“And that will be that?”
“We’ve held out admirably,” I said with some pride. “Far better than anyone could have asked.”
She grimaced but said nothing.
“What?” I protested. “If it comes to an end now, we’ll keep the house. Otherwise, sooner or later, this bombardment will knock it down.”
She got under the covers, brusquely turning her back. “Some kind of peace,” she grouched. “A year up on the ramparts for what? All that, and you’re just going to let them in, open the gates to the French rather than the Spanish?”
“Tell it to the Red Pelts!” I spat. “They’re the ones stockpiling provisions, selling food to the starving at inflated prices. The poor are already giving in. I was with Castellví yesterday, that Valencian intellectual, and we saw an old woman pass out in the middle of the street. All she knows is that she’s hungry.”
Amelis rolled over to face me. “And when she came around, you asked her if she wanted to surrender?”
“What she wanted was a bite to eat!”
Amelis blew the candle out.
Good old Zuvi was unusually quiet the next day. Curt orders were the only words I spoke. Ballester noticed. I was standing at the prow of one of the bastions, deep in thought, when he came over to me. With his usual Miquelet soft touch, he said: “What the cojones is with you?”
There was no reason to hide the facts from him, and I said what was happening. He answered with typically Miquelet-like bravura: He’d have Berwick for dinner, with a few pears and turnips.
I let out a tired laugh. “You don’t know Jimmy—Marshal Berwick,” I said, correcting myself.
“And you do?” He snorted.
“A little.” I knew him better than I’d wanted to. All that time ago we had been intimate—the memory of the scandal had faded, but his character I never forgot. “Jimmy’s an opportunist. He wouldn’t have taken on the task if it didn’t promise the chance to please his superiors and win further laurels and promotion. He’s bringing the elite of the French army—with them as reinforcements, and a capable commander, they’ll be unstoppable. It’s over.”
I didn’t expect any answer to that. But Ballester came and stood before me. “Know what?” he said in his usual resentful tone. “I put my trust in you once. I said to myself: ‘This one’s different. Maybe there are men in Barcelona who aren’t like the Red Pelts; maybe the war will be a chance to change things.’ That was why we came, so no one could say we weren’t here when it counted. I accepted taking orders from you. And now look at you, whimpering like a frightened little bitch. What did you think? This is war! You’re going to have good and bad moments, and anyone who gives up at the first sign of trouble, well, that only shows he shouldn’t have gotten involved to begin with.”
I stood and faced him. “Work it out!” I shouted. “When Berwick comes, it won’t be Navarran bumpkins we’re up against! He’s bringing Louis’s finest fighters, along with cannons and tons of ammunition. Dragoons, grenadiers, crack troops from the Rhine. The ramparts are in a state, the city half destroyed. Defended by civilians, not soldiers, and most of them famished and ill. I know precisely how Jimmy will go about things, and trust me, either we send an emissary or he’ll crush us.”
“I see it now,” he scoffed. “It’s all still ideas and numbers to you.”
That was too much. “Ideas and numbers that take into account how many have died! How many more? You lost three on the expedition—want them all gone?”
Ballester punched the battlement. “I want their deaths not to have been for nothing!”
“The point of defending a city,” I cried, even more exasperated, “is to save women and children and the sacred places! If we carry on, they’ll all be lost! We fight to safeguard them, not to see them devoured!”
“And the Catalan liberties, the constitutions?” he said. “Who’s going to safeguard them?”
“How should I know?” I said, holding my arms out wide. “Ask Casanova, ask the politicians. I’m just an engineer.”
He gave me the angriest, most accusing glance. “I don’t talk to politicians or engineers,” he said. “I only talk to men.” Then, lowering his voice, he whispered something deeply philosophical (not that he probably knew). “But such are few and far between in this city.”
Before I could manage a response, he turned and walked away.
