Albert Sanchez Pinol - Victus - The Fall of Barcelona

No, I did not violate her. Perhaps because, if you have been educated in Bazoches, you come to treat women à la Vauban, and not à la Coehoorn. But my case is an exception to what was happening all across occupied Catalonia: At that very moment hundreds, thousands, of soldiers were stepping inside barns such as that one, sword in one hand, woman under the other arm.

The country was too small to provide lodgings for so many soldiers. A number of years later, I met a man who had been the mayor of a town of no more than eight hundred souls, called Banyoles. Practically every single virgin had been deflowered, and seventy-three of them fell pregnant. When he went to the governing authorities to protest, they reacted in the typical Bourbon fashion: by throwing the mayor in jail. Not even the Dutch in the sixteenth century suffered such ignominy at the hands of the duke of Alba’s troops.

I asked her a few questions. Her name was Amelis. She did not hail from Beceite, the town where we were. So what was she doing there? She told me that she lived as a camp follower, taking whatever jobs she could find. I was about to push her harder, to try and elicit more information, when I heard shots outside.

It wasn’t uniform volleys, like the kind you’d expect from regular troops, but, rather, a scattering of shots, punctuated by inhuman wailing. If there is one thing I have always had in spades, it is the prudence usually associated with beetles; rather than running out of the stable, I went farther in, to the back, keeping Amelis close to me as hostage. We got inside a mound of straw, me with my hand fast over her mouth, and I myself kept very, very quiet. Whatever was happening, I’d be sure to find out later on, without trying to be a hero. Indeed, it didn’t take long before I found out what, and who, it was. A soldier burst in, terrified, trying to get away from something — he wasn’t given time to hide: A number of Miquelets followed immediately behind. They ended his life as if he were a dog, beating his head in, and then went out in search of more. During the execution, I moved my hand from Amelis’s mouth to cover her eyes. She was kind and prudent enough not to scream.

This was the execution I mentioned before, the one I witnessed in the flesh. The unpredictable, what in military terms was irrational, was never clearer than in assaults like the one on Beceite. They themselves had been given a hiding; they’d fled leaving thirty dead and their little caudillo, Ballester, in enemy hands. Who could have expected a counterattack within half an hour, leaderless and against superior forces? But their regard for Ballester, and the chance to rescue him, quite simply, drew them back.

The Miquelets revealed a principle that is often ignored but that I have always had much respect for: lunacy. In war, it always lends the element of surprise. And they won the day! The Spanish officials were spread around in different houses throughout the town, each with his breeches down. The rank and file were not on guard and had no one to give them orders. Extremely cautiously, I peeked out of a window. At the end of the street, in the town square, I saw Ballester himself. Free once more, surrounded by his men, he was about to slit the throat of the captain who, moments before, had had him interrogated. The captain, kneeling; Ballester behind him. He lifted the captain’s chin with one hand and, with the other, drew a knife across the man’s gullet.

I barely need say how nervous that pretty little scene made me. In Ballester’s eyes, I was an accursed botiflero . I preferred not to think what he’d do if he caught me. The way the captain had been killed, I was sure, would be rather agreeable compared to what they would line up for me; bleeding cleanly to death was sweet in comparison with the inventive torture methods the Miquelets could surely come up with.

The only thing was to hide and await nightfall. Then make myself scarce. The two of us lay there for a long while, on the floor, under that mound of straw. I lay close to Amelis’s back, the two of us like spoons. My cheek against hers, my hand over her mouth once more: a forced, absurd intimacy. Her neck smelled lovely, and the straw made me think of Jeanne. This is what human beings are like: people being shot down in the street outside, me possibly next in line, and even so, I couldn’t avoid seeing, in Amelis’s outline, with all her clothes on, Jeanne naked.

Night finally fell. We were still lying down, and I whispered in the ear of my dark-haired beauty. “If I let you go now, you’ll give me away, and they’ll be straight after me. I’m going to keep you with me for a little while. All I want is to get out of here alive. Behave yourself and I’ll let you go once we’re clear of this place. Understand?”

She nodded, and I took my hand away from her mouth. Just to be safe, before I let her go, I spoke the most amorous words imaginable: “And if you cry out, I’ll strangle you.”

Outside the stable door lay the street, where I would inevitably run into one of those deadly Miquelets. Behind the stable, on the other hand, there was a wood not far off. Slip out of a back window, was my thought. The problem was how; the window was too narrow for us both to get through it at the same time. If she went first, she’d run off screaming the moment her feet touched the ground. If I went first, she’d turn on her heel and escape. She was a sharp girl and could see my problem without my having to explain it.

“Get out of here,” she hissed, more disgusted than hostile. “Why would I bother getting them to kill you? I won’t say anything to anyone.”

“And I’m supposed to believe that.”

I picked her up at her hips, lifting her onto the cramped window ledge, and then got up next to her, side by side. It was a thick adobe wall, made far thicker than usual, perhaps to keep the stable cool. That meant the window was reached by a long tube, a few feet in length. We were bound to get stuck with our arms in front, our heads outside, our bellies wedged together and our four feet dangling in the air behind us.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ve studied how to deal with situations like this.”

“Oh, really?” she replied. “Quite the student you’ve turned out to be.”

“Anatomical theory states that, if a man’s shoulders can fit through the width of a trench or a mine, the rest of the body can also get through. And if the cavity is too narrow, all you have to do is dislocate one shoulder. Once through, simply pop the shoulder back into place.”

Her large eyes grew even wider. “You’re going to dislocate your shoulder?”

“No, of course not,” I said. “I’ll do yours. I’ll put it back in afterward. It won’t be hard — both my hands are free, and I know how it’s done.”

At this point she began buffeting me about the head with her fists. “You’ve had your grubby hands on me for hours, and now you’re saying you want to break my back! I’m not going to let you touch me anymore, not even my shoulder!”

I put my hand over her mouth. “Quiet!”

I have no idea how we did eventually manage it. I believe I may have pulled off the wooden frame, widening the space somewhat, and we then slid out like boneless lizards. We fell to the floor outside, I lifted her up, and into the woods we went.

Beceite was surrounded by mountainous terrain, a delightful natural labyrinth for the Miquelet parties to shelter in. The Army of the Two Crowns was off to the southeast, and that was the way I headed.

It was a pinewood forest, not especially dense, and a full moon bathed everything in an amber light. There is no such thing as war for crickets, and the freshness of the night was a relief after the heat of the summer day. Had that group of senseless throat slitters not been so close by, it might have been a most pleasurable nighttime stroll. Once we were far enough away to make noise, I said: “Quite the friends you’ve got! That soldier who came into the stable — they beat him to death just to save on bullets!”