“They want to leave!” I shouted. “Tell the lads!”
At first he didn’t take my meaning.
“They want to leave,” I said again. “Not only Berenguer and his aides. The order’s been given for all officers to sail, all except Shitson! We have to put a stop to it! Get the men together! The deputy might change his mind if we kick up enough of a fuss.”
Ballester promptly did as I said, for once. He and his men left the tavern and rode out to the perimeter positions. I went back to the boat, another wearying dash down the beach. The argument had gone up a few notches, with Dalmau still refusing to board and all the other officers already having done so. I’d never seen the usually affable Dalmau so furious. I began shouting and screaming as well, using far less decorous language than Dalmau, as you can imagine.
Up in the surrounding hillsides, the news began reaching the troops. They turned to the sea to look, when they were supposed to be looking out for a possible attack. Dozens, hundreds, of men began streaming down to the beach, none of them fully understanding what was happening. Up on deck, one of the officers beseeched Berenguer to order Dalmau to embark. “Otherwise,” he said, “we’re all done for.”
Berenguer shouted at Dalmau from his wheelchair: Either he embarked immediately, or he’d be tried for insubordination. For a few moments, Dalmau gazed out at the waves as they broke on the shoreline, before turning to me: “Come, Zuviría.” Still I refused. He took me by the elbow and added: “A direct order from the deputy of the military estate cannot be disobeyed.” And then he whispered: “Plus, someone has to be there in Barcelona to say what’s gone on.”
I’m neither proud nor ashamed to say I was the last to take the few steps up that wooden gangway and board the ship. Seeing their entire high command getting into this small ship, leaving them behind, the men came careering toward the beach. Five thousand armed men, coming after us from all sides; Berenguer’s oafs nearly pissed themselves. Berenguer called out for the anchor to be weighed—“Posthaste!”—and what happened next is something that has stayed with me all my many days.
In spite of the misdeed, those five thousand men did not come and try to kill anyone. They gathered in the bay, looking out at us not with hate so much as the incomprehension of an abandoned dog. If I couldn’t understand why we were leaving them, how were they supposed to? I saw Ballester and his men, grouped on a ridge to one side of the beach. He knew what was going on. Their centaur silhouettes, lit by the Mediterranean twilight, filled me with an unbearably weighty feeling of shame.
Before we had sailed two hundred feet, I saw a fair-haired youngster wade out up to his knees. He stood out to me because of the blond plaits he wore on either side of his head, which reminded me of Anfán. He was waving something above his head. Then the rest of the troops began chanting. At that distance, the noise of the sea and the wind made it difficult to hear. I was the only person aboard looking back at the coast. I listened harder. When I realized what it was, I thumped the deck four times with my fists. “Turn back! Turn back!” I cried. “Damn it all, turn the ship around!”
The oafs came over, ordering me to be quiet. For once I was able to say what I thought about them to their faces: “Imbeciles! The deputy’s forgotten the silver mace!”
And so it was. The men were shouting, “The Club, the Club!” Berenguer and his oafs had been in such a hurry to get away from their own men that they’d managed to forget about the supreme symbol of Catalan resistance.
How is it possible for a people to be so brave and at the same time so submissive? I’ll tell you: It’s possible because, as Alella demonstrated, they had far more faith in their free institutions than in the people running them. Berenguer had left behind the silver mace, while the ragtag army he’d shown so much contempt for had remembered it. And it didn’t even occur to them to hang him—they just wanted to make sure the Club was safe.
The boat made a slow and humiliating about-turn. All those aboard were so ashamed or so afraid that they didn’t want to disembark to go and fetch the mace. Because I’d raised the alarm, they seemed to think I was the man for the job. Pish! I understood how unsettled the deputy was when his oafs came over, again imploring me: “Please.”
I didn’t even have to get down from the boat. Its hull wasn’t deep, and as we came back to shore, the lad waded out to meet us, up to his chest in water. I leaned over the side and took the outstretched Club. As soon as I had it, the boat pushed off again. I shouted back at him: “What’s your name?”
