The War Of The End Of The World - Mario Vargas Llosa [314]
“We don’t know where the attack will come from,” Abbot João says, and the former storekeeper sees how deeply worried he is. “We know everything, except the most important thing of all.”
The Street Commander calculates that they are going to attack in this sector, the shortest way into Belo Monte, and hence he has come with three hundred jagunços to reinforce Pajeú in this line of trenches that stretches in a curve, a quarter of a league long, from the foot of Monte Mário to O Taboleirinho.
Abbot João explains to him that Pedrão is covering the eastern flank of Belo Monte, the area in which the corrals and the cultivated fields are located, and the wooded slopes up which the trails to Trabubu, Macambira, Cocorobó, and Jeremoabo wind their way. The city, defended by Big João’s Catholic Guard, has been further fortified by new parapets of stone and sandbags erected in the narrow alleyways and at the intersections of the main streets and the square bounded by the churches and the Sanctuary, that center on which the assault troops will converge, as will the shells of their cannons.
Although he is eager to ply him with questions, Vilanova realizes that there isn’t time. What is it that he must do? Abbot João tells him that he and Honorio will be responsible for defending the area parallel to the ravines of the Vaza-Barris, to the east of the Alto do Mario and the exit leading to Jeremoabo. Without taking time to explain in more detail, he asks him to send word immediately if soldiers appear in that sector, because what is most important is to discover from which direction they are going to try to enter the city. Vilanova and the fourteen men take off at a run.
His fatigue has disappeared as if by magic. It must be another sign of the divine presence, another manifestation of the supernatural within his person. How otherwise to explain it, if it is not the work of the Father, of the Divine, or of the Blessed Jesus? Ever since he first learned of the attack, he has done nothing but walk or run as fast as he possibly could. A little while ago, as he was crossing the Lagoa do Cipó, his legs started to give way and his heart was pounding so hard he was afraid he’d collapse in a dead faint. And here he is now, running over this rugged stony ground, up hill and down dale, at the end of a long night now filled with the blinding light and deafening thunder of the sudden intense barrages being laid down by the enemy troops. Yet he feels rested, full of energy, capable of any and every effort, and he knows that the fourteen men running at his side feel exactly the same way. Who but the Father could bring about such a change, renew their strength in this way, when circumstances so require? This is not the first time that such a thing has happened to him. Many times in these last weeks, when he has thought that he was about to collapse, he has suddenly felt a great surge of strength that seemed to lift him up, to renew him, to breathe a great gust of life into him.
In the half hour that it takes them to reach the trenches along the Vaza-Barris—running, walking, running—Antônio Vilanova sees the flames of fires flare up back in Canudos. His first concern is not whether one of the fires may be burning his house to the ground, but rather: is the system that he has thought of so that fires won’t spread working? For that purpose, hundreds of barrels and boxes of sand have been placed along the streets and at the intersections. The people who have remained in the city know that the moment a shell explodes they must run to put out the flames by throwing pailfuls of sand on them. Antônio himself has organized things so that in each block of dwellings there are women, children, and old men responsible for this task.
In the trenches, he finds his brother Honório and his wife and