Freedom Fighters

Prologue

December 1956
Alegría de Pío, Cuba

Crows. Dario noticed that more of them had arrived. Perched on branches, they followed him like hyenas smelling blood. He tried his best to ignore the gazes of those dark red beady eyes, but could only feel the muscles in his legs getting weaker.

Gritting his teeth, he trudged on, left hand pressed hard on his abdominal wound. His right hand clutched on to the butt of his rifle, muzzle dragging on the dirt ground, making an ominous scraping sound.

As he lifted the impromptu walking stick to move forward, he felt a shot of pain rupture through his wound, as if it was being torn open. Gasping, he fell to his knees, the rifle tumbling to the ground with a thud. He bit his tongue in an effort to silence himself. Did they hear it?

Cold sweat dripped down his forehead, his palms pressing his wound for dear life. He scanned his surroundings slowly, hoping that he was not heard. The vegetation was thick, so that may have been his saving grace.

Stillness. Or at least it appeared so.

He allowed himself a sigh of relief before pain took over his senses, flowing through his nerves. Looking down at his wound, he saw that blood still seeped through the makeshift dressing made from cutting a strip of his green fatigues. He tried to push himself up but his arms gave way as he fell to the ground, panting heavily in short ragged breaths.

His cheek pressed against the cold hard dirt, feeling eerily... comfortable, as if the soil was welcoming him to his grave. Was he dying? Would this really be his resting place?

A sudden crackling sound to his right jolted him from his thoughts. It sounded like someone stepped on a fallen dead branch. He sat alert immediately, his right hand on his rifle by instinct, although he doubted that he could defend himself in his current state.

A rustling of leaves gave way to a wild boar which sprinted past Dario in a dark flash and he allowed himself to breathe again. He collapsed back onto the ground and cast his eyes onto the sky through the canopy.

The sight of the blue sky soothed his pain like a cool balm. He wondered if there truly was a God in the heavens above. He had never been a religious person. Going to church on Sundays had always been more of a familiar formality than a conscious choice. But now, in this moment of vulnerability, he found that he had nothing else to turn to but God.

Hopelessness and despair. Those feelings threatened to well up in his soul. The forced optimism he carried just hours ago was beginning to fade like the setting sun. He analysed his situation once more, hoping to find that one small glimmer of hope.

Just a day ago, they had walked right into an ambush laid by Batista's forces at the landing site. In the rising panic, Dario had been forced to split up from the main column with a few others. A group of the dictator's soldiers chased them through the thick forest like wolves for what felt like endless hours. The comrades who followed him had long since perished under the relentless bullets that hunted them. He counted himself lucky, suffering only one bullet in his abdomen before losing the trail of the enemy.

Looking down at his grievous wound now however, he feared that it was only a mere prolonging of the inevitable. A lonely death seemed to be awaiting him.

As he lay in the dirt, he let the ambush replay in his head. He recalled Camilo's smiling face then, the infectious revolutionary fervour he possessed until the darkness of the jungle around them lit up with muzzle flashes, as Batista's soldiers announced their presence. Amidst the chaos and panic when the firefight ensued, he caught a glimpse of his friend for a likely last time. The memory of Camilo's determined expression remained etched in his mind. He remembered a promise Camilo made more than a year ago, that he would not die until Batista fell from power and Cuba finally became free. Dario's lips curled up into a weak smile at the thought of that. It comforted him to know that his best friend was the least of his worries.