Clarke recalled one of the first explanations Cafulcurá had given him. The continuum, he had told him, was the key to everything for the Indians. Clarke could accept that, but where was this continuum? It was everywhere, including in Cafulcurá’s affirmation: that was precisely what it was all about. It was a perfect passe-partout, an impalpable thread running through everything. Of course it was easy to say and even to understand, what was much more difficult was to find a practical example. Over the past few weeks, Clarke had often felt he was on the point of finding one, but he always shied away at the decisive moment, preferring to relegate the idea once more to the realm of abstract intuitions, which seemed not only correct but the only alternative when in fact it was the worst possible betrayal of the continuum. It was to completely negate it. The thought that had struck him while he was listening to the messenger was that war was the perfect opportunity to attain the continuum. Clarke felt he was ready to do so, and courageous enough. It was nothing more than a thought, like one of the hundred that flit through anyone’s mind every day: he only had to cling onto it, and the continuum would start up. He could begin anywhere: at some random point in all the rubbish that the Indian opposite him was spouting, for example. But he did not even need to make that effort; he could begin at any point in the tendrils of all that had happened. For example, the Hare, in any of the intriguing or fantastic forms it had appeared in. The Hare was a good emblem for a strategic battle plan, because of its unexpected leaps, its elusive speed, its flexibility, the way it stared in fascination at the rising or setting sun (its indifference to whether it was sunrise or sunset mirrored the indifference as to victory or defeat that characterizes a true fascination with war). Then from the hare, he could and should move on to another element. The line. The horizon. The wanderer. The inversions of perspective. Everything else. And so on. But he had no intention of making a catalog of the universe. He had to force himself to make a break in the chain. It is always the same, there is nothing so true as the saying “it’s the thought that counts.” The break, which immediately became incorporated into the continuum, took the form (a form which also became part of the continuum) of a strategic plan which Clarke began to put into practice the very next day: the strategy of the Hare. As soon as he did so, the Huilliches’ victory was assured. It was as simple as that. His only regret was not having anyone to tell all this to, but on second thought he had no need to regret it, because in this way the form passed wholesale into the content.
The next morning, using as his excuse the courtier’s vague information, Clarke ordered a general mobilization in a straight line toward the shifting Voroga encampments. Enthusiasm ran like an electric current through the Indians, who were convinced, with that erratic fanaticism of theirs, that they were being led by a visionary. Everyone sped off. In mid-afternoon, whom should they meet if not Equimoxis. They were in such a hurry they would have butchered him on the spot had Clarke not got wind of it, and been inspired with yet another idea. What a splendid trap it would be, he thought, what an elegant way to go beyond the strategy of the Hare itself, if they used an underground passage from one horizon to another. When all was said and done, that was what this was about. The only thing the Hare provided was the idea. In reality, it was impossible. But in the narrative, the possibility arose, almost as a joke. Clarke recalled being told underground that the caverns had distant outlets on the surface: that was enough for him. After a brief conversation with Equimoxis, he decided to go underground with him and summon Pillán’s help. No sooner said than done, and that night the twenty thousand Indians, plus all their horses and cattle, descended into the bowels of the earth.
On the other side, they emerged free from everything they could have wished to have left behind, except for the rain, which went on falling with relentless monotony. They joined up with the contingents from Salinas Grandes, and prepared to fall on the rear of the Voroga army, which had not the slightest suspicion of where they were. Since their usual routines had been upset, they slept, marched, drank and made plans in one huge confused jumble. The final battle lasted two whole days and nights, but could also have been said not to have taken place at all. It was more like a big deterrent maneuver. Clarke and his “team” camped by the side of a stream where messengers began to come and go with the most contradictory reports. There was fighting, or there was not. The foul weather got even worse. The second night reverberated with thunder and lightning. At nightfall, worried by a number of reports that led him to fear his plans might be going awry, Clarke set off with the ever-present Maciel and four aides to the spot where the nearest camp was meant to be. There were only a few Indians there, changing horses before they sped off into the darkness again, but they assured him that Mallén was only a short distance away with the main army, so they headed in the direction indicated. Instead of the old shaman they ran into a group of drunken Indians sitting on a termite hill, with no fire or shelter. Clarke dispatched two in one direction and two in another with the task of getting some reliable information and bringing it to him at his original starting-point, where he headed back to with Maciel. The rain and the electric storm increased in fury. Because he was so preoccupied, had not slept for several nights, and had so many things to worry about, Clarke had not stopped to consider that Maciel was even more drunk than usual. So drunk in fact that something happened which they say never occurs to an Indian: he fell off his horse. The darkness they were galloping through was so impenetrable that Clarke would not even have noticed had it not been for the fact that with the continual rain the grease the Indians used to keep dry took on a slight phosphorescence. So what he saw was a kind of fetal ghost shooting over his head in a sleeping position. He was traveling so quickly that it took him about a hundred yards to rein in Repetido, and by the time he turned back to look for the Indian, Maciel’s riderless horse, which had slowed and turned in the same way as Clarke had, led him off in the wrong direction, so that he could find no trace of Maciel. Clarke did not stay looking for long; he thought the Indian was bound to be all right wherever he was, because nothing happens to drunks in accidents; the worst he could suffer would be a bad thirst, that is, if he had not managed to cling onto his bottle during his feats of gliding. So Clarke galloped off; it was a miracle after all that had taken place that he did not get lost, but he eventually succeeded in finding his way back to the creek. A fire was lit under the trees; a couple of Indians were dozing beside it. He sent them to rescue Maciel, roughly indicating the direction where they should look. He decided to sleep until dawn, unless he was woken beforehand. It seemed strange to him that this series of chance encounters should represent the greatest battle ever fought between the Indian nations, but he was in no mood for speculation. His accumulated tiredness had reached crisis point. The thunder made him tremble, the lightning made him blink, and he needed a fresh layer of grease on his shoulders and back. For the past two days he had been living in a rectangular tent, built among the low branches of the trees by the stream; as he approached it now, he noticed the glimmer of a fire inside, the promise of a comfortable sleep. He drew back the flap that served as a door, took two steps inside, with his head spinning from exhaustion, his limbs quivering. . and it was only then that he realized there was someone sitting by the fire. He could scarcely help recognizing him, and the shock sent his battered nervous system into a paroxysm of confusion.