“What do you want from me?”
The policeman, who has not removed his hat, nor unbuttoned his carrick coat, stands beside the marble table in the middle of the workshop, swinging his cane as he glances around. He does not look as though he is inspecting an unfamiliar place, but rather as though he is checking everything is as it was. For a moment, Fumagal wonders when he might have been here before—and how he managed to leave no trace of his visit.
“He sits transfixed among those slaughtered by his sword. Clearly plotting some baleful deed …”
Fumagal blinks, puzzled. The comisario spoke these words as he looked around before turning back toward him. His tone is dramatic, as though declaiming something. And it is certainly a quote, but the taxidermist does not recognize it.
“Excuse me?”
The comisario glares at him. There is something unsettling in those eyes, something beyond his policeman’s swagger. A steely glint of hatred both vast and contained.
“You don’t know what I’m talking about? Good Lord.”
He takes a few steps, running the brass pommel of his cane over the marble dissecting table. A slow, ominous shriek of metal.
“Let’s try our luck again,” he says after a brief silence.
He has stopped in front of the taxidermist, staring at him—a look more personal than official.
“A man who, having plotted the murder of the entire army, then marched by night against us in order to take us with his sword …”
He says it in the same declamatory tone, his eyes blazing.
“Does that sound more familiar?”
Fumagal is taken aback. This is not what he has been waiting for these past days. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I see. Tell me something, have you ever read Ajax?”
Still puzzled, Fumagal holds the comisario’s gaze, trying to get his bearings. “Ajax?”
“Yes. You know, Sophocles.”
“Not that I can remember.”
Now it is the policeman’s turn to blink. Only for a fleeting instant. And in this brief instant, Fumagal allows himself to hope that all this is simply a misunderstanding. That the target is not him, but someone else. An error of policing, the result of malicious gossip. Anything. But the next words he hears put an end to any such hopes.
“Let me tell you something, camarada.” The comisario leans over the stove, opens the door, glances inside and then closes it again. “Last Thursday at six a.m., in accordance with the sentence passed by a drum-head court-martial, the Mulatto was garroted in the dungeons of the Castillo de San Sebastián … You read nothing about it in the papers, of course. Being a delicate matter, it was conducted in camera, as is usual in such cases.”
As he speaks, he glances at the terrace door, opens it and peers out at the stairs, then carefully closes it. He takes a few steps and stops in front of the stuffed monkey in a display case.
“I was there, that morning,” he goes on. “There were three or four of us. The Mulatto went to his death with some dignity, by the way. Smugglers are usually such crude men; as, indeed, was he. But every man has his limits.”
As the policeman talks, Fumagal casually moves around the desk, one step closer to the drawer containing the vial of opium. Inadvertently or intentionally, the comisario moves between him and the desk.
“We had a number of interesting conversations, the Mulatto and I,” he continues. “You might say that, toward the end, a point of agreement was reached …”
Tizón pauses for a moment and gives a faint, wolfish smile, flashing his gold tooth. Then he goes on: “A point of agreement is always reached, señor, I assure you. Always.”
This last word sounds like a threat. There is a fresh pause, during which the comisario studies the other stuffed animals before continuing. The Mulatto, he says, talked about Fumagal. At some length: carrier pigeons, messages, trips across the bay, the French, et cetera. Later the comisario visited this house to have a look around. Leafed through some papers, pored over the map of the city with all those curious marks and tracings. Extremely interesting.
“Do you still have it?”
Fumagal does not answer. The comisario looks resignedly at the blazing stove.
“A pity. I had rather hoped … A mistake on my part. But there were other aspects … I had to be sure, you understand, I had to give you … well, you know, camarada. I had to give you another opportunity.”
He pauses, as if in thought. At length, he lifts his cane, bringing the brass pommel close to Fumagal’s chest without making contact.
“Are you sure you’ve never read Sophocles, señor?”
Sophocles again, thinks the taxidermist. It is like some absurd joke he doesn’t understand. Despite his precarious situation, he is becoming irritated.
“Why do you keep asking me that?”
