by Noah Gordon
The sergeant told them the gun was the LeMat revolver, made in Paris. “It has nine revolving chambers instead of six, firing the balls from the upper barrel.” He showed them that the top of the hammer had a pivoting striker that was rotated to fire the lower, larger barrel, which could be filled with small shot to spray a wide target area. “In effect, the lower barrel is a shotgun, sawed off,” Peña said.
He said he expected them to learn to load all nine chambers in the same time it now took them to load six.
The LeMat felt similar to the Colt when the upper barrel was fired. But when Josep fired the lower barrel for the first time it felt as though a giant had placed a palm against the muzzle and pushed it back, so that his shot went wide, spraying the upper branches of a plane tree with bits of lead.
Guillem had the advantage of having observed him, so he used two hands when he fired the shotgun barrel himself, extending his braced arms as he pulled the trigger.
They were amazed at the wide area of fire from the lower barrel. It left holes in the trunks of four trees instead of one.
“Remember this when you fire the LeMat,” the Sergeant said. “There is no possible excuse to miss with this gun.”
15
The Sergeant
Nobody saw the newcomer arrive on his black horse. On a Wednesday morning, when the hunting group drifted toward the clearing in the woods, they observed that the horse was tied to the shack, and when the sergeant emerged from the shack to join them, with him was a middle-aged man. The two were a study in contrasts. Peña, tall and fit, wore soiled work clothes, ragged in places. He had a dagger in a scabbard tied to the calf of his left leg above the top of the boot, and there was a large gun on his hip in a leather holster. The newcomer was shorter than the sergeant by a head, and stocky. His black suit was wrinkled from riding but well-cut of a beautiful material, and he wore a derby that was the finest hat Josep had ever seen.
Sergeant Peña did not introduce him.
The man walked alongside Peña as he led the group to the more remote clearing where they did their firing, and the newcomer watched as each of the youths shot in turn at targets on a tree.
The sergeant asked Josep and Guillem to fire for a longer period than the others; when each of them had fired all chambers and both barrels of the LeMat twice, the stranger spoke quietly to the sergeant, who told them to reload and fire again. While they did so, Peña and the stocky man stared without speaking.
Afterwards the sergeant told the group to be at ease. He and the visitor walked away, the stocky man talking urgently in low tones, and the youths were content to loll on the ground.
When the two men returned, Peña marched the group back to the woods behind the Calderon property. While the youths prepared to clean their weapons, they saw the sergeant salute the civilian, not self-consciously as they were prone to do, but in a single fluid motion so practiced it appeared be almost careless. The other man seemed startled by the gesture, perhaps even embarrassed. He nodded curtly and then touched his fine black hat and got on his horse and rode away, and none of the youths ever saw him again.
16
Orders
In the next weeks the December weather turned cold and wet, the rain a mist so fine that it added little moisture to the soil. Everyone put on an extra layer of clothing against the rawness and found jobs that could be done inside. Josep swept and dusted the house and then sat at the table and put keen edges on the machetes, hoes, and spades with a small-toothed file.
Two weeks after the stranger’s visit the rain stopped, but when the hunting group assembled in the woods, no one sat on the wet ground.
It was the day after Christmas; most were still in a holiday mood and had already been to the early Mass.
Sergeant Peña stunned them with an announcement.
“Your training while living in Santa Eulália is now at an end. We’ll leave here tomorrow morning to take part in an exercise. After that, you will become soldiers.
“You won’t need your guns. Oil them and give them a light coating of grease, and wrap them in triple layers of oilcloth, as they were wrapped when you received them. Make a second small packet of your ammunition and gun tools in triple layers of the oilcloth I’ll give you. I suggest that you bury both packets somewhere where water doesn’t collect, for if the exercise is cancelled we would return here and you will need the guns.”
Jordi Arnau cleared his throat and dared a question. “All of us are to go to the militia?”
Sergeant Peña smiled his smile. “All of you. You have each done well,” he said sardonically.
That evening Josep greased the gun and buried it still unassembled. Repós en pau, rest in pieces. The driest earth he knew was a little sandy patch in the rear of the adjoining Torras vineyard, a meter beyond the end of his father’s property. Their neighbor, Quim Torras, was a bad and lazy farmer, who spent so much of his time with Father Lopez that their friendship was a scandal in the village. Quim worked his vineyard soil as little as possible, and Josep knew he wouldn’t disturb the earth of this neglected dry corner.
His family took the news of his impending departure with visible astonishment, as if they had never really believed the hunting group would lead to anything. Josep could see relief on Donat’s face; he had always been aware that it had not been easy for Donat to have a younger brother who was so clearly a better worker. His father gave Josep a heavy brown wool sweater he had owned less than a year. “Against the chill,” he said gruffly, and Josep took it gratefully to wear under his winter jacket. It was only slightly too large and it contained the faint smell of Marcel Alvarez, a comfort. Marcel also went into the jar behind his clock and came up with a small bundle of bills, eight pesetas, which he pressed into Josep’s hands “for some emergency.”
