Albert Sanchez Pinol - Victus - The Fall of Barcelona

One of the officers awaiting Don Antonio’s orders was Marià Bassons, a law professor who had taken up the position of captain in the Coronela. A small man with a round head and his spectacles firmly in place, even there in the midst of battle, Bassons was one of these men who keep old age at bay by being phlegmatic, making observations on the world as though they themselves are not a part of it.

“Ah, Lieutenant Colonel Zuviría,” he said, peering at me through his little glasses. “Tell me, any developments on your legal tribulations? Did you sort it out with those Italians?”

I was out of breath from running, and above our heads, missiles of all calibers were flying to and fro, and Bassons wanted to know about my pending trial. Someone ought to have pointed out to him that most of the courts had been destroyed by the bombardment. I never quite worked out if he was senile or one of these stoic creatures that society props up, as long as there’s someone saying it’s possible to prop them up.

His company, made up of law students, was nearby, sheltering from stray bullets as they awaited orders. One came over and, both eager and respectful, asked Bassons: “Doctor, are we to attack?”

The law students’ company was easily recognizable. Since they were at university, that meant they all came from good families. When enlisting, they each bought themselves not one but two or even three of those uniforms with their long blue jackets. They’d get one dirty during a shift, then have another waiting for them, one of their servants having cleaned it. They struck up an agreement with the tailor company, who would patch their holes for them. I must admit, they never filled me with confidence. The only thing they were any good for was parades, because they scrubbed up so well in their immaculate uniforms with their wide yellow cuffs. The civilians, up on their balconies, found encouragement from seeing them, due to their tendency to confuse a pretty army with a hardened one. My qualms were based on the fact that war and the arts have never been happy bedfellows. “They’ll bolt as soon as the first shot is fired” was my view.

Bassons, who always acted like a father with his students, clapped the young soldier on the back. “ Aviat, fill meu, aviat, ” he said. Soon, my boy, very soon. “And remember: Nihil metuere, nisi turpem famam .” The only thing to be feared is ill renown.

Old Bassons had enlisted, like many of the people of Barcelona, almost without having to think. For them, war was part of your civic duty, somewhere between paying your taxes and taking part in carnival. Once the Crida went out, the students made it clear to the government that their professor was the only man they’d serve under. The Red Pelts, always very understanding (to the upper classes), made Bassons a captain. (Possibly they worried that if they did otherwise, the students would drag them out and stone them.) In return, Bassons couldn’t have felt more proud of the youngsters under his command. Mon Dieu, quel bon esprit de corps!

The young soldier went back over to the troop, and Bassons couldn’t help but sigh condescendingly. “Youth, always so impatient!” This he said as though my rank somehow meant I wasn’t also young.

“Storm,” I know, is very overused as a description for battle, but there can be few better ways to describe the situation we were in. Clouds of ash and stone chips came tumbling from the bastions as the cannonballs continued to fall. In our positions just below the ramparts, pulverized fragments rained down on our heads. I didn’t want to imagine what it was like inside Saint Clara. With a little luck, I thought, I’ll be forgotten about. Ha! I should have been so lucky! One of Villarroel’s officers came rushing over: “Zuviría! Is it right you’ve been up on Saint Clara? You’re to show Captain Bassons the way — the students are going as backup for Bastida. Tell them they must hold until further reinforcements arrive!”

I didn’t even have time to patch together an excuse.

“Got that?” cried the man. “Hold the position! Hold, or all will be lost!”

I wanted to say no, no, he couldn’t send a collection of rosy-cheeked infants to Saint Clara, that the Bourbons would brush them aside in seconds, and it would be of no practical use in the defense of the city. But that would have been to offend Bassons and his hundred or so bluecoats, who were already trotting over. Very enthusiastic about getting themselves killed!

What else could I do but take them to Saint Clara? We crossed the narrows of the gullet, we hurried up the infernal steps. And dear Lord, what a scene we found!

Compared with the deck on Saint Clara at that moment, Golgotha would resemble an English country garden. The surface of that irregular pentagon was entirely carpeted with dead and wounded bodies. A great many of them were close to death, unable to raise an arm to ask for help. All those writhing bodies made me physically sick. Fishermen keep their buckets full of dozens of worms, and you see them squirming around, waiting for the hook to be stuck through them. It was like that.

The Bourbons had taken the first barricade, which we’d erected to encircle the breach, and as a place from which to fire at the invaders when they began slipping through. Take another look at the plate. Now that they were installed there, they were firing on the second barricade, where the small numbers of survivors from Bastida’s swordsmiths and cotton dealers were positioned. Twenty or thirty out of the original two hundred remained, and they were firing and reloading ceaselessly, unable to do anything about the fallen men between the two barricades. They’d held off the Bourbon assaults, and had even carried out a number of counterattacks, retaking the first barricade several times. Two hundred versus a thousand, perhaps two thousand!

As the students deployed themselves behind the second barricade, I caught sight of Bastida, who was down. His adjutant, who had propped him up against the battlement wall, was weeping. There was nothing he could do but dab his commander’s cheeks with a sponge. Bastida was gazing up at the sky, his eyes half vacant and his mouth open. Kneeling down beside him, I counted six bullet wounds on his body.

I know I can be mean-hearted from time to time, but in that moment, I can assure you, I felt awful at having sidled off. I’d had dealings with Bastida before and found him an honest, decent man. And now here he was lying on the floor with six bits of lead swimming around inside him. Taking his hands in mine, I whispered to him: “Jordi, Jordi, Jordi. . ”

He tried to speak, but I couldn’t understand. He gurgled incomprehensibly, the din making everything difficult to hear anyway. It was a miracle he was still breathing.

“Why hasn’t he been taken to the hospital?” I yelled at his adjutant.

“He didn’t want to be taken, sir!” was the answer. “He gave express orders! There are so few of us that unless we all bear arms, we’ll be overrun.”

“The student company has come,” I said. “Now take him!”

Bastida grabbed my left wrist. His eyes bulged, and the look he gave me — one of stunned lucidity — will stay with me to the day I die. I put my ear to his lips. If he wanted to curse me, I deserved it. His chest contracted, and instead of words, red bubbles cascaded from his mouth. I felt the warmth of his blood spilling over my ear and stood back. He was carried off. He died early the next morning in Saint Creu hospital, after long struggles.

The men on the barricades, separated by that groaning mass of bodies sprawled across the cobbles, continued to exchange fire. More and more of the Bourbon soldiers gathered on the beachhead of the bastion. Once there were enough of them, they would come charging against the baby-faced student company, the bastion would be theirs, and with it, the city.