The Battle of Tomochic_The Battle of Tomochic Memoirs of a Second Lieutenant

by Heriberto Frías

  At long last, the enemy was flushed from the territory and the battle came to an end. Indeed, the furious Terrazas had forced the savages back beyond the Rio Bravo. And one morning, a fine spring morning indeed, his horsemen entered Chihuahua.

  Five hundred men had set out on the expedition; 115 returned. Nearly four hundred had been laid to rest in the deserted woodlands of the Sierra or on the vast, desolate plains. And now the savages who had escaped the soldiers’ spears drank northern whiskey from their empty skulls.

  But the sun-beaten survivors, with unkempt beards beneath their wide-brimmed hats, brought back the scalps they had won with the fallen heroes’ garments, for which the government would compensate the widows and orphans.

  As the people of Chihuahua reflected on this, watching the proud procession, the morning breeze stirred the locks of Apache hair. Long and black, horrid, matted with blood—a traveling jungle of hair.

  At the same time a mournful symphony of wailing and crying arose. Because the women and children prisoners bore no blame for the savagery inflicted by the warriors, they would be taken in as servants in Chihuahua homes, bringing with them their nostalgia for the wild, nomadic mountain life.

  CHAPTER 17

  Tomochic! There It Is!

  On the general’s orders, the next day all local recruits and nonuniformed military men tied broad red ribbons around their hats to distinguish themselves in combat from the enemy. In addition, the officers were ordered to remove all stripes and insignia from their uniforms.

  In this way they attempted to avoid becoming the enemy’s principal target. It was common knowledge that the Tomochic fighters stalked the commanders and officers, who were easily distinguishable from the enlisted troops.

  On October 19, they would march for three hours from Rio Verde to Las Juntas, and from there it was only six miles to Tomochic, where the enemy was waiting.

  The brief march proved treacherous. With no water and little food, they had to make the precipitous ascent on foot, exhausting them on the eve of the offensive. Despite their hunger and thirst and the crushing trek from mountaintop to mountaintop, they had a keen sense of satisfaction at approaching the mission’s outcome, whatever it turned out to be.

  Meat and flour from the lean provisions were distributed among the troops and officers at Las Juntas, a camp situated on a high plain that overlooked the area in all directions. Then a mute calm descended over the troops, masking the nervous excitement over the next day’s offensive. Soon an anguished uncertainty reigned again. Voices were hushed and conversations few and far between as uneasy eyes peered at the rocky horizon, spotted with pine trees, out of pale, fatigued, hungry faces.

  General Rangel, who was now first in command (before reaching La Generala, Márquez had returned to Guerrero), personally ordered and supervised all advance forays.

  At eight o’clock that night the fires were extinguished and total silence reigned. Somewhere in the distance a bright lantern cast a ghostly, ruby-red luminescence and a continual faint murmur could be heard from the bivouac of general headquarters. “We know they’re still eating supper and they even have something to drink,” said Castorena. He sat crossed-legged with his rifle on his lap. Nearby several officers stretched out on the grassy field.

  “You already ate. What you really want is a drink, you sot,” retorted Lieutenant Torrea, who was trying to accommodate his head on a boulder.

  “What I wouldn’t give for a drink of water,” added Miguel, who knew that water was scarce. Grilled beef, the only food he had eaten for two days, made him painfully thirsty.

  “I’d give even more for a drink of sotol. I might even treat you to a poem,” quipped Castorena.

  “Oh boy … Let’s see if the poet can work up a verse now,” responded Torrea, stretched out at full length.

  “Tomorrow we’ll all be spouting rhymes when those Tomochic devils fry us.”

  An uncomfortable silence followed this exchange between the off-duty officers who had just finished their meager supper of grilled beef, a desultory meal without benefit of salt or water.

  Now they were waiting to make evening rounds, to check on each sentinel post as well as ascertain general conditions in the main bivouac and quarters, while the off-duty troops slept.