He replied, but the wind must have changed direction, and I didn’t hear. I rue that wind so, so very much that it makes me feel like never saying another word. What’s the worth of a book that contains Berenguer’s name, the abominable Antoni Berenguer, and not that of the young boy?
I spent the return voyage seated in a corner between two barrels, my arms crossed and a blanket over my head so that I wouldn’t have to speak to anyone. My first thought was that the whole thing was a conspiracy, that Berenguer was secretly taking orders from the Bourbons. In fact, after Barcelona fell, the word was that he did serve the new government, immediately and with servile acquiescence. But I’m not really one for conspiracies. He was a weak man, that’s all, and when a man is in a position of power, weakness and treachery are apt to merge. Perhaps he made all the officers set sail with him so they’d have a share of the shame, or perhaps he was worried that an attack on the cordon would cost too many officers’ lives. Being from good families, the Red Pelts would have been unhappy if so many of their own had been led to slaughter. Who knows. It’s hardly the most important thing.
We were willing to wage war on the Two Crowns for the sake of our constitutions and liberties, a single city against the immense might of two allied empires. But, I ask, how are you supposed to fight your very own government?
As for the upshot of our disastrous expedition, the less said, the better. When we arrived back in Barcelona, Don Antonio wasn’t exactly the calmest he’d ever been. Thank goodness I wasn’t there when the news of Berenguer’s cowardice reached him, the Mataró disaster, the calamity of abandoning an entire army on a beach. Apparently, Don Antonio threw his staff of office to the floor, proclaiming: “An offense to God! A disservice to the king! And ruination for the homeland!”
Don Antonio demanded explanations, and when he came to us, Dalmau and I made no bones about what had happened. He wanted Berenguer hanged from the city walls. As was to be expected, the Red Pelts rushed to Berenguer’s defense. But his conduct had been so dire that even they couldn’t keep him from being put on trial. I kept my thoughts to myself; honest justice would be out of the question. He came away completely unscathed. Don Antonio didn’t have jurisdiction over public figures, so Berenguer was merely placed under house arrest. Given that he couldn’t get out of his wheelchair anyway, will someone please tell me what kind of punishment this was? The justice of the Red Pelts, that’s what!
With Berenguer off, exiled in his gilded cage, what happened to the five thousand men who had been abandoned? The moment Dalmau touched down in Barcelona, he chartered a return flotilla—out of his family’s coffers—to go and rescue them. It got there too late. They’d scattered, unsurprisingly. Some had joined Busquets’s group, or others’. Hundreds had been captured by the Bourbons, and you can guess what treatment they received. A good many more simply returned home. Who can blame them? The rest carried on harrying the Bourbons on the outskirts of Barcelona, of their own accord. But the expedition’s strategic objective had failed utterly.
Amazingly, some were willing to go on to Barcelona and made it there, forcing their way through the cordon. Small groups of cavalry, with the darkness as cover, charged in like berserkers. In the middle of the night, we saw part of the cordon light up with flashes of rifle fire, and heard the wild riders howling. They crossed the less protected swampy areas and, when they reached the open encampments, hurtled in like meteors. A little while later, ten, twenty, thirty men shot through into the city . . .
We never heard another word about Shitson. Either the Bourbons hanged him, or those troops he’d been left to lead did it themselves. If you want my view, knowing what Dalmau’s men were like, I’d say it was probably the latter. But this is all supposition. If I ever did find out, I’ve forgotten. Thanks be to forgetfulness!
Come on, enough of the weepy bits. Chin up, never mind! That’s what I say. Or, as we said in Barcelona, via fora to the sadness. At least I made it home in one piece—no mean feat. Having embraced the members of my odd little family, I collapsed into an armchair, gazing on the walls as though civility were a distant memory. I didn’t talk much. I looked out from our balcony, which had a view of the city walls. The cooper company was on patrol up on the Saint Clara bastion. They’d lit several small bonfires to cook their dinner over. It was good to know they were there, and to know that it was for one reason: so that I could sleep safely in my home that night. By this point I had far more faith in these coopers-turned-soldiers than in any unit of regulars.
