The War Of The End Of The World - Mario Vargas Llosa [217]
When the voice, so low that he can scarcely hear it, stops speaking, it takes him a moment to realize this, for he has fallen behind as he takes down the dictation. Writing, that manual labor, like that of placing cloths soaked in ether over the wounded man’s nose, is a boon to him, for it has kept him from torturing himself with questions as to how it can have happened that the Seventh Regiment failed to take Canudos and must now beat a retreat. When he raises his eyes, the doctor has put his ear to the colonel’s chest and is taking his pulse. He straightens up and makes a gesture fraught with meaning. Chaos immediately ensues, and Cunha Matos and Tamarindo begin to argue in loud voices as Olímpio de Castro tells Souza Ferreiro that the colonel’s remains must not be desecrated.
“A retreat now, in darkness, is insane,” Tamarindo shouts. “Where to? Which way? How can I ask any more of exhausted men who have fought for an entire day? Tomorrow…”
“Tomorrow not even the dead will still be around down there,” Cunha Matos says with a wave of his hand. “Don’t you see that the regiment is disintegrating, that there’s no one in command, that if the men aren’t regrouped now they’ll be hunted down like rabbits?”
“Regroup them, do whatever you like. I’m staying here till dawn, to carry out a retreat in good and proper order.” Colonel Tamarindo turns to Olímpio de Castro. “Try to reach the artillery. Those four cannons must not fall into the enemy’s hands. Have Salomão da Rocha destroy them.”
“Yes, sir.”
The captain and Cunha Matos leave the tent together and the nearsighted journalist follows them like an automaton. He hears what they are saying and cannot believe his ears.
“Waiting is madness, Olímpio. We must retreat now or by morning there won’t be anybody left alive.”
“I’m going to try to get to the artillery,” Olímpio de Castro cuts him short. “It’s madness perhaps, but it is my duty to obey the new commanding officer.”
The nearsighted journalist tugs at the captain’s arm, muttering: “Your canteen, I’m dying of thirst.”
He drinks avidly, choking, as the captain advises him: “Don’t stay with us. The major is right. Things are going to end badly. Clear out.”
Clear out? Take off by himself, through the caatinga, in the dark? Olímpio de Castro and Cunha Matos disappear, leaving him confused, afraid, petrified. Around him are men running or walking very fast. He takes a few steps in one direction, then another, starts toward the tent, but someone gives him a shove that sends him off in another direction. “Let me come with you, don’t go away,” he cries, and without turning around, one soldier urges him on: “Run, run, they’re coming up the mountainside right now. Can’t you hear the whistles?” Yes, he hears them. He starts running behind them, but he trips and falls several times and is left behind. He leans against a shadow that appears to be a tree, but the moment he touches it he feels it moving. “Untie me, for the love of God,” he hears a voice say. And he recognizes it as that of the parish priest of Cumbe, the same voice in which he answered when he was interrogated by Moreira César, yelping now with the same panic: “Untie me, untie me, the ants are eating me alive.”
“Yes, yes,” the nearsighted journalist stammers, joyous at having found company. “I’ll untie you, I’ll untie you.”
“Let’s get out of here this minute,” the Dwarf begged her. “Let’s go, Jurema, let’s go. Now that the cannons have stopped firing.”
Jurema had been sitting there, looking at Rufino and Gall, without realizing that the sun was tingeing the caatinga with gold, drying up the raindrops and evaporating the humidity in the air and the underbrush. The Dwarf shook her.
“Where are we going to go?” she answered, feeling great fatigue and a heavy weight in the