  “Well, what’s it to be? How are we going in? What’s the plan?” asked Miguel. “Will Colonel Torres come along or is he just here to share the glory?”

  Captain Servín explained, “I think the first column will go down the Cordon de Lino hill while we take the main road, and Colonel Torres will lead the Sonoran troops to attack from the other side. First, the Hotchkiss is going to blow the church sky high, and then the women will come swarming out in a frenzy. At most, this’ll take a couple of hours. A couple of hours, then we’ll see … we’ll see about this!”

  “At last! We might be eating chicken by midday. A fine chicken à la Tomochic, grilled in the embers of the burning church!” said Castorena, licking his chops.

  “Oh, who knows. Who can really say, boys? What if …?”

  “What if, captain? So what if they kill us … as long as we’ve eaten a proper meal!”

  At that moment, wrapped in his cape, the first captain of the 2nd Company of the 9th Battalion stepped forward out of the darkness to greet them in a calm but stern voice. Just talking with them, he managed to lift their spirits; he reminded them that as officers trained at the military academy, they had to show that they could fight as well as they could study. “See you tomorrow, my good men. Take care. I’m going for a walk. Good work on your rounds—you’re doing well!”

  Off he went with measured steps, his small head held high as always. Paying scrupulous attention to every detail around him, the captain was always ready to impose discipline and restore order, to make the best of any situation.

  Captain Eduardo Molina was liked for his good heart and readiness to come to the aid of his officers, whom he encouraged in any and all endeavors. True, he was exceedingly strict, and the men called him names behind his back. When he taught military theory to these same men at the military academy, he explained combat with firearms and bayonets so enthusiastically and that they called him “Little Napoleon.” Captain “Little Napoleon” of the 9th Battalion happened to be diminutive in stature and, like Napoleon the Great, was in love with war. He was a slave to duty, but always a faithful friend.

  “Tomorrow we’ll see whose hide you can cut more straps from,” said the poet. When nobody responded he got to his feet, restless and annoyed. Then he went off to try to convince some high-ranking officer to throw back a few drinks with him.

  On the following day, October 20, at four o’clock in the morning, the troops were silently awakened. In the mountains at that time of year and hour of morning it is still darkest night, pitch black and intensely cold.

  The troops passed back and forth like specters in the darkness. The first sergeants of the companies didn’t bother to take roll call but counted the number of rows. The guards from the advance posts returned to their respective sections. Starlight showed the pallid faces, trembling chins, and dry lips under hoods pulled low over foreheads. The soldiers wore close-fitting capes, over which cartridge belts and combat packs stuffed full of cartridges were strapped. For a full half hour they stood shivering silently, waiting for the march to begin. During this half hour, full of cruel, cold anguish and the darkest of thoughts, there was not even a glimmer of dawn over the crests of the pines bordering the camp.

  The general marched back and forth several times reviewing the columns, until at last the explorers of the advance guard—national and auxiliary troops—set off in the darkness.

  An officer from the general staff had already informed the commanders which sections would lead the march, at which time the officers mounted their horses and took their positions. With a crescendo of sounds, voices, hooves clacking on rocks, and the sharp knocking of rifle butts, the columns began moving through the thick darkness, beneath a pitch-black sky
constellated by magnificent stars sparkling like miracles through the tall branches and above the high mountain ridges.

  In the beginning, the descent was terrifying. As though impelled by an invisible force, the troops pushed onward, believing that when they reached the bottom of the steep grade, Tomochic would be there and combat would begin in the dark of night.

  The soldiers proceeded haltingly downward into a bottomless pit, stumbling on and on, to the accompaniment of the unique sound of metal hitting metal, as rifle barrels clanked against canteens. The officers’ horses snorted, their hooves striking sparks against the hard rocks.

  A deathly chill, a baleful, shadowy horror froze the blood, gripped the heart, tormented the empty gut, swamped the weakened brain with bloody nightmares.

  The flock marched forward through the darkness and the cold, flung this way and that down rugged unknown precipices, slipping and tumbling through twisted black crevices, moving now at a trot, now a gallop, across the invisible stones. Sleep deprived, famished, and thirsty, they feared sudden annihilation by a burst of enemy fire.

