Morgan slipped into the olive-green shirt and fastened the buttons, closing each one except for the top. Reaching over the cot, he grabbed his belt with the large silver buckle and pulled it through each loop on his pants. He picked up his .38-caliber Smith and Wesson, spun the chamber, and snapped it into place before tucking it in a holster on his right side.
Olga watched as her husband reached down to tug on his boot laces, making sure they were tight. He dug into his pocket and yanked out a rosary, unfurling the beads and placing them around his neck.
“Be careful,” she said.
She had watched him many times as he readied to leave the camp, but this was different. He and his men would be leaving for days—forty miles from camp—in an offensive that would be either disastrous or the boldest move of the revolution. There was no room for mistakes.
Once again, she felt herself growing anxious. She promised herself this wouldn’t happen, that she wouldn’t fret about him leaving. But she couldn’t hold it back anymore.
Morgan placed his arms around her. “Please, don’t worry,” he told her. “I will be back.”
It was another suicide mission: thousands of soldiers waiting in Santa Clara, B-26s circling the skies, barricades set up along major roadways. Sooner or later, their good fortune was going to end. Morgan would be lucky to get to the first town in the next province without a firefight. From there, he still had to descend into five more towns along the north–south highway between Santa Clara and Cienfuegos. She had heard the plans. Each time, her heart beat faster, and she pretended not to listen.
Menoyo’s plan was to sneak across the river valley to Topes de Collantes, a sprawling white tuberculosis sanitarium that Batista had built a few years earlier before it became a military stronghold now housing 150 soldiers. Artola and Carreras would join the attack and then take up with 26th of July Movement forces to the north.
In the coordinated sweep, Che would move with his men thirty miles across the center of the province, Camilo Cienfuegos would position his men even farther north, and Jaime Vega and his men would ride in from the east—the units all trying desperately to stay in step. Castro would remain with his men in the Sierra Maestra.
Across the camp, Menoyo ordered his men to pack their gear. They were anxious to begin their march, packing all the ammunition they had. But before they could even gather in the center of camp, a messenger barged into the middle of a commanders’ meeting.
Menoyo walked over and grabbed the paper the man was carrying. The leader paused for a moment, puzzled. The note was from Che Guevara: Stay put until further notice. Do not mobilize. Menoyo turned to his commanders. Why would Che put the brakes on?
There was no reason to pull back. In fact, army leaders were feuding among themselves, and rumors were running rampant that one of the generals was secretly meeting with Castro in Oriente Province to remove Batista. It was time to strike. Menoyo ordered a messenger to stop at the next Directorio camp that had aligned itself with Che to find out what had happened. The Second Front still had friends in the unit.
Menoyo didn’t like taking orders from Che, but he had to abide by the pact that he had signed. They had gone over the map numerous times, studying the roads and trails where the men would travel as they moved toward their targets. The rebels were on edge, pacing the camp, waiting.
The messenger returned. The look on his face said the answer wasn’t good. What the rebels learned infuriated Menoyo: Che had tried to sabotage the Second Front’s plans. While the Second Front was waiting, Che had ordered Raúl Nieves, one of the commanders of the Directorio, to attack Manicaragua, a key city.
It was all a ploy. Manicaragua lay in the center of the area reserved for the Second Front.
“¡Hijo de puta!” yelled Menoyo. It was clear the 26th of July was trying to take credit for everything and wanted to leave the Second Front out completely.
“Take your column, go to Manicaragua,” Menoyo ordered Artola. “Get there before those bastards.”
Che had broken his word. For all of his pontificating about loyalty to the cause, he had crapped on his own pact.
“It’s time to fight,” Menoyo ordered his men. The Second Front might not live to see the New Year, but at least it would die with honor.
Morgan slung the Sten over his shoulder and stormed onto the trail. Nothing was going to stop him and his men from reaching the first town, Cumanayagua. From the edge of the camp, Olga watched as her husband’s green fatigues faded into the trees. In just hours, the column would march into the valley of death.
More than a hundred miles to the east, government troops had ambushed a 26th of July column, killing eighteen rebels and wounding eleven. But no one knew when the army was going to attack the southern positions. During these tense, unsure moments, Morgan stared straight ahead, clenching his weapon like a sacred object. For most of the march, he kept to himself, looking occasionally at the map to make sure he was keeping pace with Menoyo. Every now and then, a messenger on horseback pulled up to the unit, giving bits and pieces of information on the locations of the other comandantes.
