B004L2LMEG EBOK (15 page)

cc: Gen. Roger Scavino, Commander in Chief of Region V (Amazon)

NOTE:
Communicate to Capt. Pantoja that the Department of Administration, Supply and Logistics of the Army only provisionally ratifies his decision to recognize the “Hymn of the Special Service” conceived by the female personnel of the SSGFRI, since it would have preferred said lyrics to be set to the music of some song rich in national folklore, instead of a foreign melody like “The Mexican Hat Dance.” This suggestion should be taken into consideration in the future
.

Decoded radio message from Second Lt. Alberto Santana, PA,

Chief of the Horcones Post (on the Napo River), received

at the Vargas Guerra Military Encampment at lquitos

and transmitted to addressee

(cc: Command of Region V, Amazon)

I request the following message be communicated to Capt. (Quartermaster) Pantaleón Pantoja, PA, Chief of the Special Service for Garrisons, Frontier and Related Installations:

1. In my name and in that of the subofficers, noncommissioned officers and soldiers of the Horcones Post, I wish to extend to you our most sincere congratulations on the birth of your daughter Gladys, as well as our wishes for the newborn offspring’s happiness and success. The reason for the tardiness of these congratulations is our having learned only yesterday of the blessed event with the arrival in Horcones of Convoy No. 11 of the SSGFRI.

2. At the same time, in my name and in that of all the soldiers under my command, I convey to you our most fraternal solidarity as well as our rejection and firm condemnation of the treacherous insinuations and vicious suggestions that for some time now have been made against the Special Service on
The Voice of Sinchi
program over Radio Amazon, which program, in proof of our indignation, will no longer be heard in the Horcones Post. The program
Music and Songs of Yesteryear
on National Radio is now broadcast to the troops over the loudspeaker.

Communiqué from the Chief of the Borja Garrison,

Col. Peter Casahuanqui, PA, to the Special Service for

Garrisons, Frontier and Related Installations

Borja, 1 October 1957

Col. Peter Casahuanqui, PA, Chief of the Borja Garrison, regrets having to communicate to the SSGFRI that during the quartering in this unit of Convoy No. 25, led by the individual nicknamed Freckle and comprised of Coca, Peludita, Flor and Maclovia, a quartering that had to be prolonged for eight days due to the inclemency of the weather, which prevented the hydroplane
Delilah
from taking off from the Marañón River, several incidents have been recorded that are detailed below:

1. With the purpose of preventing the specialists from having extra-regulatory contact with the troops after servicing (executed with normalcy on the day of the convoy’s arrival), they were all quartered in the subofficers’ room, duly outfitted for this purpose. Thanks to a lucky tip-off, the command was informed that the pilot of the
Delilah
, alias Crazy, was preparing an illegal transaction, since he had proposed to the subofficers of Borja an exchange of money for the services of the above-mentioned specialists. Taken by surprise in full maneuvers during the night, three subofficers of the unit received rigorous punishment, the individual nicknamed Crazy was kept locked in the jail until the convoy’s departure and the specialists were reprimanded.

2. Despite the strict vigilance imposed around the area where the convoy was concentrated, the joint flight of specialist Maclovia and the chief of the guard charged with the convoy’s protection, First Sgt. Teófilo Gualino, was recorded, on the third day of the convoy’s quartering in the Borja Garrison. The necessary arrangements were immediately made for the pursuit and capture of the fugitives, who, it was discovered, had fled, taking illegal possession of a glider belonging to the garrison. Subsequent to two (2) days of intense search, the fugitives were found in the town of Santa María de Nieva, where they had received protection and shelter in a clandestine refuge of the Brothers of the Ark after a crossing of the Marañón rapids that could be considered miraculous if the weather and the raging river are taken into account (through the divine intercession of the boy martyr of Moronacocha, according to the couple’s naïve belief). The refuge of the fanatics of the Ark was reported to the police, who proceeded to spread a dragnet, unfortunately without success since the “brothers” and “sisters” managed to hide on the mountain. The deserters from Borja, on the other hand, were detained, but the pursuit group under the command of Second Lt. Camilo Bohorquez Rojas easily subdued them. On the basis of documents confiscated from the prisoners, it was then confirmed that in the morning of that same day they had been married before the lieutenant governor of Santa María de Nieva in a civil ceremony and before the chaplain of the mission in a religious ceremony. First Sgt. Teófilo Gualino has been stripped of his rank, reduced to private, punished with one hundred twenty (120) days in jail on bread and water, and his reprehensible conduct entered into his service file with the censure: “Very serious offense.” As for the specialist Maclovia, she is returned to the logistics center so that the SSGFRI may impose whatever sanction it thinks proper.

