Albert Sanchez Pinol - Victus - The Fall of Barcelona

One of the worst things was seeing how self-confirming Deputy Berenguer’s social prejudice was. All the zealous patriots had already joined groups of Miquelets like those of Busquets. Our presence was meant to encourage town councils to resist and govern in the name of the Generalitat, and to let the clergy know how treacherously their superiors had acted. But above all, we were hoping to win over the undecided majority: those who weren’t prepared to become outlaws but would happily oppose tyranny if it were done under the banner of a free and legitimate power. Deputy Berenguer’s speeches, full of as much hot air as his bowels, brought only excuses and tepid responses. Those who did join were the dregs of society — the dregs of the dregs. The usual layabouts, or folks so starved that they joined up simply for the meal. And thus Deputy Berenguer’s recruitment drive served to confirm his opinion about the lower classes. If any doubts remain as to what that man was like, here are a few more examples.

One day we found ourselves faced with several Castilian battalions. They were occupying a town we wanted to take, and when they came out to engage us in battle, once the firing had begun, a group of patriots inside the town scaled the bell tower and began firing at them from behind. Our men waved their tricorns to salute the men’s efforts, and our standard-bearers waved the flags joyfully. There are few sensations as exhilarating as finding kinship with complete strangers. This put the Castilians on the back foot; you could feel them vacillate for a moment, and that was the moment to sound a charge and sweep them aside. Instead of that, what we heard were the trumpets sounding the retreat.

Not believing what I was hearing, I pushed the soldiers nearest to me. “There must be some mistake,” I said. “Keep firing! Don’t stop!”

Shitson himself had to come riding over and gave me the order to fall back. “Didn’t you hear the retreat being sounded?” he howled at me from up on his horse. “We’re leaving! We’ve had word from the scouts that a full regiment is on its way to hem us in.”

“We’ve got them hemmed in!” I shouted, beside myself. “We could get to Portugal and back before that regiment arrives.”

Shitson had it in for me in particular because we were the same rank. I tried to make him feel less envious by saying it meant nothing, Don Antonio had promoted me only so my orders to do with engineering would be obeyed. It was pointless. All that happened was, as well as considering me a pen pusher, he also decided I was an imposter. He was obsessed with being promoted to colonel. That would happen only if a new regiment was formed, or if an existing colonel was killed, and that made any other lieutenant colonel a rival. Leaning out of his saddle, he prodded my nose with a finger. “You’ll never make a soldier, Zuviría. Your problem is you fail to see the bigger picture.”

The bigger picture! Let me tell you about the “bigger picture” of that day.

After we left, the Bourbons didn’t take the trouble to capture the snipers in the bell tower: They simply set fire to the church, and the men burned alive. The tactics they used against us were proof of the straightforwardness of the Bourbon approach. Any town that had taken us in would have its houses burned down, and one in ten inhabitants would be shot. Straightforward indeed.

Not long after that, the expedition forces divided into two. It was Dalmau’s suggestion, it being his view that there was no way for us to tackle such great numbers head-on; the best thing was to split the column. The main unit would stay under the deputy’s command. A secondary but well-stocked column would be under Dalmau, and a number of other, smaller units would go farther afield and try to raise troops.

Not a bad plan. If we split up, it would make it harder for the Bourbon patrols to track us, and in the first place, they’d be delayed trying to work out how many units we’d split into. They’d have to divide their forces, too. The large-scale war had become one of smaller encounters, so it was advantageous to try and reduce the numbers. Also, Pópuli’s terror tactics had other impacts. Once people knew their towns would go up in flames the day after we left, they became less willing to open their doors to us. By splintering, we’d move into a great many more towns, and not even the commanders of the Army of the Two Crowns would be brazen enough to burn down every single town and city in Catalonia.

That day I found out about the sheer sickening perversity that underlies all war. The deputy, emerging at one point from his musings, looked up and, with eyes full of hope, said: “Well, if that were to happen, at least the peasantry, stripped of menfolk and places to live, would join our side.”

The other men there seemed not to notice. Dalmau because he was concentrating on the maps on which he was explaining his plan, and Shitson because he was Shitson. But the words made a strong impression on me.

Politics are bad; war is evil. There’s only one thing worse than these two: a hybrid known as war policy. I’d been educated in a world where engineers were the hinges separating politics and war. A world based on the idea that politics merely shadow the armed forces: following behind, defining the outer edges. Coming into the new century, however, the noxious fumes of war took over the whole corpus. And here were the consequences: the overall thrust of our elevated mission being to protect citizens’ lives and homes. Turning the moral principle on its head, for Berenguer, the enemy burning and killing was no bad thing as people’s helplessness and feelings of revenge would play into our hands.

It goes without saying that Dalmau was extremely fed up with the deputy, his senile speeches, his constant gas from the other end, and this was another reason behind his proposal. Dalmau wanted to see what he could achieve on his own. I implored him to let me be in his column, but he refused.

“When we get back, Don Antonio will want an account of things,” he argued. “And without me around, the only reliable witness is you. Or do you think we should leave it to Shitson?”

The following weeks and months are a whirlwind of images in my memory, always the same, always changing. The Army of the Two Crowns hounding us. Us fleeing, attacking, counterattacking. March, countermarch, nights out in the open. Rain. Sun. Mud. Always on guard. Towns for us, towns against us, towns being put to the torch. The landscape there became a kind of cement in which past and present merged, as one’s senses were dulled by the sheer monotony of repeated cruel acts. We’d retrace our steps and find yesterday’s supportive town had become today’s ashy ruins. Mud. Sun. More rain. Sleet and hail, we’d make our way into ravines and hidden paths, later emerging in a forest. To our right, seven trees, each bearing three hanged men. Hadn’t we been there the day before? No, the day before it had been three trees, each bearing seven men. Change of direction; the scouts as our antennae, the column shuffling along like a thousand-legged insect. We were being defeated by a paradox: There was no way for us to recruit new troops because we were constantly fleeing, and we were constantly fleeing because of our inability to raise recruits.

Nor would I wish to suggest that it was the same everywhere, with each and every inhabitant prepared to make sacrifices for the constitution and Catalan liberties. Far from it! Many were the instances of betrayal, debility, and self-serving behavior. War also allows man’s most atavistic instincts to flourish.