The comisario laughs grimly under his breath. There is no humor in the sinister, ill-omened laughter, Fumagal realizes. Again he glances surreptitiously toward the locked desk drawer, now and forever beyond reach.
“Because a friend of mine will take great delight in mocking me when I tell him.”
“Am I under arrest?”
Tizón stops for a moment and studies the man. A look of surprise on his face. “Of course. Obviously you are under arrest … What else were you expecting, señor?”
Then, without warning, he lifts his cane and slams it hard three times against the marble table. The sound brings the two men in the stairwell running. Out of the corner of his eye, Fumagal sees them standing in the door of the workshop, waiting. The policeman has moved closer now, so close Fumagal can smell his fetid breath, thick with tobacco. The steely, baleful eyes bore into his and Fumagal once again sees the flicker of revulsion he noticed earlier. The taxidermist takes a step back: for the first time he feels fear—nothing less than abject physical terror. He is afraid this man will beat him with the heavy pommel of his cane.
“Gregorio Fumagal, I am arresting you for spying on behalf of the French, and for the murder of six women.”
What most shocks Fumagal is the comisario deliberately failing to address him as señor.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Rumor has it—the war abounds with rumor and gossip—that Marshal Suchet is about to march into Valencia, and that Tarifa will fall in a matter of days; but Simon Desfosseux is unconcerned. All that concerns him at this moment is ensuring that the wind and the flurries of rain coming through the cracks in his hut do not put out his fire, on which he is boiling up a pot of water with a mixture of toasted barley and a few grains of dreadful coffee. Above the captain’s head, the storm produces ominous groans from a roof made of planks and branches held together with rope and nails. The rain, in violent gusts, seeps through every little gap, soaking the shelter. Sitting on a makeshift bench that does little to protect him from the mud and the damp, Desfosseux draws his cloak around his shoulders and pulls on an old woolen cap. His filthy black fingernails poke through his threadbare gloves. In foul weather, life in the trenches becomes unbearable; all the more so on the Trocadero, a low, almost level spit of land jutting into the bay, exposed to the wind and the sea. The lower gun batteries are all but flooded by the swollen waters of the canal and the San Pedro River, creeping up over the sandbar and the high-water line.
In this filthy weather, it is pointless to think about Fanfan and its brothers. For four days now they have been unable to shell the city. The howitzers are silent, covered with heavy tarpaulins. Meanwhile Sergeant Labiche and his men, buried in their shelter, up to their gaiters in mud, are cursing everything and everyone. The weather means supplies have been cut off and the Cabezuela is not receiving rations—not even the quarter rations of salted meat, bitter watered-down wine and four days’ worth of black bread (which is mostly bran) that the artillerymen have been getting in recent weeks. The starvation that, in the last months of 1811, is cutting a swath through whole populations and looks set to devastate the Peninsula is now beginning to hi
t the French troops; the supply chain is finding it increasingly difficult to get a grain of wheat or a pound of meat in this hostile terrain of ghost villages left derelict by war. And of all the Imperial Army, those in the Premier Corps, at the southernmost tip of Andalucía, are furthest from the supply centers; communications, always prey to guerrilla raids, are now cut off by the foul weather that is lashing the coastline, causing rivers to burst their banks, flooding roads and sweeping away bridges.
“Tie up that damned tarpaulin!”
Lieutenant Bertoldi, who has just come in shaking the water from his patched and threadbare cloak, apologizes and secures the oilcloth over the doorway. Seeing his assistant’s filthy, gaunt face still smiling despite being forced to squelch through this world of mud and water, Desfosseux feels he should apologize for his brusqueness, but he is too despondent even for that. If people were to make amends for every ill-tempered outburst of the past few days, everyone would be constantly apologizing to everyone else. Desfosseux simply nods, and gestures to the stewpot on the fire.
“It will brew in a minute, but I can’t vouch for what it will taste like.”
“As long as it’s hot, that’s fine by me, Captain.”
