Albert Sanchez Pinol - Victus - The Fall of Barcelona

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.