Diary of a Combatant Page 14

  9

  The day passed with nothing new, the wounded continue to improve. Israel has already said that he was more useful here, having this as a backup, etc.

  10

  Manuel Acuña decided that his bullet wound was bothering him a lot and in a moment of courage he resolved to have it operated on. I made a very small incision but I didn’t find the bullet.

  11

  Manolo Rodríguez arrived with the purchases, but he didn’t bring everything, holding onto the rest below, and asked me to speak with him; I will go tomorrow. It was decided that Acuña and Banderas would go to the home of the other Israel to ask him for money. Banderas objected immediately and only agreed to go most unwillingly. According to Evelio, the new recruit who is in quarantine, the radio announced that government troops had surprised one of our patrols, taking prisoner Hermes Cardero and someone else.

  12

  I went down to talk with Manolo; he was just waiting for me to talk with D.5 D. is an individual from the old Authentic [party] group, a Catholic and a racist, with a servile attitude toward his boss, who is only concerned with electoral matters and to save for his master all the misappropriated lands in this region. I also suspect that he has participated in the evictions of peasants. But leaving that aside, he’s a good informant and is determined to help. I agreed to send him a list of the items we need brought from Santiago, where he is planning to go in a few days; he promised us a kerosene stove, which is extremely useful in the woods. The conversation lasted three hours and the man jumped from one topic to another with a marvelous versatility, but from what he said, what’s clear is: the news of the death or imprisonment of Celia Sánchez is false; that of Hermes Cardero must be false because he’s said to be a prisoner in Pilón, along with Jesús Acuña, Vilo’s father.

  I went to visit the families of Mora, Rodríguez and Israel; I arrived at nightfall with some asthma. We went to sleep early, and at 3:00 in the morning Israel arrived accompanying D. He came with some urgency because he was going to Santiago; he had already brought the stove and a couple of pipes for Almeida and me. He took the list of items we needed and promised to be back with some reading material and everything else within a week.

  13

  We had to find a cave to hide in because so much time in the same place was already dangerous; but I had to wait until 12:00 to leave because I had a lot of asthma, probably due to the tobacco because I had hit the pipe pretty hard. We found some caves but Juan’s relatives saw us and I don’t trust him a lot. We have had to search for clarin flowers for my asthma. When I returned I found that Sinecio had returned without any news, but bringing a good quantity of supplies and tobacco. He came with instructions for Quique and established tomorrow morning for his departure. He brought 100 pesos and a good pair of boots that they sent me from Santiago. I injected myself with ACTH again.

  14

  In the morning Sinecio left with Quique and Proenza heading toward Yao, and later they will go on to Santiago. During the day we moved because Israel’s family is now coming, as his father arrived from Santiago. When Maceo and I were ready to go, Feliciano appeared with his wife, chattering up a storm and praising me to the skies because I brought them a little medicine. He expressed his firm decision to continue with us; I agreed on the condition that he took his wife somewhere else and return within three days. Israel’s father gave us some salt and tomorrow we’ll kill and salt another cow. Due to Feliciano’s arrival, Maceo and I decided to stay in order to avoid showing him how close the cave is to the house.

  15

  In the morning Feliciano told me about five pesos Sinecio had spent on cognac. I didn’t know anything about this story and how it involved Alejandro, who was one of those who drank it. It seems that Juan, the jerk who lives next door, got drunk on the cognac, which was bought in the name of the movement, on credit from a store. Feliciano asked me about our people and I told him that when he returned from leaving his wife in Santiago, or wherever, I would show him the cave. But in a moment of carelessness, he found it. On the way back, I cursed him soundly and sent him down quickly. Israel said that someone had to go down to look for the cow; Banderas, Evelio, Alejandro, Hermes and Acuña (the son)6 went, leaving at about 4:00 in the afternoon, and didn’t return all night.

  16

  In the morning the first of those who undertook the expedition to get the cow showed up. The endeavor had been difficult because the cow was huge and the river was high so it was hard to cross. The hero was Banderas. In the morning, Juan, from whom we had been hiding, appeared; the man smelled the meat and came looking for it. The cave where we are is very humid because the water slides down the rocks and drips on us continuously.