When he went to the grocery to say goodbye, Nivaldo gave him money too, six pesetas. “Here is a little present of the season—Bon Nadal. Buy yourself an experience some night and think of this old soldier,” he said and embraced Josep for a long moment.
Josep found all the leave-takings difficult, but it was hardest to deal with Teresa, who turned pale at his words.
“You will never return to me.”
“Why do you speak that way?” Her grief magnified his own fear of the unknown future and turned his regret into anger. “This is our chance,” he said roughly. “There will be money from the militia, and I’ll come back for you when I can, or send for you. I’ll get word to you as soon as I am able.” He found it impossible to realize he was leaving everything about her: her goodness, her presence and practicality, her musky secret flavor, and the tender voluptuousness of the thin bloom, like baby fat, that graced her shoulders and breasts and haunches. When he kissed her she responded wildly, trying to devour him, but his cheek was wet with her tears, and when his hand reached to claim her breast, she pushed him from her and ran off into her father’s vines.
Early the next morning Peña showed up at the Calderon vineyard with a pair of two-wheeled carts hooded over by basket frames on which painted canvases were stretched, one new and blue and the other a faded and patched red. Each covered wagon was drawn by two mules, harnessed in line, and held two short wooden benches behind the driver with enough room for four passengers. Peña sat in one of the carts with Manel, Xavier, and Guillem, after loading the other cart with Enric, Jordi, Josep, and Esteve.
Thus they departed from Santa Eulália.
The final sight Josep had of his village through the flaps of the wagon canvas was a glimpse of Quim Torras. Instead of working on his scraggly vines, which needed all the help they could get, Quim was straining to trundle the fat priest, Padre Felipe Lopez, across the bridge in his barrow, both of them convulsed in laughter.
The last Santa Eulália sound Josep heard was the hoarse and guttural barking of his good friend, the alcalde’s dog.
17
Nine on a Train
By the time the carts rolled to a halt at the railroad station in Barcelona, the yout
hs were famished. Peña herded them into a workingman’s café and bought them bread and cabbage soup, which they consumed eagerly, enjoying almost a holiday feeling in the excitement of the sudden change in their routine. On the station platform afterwards, Josep nervously watched the approach of the locomotive, which bore down on them like an incredibly loud, cloud-belching dragon. Of all the youths only Enric had been on a train before, and they filed into a third-class carriage with wide eyes. This time Josep shared one of the slatted wooden seats with Guillem, and Manel sat in one of the seats in front of them.
As the train shuddered and lurched back into motion, they were warned by the conductor not to open the windows lest sparks and sooty smoke from the locomotive blow back into the car, but the weather was cool, and they were content to keep the windows closed. The clacking of the wheels and the swaying of the car soon became unremarkable, and the youths stared for rapt intervals as the landscape of Catalonia rolled past.
Long before darkness began to shut out the world, Josep had grown tired of peering beyond the face of his friend Guillem, who had the window seat. Peña had brought bread and sausage onto the train and eventually fed them. Soon the conductor came in and lighted the gas lamps, which sputtered and threw across the car flickering shadows that Josep studied until overcome by the mercy of sleep.
Tension had exhausted him more than a hard day of work could have done. He awoke at intervals in the course of the uncomfortable night, the last time to see an inhospitably dark day as the train jolted into motion following a stop in Guadalajara.
Peña distributed more sausage and bread until his supply was gone, and they washed it down with train water that tasted of coal and gritted in their teeth. All else was boredom until three hours beyond Guadalajara, when Enric Vinyes looked out and gave a shout, “Snow!”
Everyone in the cars crowded to the windows to peer at white flecks dropping from a gray sky. They had seen snow only a few times in their entire lives, and then for the briefest of periods before it melted. Now it ceased falling before they tired of watching it, but three hours later, when the train pulled into Madrid and they disembarked, there was a thin white layer on the ground.
Peña obviously was familiar with the city. He led them from the railroad station, away from the broad boulevard and stately buildings and into a warren of old narrow streets that twisted darkly between stone apartment houses. In a small plaza there was a market, and Peña drew two food-sellers away from an open fire long enough to buy bread, cheese, and two bottles of wine. Then he led his charges down a nearby alley to a doorway that opened into an unlit, battered foyer with a staircase wide enough for only one person at a time. They climbed to the third floor, where Peña knocked three times at a door marked by a small sign: Pension Excelsior.
The door was opened by an elderly man, who nodded when he saw Peña.
The room into which the hunting group was led was too small for the comfort of so many people, but they sat on the beds and the floor. Peña divided and dispensed bread and cheese and then disappeared, to return a short time later with a steaming kettle and a tray of cups. He poured several fingers of wine into each cup and filled it with hot water, and the chilled youths drank the mixture eagerly.
Peña left them, and they sat in the grimy pension and waited as the hours of the long, strange afternoon slowly passed.
The light outside the windows had begun to fade when Peña returned. He stood in the middle of the room. “Listen closely,” he said.
“Now you have a chance to show your usefulness. This evening, a man who is a traitor to our cause will be apprehended. You will help to capture him.”
They regarded him in nervous silence.