  Surely the Tomochic fighters were more than familar with the intricacies of these mountains. Couldn’t they easily mount a dawn attack?

  For the greater glory of their high chief or the girl saint of Cabora, couldn’t those fierce mountain hunters, with perfect impunity, visit slaughter and panic on them at the bottom of some black ravine? The disheartening tales of the Tomochic fighters’ unbelievable feats, recounted up and down the state of Chihuahua, revived bloody nightmares in weakened minds.

  At last they reached a flat stretch and veered left. By the time the battalion had crossed a dry arroyo and started up the next hill, dawn had softened the sky and the stars had paled. As they reached the next summit, the splendid dawn abruptly rose orange and red beyond the black blade of the mountains they were leaving behind. Finally the officers dismounted and gave their horses to the soldiers of the public security forces.

  When would they arrive? Where was Tomochic, anyway? After descending the second slope were they going to climb yet another mountain?

  Suddenly the column stopped. Then they engaged in a move that amounted to a countermarch and the forces turned toward the right flank. As the rocks rose steeper and craggier here, they moved farther to the right and ascended the same slope they had just come down.

  “Shit,” yelled out Castorena. “Are we playing around or what?”

  “We’re going to outflank them.”

  “No, captain, they must have taken the wrong path.”

  The march continued as the sun began to warm the air. Some of the soldiers limped from exhaustion, for the terrain had become highly eroded and they were again marching on rock. There was no tree to be seen in this desolate landscape.

  “Keep going! Keep going!” called out the officers time and again, even though they too were out of breath.

  Marching along in the first column near a section from the 11th Battalion, Mercado was overcome by a hellish fatigue. Suddenly he saw the national troops running every which way and the advance guard retreating to the center. Silence and waiting.

  At that moment, from far, far away beyond the mountains, the bugles sounded an alert, the password for Colonel Torres’s column, which had come down the road from Pinos Altos. His forces and General Rangel’s had come face-to-face with Tomochic.

  Rapidly Miguel’s column headed for the clearing on the mountain-top. Then came a strange explosive sound. “Colonel Torres is already in combat. Men, let’s do our share!” yelled out an officer from the 11th Battalion.

  The exchange of fire grew louder and louder. Some soldiers approached the edge of the rocky outcroppings, which now displayed a few pines and small bushes. Leaning over the crest of the craggy mountainside, they saw all the way to the bottom of the cliffs. In the remote distance lay an immense valley cradling the serpentine trail of a river. To one side of the valley, a misshapen, humpbacked mountain rose like a gigantic dromedary; on the other, gray and white houses centered around an old church: the town of Tomochic.

  “Tomochic! There it is! That’s Tomochic!” voices yelled.

  Tomochic! Tomochic! That rough, heroic word echoed from the rocky mountain face down to the tight rows of troops, leaving in its wake an icy shudder.

  CHAPTER 18

  The Defeat of the First Column

  The artillery troops unloaded the cannons from the backs of the mules, while Lieutenant Méndez descended the steep slope for a view of the entire valley. To estimate the valley’s depth, he shot off a round from his rifle, causing a commotion. Once the cannon was mounted on the four-footed stand, the artillery officer took precise aim and fired. First came the sound of detonation; then the projectile described a great arc as it whistled into space. Within moments, the shell exploded with a terrific noise.

  A wild roar ran through the columns as the first cannonball hit Tomochic. “Viva Mexico! Long live General Díaz,” some yelled, certain that the cannon meant triumph and the town’s defeat.

  “Viva, viva! Long live General Díaz!”

  “Back in line … positions!” shouted the officers when they saw the soldiers dispersing to watch the cannon fire.

  Manned by the lieutenant, the cannon continued to fire while the columns awaited orders. At the same time the exchange of fire grew more intense from the mountains beyond Tomochic, where Colonel Torres was fighting, his bugles resounding through the distant tumult of gunfire and echoing interminably off the mountainsides every few minutes.