Iquitos, 12 October 1957

My friend Pantoja:

Patience, like everything that is human, has its limits. I don’t want to insinuate that you are abusing mine, but any impartial observer would say that you are trampling on it. How else can you characterize the stony silence accorded all the friendly oral messages I’ve sent to you these last weeks through your employees Freckle, Chuchupe and Chino Porfirio? The matter is sadly simple: you have to understand and to learn once and for all to distinguish between those who are your friends and those who aren’t, otherwise, Mr. Pantoja—and pardon me for saying it—your flourishing business will come tumbling down. The entire city demands that I assail you and what all decent people in Iquitos consider an unprecedented scandal with no extenuating circumstances. You already know that I am a man of my times, prepared to see, to do and to know everything before I die, and capable, for the sake of progress, of accepting that in this beautiful land of Loreto, where I first saw the light of day, an industry such as yours is able to flourish. But even I, broad-minded as I am, cannot help but understand those who are shocked, who cross themselves and cry out to Heaven. At the beginning it was only four, Pantoja, my friend, but now twenty? thirty? fifty? And you bring and send these sinners by air and water throughout the Amazon. Be aware that people have gotten it into their heads that your business should be closed down. Families can’t sleep in peace, knowing that such an abscess of wantonness and vice is at such a short distance from their homes, in full view of their youngest daughters, and surely you have noticed that the great entertainment of all the children in Iquitos is going down to the Itaya to see the boat and the hydroplane with their multicolored cargo come and go. Just yesterday Father José María, the director of the College of St. Augustine, that little old man who’s as saintly as he is wise, commented on it to me, with tears in his eyes.

Accept the reality: the life and death of your millionaire business are in my hands. Until now I have resisted the pressures and I have limited myself, from time to time, to placating the citizenry’s anger somewhat, to launching discreet warnings; but if you persist in your lack of understanding and obstinacy, and if, before the end of the month, what is due me is not in my hands, there will be for your enterprise, as well as for its boss and the brains behind it, nothing less than a fight to the finish with neither piety nor compassion, and both of you will suffer the fatal consequences.

I would have liked to discuss these and many other things in a friendly way with you, Mr. Pantoja. But I distrust your character, its intemperance, those crude manners of yours; and in addition, with a smile on my lips let me tell you that two forced dunkings in the filthy waters of the Itaya are the most that this servant of yours can take as a joke and still pardon: I shall answer to the third like a man, despite the fact that I do not like violence.

Yesterday, quite late, I saw you, friend Pantoja, walking down González Vigil Avenue, very close to the old folks’ home. I was going to approach to greet you, but I noted that you were so well accompanied and experiencing such a tender moment that I didn’t do it, since I know how to be discreet and understanding. It pleased me very much to observe the pretty lady whom you held by the waist and who was giving you those affectionate nibbles on the ear. But it turns out that she is not your charming wife, I muttered under my breath. Instead, she’s that jewel of a woman imported from Manaos by this industrious enterpriser, the lady with such a glorious past. You have exquisite taste, Mr. Pantoja, and be aware that we, the men of this city, all envy you, because the Brazilian is the most tempting and desired morsel to have set foot in Iquitos. Lucky you, and the soldiers too. Did you walk to see the waterfall on beautiful Lake Morona, to swear eternal love on the cliff where the boy martyr was crucified, as has become the custom for the sweethearts of this place?

A cordial handshake from you-know-who.

XXX

S S G F R I

Dispatch Number Eighteen

The undersigned, Capt. (Quartermaster) Pantaleón Pantoja, PA, Chief of the Special Service for Garrisons, Frontier and Related Installations, respectfully presents himself to Gen. Felipe Collazos, Chief of Administration, Supply and Logistics of the Army, salutes him and reports:

1. With respect to the serious incidents registered at the Borja Garrison, to which the attached report by Col. Peter Casahuanqui, PA, refers, the SSGFRI has carried out a thorough investigation, which has allowed the following facts to be established:

(a) During the eight days in which Convoy No. 25 was quartered in Borja (22–30 September), the weather in that region left absolutely nothing to be desired: the sun shone, it did not rain even once, the waters of the Marañón River were very calm—according to the attached meteorological reports of the Peruvian Air Force and the Peruvian Navy.

(b) The statements from all members of Convoy No. 25 coincide in categorically asserting that their stay in Borja was due to the fact that the
Delilah
’s propeller was maliciously removed by unknown hands in order to prevent the plane’s departure and to detain the convoy in Borja, since on the eighth day the propeller reappeared mounted on the apparatus in the same mysterious manner.