The War Of The End Of The World - Mario Vargas Llosa [321]
“Long live Marshal Floriano!”
“Death to traitors!”
“Down with the English!” Is it possible that the dogs are so close that he can hear their voices? The bugle commands are right in his ears. Still sitting there, he places five bullets in the cylinder of his revolver. As he loads the Mannlicher, he sees that he is down to his last ammunition pouch. Making an effort that he feels in his every bone, he gets to his feet and, helping himself up with his knees and elbows, climbs to the top of the barricade. The others make room for him. Less than twenty yards away, countless soldiers, rank upon rank of them, in close order, are charging. Without aiming, without seeking out officers, he fires off all the bullets in the revolver and then all the ones in the Mannlicher, feeling a sharp pain in his shoulder each time the rifle butt recoils. As he hurriedly reloads the revolver he looks around. The Freemasons are attacking on all sides, and in Pedrão’s sector they are even closer than here; a few bayonets are already within reach of the barricades and jagunços armed with clubs and knives suddenly spring up, dealing the attackers furious blows. He does not see Pedrão. To his right, in a giant cloud of dust, the wave upon wave of uniforms advance upon Espírito Santo, Santa Ana, São José, Santo Tomás, Santa Rita, São Joaquim. If they take any of these streets, in a matter of minutes they will reach São Pedro or Campo Grande, the heart of Belo Monte, and will be able to launch an attack on Santo Antônio, the Temple of the Blessed Jesus, and the Sanctuary. Someone tugs on his leg. A very young man shouts to him that the Street Commander wants to see him, at São Pedro. The young man takes his place on the barricade.
As he goes up the steep incline of São Crispim, he sees women on both sides of the street filling buckets and crates with sand and carrying them away on their shoulders. All round him are people running, dust, chaos, amid dwellings with the roofs caved in, façades riddled with bullet holes and blackened from smoke, and others that have collapsed or been gutted by fire. The frantic hustle and bustle has a center, he discovers on reaching São Pedro, the street parallel to Campo Grande that cuts through Belo Monte from the Vaza-Barris to the cemetery. The Street Commander is there, with two carbines slung over his shoulders, erecting barricades to close off the area on all the corners facing the river. Abbot João shakes hands with him and without preamble—but also, Antônio thinks, without undue haste, so calmly and deliberately that he will understand precisely—he asks him to take charge of closing off the side streets that lead into São Pedro, using all the men available.
“Wouldn’t it be better to reinforce the defenses down below?” Antônio Vilanova asks, pointing to the place he has just come from.
“We won’t be able to hold out very long down there. It’s open terrain,” the Street Commander replies. “Up here they won’t know which way to go and will get in each other’s way. It’s going to have to be a real wall, a good solid high one.”
“Don’t worry, Abbot João. Carry on, and I’ll take care of it.” But as Abbot João turns away, he adds: “What’s with Pajeú?”
“He’s still alive,” João answers without turning around. “He’s at Fazenda Velha.”
“Defending the water supply,” Vilanova thinks. If they’re driven out of there, Canudos will be left without a drop of water. After the churches and the Sanctuary, that is what matters most if they are to survive: water. The former cangaceiro disappears in the cloud of dust, striding down the slope leading to the river. Antônio turns his eyes toward the towers of the Temple of the Blessed Jesus. Out of a superstitious fear that they might no longer be there in their place, he has not looked that way since returning to Belo Monte. And there they are, chipped but still standing, their solid stone armature having withstood the dogs, bullets, shells, dynamite. The jagunços perched in the bell tower, on the rooftops, on the scaffolding are keeping up a steady