In the following days, it was tenser than ever between Ballester and me. Rather than trying to do anything about it, I ignored him. When we came into contact, I acted like he wasn’t there. I refused an order to lead his men on a job. Which he took as an insult. Which it was. His problem, I thought. But the absence of our usual arguments, of those disputes both surly and lubricating, rather than easing things, increased the tension between us.
In a sense, we were a reflection of the mood of the city. Understandably, the news of Berwick’s approach didn’t do wonders for morale. And vague promises were all we had from the diplomats outside. Nice little letters from Vienna praising our constancy and fidelity. Doubtless Archduke Charles dictated them while mounting the queen, the two of them doing their utmost to ensure the “so-desired succession.”
During that period one day, I went with Don Antonio to a government meeting. He wanted me to help them understand the parlous state of our defenses. His reception was glacial.
It was beyond the Red Pelts’ powers of comprehension. They were, as a rule, whiners, consummate defeatists, and I thought my report would be used to win over the reticent few. On the contrary. They didn’t want to hear a word of what I had to say. Casanova, in particular, looked straight through me with his dark eyes.
I was very young. The public side of things wasn’t my affair; I’d been giving my all to the defense of the city. But that day, I had a chance to consider something that occurs only between political leaders.
Casanova was against the resistance and had always been. If, reader, you’ve been paying attention, you’ll know that he did everything in his power to stop the portcullis from being lowered and the city armed. Why, then, was he now so strongly defending those who wanted to carry on fighting, or why at least did he comply with them?
The answer wasn’t above but below. In France, the Beast’s subordinates obeyed blindly. But in our old besieged city, with the people in turmoil and a government more akin to Athens’s model than Sparta’s, it was the other way around: The leaders did what the governed told them to. Casanova knew there was no way he could challenge the popular will, which was in favor of holding out. His innermost thought? Impossible to know. I imagine—and this is mere supposition—that in his opinion, it was better to remain in control, in the hope that some chance to end it all would present itself, thereby avoiding greater ills.
Don Antonio merely backed up what I had already said: Berwick was bringing with him a force that would crush us; the council could draw its own conclusions. Here I ought to point out a minor detail—something, though, that in such a tight situation, had an effect: Don Antonio didn’t speak Catalan.
Like all educated Catalans, the Red Pelts spoke perfect Castilian. When addressing Don Antonio, they did so in his language, out of deference. But there is something insuperable in Catalans that prevents them from speaking anything but their own tongue to one another. So fragments of the discussions were lost to Don Antonio. I translated for him, whispering in his ear what they were saying when things became heated, which was often. But you surely know good old Zuvi by now: When whoever was speaking became animated, instead of translating the debate, I’d stick my oar in. The only thing the councilors agreed on was the need for drastic measures. And what they came up with was a plan to attack the enemy positions, to raise morale in the city. What a magnificent idea!
Such an attack would be madness. If it went badly, which it was bound to, morale would plummet still further. But then Don Antonio demonstrated perfectly the position he was in: that of a military commander subordinate to a government. He agreed to follow their
orders, for all that he personally disagreed.
As in the human body, the nerves in an army are invisible and run from top to bottom. If the officers were unconvinced about the attack, how could the rank and file possibly feel confident? The whole thing was hastily cobbled together. I was one of those to bear the brunt. Orders were sent out in a hurry and got scrambled along the way. I thought I’d been ordered to take part in the assault, but it turned out Don Antonio wanted me in the rearguard. You know, that abject troupe of priests and surgeons meant for evacuating the wounded, and officers whose job it was to stop any who turned back during the opening exchanges, to send them back into the slaughter.
The troops, a thousand men and more, gathered at three of the city gates. The idea was to charge out, form up, and attack the cordon as one. Overrun it and withdraw. Give them a scare so they knew we weren’t intimidated by Berwick. As I say, pure imbecility. Jimmy hadn’t arrived yet, and he wouldn’t care in the slightest about anything that happened before he got there. The Bourbons knew us by that point, and such a limited attack would achieve nothing, nothing besides a gratuitous bloodbath. Dear God, I couldn’t think of anything less lovely than to die on such a beautiful spring day.
