The War Of The End Of The World (37 page)

He bowed, turned round, and headed for the door.

“I thank you for your frankness,” the baron murmured. Without moving from where he stood, he saw the colonel leave the study and appear again outside the manor house a few moments later. He saw him mount the white horse that his orderly was holding by the bridle, and, followed by his escort, ride off in a cloud of dust.

The sound of the whistles is like the call of certain birds, an unrhythmic lament that pierces the soldiers’ eardrums and embeds itself in their nerves, awakening them at night or taking them by surprise during a march. It is a prelude to death, for it is followed by bullets or arrows that rise with a clean hiss and gleam against the sunlit or star-studded sky before striking their target. The sound of the whistles ceases then and the plaintive moans of wounded cattle, horses, mules, goats, or kids is heard. Sometimes a soldier is hit, but this is exceptional because just as the whistles are destined to assail the ears—the minds, the souls—of the soldiers, so the bullets and arrows stubbornly seek out the animals.

The first two head of cattle that were hit have been enough for the soldiers to discover that these victims are not edible, not even for those who have lived through all the campaigns and learned to eat stones. Those who ate the meat from these cattle began to vomit so badly and to suffer from such severe diarrhea that, even before the doctors rendered their opinion, they had realized that the
jagunços
’ arrows killed the animals twice over, first taking their lives and then the possibility of their helping those who were herding them along to survive. From that point on, the moment an animal falls, Major Febrônio de Brito pours kerosene over it and sets fire to it. Grown thinner, suffering from eye irritation, in the few short days since the departure of the column from Queimadas the major has become a bitter, sullen man. Of all those in the column, he is probably the one on whom the whistles wreak their intended effect most successfully, keeping him awake and tormenting him. As his ill luck would have it, he is the one responsible for these quadrupeds that fall amid loud bellows of pain, he is the one who must order them to be given the
coup de grâce
and burned, knowing that these deaths herald future pangs of hunger. He has done everything within his power to minimize the effect of the arrows, sending out men to patrol in circles around the herds and shielding the animals with leather and rawhide coverings, but in the very high summer temperature, this protection makes them sweat, lag behind, and sometimes topple over in the heat. The soldiers have seen the major at the head of the patrols which go out to scour the countryside the moment the symphony begins. These are exhausting, depressing incursions that merely serve to prove how elusive, impalpable, ghost-like the attackers are. The earsplitting racket their whistles make suggests that there are many of them, but that cannot possibly be so, for how in the world could they make themselves invisible in this flat terrain with only sparse vegetation? Colonel Moreira César has given them the explanation: the attackers are divided into very small groups, which hole up in key sites and lie in wait for hours, for days, in caves, crevices, animal lairs, thickets, and the sound of the whistles is deceptively amplified by the astral silence of the countryside they are passing through. This trickery should not distract them; it can have no effect on the column.

And on giving the order to resume their march, after receiving the report on the animals that have been lost, he has remarked: “That’s fine. It lightens our burden, and we’ll get there that much sooner.”

His serenity impresses the correspondents, before whom, each time he receives reports of more deaths, he permits himself to make some joking remark. The journalists are more and more nervous in the presence of these adversaries who constantly spy on their movements yet are never seen. It is their one subject of conversation. They besiege the nearsighted reporter from the
Jornal de Notícias
, asking him what the colonel really thinks of this relentless attack on the nerves and reserves of the column, and each time the journalist answers that Moreira César doesn’t talk about those arrows or hear those whistles because he is entirely preoccupied, body and soul, by one concern: arriving at Canudos before the Counselor and the rebels can make their escape. He knows, he is certain, that those arrows and whistles have no other object than to distract the Seventh Regiment so as to give the bandits time to prepare their retreat. But the colonel is a clever officer who does not allow himself to be taken in or lose a single day pointlessly scouring the countryside or turn aside a single millimeter from his planned route. He has told the officers who are worried about future provisions that, from this point of view too, what matters most is getting to Canudos as soon as possible, since the Seventh Regiment will find everything it needs there, in the enemy’s storehouses, fields, and stables.

