“I want you to know something. I thought Mataró was an outrage as well.”
Ballester didn’t answer. Offended by his silence, I protested: “I’m trying to apologize! Though I’m hardly to blame.”
“Your Cannae went to the dogs,” he said finally.
“True. And the way we’re headed, there’s more bloodshed to come. Even if things go according to plan,” I lamented, looking up at the sky, “thousands will die. If only Vauban were alive. . ”
“What are you complaining about? It’s a war, people die. If they didn’t, it wouldn’t be war.”
I decided to change the subject. “Are you married, Ballester?” I asked.
“No, I have some women, but none of them are my wives. You?”
“There’s one who’s as good as my wife. I think she was a whore before me. Something like that.”
“Are you being serious?” said Ballester, taken aback — and not much could surprise that man.
“Whore, mischief maker, thief. . What does it matter? Needs must, these days. I live in a house along with her, an old man, a dwarf, and a young boy. You’ve met the boy.”
“I have?” he said, again surprised.
“Yes, when you laid siege to us in that masía.”
Ballester pulled his blanket over himself. “I only remember,” he said, yawning, “that I’d never seen such a soft lad.”
“You’re right there,” I said, and with the thought of Anfán, a daft feeling of happiness rose up my neck. “Though I’m not his father.”
“But you treat him as a son,” Ballester pointed out, yawning again.
“Well, let’s just say that, to him, I’m the one who makes the rules. That’s all.”
We were both tired, and Ballester’s eyes began to fall shut, but I pushed his arm again. “Do you have children, Ballester?”
Opening his eyes again, he looked up at the stars. “I think so. Maybe one or two. Difficult to know for certain. Women are always claiming I’m the father, though all they really want is the leader’s money.”
“But you’re not bringing them up.”
He sneered. “How could I? Their mothers don’t want for anything. I take care of all that.”
I tugged on his sleeve again, more earnestly still. “Ballester, I want to ask you something. Something between you and me.”
He lifted himself half up, suspecting some trick, his usual forest animal cautiousness. But all I wanted to know was: “Why do you fight?”
He meditated for a few moments, taking a fistful of sand and letting it drain away. As a prompt, I said, “I don’t need a long speech, you can keep it short,” before adding: “A word, please, just a word. It’s all I ask.”
But to my disappointment, he lay down again and, with a sigh, said simply: “If you haven’t understood it yet, what would be the point of telling you now?”
4
Perhaps I should not have been so surprised by the aberration that next took place. The full extent of Red Pelts’ mad legalism, the false emptiness of their patriotism — which was about to become apparent on the beach at Alella — anyone would have been hard pushed to surmise. My only thought at the time was that, finally, we were about to be rid of Deputy Berenguer and his clot-headed retinue.
The body of the army arrived early in the morning, without incident. Meanwhile, Ballester and I negotiated with some locals over requisitioning a boat, one of a decent size but light and swift. The plan was for Deputy Berenguer and his advisers and assistants to depart at twilight, and sail away under cover of dark.
The old man kicked into life for once. He ordered a security perimeter be established, with the men positioned at the high points that dominated the bay. Five thousand men on guard struck me as excessive, but I shrugged and got on with it. All Pelts esteemed protocol very highly, and I just thought Deputy Berenguer wanted to make a show of his eminence.
Ballester and his men were the only ones exempt from guard duty. While the rest of the army took up positions on hilltops and where any paths entered the area, they hunkered down in a fisherman’s tavern in Alella, on the outskirts of the town and about a hundred yards away from the beach. I could see what they were about, but I was supposed to be taking part in seeing Berenguer off.
“Don’t forget to pay for what you drink,” was all I said. “We’re not Bourbons.”
Coming back to camp, I found Berenguer sprawled in his chair with five or six of his officers around him, Dalmau and Shitson included. They’d begun without me, the babe of the expedition. Dalmau was making a florid farewell speech.
“Excuse me for interrupting,” said Berenguer as I came in. “But I ought to point out, you and all the rest of the senior officers will also be setting sail with me.”
I was standing behind Dalmau and, like him, was stupefied by this.
“Pardon me?” said Dalmau, as though he’d misheard. “How can we come with you? If I and the other officers aren’t here, who’s going to give orders to the men?”
“Everyone from lieutenant colonel up,” Berenguer said. “All are to return with me to Barcelona. It’s an order. No discussions.”
Abandon five thousand men! Not carry out the attack on the cordon! All these months of hardship and sacrifice for nothing! We found this injustice, this monumental lunacy, so hard to digest that neither Dalmau nor any of the other officers reacted.
“But Your Excellence,” Dalmau finally said, extremely disconcerted, “this isn’t possible. Who will lead the attack on the cordon?”
“I believe we have a commander eager to gain his stripes in war,” said Berenguer. “The troops will be in good hands.”
He meant Shitson! It was tantamount to discharging the troops. There hadn’t been time for the new recruits to forge bonds with their leaders by taking part in any conflict. Now, if their leaders abandoned them, they were also sure to go back on their promises. Dalmau’s regiment would disintegrate; since they were light on veterans, personal ties were extremely important to them (as they are in any army, to be fair). What would they do if their commander left them on some beach in the middle of nowhere, without any explanations, and now to take orders from some reprobate? We might as well hand them straight over to the Bourbons.
The other officers, though speechless, complied, following Berenguer and his oafs aboard. Not Dalmau. He stood where the gangway touched down on the beach, refusing to go aboard, and becoming increasingly vocal in his opposition to the decision. One of the men who’d already gone aboard rebuked Dalmau. An order was an order. Did he think he was the only one who felt this to be an affront to his dignity?
“Not at all,” said Dalmau. “But again, it isn’t just or reasonable to leave my regiment, as well as other equally dignified officers, at the orders of a man who has shown himself to be anything but.”
While Dalmau and Berenguer continued to argue, I ran back up to the tavern, barging open the door. Seeing me in such a state, Ballester thought we were under attack. If only that had been so!
“They want to leave!” I shouted. “Tell the lads!”
At first he didn’t take my meaning.
“They want to leave,” I said again. “Not only Berenguer and his aides. The order’s been given for all officers to sail, all except Shitson! We have to put a stop to it! Get the men together! The deputy might change his mind if we kick up enough of a fuss.”