The concoction begins to boil. Carefully, Desfosseux takes the pot off the heat, and pours some steaming liquid into a tin cup, which he passes to Bertoldi. Desfosseux uses a chipped, blue-china bowl—a piece of crockery from a wealthy house in Puerto Real, looted at the start of the war—and sips, almost taking pleasure in burning his lips and tongue. There is no sugar, no honey, nothing to sweeten the brew. It doesn’t really taste much like coffee but, as Bertoldi said, at least it is hot. And quite bitter. All it takes is a little imagination while it warms the belly.
Maurizio Bertoldi moves about, trying to get his sore leg comfortable. Three weeks ago, he was hit by a shard from a Spanish shell while supervising the gun battery at Fort Luis. His leg was bruised—nothing serious, but he is still hobbling. And the weather doesn’t help.
“They’re dealing with the deserters in half an hour … next to the large barracks, at the changing of the guard.”
Desfosseux looks at him over the rim of his china bowl. Bertoldi scratches his red whiskers and shrugs.
“All officers and men must be present,” the captain adds. “Orders. No excuses.”
The two artillerymen drink in silence as flurries of rain lash the hut, trickling through every crack in the roof. A week ago, taking advantage of low tide, four men from the 9th Light Infantry, sick to death of the hunger and deprivation, abandoned their sentry posts, leaving their rifles and ammunition, intending to defect to the enemy. One of them managed to swim as far as the Spanish gunboats anchored by Punta Cantera, but the others were captured by a patrol boat and brought back to the Trocadero. The execution, after a summary court-martial, was to have taken place in Chiclana two days ago, but the weather made it impossible for the prisoners to be transported. Tired of waiting, Marshal Victor has now ordered that the three men be executed here. In such terrible times as these, as morale is sapped and treacherous thoughts stir in the men, it will serve as a warning to make an example of these deserters. That, at least, is what is hoped.
“Let’s go, then,” says Desfosseux.
They finish their coffee, wrap themselves up in their cloaks; the captain straps on his sword and trades his wool cap for his old bicorn covered with oilcloth. They push the tarpaulin aside and step out into the mud. Beyond the churning banks of the peninsula, the bay is seething with gray spume and spindrift. The ghostly smudge of Cádiz is barely visible in the background. There is a rumble of thunder as lightning streaks across the leaden sky, silhouetting the dark spit of land and the masts of ships at anchor on the heavy swell, bows facing southeast.
“Be careful here, Captain. The bridge is shaking like it’s alive.”
The rising waters threaten to sweep away the wooden footbridge that spans the drainage ditch between the second and third gun batteries. Simon Desfosseux crosses it carefully, afraid that he might well be dragged out to sea. The path runs along a partially flooded trench, protected from Spanish shells by gabions, fascines and a wall of earth. With every step, Desfosseux’s boots sink into the mud, and water seeps through the cracked soles up to his ankles, saturating the rags wrapped around his feet. A few paces ahead, Bertoldi hobbles and squelches, his body hunched against the wind that howls between the gabions, creating waves in the thick, brown mire through which the skirts of his cape trail carelessly.
Beyond the main block, where the gun carriages, limbers and other artillery equipment are stowed, and which sometimes serves as a temporary jail for prisoners, there is a gully that leads down to the Trocadero canal, some seventy toises wide, which now roils thunderously with a deluge of muddy water. Muffled up in capes or cloaks, some gray, some brown, their hats and shakos dripping water, 150 officers and soldiers stand silently, expectantly, forming a crude semicircle around the gully. Desfosseux notices that Sergeant Labiche and his men are also here, watching this scene with grim, mutinous fury. In theory, the men should be in perfect formation, but what with the weather and the torrential rain, no one is minded to follow regulations.
In the doorway of the barracks, Simon Desfosseux sees two Spanish officers: sheltering under a canvas awning, they are observing the scene from a distance, watched over by a sentry, his bayonet fixed. Both are wearing the blue uniform of the enemy Armada. One has his arm in a sling, while the other has a lieutenant’s stripes on his frockcoat. Desfosseux knows that yesterday the storm dragged their felucca off its anchor, and sent it careering toward Trocadero. With considerable skill, the lieutenant hoisted the sails so that he could control the boat and managed to bring it ashore on the beach at the Cabezuela rather than dashing it on the cruel rocks nearby. Then he tried to burn the ship—the rains made it impossible—before he was captured together with his first mate and twenty crewmen. Now, the Spaniards are waiting to be transported to Jerez, the first stage of their journey to captivity in France.