How many times since the regiment began marching again have the correspondents seen a young officer clutching a handful of bloody arrows gallop up to the head of the column to report yet another attack? But this time, at midday, a few hours before the regiment enters Monte Santo, the officer sent by Major Febrônio de Brito brings not only arrows but a whistle and a crossbow as well. The column has halted in a ravine, the men’s faces drenched with sweat in the beating sun. Moreira César carefully inspects the crossbow. It is a very primitive type, fashioned of unpolished wood and crudely strung, simple to use. Colonel Tamarindo, Olímpio de Castro, and the correspondents crowd round him. The colonel takes one of the arrows, fits it in the crossbow, shows the journalists how it works. Then he raises the whistle, made of a length of sugarcane with notches cut into it, to his mouth, and all of them hear the lugubrious lament.

Only then does the messenger report the earthshaking news. “We have two prisoners, sir. One of them is wounded, but the other one is able to talk.”

In the silence that ensues, Moreira César, Tamarindo, and Olímpio de Castro exchange looks. The young officer goes on to explain that three patrols stand ready at all times to scour the countryside the minute the whistles are heard, that two hours before, when the whistling started, the three of them headed off in different directions before the arrows started falling, and that one of them spied the archers just as they slipped away behind some rocks. The patrol had given chase, caught up with them, and tried to take them alive, but one of them attacked and was wounded. Moreira César immediately gallops off in the direction of the rear guard, followed by the correspondents, who are wildly excited at the thought of seeing the enemy’s face at last. They are not to see it for some time. When they reach the rear guard an hour later, the prisoners are shut up in a hut guarded by soldiers with fixed bayonets who do not allow them to come anywhere near it. They prowl about the vicinity, watch the officers bustling back and forth, receive evasive answers from those of them who have seen the prisoners. Two or perhaps three hours later Moreira César appears, on his way back to his place at the head of the column. They finally learn a little about what was gone on.

“One of them is in rather bad shape,” the colonel tells them. “He may not last till we get to Monte Santo. A pity. They should be executed there, so that their death might serve as an example. It would be pointless here.”

When the veteran journalist who always goes about all bundled up as though he were recovering from a cold asks if the prisoners have provided any useful information, the colonel shrugs skeptically. “The usual rigamarole about God, the Antichrist, the end of the world. They’re willing to talk endlessly about all that. But not a word out of them about accomplices or instigators. It may well be that they don’t know very much, the poor devils. They belong to a band led by a
cangaceiro
named Pajeú.”

The column immediately marches off again, at a hellish pace, and enters Monte Santo as night is falling. There things take a different turn from what they have in other towns, where the regiment has merely made a rapid search for arms. Here, as the correspondents are still dismounting in the town square beneath the tamarinds, at the foot of the mountainside lined with chapels, surrounded by women, children, and old men with looks in their eyes that they have already learned to recognize—apathetic, mistrustful, distant, stubbornly feigning stupidity and total ignorance of what is going on—they see the troops running, by twos and threes, toward the mud huts and entering them with their rifles at the ready, as though expecting to encounter resistance. Alongside them, in front of them, everywhere, as orders and shouts ring out, the patrols kick in doors and windows and force them open with blows of their rifle butts, and the correspondents soon begin to see lines of townspeople being herded into four enclosures guarded by sentinels. There they are interrogated. From where the journalists are standing they can hear insults, protests, bellows of pain, along with the wails and screams of women outside struggling to get past the sentinels. A few short minutes suffice to turn all of Monte Santo into the scene of a strange battle, without charges or exchanges of fire. Abandoned, without a single officer coming to them to explain what is happening, the correspondents wander aimlessly about the town of calvaries and crosses. They go from one enclosure to another, seeing the same thing in each: lines of men hemmed in by soldiers with bayonets. And from time to time they see a prisoner that they are leading away, pushing and shoving him before them, or are dragging out of a hovel, so battered he can scarcely stand on his feet. The correspondents huddle together, terrified at being caught up in this mechanism relentlessly grinding away round about them, not understanding what is happening but suspecting that it is a consequence of what the two prisoners taken that morning have revealed.

