Brazil

by Errol Lincoln Uys

  Clóvis’s belief that Antônio Conselheiro was a madman was strengthened by what the sertanejos had told him about The Counselor’s sermons.

  “‘Lift up your eyes to the East,’ The Counselor tells the people,” said one of these informants. “‘The day is approaching when Dom Sebastião will march out of the surf to expel the Antichrist from Brazil.’”

  The belief in a resurrection of the illfated king of Portugal, who marched against the Infidels at Alcacer-Quibir in 1578 and fell with fifty thousand, was not new. In Portugal over the centuries, there had been sporadic revivals of Sebastianism, which had become a cult.

  “The Counselor predicts the end of the world in 1899. There will be a rain of fiery stars, then darkness, followed by pestilence and famine. The new millennia will dawn only for the elect of the Company of People at New Jerusalem. They alone will be there to greet the victorious Dom Sebastião,” the sertanejo told Clóvis.

  The Counselor had not confined himself to mystical pronouncements: since 1889, as he tramped the sertão, he had increasingly come to identify the republic as the regime of the Antichrist.

  “I was there, Colonel, at the weekly fair at Bom Conselho. I saw Antônio Conselheiro tear down the new tax notices at the vila. ‘Death to the Republicans!’ he shouted.”

  Clóvis da Silva himself had looked darkly upon the advent of the republic, but when it was proclaimed, he felt it his duty to support it. Gradually, though, Clóvis’s initial misgivings had increased as he observed the Machiavellian maneuverings for power of Marshal Peixoto and the generals around him, and he went into semiretirement, taking a desk job at a barracks in Rio de Janeiro.

  The presidential election in March 1894 had found the army divided, with men like Clóvis adamant that civilian rule be restored, and others hoping to force another term for Floriano Peixoto; but Prudente de Morais had been elected and was inaugurated in November that year without incident. Clóvis had returned to active duty, intending to serve in Rio Grande do Sul, where the civil insurrection was still dragging on, but he’d not been posted there. Three months ago, Minister of War Carlos Machado de Bittencourt, long an opponent of military rule, had personally asked Clóvis to command an artillery division against the fanatics. The minister had promised, too, that Clóvis’s promotion to general, which would have come years ago but for his attitude toward the militarists, would soon be announced.

  Clóvis had sailed from Rio de Janeiro for the Bahia in April in the same ship with his son Honôrio da Silva. Hônorio was a major now, but had left the artillery for a cavalry regiment. He was attached to the Second Column, which was marching for Canudos through the caatinga directly to the east.

  At the Bahia, Clóvis’s regiment had immediately entrained for the sertão on the Central Railway, which operated between Salvador and Juazeiro, three hundred miles away on the banks of the Rio São Francisco. They got off at Queimadas, about ninety miles directly south of Canudos, and marched forty-five miles to the vila of Monte Santo, which had been the base camp for the previous expeditions.

  Clóvis had been at Monte Santo for five weeks before the commander of the First Column, General Artur Oscar de Andrade Guimarães, gave the order for the three thousand men to advance on June 19.

  The more Clóvis saw of this blistered land, so frequently scourged by droughts, the more he understood how this place could raise the fires of hell in a man’s soul. The base camp itself lay below the slopes of Monte Santo, for centuries a holy place with a winding path to the top of the mountain, along which pilgrims halted to pray at stations of the Cross. Clóvis himself made the ascent, with a sense of reverence mixed with apprehension, gazing across the caatinga toward the hills in the direction of Canudos, and wondering if the Devil himself had gone that way.

  The same question was in his thoughts as he stared at the decapitated soldier. There had been scenes much worse in Paraguay, and he remembered this, too, with despair: He had hated the Guarani, but, misled as they were by López, they had fought honorably. Here was no honor, only pure savagery — barbarians hammering at the foundations of society.

  Clóvis felt a sudden wave of fatigue. He was, after all, sixty-eight, a veteran of many campaigns. His face was fuller; his hair and beard silvered. Many of his old Paraguayan comrades were dead, Deodoro da Fonseca among them — Floriano Peixoto, too, was gone — and he felt alone. Momentarily, he thought of Hônorio da Silva riding with General Cláudio do Amaral Savaget’s Second Column. They were to meet up in twenty-four hours to assault the lair of bandits now only seven miles ahead. He looked forward to seeing Hônorio, in whom, for all their disagreements, he took uncommon pride.

