Diary of a Combatant Page 16
20
As the day dawned we got up to initiate the march to the Sierra Maestra, but Guillermo arrived with his platoon saying that Fidel was coming with the rest of the troops and that there was a vague plan for us to take them up the Sierra Maestra. It seemed preferable to me to send Lalo reinforced with one of Ramiro’s squads to seize the Sierra Maestra. I went to a small ridge to prepare an ambush. In a little while we received an order from Fidel to advance half way. There was no sign of Rural Guards as we went down the slope. Camilo, who had joined me, explored a lateral trail up to the road, but he didn’t find anyone. I sent Crucito to check the tobacco shed and nobody was found there either. Incidentally, Fidel had told me not to let Marciano go. I sent Crucito with Maceo to explore the trail up to Turquino [Peak] and, if they got there, Maceo should immediately climb up by way of El Infierno. Marciano asked to go with them but returned at 2:00 saying that the others had left him behind and that the soldiers had gone up to Turquino.
In a while Crucito arrived very concerned because he had seen the same tracks that Marciano had seen and also a newly eaten cane stalk left behind. But Crucito didn’t know that Marciano claimed that he couldn’t continue because he felt sick. Marciano had already been sent as William’s guide to take a message to Lalo. William had been advised not to let him go in the crossing and, if it were necessary, to use some leverage to get his gun away from him. A short time later Maceo returned because he had misunderstood the instructions and couldn’t find the troop. I had to send Alejandro with another message.
I had planned to stay in the little zinc house near the road but the scouts arrived with the news that it was inhabited; they had also found the body of one of our men, already almost a skeleton. We had to change plans, but I had to wait for a message from Lalo. So I left two men, Crucito and Enrique Chadman, to go by way of the road. Crucito was left behind because he was sick and Enrique, also, who had a touch of appendicitis. We climbed up to Filiberto’s ridge again and slept in La Aguada where he has his vegetable patch.
21
We got up at dawn and Alejandro came bringing news from Fidel setting up a meeting with me at Pelado Peak. We conferred there for a while and decided to eat the cow. I went off later to wait patiently for the Rural Guards to leave again and attack the caves. We descended slowly and I took advantage of the occasion to turn loose Enrique, Aristides Guerra (the poet who is a little shit), Antonio (one of those from Las Vegas who came for a bit of sport, a brave and popular person) and Maceo, who was very sick. We had barely said goodbye to them when Marciano came with the news that there were troops below. We quickly prepared ourselves for an ambush and we were there when the report came that the presumed Guards were some mules that we had seen climbing up to a little house that was often occupied by the Rural Guards. We went down but it was already night when we arrived at Corría’s house, where there was food and all the equipment that had been sent. I got a second-hand canteen, an excellent mountain knife and a very good sabre. We spent the night awake making plans.
22
In the morning we divvied up the supplies. The group came out well armed. As we were leaving the house we heard a shot. The guilty party was brought to us and it turned out to be Ramonín; the commander decided to shoot him. Lalo, Crescencio and I had to intercede to lessen the penalty as the poor guy didn’t deserve such a drastic penalty.
In the early morning hours we officers signed a collective letter of condolence. There were various promotions. I was given the rank of commander.12 El Guajiro Luis was given the rank of lieutenant, Ciro captain and Raúl Castro [Mercader] (who had been demoted for the insubordination of his whole platoon) and William were made lieutenants. Nine volunteers, all unarmed, were incorporated into my column,13 and were put under William’s command.
I have forgotten to note that Marciano did indeed escape without giving William any time to react, and William went after him. The case of Marciano and his suspicious attitude was reviewed and it was decided to be on the alert. We killed another cow—actually it was an enormous bull of which we were only able to consume a piece, salting the rest. The day passed with nothing else new, except the interception of various gifts for Fidel, which we put to good use. At night the members of the general staff ate sumptuously in Corría’s house.
23
We didn’t get up very early and our calculations led us to believe it would take us six hours to get [where we were going] so we weren’t in a hurry to leave. One of our peasant friends turned up with a tied-up prisoner he had captured below. The man had a credible story, but when he was asked where he’d got the .45 revolver found on him he said he had bought it from a friend in his neighborhood. But Lalo recognized the revolver as that given to Rafael Castro to use on a mission. The little guy was threatened with being shot if he didn’t tell us the truth and he agreed.
Shortly, Pepín Lupiáñez came; he had been given leave on my advice two or three months ago because he had an inguinal hernia that was quite advanced. Pepín came with four other compañeros but I decided not to let them join without equipment. Pepín protested in an angry tone but accepted my decision. The mystery of the revolver was partially solved when its owner came and indicated it was his. He confirmed that Rafael had lent it but he didn’t know to whom and that an unknown man had sold it for five pesos to the peasant, threatening to kill him if he told anyone who had given it to him. We accepted the man into a squadron and departed.
When we reached an elevated point we heard the disagreeable news that a member of the vanguard squadron called “el Chino” Wong had deserted. I immediately called two men and sent them after the deserter who, on top of everything, had taken a .22 rifle. They were ordered to shoot him on sight, take his rifle and return immediately. The two men were Ibrahim and Baldo. The first was a compañero of the deserter and said that he wasn’t eager to kill him but would show the way. We reached Filiberto’s spring and slept there.
