The Battle of Tomochic by Frias Heriberto; Jamison Barbara; Saborit Antonio

Author:Frias, Heriberto; Jamison, Barbara; Saborit, Antonio
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press USA - OSO
Published: 2006-12-09T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 19

Worse Than Defeat

Miguel was astounded by the bizarre turn of events. In fact, he felt he had lost his reason altogether. As comrade after comrade was cut down, the soldiers, bullets whistling by their heads, began to fire indiscriminately thinking that the enemy could be anywhere, everywhere. Since they were helplessly lost in the labyrinthine mountains, there was no place to run.

Then the enemy resurfaced in front of them, raising their eerie, hair-raising war cries to the heavens: “Long live the almighty power of God. The power of God is with us!”

Crouching low in the bush, a recruit—just eighteen—suddenly shot out from his hiding place and matched the incantation with furious heroism: “Long live the 9th Battalion. Our Lady of Guadalupe protects us!”

Hidden in the pine groves, the Tomochic fighters advanced slowly, with superhuman litheness, bounding from rock to rock, tree to tree. Then suddenly they sprang like tigers into the very midst of the hail of bullets that toppled branches and splintered rocks.

When they caught a glimpse of them, the soldiers saw that their adversaries were tall and shaggy haired, wearing rolled-up pants and white shirts. Cartridge belts crisscrossed their chests, and strips of white linen adorned with red crosses dangled from their hats.

They flew from place to place. Sometimes only the steel barrels of their guns were visible as they poked out between the branches and enveloped the trees in billows of gunpowder.

The intrepid young soldier who had invoked the Virgin of the Republic fired at a man only eight paces away, but the Tomochic fighter landed right in front of him in a single bound and fired his rifle point-blank into the soldier’s chest.

The fierce youth fell backward. Meanwhile, a bullet struck his adversary’s knee, and he fell at the young soldier’s side. Pulling himself up to a seated position, the enemy relaxed his hold on his rifle. But when the Tomochic fighter realized the dying boy was pointing his rifle at him—although he was too weak to fire—the Tomochic fighter shot him again just as the boy managed to squeeze the trigger.

The two shots rang out as one, and a single plume of smoke rose to the heavens. The two heroes were cut down at the same instant and now lay side by side. Similar scenes were played out behind every boulder and tree, in every crack and fissure of the mountain.

If the federal troops had continued their advance, they would have held the advantage in hand-to-hand combat due to their numbers, but it was too late: chaos reigned. The three muddled sections of the first column had no front or flanks, and they were spread willy-nilly over a wide area. Only a few of the coolest heads even heard the orders when they were shouted out.

Even though the outnumbered enemy could have been obliterated in a single all-out attack, it was impossible for the soldiers to go forward amid the chaos. The men’s spirits and energy were dangerously low, but most demoralizing of all were the whistling bullets raining down on the rearguard sections.

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