At the bottom of the gully, near the canal bank, the three deserters stand waiting for the sentence to be carried out, each guarded by two gendarmes wearing their distinctive bicorn hats—immaculate as ever, despite the rain—with rifles pointed downward beneath their blue capes. Standing next to Bertoldi among a group of officers, Captain Desfosseux peers curiously at the prisoners. They are standing in the driving rain, without capes or hats, hands tied behind their backs; one in a waistcoat and shirtsleeves, the other two in sodden blue combat jackets, their breeches—made from brown twill requisitioned from a local convent—spattered with mud. Someone mentions that the man in shirtsleeves is a corporal, someone named Wurtz from the 2nd Company. The other two look very young. One, a skinny redheaded boy, glances around in terror, shivering so hard—from cold or fear—that he has to be supported by the gendarmes. A colonel dispatched from the Duc de Belluno’s headquarters—cursing silently at having to travel from Chiclana in this weather—moves toward the prisoners, brandishing a piece of paper. His progress is hindered by the muddy ground, boggy in some places and slippery in others. Twice he almost falls.
“Let’s get this farce over with,” someone behind Desfosseux mutters under his breath.
The colonel attempts to read the sentence aloud, but is drowned out by the wind and the rain. After the first few words he gives up, folds the sodden piece of paper and gestures to the gendarmes’ warrant officer, who exchanges a few words with his men; the infantrymen who make up the firing squad reluctantly congregate next to the barracks. The prisoners have been turned to face the canal while they are being blindfolded. The officer in shirtsleeves struggles. One of his companions—a short, dark-haired boy—acquiesces meekly, but the moment the gendarmes step back, the red-haired boy’s legs give way and he falls on his backside in the mud. His wails can be heard all through the ravine.
“They should have lashed them to posts,” says Bertoldi, shocked.
“A couple of sappers drove s
takes in,” explains the captain, “but the ground was too soft and the rain washed them away.”
The firing squad lines up behind the prisoners: twelve men with rifles and a lieutenant from the 9th Regiment, his sword drawn, wearing a blue cape, rain coursing from his hat. By order of Marshal Victor, the executioners belong to the same regiment as the prisoners. The infantrymen look sullen and it is clear they have no desire to be here: rain glistens on their black oilskin shakos and their cloaks, protecting the rifles’ gunlocks from the rain. The redheaded youth is still sitting in the mud, hands tied behind his back, howling. The man in shirtsleeves tilts his blindfolded face back slightly as though he does not want to miss the moment when they shoot him. The leader of the firing squad is now saying something, resting his sword on his shoulder; then he lifts his arm and the rifles are raised—some of them very slowly—so they are more or less horizontal. In principle, four men are to aim at each of the prisoners, who are standing with their backs to the firing squad, silhouetted against the raging torrent of the channel.
Simon Desfosseux does not hear the order being given. He sees only the flash of the rifles—rather than the regulation fusillade, the shots ring out randomly, halfheartedly, and several rifles fail to fire—and the white cloud of powder smoke dissolving in the rain.
“Fuck, fuck,” mutters Bertoldi. “Fuck.”
An utter shambles, thinks Desfosseux, almost vomiting up the brew he drank half an hour earlier—but a shambles somehow befitting the day and the situation they are in. The prisoner in the waistcoat falls facedown in the mud, the rain quickly spreading a scarlet stain down the sleeves of his sodden shirt. But the short, dark-haired boy, who fell on his side, thrashes about in the mire as if trying to crawl away, although his hands are still tied behind his back; he leaves a trail of blood as he lifts up his face like a sightless man trying to work out what is happening around him. As for the redhead, he is still sitting on the ground without a scratch on him, wailing in terror as the rain pounds down.
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