  A luminous setting sun filtered down through the tall pine branches onto the loosely assembled crowd of nervous troops awaiting their attack orders, their anxiety bordering on fever. As the operation had been planned for level ground, the rough, uneven terrain prevented the columns from lining up correctly. In this formation, it was virtually impossible to maneuver while maintaining correct distances and intervals between columns.

  And this is when Miguel Mercado, bringing up the rear of the first column of the second section in 2nd Company—overheated after the abrupt halt at the mountaintop—intuited how dangerous the situation was. Engaging the troops in the thick of the mountains, an enemy guerrilla force would have a clear advantage. What was more, the captains were as good as blind. They didn’t know exactly where they were or what to do.

  Meanwhile, the officers of high command, dressed like natives in wide-brimmed hats, red ribbons trailing, impatiently tried to bring the troops back to order. They were carrying orders from the commander in chief, who brought up the rear and was surrounded by nationals and soldiers from the 5th Regiment. Nearby the cannon fired off every three minutes or so.

  “First column, advance!” yelled an adjutant to Lieutenant Colonel Gallardo at the head of the column. The column members loaded up and set forth, sending their first section ahead in broad attack formation.

  Mercado shivered. He felt cold as ice. “Is my face pale?” the second lieutenant asked himself as he leaped down the rocky mountain path behind his section.

  “Will the soldiers see me? Will I be afraid? I hope they kill me swiftly, with no time to feel anything … get it over with! What’s going to happen? I just want to die … My stomach is in knots … is it fear? How cold it is! If they could only see me from the inside! What does life matter? You’ve got to pretend to be brave. Onward!”

  With these dark visions swimming in his head, Miguel straightened up and refocused his eyes, although he saw nothing. Perhaps he was even blinder than his comrades.

  They continued their slow descent in deadly silence. In the distance the detonations thundered, creating a continuous rumbling as if some enormous vehicle loaded with irons and chains was careening down the Sierra’s sheer slopes, rolling, rolling over the rocky ground.

  Meanwhile, the second section waited at the summit. Adhering strictly to plan, they sought to keep themselves at the regulation distance from the others.

  Lieutenant Colonel Florencio Villedas deployed the second column to the left
of the first. The third column remained on reserve as escort for the cannon, which at last had begun to fire regularly.

  At the front of this force were the red-ribboned volunteers and the irregulars, who advanced cautiously, rifles cocked, to explore the craggy, overgrown terrain. The farther down they got, the harder the going was. And this was the most accessible path!

  The cordon, or path, descending into Tomochic was empty, since here the troops were an easy target for the enemy. This was the famous Cordon de Lino hill where the defeat of September 2 had occurred.

  Widely dispersed, the speechless soldiers, their ears trained and their pupils dilated, cast inquisitive glances through the trees and rocks, and advanced timorously. Meanwhile, the officers who were interspersed among the troops marched forward with resolve though they were as pale as ghosts. There was no shouting now, no speaking.

  From the far side of the valley, the shooting could no longer be heard though the cannon fired regularly. All of a sudden came several nerve-rattling shots, crystal clear and fired with admirable precision. The volunteers came running back to the command posts of the first section, which had come to an abrupt halt. “They’re coming, they’re coming,” the irregulars yelled out as they arrived.

  At the head of the first section the shots multiplied while a whispered order passed from man to man. Dispersed over a wide area behind the pine trees and the bushes, the soldiers brought their rifle butts to their shoulders. “Take good aim and remain calm! Don’t waste any shots on the trees!” yelled Captain Alcérreca.

  A great uproar could be heard. Then both jumbled and seething, it rose to a menacing crescendo.

  But so far no one had seen anything. Though the section was on alert, not a shot had been fired. They were on the defensive in foreign territory known only too well to the enemy, who would strike like lightning. Just then, it became possible to distinguish the distant hubbub. “Long live Almighty God! Long live the Holy Virgin!”