What really happened is that Fidel and two others, José Suárez y
Oscar Alcalde, got caught asleep by Lieutenant Sarría and his troups on
the morning of August 1st. The version that was popularized by this
collection was a lot more complimentary than what really happened.In
his (in)famous La Historia
Me Absolverá defense, Castro details
what happened:
When there were myself and
two of my comarades left, José Suárez and Oscar Alcalde, all of
us completely exhausted, during the dawn of Saturday, August 1st, armed forces
led by Lieutenant Sarría caught us asleep. By now the massacre of prisioners
had stopped due to the reaction that it had elicited from the citizenry and,
this officer, a man of honor, did not allow a few hotheads to murder us in the
open fields with our hands tied.