  17

  The morning passed peacefully, without any special events; but this afternoon Sinecio came with 11 armed men. After giving Sinecio hell for his previous drunken episode and for bringing people without weapons… [sentence incomplete]. A 56-year-old man was rejected because of his age, the others were accepted, despite not bringing even a pair of shoes like civilized folk. The newcomers include nine from Bayamo, one from Santiago and one from Veguita, who was already with Fidel. Israel left with Banderas, Joel and Evelio to bring the rest of the supplies David sent and they returned at night. I ordered another cow for the new men, which they’ll have to get tomorrow and we also have to collect the weapons that were left in the Babún Company’s wood.

  18

  It had been decided that we would leave early, but Sinecio convinced me that it would be better to leave at 3:00 in the afternoon to reach the house where the chickens were; so that’s what we did. Eleven men left with me and seven went to get the cow. When we crossed the hill we entered the little valley of Arroyo del Indio where the army’s hand was evident in the number of burnt-out houses. We climbed up a long slope to reach the campsite near the chicken coop the soldiers had used. We issued final instructions in case of shots and marched in absolute silence in the pitch darkness. When we were near the zinc house where we had camped previously, we heard a very faint shot. We all dropped to the ground, but when I checked it turned out that Alejandro had fired a shot but had not let us know. After bawling him out, we went on to where the weapons were buried, finding the place intact. We distributed the weapons and returned without incident to the chicken coop, now totally destroyed by the Rural Guards. We slept there until dawn, taking turns doing guard duty.

  19

  At daybreak we began the return trek with the heavy tripod machine gun and, after a pause to eat sugarcane in one of the burnt-out houses, we reached the camp. The men who had gone to get the cow arrived later. Juan, the jerk of a neighbor, arrived first with a little piece of meat for everyone. The man from Yara hadn’t arrived yet with one of the kids, and it was decided that Sinecio would leave for Bayamo tomorrow with one of the people from Bayamo to look for equipment for the group. The day passed with nothing new.

  20

  As the day began Sinecio left with Enrique Chadman, one of the new men from Bayamo. At mid-morning David arrived from below. He came with a bunch of shoes, chocolate, medicines and cigarettes. He didn’t bring any messages and some of the requested items were missing; but he said they would come within a few days. We sent 10 men below to look for the things. There was nothing else new all day except for the arrival of Israel’s father, who asked me not to take his son with us; I told him I couldn’t interfere with his son’s freely expressed decision, and things stayed like that, still friendly.

  21

  This morning the old man [Pancho] Tamayo came with news that two new recruits were coming: Francisco Rodríguez Tamayo and William Rodríguez Viamonte, the latter from Bayamo, the other one from Media Luna. The first one brought a Stand 22 automatic pistol, which he exchanged with Joel for a Springfield. They brought hardly any equipment. They got here because they had encountered Sinecio and he indicated the way. We sent a message to Santiago with David advising them that we will be heading off again on the 24th of this
month and asking them not to send any unarmed men. Another group went out to see what they could find, which will probably be the last food we’ll eat in this area for now. The army has grown to: five wounded (already recovered), five healthy men accompanying the wounded, 10 men from Bayamo, two more recently incorporated and four men from this zone—a total of 26, but deficient in terms of weapons.

  22

  Nothing new all day except for a strange illness that struck down Maceo making him vomit. This meant the cooking was left to Vilo Acuña and one of the new guys, René Cuervo, who seems willing.

  23

  The day was full of small events. The boat we were waiting for didn’t arrive and we received a message from David advising us to leave the area because there were indications of a serious betrayal, and suggesting the business with the boat had a bad smell about it; he said he was sending [another] man to join us. This was the jabao,7 Nicolás Roy, the brother of [Pupo and Manolo] Beatóns’ mother; he looked a lot like them, and even had Manolo’s mannerisms. The man seems willing. Earlier we had an unexpected visitor in the person of Toto Díaz, the Beatóns’ buddy, who learned of our unexpected stopping place from old man Tamayo; he came to bring us a new person, this time from the Contramaestre region, whose name is Antonio Candel; he’s a sharp guy.