  Silently, he asked God’s mercy for the nameless soldier. Then he turned his horse and rode after his men.

  The light was fading as advance units crawled up a steep incline a mile from Canudos. Lieutenant-Colonel Siqueira Menezes and his engineering corps were at the front of the column, a position they’d held for eight days as they cleared the road and bridged the riachos for the artillery and supply train. The Twenty-fifth Battalion marched with them, providing cover as the engineers worked their way through the caatinga. Half a mile behind the battalion, Colonel Clóvis Lima da Silva was bringing up four Krupp 7-pounders and two machine guns.

  It was six hours since they’d found the soldier at the mandacuru. The mules drawing the gun carriages had been unhitched; the guns were being manhandled up the slope. The gunners put their backs into it with frantic energy, for they were frightened. Momentarily, they would swing their heads to the left and right, searching the gray-green scrub wall, the outcrops of rocks. Twice this afternoon, farther back along the lines, musket fire had blazed out of the caatinga; men had fallen; bullets had raked the bush in response. Then, silence. No sight of the enemy. Nothing.

  Clóvis rode with the flap of his revolver holster loosened. Siqueira Menezes had sent a messenger back to report that after cresting the hill, the road sloped down a long depression on the summit and then climbed again to a ridge. The hill was called Monte Favela; beyond its northern slope lay several smaller hills, and four thousand feet away — Canudos.

  Clóvis wanted his guns on the northern ridge before nightfall. He, too, kept glancing into the caatinga. Not once since leaving Monte Santo had he caught sight of a rebel. The column was strung out for six miles. General Artur Oscar was two miles away. Somewhere behind him was the rest of the artillery, lumbering along with a Whitworth siege gun hauled by twenty oxen. “God’s Thunderer,” men were calling it — a 32-pounder to silence the voice of the false prophet. Far behind the Whitworth, at the rear of the column, was the supply train, with more than 150 mules carrying food and ammunition.

  Clóvis told a major — Lauro Correia, who had been with the colonel on the march back from Corumbá, Mato Grosso, in August 1889 — to keep the guns moving smartly up the hill. Clóvis went on ahead, up to where the Twenty-fifth had outlying pickets on both sides of the road. Spurring his horse on, C1óvis rode quickly down the hilltop road, passing more men of the Twenty-fifth; at one or two places, he saw the white kepis of skirmishers fanning out between the low scrub. He glanced toward other hills, to the east and west; the sun was low now, the hillsides shadowed. His eyes narrowed warily as he studied a long, dark line far off to the left where the rocks were piled up, not unlike a parapet. Elsewhere, too, he glimpsed unnatural circular rock formations, but saw no movement there.

  Ten minutes later, he had dismounted and was standing on the northern ridge, his eyes upon Canudos.

  Beside him, Lieutenant-Colonel Siqueira Menezes, himself a northeasterner, said, “The Paradise of the sertanejo! From a hundred miles away and farther he came. Sold his worldly goods, abandoned his fields . . . for this.”

  Clóvis was silent. A vast, uneven plain rose behind the Vasa-Barris. Near the river stood a massive unfinished church with two huge towers; to its right, in an open area, was a dilapidated chapel. Behind the church were several substantial buildings. What made the greatest im
pression, though, was the vast number of dwellings behind these buildings and in barrios spreading across the Vasa-Barris, most of them mud-walled and thatch-roofed, though a few rough-baked tile roofs could be seen; five thousand homes built in no particular order, with a labyrinth of streets and alleys winding among them.

  “How many?” Clóvis asked, thinking aloud.

  “Fifteen, twenty thousand. Perhaps more.”

  “Where do they come from?”

  “From wherever their counselor spread his poison.”

  “Why was this great assembly allowed? Surely the authorities knew no good could come of it?”

