But then we entered a little cornfield in a valley where the fighting was very bad. The Zapatistas were on one hill and the Carrancistas were on another and we were in the middle, fighting hand to hand with other Carrancistas. The two armies got all mixed up, there in San Gregorio. There was a tremendous hail of bullets and the dead piled up like stones in a milpa (small plot). The man just next to me fell.... At five o'clock a bullet got the Captain who had been blaspheming the day before. In the dark we didn't know who was a Zapatista, who was a Carrancista.
The revolution swept from hacienda to hacienda, now the Carrancistas attacking, now the Colorados, now the Zapatistas, now the Villistas. After four centuries of constant bludgeoning by the Spaniards the hacienda worker was settling his score: This was his opportunity to reclaim the land that had been stolen from him, not once but many times.
Reed continues, supplying intimate details:
Tomorrow we'll move in on the Hacienda Casasano. You, José, will set fire to the stable; turn out the horses and colts first ... you know where the hayloft is so pour your two cans of kerosene there. You, Magaña, empty the chicken coop just before it gets dark, chase the chickens into the gully; we'll be waiting there. The more noise you make the better. María, open the front door and then open the kitchen door, just stroll through the house and open doors.... Give us our signal from the kitchen. We'll move in just as soon as we see your light ... pour inside and wreck the place. You can have any goddamn thing you want, you bastards, but don't hang on too long, remember the hacienda is going up in flames.