Ballester promptly did as I said, for once. He and his men left the tavern and rode out to the perimeter positions. I went back to the boat, another wearying dash down the beach. The argument had gone up a few notches, with Dalmau still refusing to board and all the other officers already having done so. I’d never seen the usually affable Dalmau so furious. I began shouting and screaming as well, using far less decorous language than Dalmau, as you can imagine.
Up in the surrounding hillsides, the news began reaching the troops. They turned to the sea to look, when they were supposed to be looking out for a possible attack. Dozens, hundreds, of men began streaming down to the beach, none of them fully understanding what was happening. Up on deck, one of the officers beseeched Berenguer to order Dalmau to embark. “Otherwise,” he said, “we’re all done for.”
Berenguer shouted at Dalmau from his wheelchair: Either he embarked immediately, or he’d be tried for insubordination. For a few moments, Dalmau gazed out at the waves as they broke on the shoreline, before turning to me: “Come, Zuviría.” Still I refused. He took me by the elbow and added: “A direct order from the deputy of the military estate cannot be disobeyed.” And then he whispered: “Plus, someone has to be there in Barcelona to say what’s gone on.”
I’m neither proud nor ashamed to say I was the last to take the few steps up that wooden gangway and board the ship. Seeing their entire high command getting into this small ship, leaving them behind, the men came careering toward the beach. Five thousand armed men, coming after us from all sides; Berenguer’s oafs nearly pissed themselves. Berenguer called out for the anchor to be weighed—“Posthaste!”—and what happened next is something that has stayed with me all my many days.
In spite of the misdeed, those five thousand men did not come and try to kill anyone. They gathered in the bay, looking out at us not with hate so much as the incomprehension of an abandoned dog. If I couldn’t understand why we were leaving them, how were they supposed to? I saw Ballester and his men, grouped on a ridge to one side of the beach. He knew what was going on. Their centaur silhouettes, lit by the Mediterranean twilight, filled me with an unbearably weighty feeling of shame.
Before we had sailed two hundred feet, I saw a fair-haired youngster wade out up to his knees. He stood out to me because of the blond plaits he wore on either side of his head, which reminded me of Anfán. He was waving something above his head. Then the rest of the troops began chanting. At that distance, the noise of the sea and the wind made it difficult to hear. I was the only person aboard looking back at the coast. I listened harder. When I realized what it was, I thumped the deck four times with my fists. “Turn back! Turn back!” I cried. “Damn it all, turn the ship around!”
The oafs came over, ordering me to be quiet. For once I was able to say what I thought about them to their faces: “Imbeciles! The deputy’s forgotten the silver mace!”
And so it was. The men were shouting, “The Club, the Club!” Berenguer and his oafs had been in such a hurry to get away from their own men that they’d managed to forget about the supreme symbol of Catalan resistance.
How is it possible for a people to be so brave and at the same time so submissive? I’ll tell you: It’s possible because, as Alella demonstrated, they had far more faith in their free institutions than in the people running them. Berenguer had left behind the silver mace, while the ragtag army he’d shown so much contempt for had remembered it. And it didn’t even occur to them to hang him — they just wanted to make sure the Club was safe.
The boat made a slow and humiliating about-turn. All those aboard were so ashamed or so afraid that they didn’t want to disembark to go and fetch the mace. Because I’d raised the alarm, they seemed to think I was the man for the job. Pish! I understood how unsettled the deputy was when his oafs came over, again imploring me: “Please.”
I didn’t even have to get down from the boat. Its hull wasn’t deep, and as we came back to shore, the lad waded out to meet us, up to his chest in water. I leaned over the side and took the outstretched Club. As soon as I had it, the boat pushed off again. I shouted back at him: “What’s your name?”
He replied, but the wind must have changed direction, and I didn’t hear. I rue that wind so, so very much that it makes me feel like never saying another word. What’s the worth of a book that contains Berenguer’s name, the abominable Antoni Berenguer, and not that of the young boy?
I spent the return voyage seated in a corner between two barrels, my arms crossed and a blanket over my head so that I wouldn’t have to speak to anyone. My first thought was that the whole thing was a conspiracy, that Berenguer was secretly taking orders from the Bourbons. In fact, after Barcelona fell, the word was that he did serve the new government, immediately and with servile acquiescence. But I’m not really one for conspiracies. He was a weak man, that’s all, and when a man is in a position of power, weakness and treachery are apt to merge. Perhaps he made all the officers set sail with him so they’d have a share of the shame, or perhaps he was worried that an attack on the cordon would cost too many officers’ lives. Being from good families, the Red Pelts would have been unhappy if so many of their own had been led to slaughter. Who knows. It’s hardly the most important thing.
We were willing to wage war on the Two Crowns for the sake of our constitutions and liberties, a single city against the immense might of two allied empires. But, I ask, how are you supposed to fight your very own government?
As for the upshot of our disastrous expedition, the less said, the better. When we arrived back in Barcelona, Don Antonio wasn’t exactly the calmest he’d ever been. Thank goodness I wasn’t there when the news of Berenguer’s cowardice reached him, the Mataró disaster, the calamity of abandoning an entire army on a beach. Apparently, Don Antonio threw his staff of office to the floor, proclaiming: “An offense to God! A disservice to the king! And ruination for the homeland!”
Don Antonio demanded explanations, and when he came to us, Dalmau and I made no bones about what had happened. He wanted Berenguer hanged from the city walls. As was to be expected, the Red Pelts rushed to Berenguer’s defense. But his conduct had been so dire that even they couldn’t keep him from being put on trial. I kept my thoughts to myself; honest justice would be out of the question. He came away completely unscathed. Don Antonio didn’t have jurisdiction over public figures, so Berenguer was merely placed under house arrest. Given that he couldn’t get out of his wheelchair anyway, will someone please tell me what kind of punishment this was? The justice of the Red Pelts, that’s what!
With Berenguer off, exiled in his gilded cage, what happened to the five thousand men who had been abandoned? The moment Dalmau touched down in Barcelona, he chartered a return flotilla — out of his family’s coffers — to go and rescue them. It got there too late. They’d scattered, unsurprisingly. Some had joined Busquets’s group, or others’. Hundreds had been captured by the Bourbons, and you can guess what treatment they received. A good many more simply returned home. Who can blame them? The rest carried on harrying the Bourbons on the outskirts of Barcelona, of their own accord. But the expedition’s strategic objective had failed utterly.
Amazingly, some were willing to go on to Barcelona and made it there, forcing their way through the cordon. Small groups of cavalry, with the darkness as cover, charged in like berserkers. In the middle of the night, we saw part of the cordon light up with flashes of rifle fire, and heard the wild riders howling. They crossed the less protected swampy areas and, when they reached the open encampments, hurtled in like meteors. A little while later, ten, twenty, thirty men shot through into the city. .