Albert Sanchez Pinol - Victus - The Fall of Barcelona

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?”