Read One Day in December: Celia Sánchez and the Cuban Revolution for Free Online

fishing. Leaving behind her adolescence and Manzanillo allowed her to quietly mourn Sadurní. She was able to get away from the ghosts of her on-again, off-again Romeos. In Pilón, she could make a fresh start.

2. J ANUARY 6, 1956
Planning the Landing
     
    ON ONE OF THE LAST DAYS OF 1955 , following Fidel’s orders, four men drove south from Manzanillo to meet Celia and have her show them landing points along the coast. They followed the old coastal highway from Manzanillo to Campechuela, then continued south on a road branching inland and across the southwestern peninsula to Pilón. This last section was not a highway, it was more like a network of farm roads for trucks and equipment, chiefly connecting sugar mills but also used by the public. Over considerable stretches the road was too narrow for vehicles to pass, so drivers would stop at each plantation and phone the plantation ahead to see whether the road was clear, and wait if it wasn’t. The sixty miles would have taken three or four hours; had it been hurricane season the road would have been even slower, or simply impassable. The only other way to get from Manzanillo to Pilón was by a coastal ferry that ran just a couple times a week—too long a wait between arrival and departure on the south coast, and the police took note of the passengers. Celia’s new associates were in the government’s “armed and dangerous” category.
    Pedro Miret had been in Fidel’s original military movement. He had recruited soldiers for the 1953 attack on the Moncada and was caught by Batista’s army, tortured, and became one of the few to survive and face imprisonment on the Isle of Pines. Now hewas moving back and forth between Cuba and Mexico, selecting soldiers, getting ready for Fidel’s return.
    Frank País, from Santiago, was known as an agitator, an accurate if mild characterization. He had begun his career as a student leader and had organized a militant group. Recently, between Fidel’s release from prison and travel into exile, Frank had been appointed the 26th of July Movement’s “national director of action,” a euphemistic title for the job of planning military strikes, sabotage, urban guerrilla warfare, and reprisals. He was Celia’s new boss. They knew of each other but had not yet met. Manuel Echevarria and Andres Lujan were also Fidel’s men. They were with the 26th of July Movement in Manzanillo. Echevarria had been sent to Pilón earlier to meet and, in a sense, vet Celia. She had passed all the tests.
    They came to Celia for her knowledge of the region. She knew the coast; they didn’t. In the period leading up to this meeting, her organizational skills had been noticed and admired by one of Fidel’s most-trusted followers, Antonio “Nico” Lopez, who had traveled to Bayamo and Manzanillo during the first days of November, visiting all the 26th of July organizations. He had met with the clandestine leaders from all the towns in the region: San Ramón, Campechuela, and others, but by November 1955, he knew that Celia’s zone was so well organized that it wasn’t necessary to check in there. Frank knew another thing that Fidel’s four delegates coming to Pilón did not: Celia Sánchez was the one person seemingly acquainted with practically everyone in this end of Cuba.
    The party arrived in Pilón around one o’clock, on a sunny day. She showed them coves, inlets, and beaches. But first, right after giving the visitors lunch, she spoke privately with Frank under the canopy of the big mango tree over the patio. It was the first time they had met face to face, and this meeting only enhanced the esteem in which they held each other.
    The group left the house around three o’clock and boarded a motorboat Celia had arranged to borrow from the sugar mill. They traveled close to shore, first going east to El Macho, Celia’s primary recommendation for a landing point. It was secluded, a secret cove that she knew well from years of fishing; from