Albert Sanchez Pinol - Victus - The Fall of Barcelona

News and provisions came into the city by boat. From what we could piece together, it sounded as though, outside the city, far bloodier fighting was taking place. The Red Pelts were also keen to hear any and all news — some of the boats bore Archduke Charles’s letters from Vienna. I believe I’ve already made mention of that swine having sold us out, but in his royal little letters, his message was always: Well done, my boys, keep it up, keep on smiling at your executioner.

Between the city and the enemy line, there were a few workers’ cottages, inns, and in the lanes near the city, brothels. Through the course of the siege, these gradually fell to pieces and were destroyed. By the artillery and, mainly, because both sides sent crews of foragers to bring back tiles, bricks and slabs. They needed anything they could lay their hands on to reinforce the cordon, and we, to bulk up the ramparts.

Usually, a patrol, one of ours or one of theirs, would occupy an abandoned building midway between us and the enemy. They’d dismantle anything of interest as quietly as they could and then, when the sun went down, return to their own side, arms or sacks full of whatever they’d plundered. If possible, we’d keep out of sight by making our way back along a dry riverbed or a disused irrigation channel. Logically enough, skirmishes were commonplace. Truth be told, they usually happened suddenly and confusedly more than out of any great desire to fight.

Pillaging is generally associated with an outbreak of savage brutality when, really, methodically taking apart a building is one of the most tedious tasks known to man — particularly, say, when you’re charged with leading a certain Ballester and his men in the operation. (This fell to me, of course; other officers declined such a great honor.) To begin with, rather than keeping their heads down, the Miquelets tried to provoke the enemy. They couldn’t, or didn’t want to, understand that we’d gone to that abandoned farmhouse, or that stable, to gather matériel for our side, and to keep it out of Bourbon hands. I became incensed, seeing them wasting time — pulling women’s clothing out of trunks and japing around in it. And instead of staying silent, it would be a noisy jamboree, with petticoats for scarves. Good old Zuvi — he was like a hen trying to order a dozen wolves about. And more often than not, they simply found my orders incomprehensible.

“The frames! Pull the window frames out!”

“Why the cojones do you want us to take wooden window frames with us?”

“Do as you’re told!”

“You engineers have very strange ideas when it comes to war.”

We’d fall back, and always, always, one or two of them would have a petticoat draped around his neck. With six or seven large window frames weighing them down, they’d run along at a stoop.

I brought the scrapping schedule forward. To try and get in before the Bourbon crews, and because if we went out later in the day, the Miquelets were sure to be drunk. Not that I could stop them from coming back drunk; in the early days of the siege in particular, wine and liquor were still being found in abandoned larders.

I was sometimes less harsh with them when they seemed downcast. Those rooms, now empty, had been occupied not long before by people like them. Or at least the people they’d been before joining the Miquelets. Their thoughts were plain: If we’re here to defend a city, what are we doing destroying its houses, outside the walls though they may be?

It fell to me to teach them a few things. “Your life is no longer your own! It belongs to the city now, and it is for the city to decide what you do and when you shall give your life. As long as the siege lasts, we cease to exist as individuals. Accept it!”

Ballester would come back with some retort, and we’d have an altercation. A very isocratic form of command, of course, though that didn’t make it any less tiring. I felt snared — Ballester closing on me from below and Don Antonio from above.

I finally understood the usefulness of all those hours in the Spherical Room. It was akin to living inside it, to serve under a commander like Don Antonio; oversights were not tolerated. When would the fortification works be complete on this part of the ramparts? Why that blunt angle on the Saint Père bastion? What’s that gap in the stockades doing there? How many bricks do we have in our provisions? My brain, along with every one of my muscles, was pushed to its limits. And this was even though the siege remained nothing but a series of small skirmishes.

Don Antonio would usually have a cohort of officers and assistants around him. But one chilly morning, he and I bumped into each other, just the two of us, up on the ramparts. Wrapped in a bedewed cape, looking out through a telescope, he resembled one more rock in our defenses.

“Don Antonio,” I said, breaking in on what he was doing. “Something’s been troubling me.” I took the fact that he didn’t shout at me as permission to speak. “You criticized me for not having what it takes,” I went on. “And yet you let me serve you.”

“ Fiyé ,” he said, still peering out through the telescope. “You had an education with the greatest engineer of our age, and I cannot do without such knowledge.”

“But I didn’t complete my studies. I didn’t pass the test.” I rolled up my sleeve. “See these tattoos. They tell my story — the fifth one, that I’m an imposter. There’s something I’m missing, Don Antonio, but I don’t know what it is. Perhaps you’re the person to tell me.”

Villarroel didn’t react. He continued scanning the enemy positions and said: “Let me ask you a question, my boy. If the entire Bourbon army were bearing down on your house, would you hold the last redoubt to the bitter end? Answer.”

“I would, sir,” I said, and not in the least enthusiastic tone of my life.

Notwithstanding, he replied: “We generals spend our whole lives hearing people saying ‘Yes, sir!’ And do you know what? The words I’ve just heard don’t fill me with great confidence.”

I said nothing. He lowered the telescope.

“Zuviría. Your learning is ample. In France, they taught you everything you need to know. What’s holding you back, what’s keeping you from what you’re looking for, is something else. A tremendously simple thing, in reality.”

Then a strange phenomenon took place. Something came over Don Antonio’s gaze, a sort of leniency or mildness, a look of compassion. Until that day I had seen such a look in the eyes of only two people, only two: Amelis and Ballester. And he said to me: “You haven’t suffered enough.” He paused for a moment, as if waiting for that something to quit his body, and when he spoke again, he was the great general once more. “I’m going to notify the general staff of something tomorrow, the start of a crucial, potentially decisive maneuver. All our hope, more or less, lies in this play. And you’re going to participate in operations. Perhaps you’ll be able to resolve the doubt that lingers in your soul. That is,” he said grimly, “if you survive.”

I was about to take my leave when he caught sight of my bare belt. “One other thing,” he said. “An officer without a sword isn’t an officer. Find yourself one.”

The quartermaster was so tight, he wanted me to pay six pesos for a sword. I flat refused. That same night, while Peret was sleeping, I stole his. It had so many chips and nicks in it, it was more like a saw than a sword, which didn’t bother me, as it would be sheathed most of the time. Peret was deeply upset and badgered me all the way through the siege to give it back. I pretended not to hear. “Six pesos!” I said.

Don Antonio’s maneuver consisted of sending out some ships, well stocked and carrying a little more than a thousand men and companion cavalry, and disembarking behind the enemy’s rearguard. Their mission would then be to raise recruits throughout the land and, when the numbers were sufficient, to come in and attack the far side of the Bourbon cordon. This, coordinated with a charge by the Coronela, would pincer Pópuli.