  “Not all felt that way. Some district chiefs saw value in an alliance with Antônio Conselheiro.” Siqueira Menezes explained that certain poderosos involved in fierce political contests as they strove to assert themselves in the new republican order, had considered the legions of faithful as potential allies. “They soon realized their mistake. As Canudos grew, their own sertanejos deserted them. And, while Conselheiro and his saints preached their mad gospel, killer thieves rode from Canudos to pillage the land for miles around. What we’ve seen on our way here were once thriving fazendas.”

  The light was fading rapidly now, but he could just discern people streaming toward the chapel. “It’s more like a fort,” he suggested, looking at the new church to the left.

  “Yes, Colonel. And if it were lighter, you would see evidence of war preparations. There are trenches all over the place.”

  “The guns?” Clóvis was referring to the Krupp cannon abandoned by the second expedition.

  “I haven’t seen them.”

  “What do you think, Lieutenant-Colonel? Have they got help?”

  “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

  Clóvis was still looking at the chapel. “They must know we’re here.”

  Siqueira Menezes laughed thinly. “They’ve watched us day and night along every mile of the road from Monte Santo.”

  “I see no panic down there.”

  “They’ve repulsed three expeditions already,” Siqueira Menezes said, offering an unneeded reminder. “Besides, why should they panic? Their counselor prepares them for the end of the world.”

  Hour after hour, the government troops kept coming up the long incline and down into the depression on top of Favela. At 9:00 P.M., the Whitworth, drawn by the oxen and with teams of men hanging onto guide ropes, was dragged up the long slope; then the cannon moved slowly down through the basin. Bone-weary soldiers cheered as God’s Thunderer passed them: “Well done, camaradas, well done! Wake the sons of bitches! Blast them to kingdom come!”

  General Artur Oscar was camped near the Krupp and Nordenfeldt battery on the northern ridge. By 10:00 P.M., two thousand men were on Monte Favela and bivouacked all along the road through the basin; the rest of the column and supply train were miles behind and stopped for the night. Pickets had been thrown out, and before the moon was risen, some rockets had been fired above nearby hills. But there’d been no contact with or even sight of an armed fanatic this night of June 27, 1897. An artillery barrage against Canudos was set for dawn. General Savaget and the Second Column were expected by midday June 28; then the combined force of five thousand expeditionaries would make a general advance.

  Sometime after 11.00 P.M., C1óvis da Silva had left a staff meeting with General Artur Oscar and was preparing to bed down near his guns.

  Clóvis shared a canvas shelter with Lauro Correia. Before turning in, he went over to the major at one of the Krupp guns. Others expected a miracle with the Whitworth, but Clóvis knew that if the fanatics’ defenses were strong, the 32-pounder would have to punch a thousand holes in the crude citadel before it could be stormed. For a while, Clóvis discussed this possibility with Lauro Correia: They agreed that as soon as feasible in the morning, the guns should be moved to one of the hills below, closer to the Vasa-Barris.

  “It’s too damn quiet,” Clóvis said, as he was about to leave the major. “It makes me think of Tuyuti.”

  “They know what’s going to hit them in the morning. They’re saving their strength.”

  “Perhaps,” Clóvis said.

  “Get some sleep, Colonel. We’re not in Paraguay now.”

  “It’s too damn quiet,” Clóvis said again.

  “Let them sleep, these fanatics with their visions of Paradise.” He laughed again. “We’ve a rude awakening for them. A rude awakening.”

  But the fanatics were not asleep.

  Clóvis was walking back to the shelter when he heard the shrill of a whistle far off to his right. And even as Clóvis swung back to Lauro Correia, the column came under fire from positions all over Favela and on hills to the east and west.

  “Too damn quiet!” Clóvis exclaimed as he ran back to the major.

  Lauro Correia stood there dumbfounded.

  “For the love of Christ, man! Ready the guns!”

  Clóvis himself shouted orders to gunners tumbling out of their blankets. He sent the first men on their feet running to site the Nordenfeldts; as others came up, he ordered them to get the Krupps turned toward the fanatics’ positions.

  There were at least three thousand. They emerged from behind rows of rocks; they rose from hidden circular pits; they crept forward on their bellies through the caatinga.