  Just when we had everything ready to leave the following day, well into the night, another note came from David, saying that the boat had arrived without any problems and that he would send some things tomorrow. We had already formed the squads for the march, giving Vilo responsibility for the vanguard and five men under his command; next would come my squadron, which included Almeida and my two veteran assistants, two from Bayamo in charge of the .30 machine gun (without bullets or a stand), Pedro Pompa and Clemente “Chicho” and two new men; then Pena, with six more and, closing up the ranks, Maceo, with another six. There were 28 of us.

  24

  We were getting everything ready when Sinecio arrived to say that others were coming: the envoy Enrique, plus Evelio Saborit, who had just joined us because he could no longer remain in Bayamo—also without weapons. Fortunately there was a shipment of uniforms, blankets and other supplies that made it a less embarrassing situation for the men from Bayamo. The shipment they brought was so large that they couldn’t carry it all, and we had to send more people to go and get it. We left before it all arrived, leaving equipment to pick up tomorrow because we couldn’t take it all.

  We arrived at dusk at the Peladero River, with enough time to get comfortably settled into a group of caves along the river bank. At night the stragglers arrived; our path was strewn with equipment that we couldn’t collect because of the excess load. It became an urgent matter to look for a cave where we could leave some of the supplies. A man from below arrived with the mules claiming he knew Almeida because they had been prisoners together in El Vivac, after the July 26 attack [on the Moncada barracks]; he couldn’t climb because he had a leg that had been injured when the mule fell on top of him. I sent someone to look for David.

  25

  The two pipes that had been so confidently promised didn’t appear, along with two lighters and some other things whose fate is uncertain. The morning was spent doing organizational tasks and reading Bohemia magazine. Old man Tamayo came with medicine and some canned food, his son and two helpers, one of whom wanted to stay with us, but he was rejected because he had no weapon. One of the young guys from Bayamo showed the first, unmistakable signs of cowardice; we will send him back to Bayamo to the head of the movement there. At night a message came from David to say that he was in Israel’s house and I went there to talk with him and establish the most recent contacts. I arrived late at the camp with an invitation for Almeida to go and talk to Pardo Llada.

  26

  I stayed in camp while Almeida, Pena and Acuña went to the appointment. In the morning I made my debut as a tooth-puller, pulling one from Israel, but when I tried to do the same with Joel the tooth broke four times, and as I didn’t have an appropriate scalpel or [anything else suitable], I had to leave it the way it was. Near nightfall Almeida arrived with a new recruit: Vitalino Ramos, the brother of the mother of the sons of old man Mendoza; apparently another one is coming tomorrow, sent by David from the beach.

  27

  We had thought to leave today but later we postponed the trip until tomorrow and, meanwhile, get some jerky and some packages that are in old man Israel’s house. He came to say goodbye because he’s going to Santiago and won’t see us again, at least for now. In the afternoon, four volunteers presented themselves to us, three of them armed and one who had left his shotgun in the home of a peasant friend. We already knew the chief, a guy called Yiyo from a saw mill near Pino del Agua; one of the others was his cousin and the others were unknown to us, one black and one white whom Yiyo knew from his neighborhood. The black guy brought a Springfield and 190 bullets; his name is Félix Mendoza, and that weapon, plus another like it, would [most likely] end up being captured by the soldiers along with their owner. The [new] men were divided up, one to each squadron, with the army now made up of 36 terrible soldiers. Toto [Tuto Almeida] was told that tomorrow we were going to ask him for a quintal of food that he promised to obtain.

