The Guerrilla

The disease-laden damp of the undergrowth slowed progress to a minimum as the six dishevelled men cut a path through the unyielding rain forest. Too weak almost to swing the bush hook, shoes that had long ago succumbed to the bitter cold, tortuous heat and encroaching wet of the jungle, Raul struggled forward, cutting a meagre path for his comrades.

Some still wore shoes of a sort - leather cracked and brittle, soles all but destroyed by the nightmare conditions. All wore heavy combat fatigues, but still the mosquitoes and leeches and burrowing mites tore at their flesh and left their scars and larvae. Such deprivations took their toll on the small band of guerrillas, already weakened by lack of food and clean water. The Bolivian jungle yielded little natural food.

They had caught a monkey some weeks ago and gorged themselves until they were sick. Since then, the discovery of the rotten corpse of a small jungle cat had been their only source of nourishment. But none were yet ready to concede defeat.

Ramon, their leader, once Ernesto, once many names, spurred them ever on, despite succumbing so many times to asthma attacks, worsened by his lack of medicines. He was a qualified doctor and eminent specialist in leprology, and this was simply a different route in his calling as an aide to those less fortunate than he. His new guise as Ramon the Spaniard was vital, for the disregard of the government troops would be turned instantly to fear and respect were they to discover his true identity.

Though weakened by starvation and sickness, his men had the advantage. They fought for their homes, their families, the future of their children. They fought on, regardless of their health and ultimate safety. Death meant nothing against the truth of their lives. It would come as a blessed escape from the brutal tyranny and oppression of the regime they now fought to overthrow.

Ramon knew this well. Time and again he had fought against men who battled only for pride and money. No bullet was worth so small a prize. The government forces would not take the risks his guerrillas were prepared to face; would not sacrifice individual life for overall victory. Why would they subsist on meagre rations and fight for the generals who banqueted in full view each evening? For a pay cheque.

The guerrillas knew nothing of such goads. Their leaders starved with them. And fought with them. And died with them. The standard practise of hit and run time and again defeated and deflated the government troops. Only in the Congo, when the ranks were split by inter-tribal rivalry and lack of support from the peasants, had Ramon known defeat. Yet even in defeat he had paved the way for the ultimately successful A.N.C.

But this was no raiding party. The quick attacks that so demoralised the enemy troops would not be deployed here. They were within metres of a tiny, isolated village, where Ramon had a prearranged meeting. He was to meet his wife and children for the first time in two years; and quite possibly for the last time. No one knew what the battles ahead would bring. Every meeting could be the last. Identities had been changed so often that many of his men had already lost their families. Only twelve years earlier, his first wife and daughter had lost him to the Cuban revolution. But there were no regrets. Every sacrifice was a worthy one.

But emotions were all so different now. It was never easy, but justifiable, to think of heroic sacrifices when the years and the jungle separated man and family. Now, as the tired men cut through the last thin branches and sighted the village for the first time, nothing was more loved or important than that family. That they now risked so much to unite Ramon and his family was testimony to that.

His wife alone knew of his identity. The children believed they would meet Ramon the Spaniard, a friend of their father. But still, government loyalists may have followed them from Argentina. And government loyalists might later find the trail cut through the jungle, leading straight back to the camp. These were foolish risks, but perhaps no more foolhardy than the so-called suicide missions undertaken by these very men on numerous occasions. They survived. They were survivors. They no longer weighed risks as others might.

As they approached the village, it was deserted. The peasants were loyal to the revolution and could betray no secrets if they saw no secrets. Ricardo, whose village this once was, led Ramon to the designated house, then retreated with the others, to a known safe house where supplies awaited them.

Ramon hesitated only momentarily before knocking gently at the door and stepping in. The room he entered was large and well furnished, a grand table its centrepiece, around which sat his wife and four children. She didn't rise, but greeted him cordially and invited him to sit with them. The children eyed him with interest, but no more than that. He took his place at the head of the table, but this apparently upset the eldest child, a girl of eight.

'My papa always sits there,' she told him accusingly, 'and when he is not here, it is left empty for him.'

He smiled at her, trying so hard to mask his pride.

'Sit down, Hildita, and mind your manners,' her mother, Hilda, scolded, 'Ramon is a great friend of Papa's and we must honour him as such.' She smiled at Ramon. 'Please, make a start on the food before giving us any messages, I have seen men return from the Congo in better condition.'

