night it was. For if the darkness could not turn to broad daylight within the next twenty seconds, it was already a matter of total indifference whether the time were one o’clock at night or four o’clock in the morning.
An extraordinary thing happened. Everyone sleeping in the rancho woke up. All at almost the same moment, all as if roused by a voice they had not heard but yet thought they had heard.
The first definite noise that they were all aware of was the sudden barking of the dogs, which increased. The dogs, as usual, barked the whole night through, and incessantly. They barked at the numerous mules and horses that hobbled around; they barked at the large number of sleeping soldiers; and they barked one against the other, the dogs of the rancho and the peons on the one side, and the dogs that accompanied and were tolerated by the troops on the other side.
Therefore, no one heeded the barking of the dogs. Only when the noise grew stronger and swelled into a definite, powerful, furious chorus did everyone in the rancho know that something unusual was happening.
But each man, officer and private, remained where he was, merely sitting up sleepily and noticing that a lot of horses had broken into the patio and were careering about in wild fright. At the same time the sleepy observers saw shadowy figures running back and forth, apparently rounding up the horses and driving them out of the patio. These figures came close to the sleepers, stumbled over them, fell on them, got up with
a brief curse, and ran on again, driving the horses together.
The horses roaming about the patio and disturbing the sleepers had lost the hobbles on their forelegs. This was how they had succeeded in coming so far into the patio, either out of fear of a hungry jaguar lurking in the meadows, or else having been attracted by the sacks of corn stacked up in readiness for feeding the animals in the morning.
Here and there were to be heard the oaths and curses of the men who had been startled from their sleep and had been trodden on by one of their comrades who had to leave the patio and go outside the wall to attend to his own private needs and now, because of the inky darkness, could not see where he was stepping.
In less than five minutes the strange noises, the cursing and swearing of the men, the nervous stamping of the horses died away as suddenly as they had started. The dogs again changed the note of their barking and now uttered only their customary nocturnal plaint. A few men who had stood up, without leaving their places, dropped to the ground again, still half asleep, and slept on.
Within ten minutes the whole camp was snoring louder and more contentedly than before.
When the bugle reverberated across the rancho, all began to stretch, all yawned so widely they threatened to swallow themselves, then all scratched themselves on head, back, chest, and legs as if they had one too many skins on their bodies. And the first words that everyone, soldier or officer, spoke to his neighbor, were “Dios! Did I dream it in the night, or did hell really break loose here for a while?” Whereupon his neighbor replied, “Then I didn’t dream it, if you heard it, too. There must have been half a hundred jaguars out on the plain, which hunted all the horses and sent them trampling over my stomach.”