24
We got up in no hurry and sent Walfrido to find out about the Rural Guards at Emilio’s house, accompanied by el Mexicano. We gave them until 2:30 but they weren’t back by then, so we set out down the trail with a certain apprehension because the kid I’d sent to look for Acuña said that he had seen recent tracks of a lot of people in the hills. When we arrived at the tobacco shed they reached us. Nothing had happened; the tracks were those of some peasants who had been looking for us.
At dusk we came to a house near Emilio’s place and I sent for him. He arrived with news of a suspected snitch who lives near Fernando Martínez in Las Cuevas. There were no soldiers there and Emilio assumed there weren’t any in Ocujal, either. We agreed that tomorrow he would go to Ocujal to confirm this. Israel and Banderas came with him, bringing a new volunteer, an unremarkable little man who doesn’t seem too bad. Israel told me that they had arrived there but hadn’t been able to find the two fugitives. Sinecio came by, but when he learned that Israel was there he left immediately. David sent us a letter in which he warned us about the possible incorporation of snitches into the troop armed with machine guns to destroy us. He was taken prisoner because of the accusation of a Haitian called Manuel but he was released right away. We slept on the banks of the Palma Mocha River.
25
We got up late again and spent the morning drawing up war plans, revising previous ones we hadn’t been able to carry out because there were no Rural Guards in Las Cuevas. The plan was to attack Estrada Palma and then to continue to attack Yara and Veguitas, going back to the starting point. A man who claimed he was trying to join us was taken prisoner. We questioned him and he didn’t seem to be a snitch but rather a crook. We decided to reject him, sending him back and giving him a couple of pesos. The previous day he had been at Emilio’s house asking about us. Emilio arrived at 3:30 bringing news there were no Rural Guards in Ocujal. We then decided to do some target practice which we did at the river, giving Emilio the responsibility of advising the authorities if the shots could be heard from afar. The weap
ons performed well, except for my Madsen machine gun, which didn’t fire because it was very dirty. We slept again in the same place.
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Early in the morning we cleaned the machine gun and the bullets that were also very dirty and then slowly began the climb up the hill. Pedro was sick in his stomach and dizzy, and I had to leave him behind with Joel. On arrival I sent a message to Crescencio to send me some armed people, and Lalo went personally to see if a message had come from Rafael Castro. I sent a message with Crescencio to the commander explaining our intentions regarding Estrada Palma. At night a message came from Crescencio in which he informed me that, in any case, he would try to get in touch with Fidel, although he didn’t know where he was, that he was sending me five new men, among whom was the man we had rejected a few days ago, and that he had 14 boxes of powdered milk, rice and some meat. Lalo returned to say that the kid had left the message and returned to await further communication. He arrived almost at dawn with the news that Rafael had given him a horse so that he could return quickly to report that he was going to investigate and he left in the morning. We also had a visit from José Isaac (the man from El Purgatorio where I had had asthma) but I didn’t pay much attention because I was tired. We also had news from Marciano’s place saying that of the two who had been sent to kill the deserter, only Baldo had been seen carrying two revolvers.
27
We spent the morning waiting for news when the radio reported the attack on Estrada Palma: Fidel had got there ahead of us. According to the radio reports, 200 men under the command of Raúl Castro14 had attacked Estrada Palma from four points and the barracks, under the command of Sergeant Vera, gave up without a fight. The guards were taken prisoner and brought before Fidel. We resolved then to wait and see what we could do, but generally we had the idea of crossing to the other side of Turquino. In a while a peasant came to advise us that around 200 army men were marching toward El Cristo.
Lalo and I decided that it was better to strike a quick blow on the other side of Turquino. In Lalo’s opinion, it would be possible to take a shortcut using a trail he knew. We collected some more supplies and set out. It was very tiring. We walked from 6:00 to 12:00 at night, when we cooked and went to bed at 2:00 in the morning.
28
We called Lalo early and followed the trail until we encountered Marciano’s son-in-law, who was bringing Baldo and someone else sent from another troop from which we had some news. Baldo’s story was simple and pathetic: the compañero, Ibrahim Acosta, who was a friend of the deserter, took him out along some other trails, then he told him frankly that he couldn’t take him further because he had disgraced himself in the barrio; he then proposed selling him the revolvers and leaving; later he told him not to return and he tried to go. At that point Baldo killed him firing three shots. The body remained in the Sierra Maestra unburied. On Baldo’s return trip he ran into the small group that had come to join up and he struck up contact with them. A member of the new troop gave the following account: they had left from a place near Guisa and were wandering around (losing men who changed their minds) until they reached the La Jeringa area. They encountered our man there and identified themselves. Three men from the new troop, who had deserted because they were tired, found Ibrahim’s body; two of them became scared and turned back immediately to rejoin the troop, while the third went on. In a letter I told Oscar, the head of the group, that he should remain hidden in the area of Palma Mocha until I contacted him and I gave him some advice about what should be done. I also advised Crescencio to attend to those people and the same for Emilio. Something curious happened with that kid, which is an indication of the discipline of the troop: when I gave the order to call him, they told me that he had gone. I immediately sent two men from the rearguard to look for him, but at that moment the man appeared and the message was passed along for the men not to go.