  The Nordenfeldts came into action, sending six hundred rounds a minute into the caatinga. The 7-pounders, too, were not long in answering the fanatics; Major Lauro Correia had recovered from his shock and brought the guns to rapid fire.

  General Artur Oscar, a master of the classic campaign, appeared along the line, hatless, disheveled, his jacket loose, but still rather magnificent, for he was on his horse, and with an old soldier’s supreme confidence, he rode along the basin ignoring bullets whizzing past him as he tried to bring order to his troops. Many companies were beginning to return fire, peppering the caatinga with shots. But far too many soldiers were dashing around half naked, panic-stricken. Some poor fools bolted blindly into the caatinga, where a dozen arms reached out eagerly to receive them.

  The battle raged for an hour. Four of Clóvis’s gunners were struck by bullets, two of them fatally. One of the 7-pounders jammed, but the others kept firing; the Nordenfeldts, too, continued their fusillade.

  Then, almost as abruptly as it began, the attack ended. Not more than a hundred yards away from where Clóvis stood, the caatinga was on fire, the flames reaching toward one of the many pits where rebels had been concealed. When a number of figures rose up, a gunner cranked the handle of the Nordenfeldt for a burst in that direction. Several ran, but one lone figure lingered fearlessly on the rocks.

  Colonel Clóvis da Silva had heard the cry before, and it sent a chill down his spine.

  “Macacos! Macacos! Macacos!” the fanatic screamed. Then he was gone, vanished into the caatinga.

  The man who had mocked the gunners moved swiftly through the caatinga, passing others headed back to Canudos. He hurried along, the stones clattering under his boots as he slid down the side of a defile. He followed this for five hundred yards. Then he swung farther left in the direction of a stream, the Umburana, which flowed into the Vasa-Barris.

  At the Vasa-Barris, he shouldered his Mannlïcher and helped carry a wounded man across the river, where dozens lay waiting to be taken by cart to an infirmary on the west end of town. The man moved on past the new church and across an open area to a low building, the headquarters of the troops of Antônio Conselheiro. As he approached a group of men warming themselves at a fire in front of the building, several shouted an enthusiastic welcome. He joined them, offering a rapid account of the action near the guns.

  Standing in the shadows, listening raptly, was a young boy who suddenly darted toward the man. “Father!” he shouted.

  The boy’s father laughed. “Well,” he said, looking at the others, “shall we hear his report?”

  The response was unanimous: “Yes!”

  “Yes, boy?”

  The lad stiffen
ed. He almost dropped the old blunderbuss he was holding loosely, its butt just touching the ground. He opened his mouth, but no words came.

  “I’m waiting, son.”

  “I think, Father—”

  “Yes?”

  “I think I . . . shot one.”

  “Eleven years old! His first macaco!” The man briefly embraced the boy. “Not his last!”

  There was a flurry of praises from the commanders.

  “Go home, boy! Sleep! You’ve work tomorrow!”

  Still smiling, the boy stepped away smartly.

  His father watched him go. Then he gave all his attention to the commander-in-chief, who began to talk of plans for the next assault against the government soldiers.

  The light from the fire showed the man to be past middle age. He was tall and slim, with a tough, spare frame. His face was narrow, his nose aquiline; his brown eyes were hard, though when he’d looked at the boy they seemed to soften. He wore a leather waistcoat, opened at the chest; his trousers, too, were leather. Unlike several of his fellow commanders who were barefoot, he wore boots — a fine pair pulled off the legs of one of Moreira César’s officers. On his head he wore a big leather hat, its turned-up front brim decorated with small silver stars in the center of which was the Cross of Christ. A bright red kerchief at his neck added a jaunty look to his earth-colored leather battle dress. He carried three cartridge belts, one around his waist, two slung over his lean shoulders and crossed over his chest.

  Like several others at the fire, the curse he’d just yelled at the enemy had been the very epithet hurled against him more than twenty-five years ago when he served his emperor in the jungles and esteros of Paraguay.

  And there was much, much more Antônio Paciência, son of Mãe Mônica, slave at Fazenda da Jurema, remembered about those days long before he had come to take up arms for the Good Jesus and The Counselor who spoke for Him.