'The Congo was filthy and disease ridden. We all fell victim to malaria. But there were plenty of villages well placed and no shortage of food,' he told her, picking only lightly at the food before him, 'I don't think any of us bargained for the conditions of the jungle.'

'But it goes well?'

'Progress is slow. Many villages are afraid to join the revolution for fear of the repercussions. Government troops carry off villagers daily, on any pretext, and few are seen or heard of again. None of our original numbers have been supplemented. Just twenty-four of us, mainly Cuban.'

'Then why do you fight for them, if they don't?' Hildita asked.

'Because they can't,' he explained, 'they have no weapons, no training and no leadership. Above all, they are afraid.'

She nodded, sagely. 'Then you must fight for them.'

Ramon smiled.

'No more questions, please,' her mother warned, 'let our guest eat in peace.'

But food was far from Ramon's mind. He could stomach very little and was afraid of renewed vomiting with this sudden feast. All that concerned him was his children. Hildita, so grown-up and serious. Ernesto, suddenly a young boy of six, but remembered only as Roberto now was. Roberto, still a toddler in his memory, but now a chuckling four-year-old, playing with his food.

But it was the baby, now almost three and sitting comfortably at the table with the others, who distracted him the most. A child he didn't know. The son he had last seen suckling at his mother's breast, the shock of thick black hair no more than a thin fluffy covering. Little fingers he had kissed in farewell, now chubby and dextrous, picking out the beans he had no intention of eating.

'You are all so grown up,' he told them, 'your father is very proud of you, and justly so.'

'We tell Emelio about him all the time and show him photos,' Roberto said, 'because he said he didn't have a papa!'

'Papa!' confirmed Emilio happily, rebuilding the pile of beans beside his plate.

'But you must barely remember him, either?' Ramon asked Roberto.

'I remember sitting on his lap and listening to stories. I told Granpapa one of the stories, while we were staying there.'

'I have heard some of his stories,' Ramon told him, 'sometimes we tell stories in the camp. Perhaps after dinner you younger ones can sit up on my lap and I'll see if I can remember one.' He hoped that small contact would be enough, for the months spent longing for their hugs and kisses. He looked at Ernesto. 'And how is school going? You hadn't started when your father last saw you.'

'It's fine.'

'Only fine?'

'He gets bored!' Hildita explained.

'And you are the young scholar, your father says,' Ramon told her, 'is that still so?'

Her mother nodded. 'She's doing ever so well.'

'And what of your Granpapa? Is he well?'

'Do you know him?' Hildita asked.

'Yes, very well. I've stayed there with your father many times.'

'He has never mentioned you?'

'Perhaps it's best not to. He's a very wise man.'

'He's the cleverest man alive, besides Papa,' Hildita agreed. 'Papa passed Medical School in just three years. And he took a year out to work in the leper colonies.'

'I'm going to do that,' agreed Ernesto, 'I don't like school much.'

Ramon smiled. 'Your Granpapa isn't so clever to fill your head with such nonsense! He should remind you that your father carried piles of books with him wherever he went and studied all the time.'

'Tell Ramon what else your Granpapa reminds you,' Hilda prompted her daughter.

'He says Papa says that we must always remember that we're lucky, not privileged. And we have to remember the people who are not so lucky. There are always people who need what we don't.'

'That's very wise.'

'Granpapa says our Papa was born a rich man and would still be one if he hadn't listened to him!' Ernesto added.

'But he's rich in other things,' Ramon reminded him, 'and you have enough, don't you? Do you ever go short?'

They finished the remainder of their meal in silence, then the two youngest boys sat on Ramon's lap, with the two eldest at his feet, as he read them a story from the book he carried with him. Hildita gazed up at him intently, trying to read good or bad into his face. Eventually, as the two smaller boys fell asleep and were put to bed by their mother, she pushed a tiny gift into his hand, apparently satisfied. It was a small packet of sweets from her pocket.

'Papa would want me to give them to you, because you look hungry,' she said simply.

He didn't thank her; unable, for the moment, to talk.

Just when he thought she might entrust herself to his lap, she kissed him politely on the cheek and walked away. Ernesto followed her and they retreated to their bedroom to play, without another word.

That was the last he saw of his children. The memories he carried with him back into the jungle, and a government ambush, were bittersweet. He did not die immediately in the fighting that lasted two hours and claimed the lives of all but two of his men. The bullet wounds were to his legs and, in themselves, non-fatal. But his captors eventually ended his suffering three days later, adding to the bullet wounds below the waist so as not to mark his face and body, the photos of which they sent to the national press.

It was those that were the last his children saw of him.