Nan brought in a pot containing hot water and left it at my feet: his way of celebrating my return. And Amelis dropped a handful of salt in—my God, a hot footbath, surrounded by your nearest and dearest. This was a home. Anfán bade me tell them about my heroic exploits . . .
As I took off my boots, I turned my mind to those interminable marches, day and night, all those thousands of men with threadbare espadrilles on their feet, or simply going barefoot. I thought of the smell of burned gunpowder, and of the dead we’d left behind, to no end. I could still smell the stench of rusted bayonets and old leather. And all of it for what? So that that swine Berenguer could sit in his little palace, surrounded by his dozens of oafs, denying that he’d had anything to do with anything.
“Heroic exploits?” I said. “Know the one thing I’ve brought with me to say? That the reason I went was so you might never have to.”
I wasn’t fully happy until I laid my head down on my pillow. Amelis joined me a little while later. The room was dark and I couldn’t see her, I only heard the door. She came in and got on top of me, both of us unclothed. Food had begun to grow scarce in the city, and she was thinner than before. Through the window came the occasional far-off explosion, illuminating the room, accompanied by sounds of artillery. Bourbon artillery, not ours, but I felt sure we had nothing to fear. They were only calibrating their cannons in case they decided to attack the Capuchin convent one day, and that was outside the main walls. Amelis’s hair fell over my face, and I could smell the mint tea she’d drunk before coming in. Running a hand over my face, she said: “Do you want to go to sleep?”
Sleep? I hadn’t heard anything so funny in a long while. Chin up, Martí Zuviría, never mind! There are few things as intense as making love to the sound of a cannonade. And in this life, take it from me, there’s only one thing that ranks above first love, and that’s the second.
I forgot to say anything in the last chapter about the expedition’s very last upshot. Well, I’ll do so now, and that’ll be that. You put the chapters in order as best you can, that’s what I pay you for.
I found myself up on the Saint Clara bastion early one morning, involved in a cannonade, when Francesc Castellví appeared. He was the captain of a Valencian company, with pretensions to be a historian. But there are some who don’t know when it’s the right—or the wrong—time for courteous greetings.
From time to time, our sentries would spy a group of enemy foragers in no-man’s-land. The alarm would be raised across the bastion tops and our cannons trained on the foragers. From the cordon, the Bourbons would use their longer-range artillery to provide cover, and an artillery exchange would commence.
I thought it the most ridiculous waste of ammunition. At that distance, our cannon fire almost never reached the besiegers’ positions, and vice versa. But so things go in war. Our chief gunner, a man named Costa, asked me to authorize returning fire. We were still well stocked with gunpowder, and his Mallorcans could use the chance to train the city gunners.
“Great that you’re back in one piece!” said Castellví, shouting to make himself heard over the detonations.
“Right, yes,” I said, otherwise occupied and as good as ignoring him. “Thanks.”
“And you look well. A little thinner, yes.”
“Haven’t you got a company of men to be looking out for?”
“No, not today. Today’s a rest day for us. I’m going around visiting friends.”
There I was, giving orders to the munitions carriers, verifying hits and misses, and keeping a close check on how much gunpowder was being used. And here was Castellví asking after my health.
Most of the enemy’s shots fell short. One or two would reach the walls, but so tired by that point that they’d bounce off the walls, to the rumbling, scraping sound of stones. Crrrack! The cannonballs would roll slowly back down the rampart walls, wreathed in smoke. Each army used the same caliber, which meant each could also use the other’s; the same cannonballs would end up going back and forth time after time. Some became airborne letters. Using chicken blood or carbon, the Bourbons would write, for instance, “Up yours, rebels.” To which our men would reply, on a different part of the cannonball: “Stick this up your Bourbon behinds.” That sort of thing, with pictures of cocks, anuses, and mouths to match.
“And you must be happy your little friend’s back, too!” persevered Castellví.
“Friend? What friend do you mean?”
“What friend do you think I mean? Ballester! Along with his men!”
“No!” I cried. “There must be some mistake! They stayed in Alella! We’ll never see them around these parts again!”
