We bivouacked under some trees. A Venezuelan, a Dominican, a Mexican, six Nicaraguans, and me. We were truly exhausted. Our feet were falling apart inside the hard, hobnailed boots. We threw ourselves on the ground, wrapped in our blankets. The madrás cloth, worn around the neck during the day or over the hat, now served as protection against the mosquitoes. The hat became a pillow. They were enormous Texan hats, very useful in the rain, but under the blazing golden sun of the beautiful land of Nicaragua, they threatened to leave the entire officer corps of the Army for the Defense of National Sovereignty bald.
The huge mosquitoes pierced through the cloth of our scarves, digging their bites into our flesh, making it difficult to fall asleep. By starlight, I checked my watch. It was eleven twenty-one. Suddenly, Julián sat up. He was a pure-blooded Chorotega Indian—quiet, cunning, alert, and terribly bloodthirsty in combat.
“Captain,” he said, approaching Gregorio. “Footsteps.”
We pressed our ears to the ground. At night, when your ears have grown used to constant vigilance, it is possible to hear human steps at an incredible distance. The savanna at the northern tip of La Segovia has a bridle path running through it. We were bivouacked near the path. Someone truly was coming. As the footsteps drew closer, we noticed something strange—they belonged to a single person. A lost traveler it could not be. This was a war zone, where being found without credentials meant certain execution—or death from afar, by a bullet fired mysteriously from the thicket gently swayed by the breeze. Spy or comrade? Our numbers were complete. No one would have been sent alone in the present circumstances—and worse, the steps were coming from the direction where, at that very hour, the so-called National Guard or the Yankee Marines would have been bivouacked.
We spread out quickly to converge on the man. It didn’t take forty minutes before we confronted him, almost point-blank. The man raised his arms. We leapt on him. He carried a brand-new Colt .45 revolver at his waist, and a belt full of bullets. We disarmed him. Searched him. He didn’t have a single paper, not one note. We interrogated him. No matter what we said, his answer was always the same:
“I want to see General Sandino.”
There was such calm, such composure in this young man—almost a boy—that we were struck with respect. Only two in the group insisted he be executed. The Captain restrained them. We brought him back to the camp. Tied his hands and feet. Left Julián to watch over him and tried to get some sleep. At five in the morning, we were on the move. The sun was just about to rise when we reached Sandino’s General Headquarters. This was a few weeks before El Chipote.
In a shack, seated in a hammock, Augusto César Sandino was writing in a notebook. Sandino was of below-average height, pale brown-skinned, with still eyes in which sudden flashes wandered. He was calm and sparing with words and gestures. But when he spoke of the Cause and reached an emphatic point in conversation, he would stand up, placing the full force of his body into the word.
Warned by an aide, he stepped outside into the yard. Gregorio explained the case. The Liberator stared intensely at the young man. He ordered his hands to be untied.
“Tell me, young man, how can I help you?”
His voice, usually austere, was now kind and tender.
“My name,” the young man said, “is Rubén. I’m Colombian. For several months I’ve been reading about your struggle. I worked until I had enough money to get to Mexico. I wanted to be sent here from there. It seemed easy. But it wasn’t. They asked me for credentials I didn’t have. So I decided to come alone to you. I offer you my services. They’re worth little, because I have no military experience. Also, I now know what I didn’t when I crossed the Nicaraguan border: I could be taken for a spy and shot. If I’m executed, I blame no one but myself. Not even myself, really, because I’m conscious that if I die shot for my recklessness, I’ll be giving my life in an effort to help liberate Nicaragua. General: put me to the test. If I’m no good, you always have the chance to have me killed.”
Sandino’s eyes remained still, unmoving. His voice hardened.
“Colonel Aponte: go out immediately and scout that Yankee patrol we were informed about. Take this young man with you.”
Aponte, a Venezuelan, was a veteran who always fought with the zeal of a recruit eager for glory. Going out with him meant fighting—from rifle to machete. He never praised anyone else’s courage. They left at once. They returned two days later. Aponte entered the Liberator’s shack. They appeared together in the doorway. Outside, at early dusk, the soldiers were singing camp songs to the sound of guitars. The scouting patrol, exhausted, lay face-down on the ground.
Aponte raised his voice. “Line up!”
We got into formation.
Moments later, Rubén Ardila Gómez was a lieutenant in the Army for the Defense of the National Sovereignty of Nicaragua.