"The cars!" he screamed. "You must get back into the cars!"
It began slowly. A shot spanged off the hood of a car, and then another, and then another. The noise was almost more terrifying than the prospect of death, for when the bullets fired, their noise filled the air and beat against the eardrums, and in the next second, they smacked into automobile metal with a vibratory clang.
Castro saw that now was the only moment he would have.
"Attack!" he cried. "Open fire! Kill the bastards."
With that he ran to the front of his own wrecked vehicle, seized a machine pistol from the ground where one of the two now moaning soldiers had tossed it in the moment of his ugly smashing, turned and pointed it at the windows and doors looming ahead to the left, and unleashed a roar as he emptied the magazine in one shuddering, lurching burst.
A few men raced past him, rushed through the checkpoint, and began to move in on the barracks. But a blast of fire from the windows drove them back or pinned them down.
All along the line, the rebels retreated to their vehicles and fired, their.22 and shotgun blasts filling the air. The whole side of the corner of Moncada seemed to dance as the rebel rounds tore against it, blowing out windows, pulverizing the facade. And then, as if a storm had spent itself, the men stopped shooting, all reaching the end of their magazines in the same second.
The soldiers by this time were fully awakened. An officer inside must have realized what was happening and rallied them. By whatever presence, at each window and doorway it seemed three men appeared, each with a rifle, and each shooting as fast as he could.
Now it was a torrent of fire from the building, and it was the cars that shuddered when hit by the fusillade. Windows smeared, then shattered, tires flattened, shocks gave up. The cars, like dying animals, settled brokenly toward the pavement, screams arose from the hit, a man or two fell limp and dead.
Castro struggled with the machine gun, got another magazine from the soldier's belt into it, and again sprayed the building. He watched his bullets dance along, and for a moment was buoyed by the power he unleashed, having in his mind a recent event where the power of the guns was directed only at him.
But then the soldiers above opened fire, and he dropped in a blizzard of detonations, as rifle rounds from a hundred weapons sought him out.
"What do we do?" someone asked.
"We must be strong! We must be brave. We must hold. Guitart is inside. He will attack them from the rear."
But at that moment a squad of soldiers broke from the barracks, headed across the street and began to work their way along the wall, where they had another angle from which to fire at the gaggle of revolutionaries. Shots began to bang this way and that off the cars. From somewhere farther out in the parade ground, a machine gun post jumped to life. A fusillade of bullets chopped into the ground and the cars, bringing up clouds of dust where it struck.
They fired tracers, and the flickering of the illuminated rounds filled the street with light. Then, a car exploded, its tank punctured by one of the burning bullets. A plume of feathery flame rose, tumbling, revealing the carnage.
The parade of wrecked vehicles lay in the street, all tattered from gunfire. Among them, the rebels cowered, rising now and again for a shot with the little.22 rifles, which sounded like twigs breaking against the shovel-poundings of the heavier battle weapons inside.
Feeling insanely untouchable, Castro walked along the line, screaming imprecations at his men.
"Fire on them! Mow them down! Give them a taste of lead! Show them no mercy!"
But his screams seemed to have no effect on the crouching men.
Finally, one looked over at him from the shelter of the car he cowered behind.
"It's finished. We are running out of ammunition. There are too many of them."
"No," he said, "you must stay and fight till the end. Cuba demands it."
"Cuba doesn't demand my death," said the man.
"Guitart and his men are inside. They will bring fire on them from behind and we will move into the courtyard. Have faith, my broth―"
"Guitart is dead. I saw him shot down."
"No, my brother, he―"
"We are doomed!" screamed the man. "Order a retreat! We have failed."
Castro looked up and down the line; some men returned fire, but for each shot a rebel fired, a storm of rifle and machine gun bullets answered. Two cars burned. Guitart and his people were dead. Across the street, he could see soldiers creeping among the line of officers' houses, moving closer under fire-and-advance maneuvers. It meant that he would soon be under direct fire from three sides. And behind the soldiers would be the torturers.
"Fall back!" he screamed. "Retreat and regroup for another night, my brothers. I will cover you."
He watched them melt into the night, those that could. They scampered off, drawing fire. Some fell and died. Some fell and crawled. Some made it and disappeared into the houses down the road.
At last he was quite alone except for the wounded and the dead, in the flickering of the firelight. Most of the shooting from the barracks had stopped and he saw why. Soldiers on either end of the column of wrecked cars slithered along, dipping in and dipping out. A grenade went into a car and detonated with a flash. A soldier bayoneted a man on the ground, dead or not.
He fired at them with the submachine gun, driving them back, but then he was out of ammunition.
He tossed the gun away and picked up the other one.
"You will not take me alive, you bastards!" he screamed. "You are the milk of pigs, and you defile Cuba."
He stood up, fired quickly, still driving them back, but then that gun too, was out of ammunition.
"Are you quite done?" someone said.
He turned.
"You!"
A man stood in the ragged linens of a peasant, under a straw hat pulled low. But it was the Russian.
"Yes, me, you idiot."
"How did you get here?"
"What a ridiculous question. Not as ridiculous as this travesty, but still ridiculous. The question is: how am I going to get you out of here."
"They are―"
"Not yet. Not quite yet."
He smiled. He pulled two amazements from the pockets of his baggy trousers. Grenades.
"Best drop under cover, you brainless young idiot. Do I have to tell you everything?"
Castro knelt between two cars, and the Russian quickly pulled the pin from each grenade and tossed them into the Avenue Moncada. The two blasts occurred simultaneously.
And with that they were off, dashing between two houses, cutting down an alley, then down another one. Soldiers followed, but they dipped down another alley. Ahead, Castro could see an old farmer's truck pulled by the side of the road, its engine idling.
"What is―"
"Never mind. Your luck hasn't quite run out, but it will if you delay."
They ran to it, climbed in, and pulled themselves under a tarpaulin, where Castro discovered to his horror the truck's cargo was manure.
"Oh, Christ!" he said.
"If you are too pretty for shit, my friend," said the Russian, "then you are too pretty for revolution."
He smiled, banged on the back of the cab, and with a lurch the ancient vehicle took off.
The Russian looked over.
"I think we've made it, for now. The glorious socialist future awaits your next brilliant decision."
Chapter 40
First the long passage of shot-up, burned-out automobiles. Already children scampered upon them in the wash of morning light, while crowds fought to get closer to look at the ruination, but were held back by soldiers. The signs of battle were everywhere, in the pools of blood that lay coagulating on the Avenue Moncada, in the smell of burned powder and gasoline and raw, ripped metal, in the debris upon the street. A few small fires still burned, so the smoke was in the air too, and the odor of the blood. Ahead, where the corner of the barracks loomed yellow and white in the sunlight, the ratholes of gunfire riddled the pretend medievalism of the structure. Most of the windows were shot out.