  28

  We began the march slowly, well into the morning, after Israel and Banderas came with the last packages. Before that I shot some film that I wanted to make into a documentary about a fake prisoner, but it should turn out ridiculous. The march proceeded very slowly because Almeida needed to stop frequently. We reached the new camp by mid-afternoon. There the issue of men wanting to leave came up, and Walfrido, who was already a deserter, was joined by one of his compañeros, Rolando, and one of those who arrived yesterday and who was already feeling homesick. So the troop was reduced to 33 men. On a curious note, the three deserters were all from Pena’s squadron.

  29

  We decided to stay until the day after tomorrow to listen [on the radio] to the mass meeting in Santiago and to see if anything occurred there. In the afternoon two new volunteers showed up wanting to join. At first Almeida didn’t want to consider them, but the men came from Guantánamo and had been walking for 11 days, so we had to accept them. They were brought to us by Alfonso, one of those who had helped us when the whole troop was together and came here sent by Porfirio Sánchez, a neighbor. Cherry bombs keep exploding.

  30

  Two more arrived early, which brings the number to 35 men. Eduardo Tamayo Trujillo and Roberto Viera Estrada are from Guantánamo; [Eduardo] has a cloudy eye and is incorporated into the troop (but apart from that fact I don’t recall much about him). We couldn’t listen to the meeting in Santiago because the radio didn’t work; there was too much static. We decided to leave early tomorrow. Acuña became ill at night with chills and a cold sweat; I gave him a cup of rum and hot coffee. He improved slightly and seemed to sleep.

  1. The chapter, “Return Journey” in Che’s Reminiscences… describes everything that happened in the month of June 1957.

  2. Teodoro Banderas Maceo, who later died in combat.

  3. Translator’s note: The terms moreno and mulato [mulatto] are often used interchangeably in Cuba.

  4. Israel Pardo, whom Che described as “the best of a family of fighters.”

  5. A reference to David Gómez Pliego, an effective collaborator, despite his political affiliation and his unconditional ties to his boss. In the chapter “Caring for the Wounded,” in his Reminiscences…, Che explains why he thinks Gómez supported the revolution.

  6. Juan Vitalio Acuña (Vilo) was Jesús Acuña’s son, and would eventually hold the position of commander. Major was the highest military position in the Rebel Army. He adopted the nom de guerre “Joaquín” when he participated in Che’s guerrilla group in Bolivia. He died in an ambush in Vado de Puerto Mauricio, Bolivia, on August 31, 1967.

  7. Translator’s note: Jabao is a Cuban term referring to a light-skinned mulatto with kinky hair.

  July 1957


  1

  I awoke with asthma so I took advantage of Acuña’s illness to stay in my hammock all day. The news we heard was very interesting: throughout the island there’s been an unparalleled wave of violence; in Camagüey the police were patrolling the streets; in Guantánamo various tobacco farms had been set on fire and there was an attempt to burn down the warehouses of a North American sugar company. In Santiago itself two Guards were killed and a colonel was wounded. Our casualties have been four men, among them Frank País’s brother called José [Josué].1 It was already determined that the trip will be tomorrow morning.

  2

  The dawn of our seventh month in Cuba began with the news that Feliciano, “Polilla,” the man who claimed he had carried Raúl, deserted the troop, taking a knife with him. In addition, Argelio Díaz didn’t appear; according to his brother, he was working with his uncle, but it seems to me that he went with Feliciano. Tuto took us up to the stern of the troops and we followed slowly to the top of La Botella. The guys were overloaded and two of our men (Clemente and Candel) gave signs of feeling the strain; but the surprise was that right there Vitalino, the brother of Eligio’s sons, said he’d had enough, and he was let go immediately.

  Later we met a peasant who had come looking for us to tell us that there were two men from Havana looking for us. That same peasant took us to the house of someone called Benito Mora, who had put up Yiyo and other compañeros. We sent messengers to find certain contacts and slept in a creek bed. In setting up camp we learned that Chicho [Fernández] and Candel were leaving because they couldn’t take this life [of a guerrilla] any longer. The jabao had a rash and he went, too. Thus our squadron was reduced from 11 to seven members. We agreed that the next day we will harangue the whole troop to see who wants to leave from the other squads. The five desertions reduced the troop to 30 men.