There are few feelings to match participating in an attack you feel is bound to fail. The relevant thing was not what the officers said to the men but, rather, what they didn’t say: They shouted at the men to line up but had no words to suggest they believed in the endeavor. I accompanied the priests as they went up and down the ranks, sprinkling the men with holy water and spouting phrases in Latin. We came upon Ballester and his men.
“Oh ho! Here’s our man,” he sneered. “Happy about sending us to certain death?”
“I’ve never argued for harebrained attacks,” I retorted. “That was always you. Or have you forgotten? Attack, attack, attack. Well, here’s your attack!”
I shoved him back into line. But Ballester would never tolerate anyone laying a finger on him. He came back at me, lifting his hand to my face and pushing me, and saying a few choice words about my mother. That was the last straw.
I’ve already mentioned how it had been between Ballester and me before that. Added to that, the night before, Anfán also happened to have put his hand to my face, stroking the same cheek as he sat on my knee and asked me to recount the day’s fighting. After all that time of him being pricklier than a hedgehog, he’d heard me come in and had gotten out of bed to show me some affection. “Jefe, jefe. How many men did you kill today?” And now, a few hours later, it appeared that my last human contact before I died would be with Ballester’s grubby paws.
I hit him with a left. I felt his beard cushion the impact of my knuckles. Ballester, naturally, recovered and came at me. Here was a pretty sight just before an attack: two officers going at it in front of the troops. We fell to the floor and rolled about a bit, kicking and howling. Someone separated us and said: “Shall I arrest him, Colonel?”
“And let him off the hook?” I said, spitting a bolus of blood on the ground. “He’s not getting off that easily. He’ll join the attack like everyone else!”
And so the attack was launched. Our side, all colors under the rainbow, each battalion with its own distinctive tunics, faced by the dour white wall of the Bourbon troops.
An utter disaster. The drums, instead of seeming encouraging, unsettled me. My heart seemed to be in my mouth every time I heard a drumroll. The cannons on the cordon side began firing at us. In the wake of our advance, men were left screaming where they fell. And the cannonballs whistling by, and you not knowing if yours would be the next head to be pulped by one.
Military discipline and civilian brotherliness will always be very different things. A well-trained soldier will advance, advance no matter what, even in the face of an iron tempest. For the Coronela militia, it was different. Each man would look left and right and see alongside him a parent, a son, or a brother: three generations advancing shoulder to shoulder. When one had his leg blown off, or another fell to the floor with half his head gone, those alongside him would always kneel down and try to help. It was my unhappy task to push them on. “On, on!” I cried. “Don’t stop, leave it to the surgeons!”
What they failed to understand was that, by stopping, they were loosening the formation. Distraught, they’d stop and crouch down, and the line behind them would have to break to go around them. It was pointless shouting at them: They couldn’t hear. And so the formation began falling apart.
I couldn’t have been happier to hear the trumpets sounding the retreat. I had only one thought: We’re done, let’s get away! Until that moment, I’d kept step with the pace of the advance. But as I turned and tried to hurry home, I realized my left leg wasn’t working.
My whole leg was covered in blood. As is so often the case, the heat of battle had meant I hadn’t felt the pain. The bullet had gone clean through my thigh. The entry and exit wounds were visible in spite of the blood pumping out. The troops were heading back into the city, and I stayed where I was, flapping like a lame duck, letting out ridiculous sobs and groans. For Ballester, sprinting back to the city, here was his chance to take revenge.
“Now what?” he said. “Think we shouldn’t stop for the wounded? Still think we ought to leave them where they lie?”
I ought to have begged for his help but instead opted for a few choice words about the gash he was born out of. A few more cannonballs landed around us, and the rest of our men made themselves scarce. What a calamity, that retreat! Some even tossed their rifles to the ground to help run faster; their only thought was reaching the cover of our cannons, where the enemy cavalry wouldn’t dare follow.
