Albert Sanchez Pinol - Victus - The Fall of Barcelona

The story made me smile but also shudder. In mine warfare, the combatants, though faceless, soon got to know their opponents by the techniques they used. I felt sure that the Bourbons would have put a price on the heads of these two rats by now.

“So you don’t care about Nan, is that right?” I asked, smiling coldly. “At this very moment, there must be dozens of enemy miners thinking of ways to kill the both of you.”

Anfán threw his arms wide, ready to take me on. “Dozens? I thought it would be thousands. Casanova’s son is fourteen, and he was made drummer of a regiment.”

I couldn’t contain myself: “And Casanova went and saw him off in person! He pulled some strings so they’d be sent away from the city! They’re now garrisoning a place called Cardona!”

And I wasn’t lying, either. The Red Pelts loved demonstrating their Homeric virtues: Sending troops out into other parts of Catalonia was like saying to Jimmy that the people of Barcelona had more than enough courage, constancy, and resolve to overcome anything he cared to throw at them. (You can imagine what Don Antonio thought about our own leaders giving men leave.) The fact was, at Cardona, one of the few places the Generalitat still controlled, no fighting was taking place. The Bourbons knew as well as we did that if Barcelona fell, the rest of Catalonia would subside with it, and therefore they dedicated no resources to the outgrowths of “rebellion” elsewhere.

I grabbed Anfán by the arms. “Am I the jefe ? Say it. Am I or not?”

Truly, he had grown older. He answered me gravely. “Yes, jefe , you absolutely are. All right, I won’t go back down the mine.” He made the sign of the cross. “I swear.”

I didn’t believe a word of it.

The next day, a small troop of Cucs, just four men, finally identified the whereabouts of the primary enemy mine, or Royal Mine, a gallery containing a hundred barrels of gunpowder covered in soaked hide. Los Cucs managed to slit the guards’ throats and, having set a charge to collapse the ceiling, ghosted the barrels away. Mine found, mine destroyed.

This was the last thing to cheer about. Church bells throughout the city chimed the victory. The Cucs heroes’ names were Francisco Diago, one of our Aragonese; Josep Mateu, a native of Barcelona; and the man who had led them, the leader of the Cucs —what was his name? What a shame not to be able to remember such a sublime warrior!. . And the fourth of the crew, naturally, was Anfán. Having crawled along one of the small antechambers, he had been the one to hit upon the Royal Mine. How would you have reacted? Would you have told him off or applauded? I chose to do neither.

For the thousandth time, dear vile Waltraud makes me stop. Am I not allowed even a brief moment to enjoy the memory of that rare victory?

What’s that you say? How strange that I remember the names of the lower-ranking Cucs but not that of the leader? That it’s suspicious for a memory as prodigious as mine not to have retained that hero’s name, the man who won the city a stay of execution? That maybe I’m pretending and not saying his name because I didn’t like the man?

All right, all right!

You are quite right. I set myself to be sincere, fully, and I will be.

The Cucs hero was Francesc Molina, and he was the son of a couple who had married in Barcelona but moved back to their native country. They identified so strongly with the city that their son, as did so many other foreigners, had come to fight there, even engaging in mine warfare for the sake of the Catalan capital. He’d fought tooth and nail, day after day, night after night, and finally managed to locate that lethal mound of explosives.

What’s that? Where were the Molinas from?

I see, I see, you want me humiliated fully and utterly.

I give in.

The Molinas were from Naples.

I, Martí Zuviría, engineer (let’s save ourselves the long-winded titles) consent to the following things:

That national extractions are quite random and have no bearing on the character of peoples.

That the vast majority of the Italians I have met are good God-loving creatures, upstanding, trustworthy, decent, and that no one has the right to blame defects or personal slights on whole communities.

And, so that it is set down in writing, I hereby retract any insidious claims there might be in this book with regard to Neapolitans, Italians, and foreigners in general, French, Germans, Castilians, Moors, Jews, Maoris, Oglaga, Dutch, Chinese, Persian.

The other option, correcting the sullied pages, would be a recourse that my parlous finances would not allow.

Happy now? Make you feel good, imposing your will on this shredded bag of bones, as good as on his deathbed? Lo and behold, we end like this: I, the author, begging the forgiveness of the one scribbling down my words.

Yes, all right, you’re right: Let’s move on. Finish the tale. There’s one last tear to cry.

On September 3, 1714, all our seas parted. And the thing that provoked it was neither cannibal hunger, nor an enemy victory, nor an exhausted population giving in. The cause, paradoxically, was a magnanimous gesture by Jimmy.

A messenger came from the enemy encampment that day. Jimmy warned us to surrender or suffer an attack with unimaginable consequences. The text itself was brief and intimidating, with no room for mercy: Give in, or we’d all have our throats cut, right down to the unborn children. But there’s one thing I ought to be clear about, to do with the rules that govern a siege.

The ultimate aim of an Attack Trench is to force the besieged city to sue for peace, or, as the French say, battre la chamade . In such circumstances, with the trench reaching as far as the city moat, and the ramparts on the verge of collapse, terms are sought to try and safeguard the remaining vestiges. Life, honor, and if possible, a little property. Otherwise the attacking army has every right to enter the city and pillage and rape as much as it pleases. A chamade avoids this extreme. War etiquette — which, in my day, was adhered to by all, barring Pópuli, that animal, and his pro-Philip generals — requires that any besieged position that sues for peace will at least keep intact the lives of its remaining population and the honor of its garrison.

It was an unusual thing for Jimmy to do, because it was never the besieging army but the besieged who would carry out a battre la chamade . The straits we were in justified Jimmy’s decision. But by being the one to send the messenger, and not the other way around, he was opening the door to negotiations. And at that, a negotiation that promised more than the bare minimum. Bravery and constancy always bring some reward: The battle in August had made Jimmy fear that his troops might be massacred. Victory might cost him half the army, and neither Little Philip nor the Beast would be overly pleased at losing their most distinguished officers. Further, if it did come to that, the Bourbon rank and file would be enraged and uncontainable in their desire to take revenge by sacking the city. They would lay waste to Barcelona. And Jimmy didn’t like the idea of the same philosophers he’d been raised among calling him a savage.

The message was written in arrogant and threatening terms, but Don Antonio saw its real meaning. The enemy would discuss terms! Exultant, he called the high command together, looking for them to take a unanimous proposal to the government. As his aide-de-camp, I was also present.

Don Antonio began by pointing out what a unique opportunity it was. It would be beyond insane to let it pass by. We were in a position to save the city, its inhabitants, and even possibly one or two other things besides. Negotiating wasn’t a job for the military but for politicians, so our task was to make sure the government understood they couldn’t ignore this chance. It would be the last, and it might avert a catastrophe of biblical proportions.