After three hours of marching, when we reached the top of a steep hill, Vilo appeared saying that two men had gone to find Marciano’s son-in-law. I immediately sent Pupo to look for them with orders to send Marciano’s son-in-law back and to return themselves. At that point I warned all of them about the dangers of desertion and that they should go and find the body of the deserter. We continued the march, slowed down by two of the men from Camagüey who had joined recently and who were not used to hiking. On reaching a hill in the Sierra Maestra at 6:30 in the evening, we decided to stop because the group was completely worn out. We camped right there, sleeping in considerably cold conditions.
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We got up early and in a few minutes reached the place where Ibrahim’s body was. The cadaver was face down, with a bullet hole in his left lung and with his hands together and fingers bent as though they had been tied. I’m not totally convinced about the legality of that death, although I used it as an example. In an hour we reached the house of the man from Santa Clara [Julián Pérez], which was empty. Lalo had slept there before. I immediately ordered two men from each squadron to cook and asked for volunteers to bury the dead man.
We hung out there until noon, at which time it was decided we should leave, sending Orestes first with another man to take a message to Las Minas. We had taken prisoner a man who turned out to be none other than the guy who had continued after the three deserters had found the body. He’s nicknamed “the barber,” he’s 41 years old and not very well. He was in the house of Candelario, a dark-skinned man we had bumped into the day before, and he showed him the way. As we were leaving they brought us three detainees, one of whom was the same kid we had sent off yesterday who was bringing two compañeros. He hadn’t brought the .22 rifle so I held him as a prisoner. The other two said they didn’t know el Chino. After marching for a while, on reaching the clearing of the first house, we subjected them to a detailed interrogation from which we learned that they did in fact know el Chino and that they had gone to take his gun from him, but he wasn’t at home; then they decided to hide that fact to avoid being rejected. The three were separated to be held under observation. The communications from the army described an encounter with one of our groups in which, according to them, we had lost a man. We slept alongside a little stream where we ate our by now maggoty food.
30
According to the owner of the little house nearby, we were two hours from California. We awaited news of an interview that we had requested with the representative from Las Minas, Armando Oliver. The reply came at dusk, arranging for a meeting from 7:00 a.m. to about 11:00. We set out, and at about 10:00 we reached the meeting place where I met Armando Oliver and a compañero he had brought [Jorge Abich]. He had a plan to attack on Sunday and simultaneously to capture [Major] Casillas, who went to visit a lover almost every Sunday. But we didn’t want to wait that long to try to direct attention away from Fidel. In principle, we had agreed on the day after tomorrow, but then Lalo was in a hurry and I agreed on tomorrow, although it seemed too rushed to me. We went back to Oscar’s house and slept there after a succulent meal.
31
We arose early after two hours’ sleep but we didn’t start out right away, waiting for some breakfast. We began the march in full daylight, accompanied by four new members, two kids from the hill, one from Holguín and one from Mayarí, the latter two are hot-tempered types. We reached the camp and I went to sleep, setting the departure time for 2:00 in the afternoon. We left at that time, soon reaching the slopes of the Sierra Maestra where we had left all the backpacks before setting out. We then continued at a fast pace, crossing a pasture to reach the California area. We had to go to the home of Santiesteban, who had a pick-up truck for us and others who would be going to Las Minas. We were late and, because we couldn’t arrive [on time], we sent someone called Peña to see if the trucks were there. He returned in an hour with the news that the truck was waiting for us. We were going to continue when the problem arose of a party in the house we had to pass in order to reach the road; we decided to bring together all the partygoers and read them “the book” so that they wou
ld keep quiet. We walked along the road until we encountered the first truck and, almost immediately, the other two. Lalo climbed into the first one, Ramiro and I in the second and Ciro in the third. After nearly three hours we reached Las Minas where we proceeded to take prisoner a couple of snitches and we also seized a couple of cars in which we continued to Bueycito. We stopped near the hamlet and sent a coal truck ahead to see if there were Rural Guards watching the village. The result was negative, so the car that was to blow up the bridge connecting Bueycito with the Central Highway took off. We started out leaving Noda’s squadron with the job of stopping all traffic. Vilo’s squadron had remained in Las Minas to defend the village. The plan was as follows: Ramiro would circle the barracks on both sides with his platoon. Lalo, with his men, would be ready to intervene on the west side and Ciro with mine in front. Armando would focus the car on the guard post and Ramiro would seize it, rushing through the gate to take all the unwary people so there would be no bloodshed. All the guardsmen who were sleeping in their quarters had to be taken prisoner at the same time.
1. Josué País was an active member of the July 26 Movement in Santiago de Cuba who, along with his brother Frank País, organized dangerous and heroic actions. He was assassinated on June 30 in that city, along with his compañeros in struggle, Floro Bistel and Pascual Rosales.