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.
Frenchy and Earl sat in their station wagon on the street near Guardhouse 3, waiting as a major spoke on the radio headset to a headquarters somewhere, checking their credentials before allowing them to pass.
The Cuban soldiers were full of themselves, their juices all aflow, their eyes bulging with drama, self- importance, pride of victory and machismo. Every one of them swaggered, carried or wore his weapon at a rakish angle, smoked cigars or cigarettes or drank from an extra rum ration released by Major Morales, the hero of the day, who had rallied the men inside, killed the first invaders, then poured fusillade after fusillade down on the rebels crouching behind their automobiles. The major was almost certainly drunk himself by this time-on victory and praise, but also on rum, a shield again his pain: his younger brother, a lieutenant, was officer of the day and had been shot down by Guitart in the first seconds of the fight.
Earl could read the battle from what he saw, as he and Frenchy waited. He saw how it really hadn't been a battle at all, which meant there'd been no real victory either. The attackers never got inside and the defenders just blasted them from the relative safety of the barracks windows or the wall along the parade ground. Worse still, the attackers had no support, no artillery or mortars, not even grenades or much in the way of automatic weapons. It was more a gesture than anything, and it had produced nothing but failure.
'Whoever dreamed this one up ought to be busted back to recruit,' he said bitterly to Frenchy, for it offended him to see something done so stupidly, and to see so much blood spread across the pavement because of it.
'It wasn't exactly von Clausewitz, was it?' said Frenchy.
'Well, I don't know who von Klauzerwittz is, or was, but it wasn't even Dugout Doug, that's how bad it was.'
'Roger wilco,' said Frenchy, then turned to a major who had just hung up the radio headset, 'Are we clear now? Have you called your headquarters?'
The major turned, instantly transformed by whatever message he had gotten at the other end, and began to backpedal pathetically.
'I am so sorry, Senor Short, I did not know, I have only this minute learned, and I have been ordered to assist in any way possible.'
'No problem, mac,' said Frenchy. 'Just let us inside so we can see what's what and get a message off to my