In the distance, the tops of the buildings of Cumanayagua rose above the long road. The town lay just a dozen miles from Cienfuegos, the major port city and lifeline for the government.
Morgan instructed his men to break into teams—just as they had done in the mountains—and enter the city at different points.
Their first target would be the garrison for the army’s weapons and ammo. In addition to encountering government troops, it was Christmas Eve, so there might be civilians on the streets. The men needed to stay hidden as much as possible, using the storefronts for cover, and they needed to take one street at a time.
Leading his team, Morgan moved along the side of a road that ran directly into the city. Coming from above, the rumble in the air began to get louder. As the rebels looked up, two B-26s broke from the clouds.
Some of the men froze. Morgan didn’t flinch. He quickened his pace for the town and then ducked into a row of stucco storefronts. Moments later, the planes swooped over the town and let loose a barrage of bullets across the dusty road. Pedestrians ran for cover, jumping into stores and hiding under trees. Suddenly, the other rebels watched as Morgan appeared on a roof.
With his silhouette against the sky, he screamed while lifting his Sten in the air, firing upward at one of the planes. Even as the plane veered and flew away, Morgan kept aim, firing round after round.
As quickly as they had circled in, the planes disappeared.
The town’s pedestrians saw the crazy gunner on the rooftop and applauded. The rebels soon learned that most of the soldiers had left the town for Cienfuegos before they had arrived. The few who remained surrendered. William Morgan had taken Cumanayagua.
Menoyo and his men trudged along the trail, flushed and tired from moving under the glaring sun. As they broke through the brush at the base of the mountain, they spotted the looming structure. To the rebels, it looked like a battleship on the peak of a mountain. Few of the guerrillas had ever seen anything like Topes de Collantes.
The science fiction sanitarium was everything it was billed to be. Set in the middle of nowhere, the sprawling building was created as a grand experiment by the government to treat tuberculosis patients half a mile above sea level. Once holding one thousand beds, the ten-story tower now held government soldiers guarding the road to Trinidad. Built on a peak of the Escambray, the concrete edifice was nearly impenetrable. But if the rebels were to win the southern mountains, they had to take it.
Menoyo ordered his men to break into teams. One would take the southern side of the building, another would take the opposite. They were to wait for his orders. Menoyo then told his own team to set up firing positions. He didn’t want anyone wasting ammo, but he wanted the soldiers to feel the heat. Normally, he would have waited. But this case was different. They had to open fire first. The only way they were going to force the soldiers to fight would be to let them know they were outside.
Menoyo scanned the huge structure and then lifted his hand. “Fuego!” he called, dropping his arm. The rebels fired, aiming at windows and doors. The shots rang out, waking the soldiers inside. Moments later, the troops began shooting back. For several minutes, both sides fired volley after volley. But the rebels had the upper hand. The soldiers had nowhere to go. If they tried to escape, the rebels were waiting.
Then one of the rebels approached Menoyo with an idea. He had once worked in the sanitarium as a nurse and knew of a tiny door on the side of the building that was chained with a padlock. If they could get inside, they might be able to disrupt the army’s operation. Menoyo nodded. He called on others, including Ramiro Lorenzo and José Casanova, and filled them in on the details.
As darkness fell, the men scoped out the building. One by one, they jumped across the terrain but stayed several hundred yards away in the shadows. Menoyo studied the door and nodded to the others. “Let’s try it,” he said.
They crawled on their hands and knees to the side of the building. Then, taking out a pair of metal cutters, they severed the chain and quietly pushed the door open.
Still on their knees, they squeezed through the opening and found the narrow spiral staircase just inside that led to the main offices upstairs. Menoyo and the men slithered up the stairs and reached the main floor, where they crept down the hall. They passed each door until they came to the offices, where a light was shining through the crack under the door.
Menoyo jumped in and surprised an army officer before he could grab his gun. “You are under arrest,” said Menoyo as the man turned white. He introduced himself and asked who he had the pleasure of arresting.
The officer looked up at Menoyo, shaken. “I am Commander Perez Corcho,” he said.
Their gamble had paid off.
Corcho put up his hands while the men frisked him. Menoyo walked over to the PA system. “This is Comandante Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo, commander of the Second Front of the Escambray,” he said, his voice echoing through the building. “We have already taken over the town square, and we are in the building. Everyone needs to throw their weapons in the hallways. Come out with your hands in the air.”
The soldiers tossed their rifles and machine guns down and went to the main floor, where the armed rebels secured them.
Topes de Collantes was theirs.