I don’t know when or how things came about.  My memory is hazy.  I remember how, in the middle of firing, Almeida came up to me to ask what orders there were, but there was no longer anyone to give them.  As I found out later, Fidel tried in vain to gather men together in the nearby sugar cane plantation, which could be reached by just crossing the property line.  The surprise had been too much, the gunfire too heavy.  Almeida took charge of his group again.
Just then a comrade dropped an ammunition case at my feet.  I pointed this out to him & I remember well how he answered me, with worry written all over his face: “This is no time for ammunition cases.”  & he immediately headed off to the sugar cane plantation.
Maybe that was the first time I had to make a practical choice between my vocation for medicine & my duty as revolutionary soldier.  I had a backpack full of medicine & an ammunition case in front of me; together they weighed too much to be carried.  I grabbed the ammunition case & left the backpack behind & crossed the clearing between me & the canebreak.  I can remember Faustino Pérez perfectly, kneeling at the boundary line, firing his machine pistol.  Near me a comrade called Albentosa was walking toward the cane plantation.  A burst of gunfire just like the others hit us; I felt something hit me hard in the chest & a wound in my neck.  I gave myself up for dead.