“It’s true, I tell you! They crossed the cordon in the night! On horseback, just before dawn, a few hours ago! They’re here in the city!”
“You’re wrong, I say! It can’t be him! Ballester will never forgive us for leaving them the way we did!”
The Mallorcans were shouting out orders, and what with their devilish accents, the noise of the cannons, and the commotion of the carriers, it was almost impossible to hear. We’d have lost our voices soon enough. Where were the Vaubanians to teach the Valencians sign language?
“It was Ballester!” Castellví insisted exasperatingly. “This war must be recounted afterward, down to the very last detail! And I am determined to do that!”
“Fine! Recount the war, off you go. I’m rather busy just now waging that war!” Before he left, I added: “But you’re wrong! Ballester hates us! What on earth could move him to risk his hide getting back into Barcelona?”
I stopped midsentence. Very often it’s the words themselves that clarify thought, and not the other way around.
“What’s wrong?” said Castellví. “You’ve gone completely white! Cannonballs frighten you?”
“Stand in for me, would you?” I shouted at the top of my voice. “I’ll owe you one!”
“But I’m infantry!” he protested. “I haven’t the first clue—”
And now I’m going to leave you to guess the reason for my haste and where I was headed. My dear vile Waltraud knows. But how clever you are, my lovely little buffalo!
There could be only one motive for Ballester to come back: to murder Berenguer. According to his Miquelet logic, the aberration at Alella wasn’t down to politics but to real individuals, and as such, the only answer could be to slit real throats.
I ran all the way to Berenguer’s home and arrived panting and just in time. Ballester and his men were coming around the corner of a thin street alongside the residence, and they had knives in their belts and sacks covering their heads. I stood between them and Berenguer’s home—the side street so thin, my body was enough to block the way.
“You don’t salute a superior?” I said to Ballester.
“Out of my way.”
Well, he did always make a virtue of concision.
“Think about what will happen if you knock down this door and go and kill Berenguer,” I said. “Thin
k. He’ll be dead, and you’ll be hanged. The deputy of the military estate, and one of the city’s own heroes, killed by our own side. Just think of what it would do to morale—and how that plays into the enemy’s hands. They’ll say we’re devouring ourselves likes rats in a sack.”
Ballester tore his hood off in disgust. “Think I want to kill Berenguer? Do you really think that? No, I didn’t want to come back, I’m not one for risking life and limb to squash a cockroach.” He jabbed a thumb in the direction of his men behind him. “But they did! I set out with nine men and came back with six. Want them just to forget? Fine, you tell them so!”
Men with blunt characters don’t know how to ask for help; pride prevents them. But, weighing Ballester’s words, I could see he was asking me to intercede.
I reminded them of all the sleepless nights, the marches and the skirmishes I’d been alongside them on, which was most of them. I made light of the day I enjoined them to leave Barcelona. A lot had happened since.
“Berenguer is a very old man,” I said. “He hasn’t got long left to live. To make that life slightly shorter, the price is your lives, plus putting the city in danger. Is that really what you want?”
I myself don’t know how I managed to get them to accompany me to a tavern. We found one of the few still open in the city. The alcohol cheered them up considerably, as though they’d never really wanted to kill. They laughed, sang songs, and drank until passing out—all except Ballester and me. From far ends of the table, we exchanged glances, sharing something beyond sadness or bitterness.
“You still haven’t suffered enough,” Don Antonio had said to me. And I swear I had set out on the expedition prepared to face whatever came, in order to strip away my soul’s resentment. But what I didn’t know was that pain always comes for us when least we expect it. I believed the expedition would be a chance to put my learning into action, and what really happened was that my ideas about the world came tumbling down. The worst thing was, in spite of that, in spite of the downheartedness that came with seeing that the rules governing us are feigning and false, I was no nearer to learning The Word. “You still haven’t suffered enough.” In that tavern I saw a look different from those on all the other fearful faces I’d seen. For if all the misfortunes, all the terrible sights during the expedition, hadn’t changed me sufficiently, what was I going to have to sacrifice in order to see my light?
Victus Page 43