And their suspicions are confirmed by Colonel Moreira César, with whom they are able to speak that same night, after the prisoners have been executed. Before the execution, which takes place under the tamarinds, an officer reads the order of the day that spells out that the Republic is obliged to defend itself against those who, out of cupidity, fanaticism, ignorance, or deliberate deception, rise up against it and serve the appetites of a retrograde caste whose interest it is to keep Brazil in a backward state the better to exploit it. Do the townspeople understand this message? The correspondents intuit that these words, proclaimed in a thundering voice by the town crier, are taken by the silent creatures being held back by the guards as mere sound and fury. Once the execution is over and the townspeople are allowed to approach those whose throats have been slit, the journalists accompany the commanding officer of the Seventh Regiment to the dwelling where he will spend the night. The nearsighted reporter from the
Jornal de Notícias
arranges matters, as usual, so that he may be at his side as he receives the press.

“Was it necessary to turn all of Monte Santo against you with those interrogations?” he asks the colonel.

“They’re already enemies, the entire populace is a party to the conspiracy,” Moreira César replies. “Pajeú, the
cangaceiro
, has passed through here recently, with about fifty men. They were feted and given provisions. Do you correspondents see what I mean? Subversion has sunk deep roots among these wretched people, thanks to ground already fertilized by religious fanaticism.”

He does not appear to be alarmed. Oil lamps, candles, bonfires are burning everywhere, and in the dark shadows patrols of the regiment are prowling about like specters.

“To execute all the accomplices, it would have been necessary to slit the throats of every last person in Monte Santo.” Moreira César has reached a small house where Colonel Tamarindo, Major Cunha Matos, and a group of officers are awaiting him. He dismisses the correspondents with a wave of his hand, turns to a lieutenant, and abruptly changes the subject: “How many animals are left?”

“Between fifteen and eighteen, sir.”

“We’ll offer the troops a feast before the enemy poisons the poor beasts. Tell Febrônio to have them all killed once and for all.” The officer leaves on the run and Moreira César turns to his other junior officers. “After tomorrow, we’ll have to tighten our belts.”

He disappears into the rude dwelling and the correspondents head for the mess hut. There they drink coffee, smoke, exchange impressions, and hear the litanies that are drifting down from the chapels on the mountainside where the townspeople are holding a wake for the two dead men. Later on, they watch as the meat is distributed, see the soldiers dig into this splendid repast with gusto, and hear them begin to play guitars and sing, their spirits lifted. Although the journalists also eat the meat and drink cane brandy, they do not share the euphoria that has taken possession of the soldiers as they celebrate what they believe to be imminent victory. A little while later, Captain Olímpio de Castro comes to ask them if they plan to stay in Monte Santo or go on to Canudos. Those who go on will find it difficult to make their way back, for there will not be another intermediate camp set up.

Of the five, two decide to remain in Monte Santo and another to return to Queimadas, since he is not feeling well. The captain suggests to the two who choose to go on with the regiment—the elderly journalist who goes around all bundled up and the nearsighted one—that they go get some sleep, since from now on there will be forced marches.

The following day, when the two correspondents wake up—it is dawn and cocks are crowing—they are told that Moreira César has already left because there has been an incident in the vanguard: three soldiers have raped an adolescent girl. They depart immediately, with a company under the command of Colonel Tamarindo. When they reach the head of the column, they find that the rapists have been tied to tree trunks, one alongside the other, and are being flogged. One of them roars with pain at each lash of the whip; the second one appears to be praying; and the third one keeps his face set in an arrogant expression as his back grows redder and redder and the blood begins to spurt.

They are in a clearing, surrounded by a thicket of
mandacarus, velame
, and
calumbi
. The companies of the vanguard are standing amid the bushes and brambles watching the flogging. An absolute silence reigns among the men, whose eyes never leave those receiving the lashing. The screech of parrots and a woman’s sobs break the silence from time to time. The one who is weeping is a young albino girl, slightly deformed, barefoot, with bruises showing through the tears in her garments. No one pays any attention to her, and when the nearsighted journalist asks an official if she is the one who has been raped, he nods. Moreira César is standing next to Major Cunha Matos. His white horse idles about a few yards away, without a saddle, its coat fresh and clean as though it had just been curried.