The War Of The End Of The World - Mario Vargas Llosa [315]
Why has Abbot João entrusted this front to them, of all the warriors, the two men least experienced in the ways of war? Doubtless because this is the front farthest away from A Favela: the enemy will not come this way. They would have three or four times farther to go than if they went straight down the slopes and attacked Fazenda Velha; moreover, before reaching the river, they would have to cross rough terrain bristling with thorny brush that would force the battalions to break ranks and scatter. And that is not the way the atheists fight. They do so in compact blocks, forming those squares of theirs that make such a good target for the jagunços holed up in their trenches.
“We’re the ones who dug these trenches,” Honório says. “Do you remember, compadre?”
“Of course I remember. Thus far, they haven’t had their baptism of fire.”
Yes, they were the ones who had directed the crews that had dotted this plot of ground that winds between the river and the cemetery, without a single tree or clump of brush, with little holes big enough for two or three sharpshooters. They had dug the first of these shelters a year ago, after the encounter at Uauá. After each enemy expedition they have made more holes, and lately little passageways between each of them that allow the men to crawl from one to the other without being seen. They are indeed defenses that have never undergone their baptism of fire: never once has there been any fighting in this sector.
A bluish light, with yellow tinges at the edges, creeps down from the horizon. Cocks can be heard crowing. “The cannon salvos have stopped,” Honório says, guessing the thought in Antônio’s mind. Antônio finishes his brother’s sentence: “That means that they’re on their way, compadre.” The dugouts are some fifteen to twenty feet apart, spread out over an area half a kilometer long and a hundred or so meters wide. The jagunços, crouching down elbow to elbow in the holes by twos and threes, are so well hidden that the Vilanova brothers can see them only when they lean down to exchange a few words with them. Many of them have lengths of pipe, thick cane stalks, and hollowed-out tree trunks that allow them to see outside without poking their heads out. Most of them are sleeping or dozing, curled up in a ball with their Mannlichers, Mausers, and blunderbusses, and their bullet pouch or powder horn within reach of their hand. Honório has posted lookouts along the Vaza-Barris; several of them have gone scouting along the ravines and the riverbed—completely dry there—and on the other side without running into any enemy patrols.
They return to the lean-to, talking together as they walk back. The silence broken only by the crowing of the cocks seems strange after the many hours of bombardment. Antônio remarks that the attack on Canudos has appeared to him to be inevitable ever since the column of reinforcements—more than five hundred troops, apparently—arrived at A Favela intact, despite desperate efforts on the part of Pajeú, who had harried them all the way from Caldeirão but had managed only to steal a few head of their cattle. Honório asks if it is true that the expeditionary force has left companies posted at Jueté and Rosário, places they merely passed through before. Yes, it is true.
Antônio unbuckles his belt and, using his arm as a pillow and covering his face with his sombrero, curls up in the dugout that he is sharing with his brother. His body relaxes, grateful for the rest, but his ears remain alert, listening for any sound of soldiers in the day that is dawning. In