By now, Bourbon riders had reached the point where our advance had ceased. There was no chance I was going to make it back to the city gates, not even to the palisades. I dropped into a hollow in the ground, facedown, playing dead. With a little luck, I’d be able to wait for nightfall and then slink back to the city.
Well, fortune wasn’t favoring me that day. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw two Bourbon soldiers come up alongside the natural trench I was lying in. They were going around impaling bodies with their bayonets to make sure they were dead, and I was next.
“Arretez!” I shouted, rolling over to face them. “I’m a lieutenant colonel in His Majesty Carlos III’s army. Take me to your commander, and you’ll be rewarded.”
I could barely believe it, seeing the barriers to the Bourbon cordon swing shut behind me. I’d breakfasted in my home that morning, and now, just a few hours later, here I was in the enemy camp, a wound in my leg and two enemy soldiers keeping me captive.
There were few prisoners aside from me—which just goes to show that short, frightened legs are better than long, injured ones. The cordon had been refined and reinforced since the beginning of the siege, I noticed.
My captors weren’t overly discourteous. Pleased with their find, they were leading me to one of their superiors when we came past a surly-looking French captain. Seeing me, he let loose a few insults against the city and said what he thought should happen to the Barcelona “rebels.”
I shrugged. “We’ll be dining in Paris before that day comes,” I said in French.
I was merely referring to a rumor that had been making the rounds in the city: Catalan diplomats were said to be brokering a truce with the French. This captain, though, took me to mean something else altogether; it seemed he thought good old Zuvi was planning on invading France on his own, or somesuch. He snatched the rifle from one of the soldiers guarding me, and rammed the butt into my kidneys. I fell, letting out a helpless cry. What was he about? I looked him in the eye.
He was resolved to kill me: The look on his face stated this clearly. He might simply have been a madman, or perhaps it was the yearlong siege that had turned him into this bitter brute. I couldn’t say. But he began aiming the rifle butt, accurately and extremely painfully, at my ribs. I tried dragging myself out from under this barrage, and I cried out for help, but where to f
ind help in an enemy encampment? It was more a harpooning than a beating. One blow to the base of my spine made my sight swim with yellow dots. He was going to kill me. I tried crawling away and got a kick to the head for my troubles.
I began not to feel the pain. I got to my knees, straightening up my body. Something wooden struck me between my shoulder blades, and I fell to the floor again. Just then, however, I caught a brief glimpse of someone.
On the cordon wall, a man standing on the highest tier, looking out over the city and the now deserted battlefield with a telescope.
I recognized the shape and size of the man. The expression, not so much venial as great: a pose that suggested solemnity in the face of trivialities, a silhouette with an invincible aura. “Martí,” I said, “it cannot be. This man is dead.” I straightened up again, still on my knees. Delirious or not, I would lose nothing by calling out to him. I held out my hand and cried: “Monsieur de Vauban!”
Without dropping the telescope, the man slowly turned his head.
“C’est moi! Votre élève bien aimé de Bazoches!”
He looked down at me, frowning. “C’est qui?” he asked.
“Moi!” I replied, more a spit than a shout. “Martín Zuviría!”
“Martín? C’est toi?”
His penetrating look gave way to astonishment. He descended the tiers and came toward me. A look was enough to send the captain packing. When he knelt down beside me, my vision had begun going blurry, all color gone.
He hesitated. Discreetly, I upturned my wrist and bared my forearm for him to see my Points.
Grabbing hold of his lapel, I said: “Maréchal, quelle est la Parole? Dites-moi! S’il vous plaît, la Parole.”
It wasn’t the marquis, of course, but, rather, his cousin, Dupuy, whom, if you remember, I met on one of his visits to Bazoches. The one who that day made reference to a “clause” preventing me from ever facing him in battle. Yes, isn’t life just like that. And my confusion wasn’t at all strange—the family resemblance was strong, even down to the way they carried themselves.
Victus Page 45