He reached under one of the beds and pulled out a box that proved to contain long sulfur matches with thick heads. He handed some to Josep, along with a small square of sandpaper on which to strike them. “You must keep these in your pockets, where they will not become wet, Alvarez. We’ll go to where the man will enter a carriage, and we’ll follow the carriage as it moves away. If the carriage should turn a corner, we’ll enter the new street too, and at every turn you will light a match.” He struck one, which produced an acrid stink.
“When I give a signal, the group will move to surround the carriage so he can be taken. Guillem Parera and Esteve Montroig, each of you must grasp a bridle and prevent the horses from continuing.
“If we should become separated, make your way to the railroad station, and I will pick you up there. When the event is over, you will receive a commendation, you will be taken to join a regiment, and your military careers will commence.”
Soon he led them from the pension, down the stairs again and out into the narrow streets. The snow had drifted down thinly all day, off and on, and now flurries of feathery bits fell more steadily. In the plaza marketplace the accumulation had extinguished the fire, and the vendors had left for the day. Josep stared at flakes blazing whitely against Peña’s raven-black hair. Following after the sergeant, the hunting group made its way through the weirdly-pearled world.
Soon they were out of the old neighborhoods and crossing avenues lined with great structures. On a boulevard, Carrera San Jerónimo, Peña stopped before a large and imposing building. Near the entrance, men in pairs and small groups stood under the flickering light of a gas lamp and talked quietly. The doorman gave the youths only a passing glance as they gathered around Peña.
The heavy door of the entrance was wedged open, and through it Josep could hear male voices. Someone was delivering an address, his voice rising and falling. Now and again, when he paused, there were shouts; it was impossible for Josep to know whether they were expressions of agreement or of anger. Once there was a collective groan; twice there was laughter.
The hunting group waited, growing colder in the falling snow while almost an hour crept by.
18
The Spy
Inside the building, men roared and applauded.
An elderly woman hobbled forward into Josep’s vision, grey-haired, wrapped in two ragged shawls, with small dark eyes in a face like a wrinkled brown apple. Taking careful steps, she approached the men nearest her and held out a basket.
“Alms…Alms…A bit of food for me in God’s mercy, señor…Mercy in the name of Jesús!”
Her quarry shook his head as if warding off a fly, turned his back and continued to talk.
Undaunted, the old woman went to the next group, held out her basket and made her plea. This time she was rewarded with a coin and paid for the charity with a blessing. For a while Josep watched her limping her way toward him like an old wounded animal. Two men came out of the building.
“Yes,” Peña said quietly.
One of them was obviously a gentleman, a man of middle age, neat-bearded, wearing a fine-looking heavy cape against the weather and a formal high hat. He was short and stocky but erect and proud of bearing.
The other man, walking half a step behind, was much younger and plainly dressed. Which of the two was the traitor? Josep was bewildered.
“A carriage, Excellency?” When the gentleman nodded, the doorman stepped into the pool of light beneath the gas lamp and raised his arm. A carriage detached itself from the line of vehicles waiting down the street, and its two horses pulled it to the front of the building. The doorman moved to open the carriage door, but the plainly dressed man was there before him. Clearly a servant, he bowed his head as the other man climbed in, and then he closed the door and went back into the building.
Josep watched in awe. The carriage was richly appointed and seemed enormous. He could scarcely see its occupant through the two high, narrow windows. Nearby, a man coughed and lit a match, holding it up before lighting his pipe. Startled, the doorman cast a quick glance and went to the seat of the cab, whispering something as the driver leaned down to hear him. Then he knocked lightly on the carriage door and opened it.
“My great apologies, Excellency. There appears to be something wrong with an axle. If you wil
l pardon the nuisance, I shall get another carriage for you at once.” If the man inside answered, Josep could not hear it. While the passenger disembarked, the doorman hurried to the row of carriages, and soon a second conveyance was there, even more ornate than the first but narrower and with deeper windows. Before the gentleman entered the new vehicle, Josep saw his exhausted eyes and drawn features; his cheeks were swarthy and powdered, causing his face to appear as artificial as the one on the statue of Santa Eulália.
Now two men came from the building and approached the carriage. They were well dressed. Gentlemen, obviously. One of them opened the door of the carriage. “Excellency?” he said quietly. “It is done as you asked of us.”
The man inside said something muffled, and the other two entered the carriage, closing the door behind them. They sat opposite the first occupant, the three heads close together. Those watching from the outside had fallen silent but could hear almost nothing, for the men in the carriage did not raise their voices.
They spoke for a long time, almost half an hour, Josep estimated. Then the door opened, and both of the men withdrew and went back inside the building.
Almost at once the servant who had ushered the gentleman into the coach returned, this time accompanied by a second servant. He knocked discreetly, waited for permission, and then opened the door. They got in with a word to the driver, who nodded.
Traffic was light because of the weather, but the horses moved away slowly, unaccustomed to the snow on the cobblestones.
Peña and the hunting group had little trouble keeping up as they followed the carriage down the Carrera San Jerónimo. They passed the departing beggar woman and left her behind. When the horses pulled the carriage around the first corner and entered the Calle de Sordo, Josep obeyed his instructions. His hand trembled when he struck the match and held it high, a sputtering circle of yellow.
