I’ve already mentioned how it had been between Ballester and me before that. Added to that, the night before, Anfán also happened to have put his hand to my face, stroking the same cheek as he sat on my knee and asked me to recount the day’s fighting. After all that time of him being pricklier than a hedgehog, he’d heard me come in and had gotten out of bed to show me some affection. “Jefe, jefe. How many men did you kill today?” And now, a few hours later, it appeared that my last human contact before I died would be with Ballester’s grubby paws.
I hit him with a left. I felt his beard cushion the impact of my knuckles. Ballester, naturally, recovered and came at me. Here was a pretty sight just before an attack: two officers going at it in front of the troops. We fell to the floor and rolled about a bit, kicking and howling. Someone separated us and said: “Shall I arrest him, Colonel?”
“And let him off the hook?” I said, spitting a bolus of blood on the ground. “He’s not getting off that easily. He’ll join the attack like everyone else!”
And so the attack was launched. Our side, all colors under the rainbow, each battalion with its own distinctive tunics, faced by the dour white wall of the Bourbon troops.
An utter disaster. The drums, instead of seeming encouraging, unsettled me. My heart seemed to be in my mouth every time I heard a drumroll. The cannons on the cordon side began firing at us. In the wake of our advance, men were left screaming where they fell. And the cannonballs whistling by, and you not knowing if yours would be the next head to be pulped by one.
Military discipline and civilian brotherliness will always be very different things. A well-trained soldier will advance, advance no matter what, even in the face of an iron tempest. For the Coronela militia, it was different. Each man would look left and right and see alongside him a parent, a son, or a brother: three generations advancing shoulder to shoulder. When one had his leg blown off, or another fell to the floor with half his head gone, those alongside him would always kneel down and try to help. It was my unhappy task to push them on. “On, on!” I cried. “Don’t stop, leave it to the surgeons!”
What they failed to understand was that, by stopping, they were loosening the formation. Distraught, they’d stop and crouch down, and the line behind them would have to break to go around them. It was pointless shouting at them: They couldn’t hear. And so the formation began falling apart.
I couldn’t have been happier to hear the trumpets sounding the retreat. I had only one thought: We’re done, let’s get away! Until that moment, I’d kept step with the pace of the advance. But as I turned and tried to hurry home, I realized my left leg wasn’t working.
My whole leg was covered in blood. As is so often the case, the heat of battle had meant I hadn’t felt the pain. The bullet had gone clean through my thigh. The entry and exit wounds were visible in spite of the blood pumping out. The troops were heading back into the city, and I stayed where I was, flapping like a lame duck, letting out ridiculous sobs and groans. For Ballester, sprinting back to the city, here was his chance to take revenge.
“Now what?” he said. “Think we shouldn’t stop for the wounded? Still think we ought to leave them where they lie?”
I ought to have begged for his help but instead opted for a few choice words about the gash he was born out of. A few more cannonballs landed around us, and the rest of our men made themselves scarce. What a calamity, that retreat! Some even tossed their rifles to the ground to help run faster; their only thought was reaching the cover of our cannons, where the enemy cavalry wouldn’t dare follow.
By now, Bourbon riders had reached the point where our advance had ceased. There was no chance I was going to make it back to the city gates, not even to the palisades. I dropped into a hollow in the ground, facedown, playing dead. With a little luck, I’d be able to wait for nightfall and then slink back to the city.
Well, fortune wasn’t favoring me that day. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw two Bourbon soldiers come up alongside the natural trench I was lying in. They were going around impaling bodies with their bayonets to make sure they were dead, and I was next.
“Arretez!” I shouted, rolling over to face them. “I’m a lieutenant colonel in His Majesty Carlos III’s army. Take me to your commander, and you’ll be rewarded.”
I could barely believe it, seeing the barriers to the Bourbon cordon swing shut behind me. I’d breakfasted in my home that morning, and now, just a few hours later, here I was in the enemy camp, a wound in my leg and two enemy soldiers keeping me captive.
There were few prisoners aside from me — which just goes to show that short, frightened legs are better than long, injured ones. The cordon had been refined and reinforced since the beginning of the siege, I noticed.
My captors weren’t overly discourteous. Pleased with their find, they were leading me to one of their superiors when we came past a surly-looking French captain. Seeing me, he let loose a few insults against the city and said what he thought should happen to the Barcelona “rebels.”
I shrugged. “We’ll be dining in Paris before that day comes,” I said in French.
I was merely referring to a rumor that had been making the rounds in the city: Catalan diplomats were said to be brokering a truce with the French. This captain, though, took me to mean something else altogether; it seemed he thought good old Zuvi was planning on invading France on his own, or somesuch. He snatched the rifle from one of the soldiers guarding me, and rammed the butt into my kidneys. I fell, letting out a helpless cry. What was he about? I looked him in the eye.
He was resolved to kill me: The look on his face stated this clearly. He might simply have been a madman, or perhaps it was the yearlong siege that had turned him into this bitter brute. I couldn’t say. But he began aiming the rifle butt, accurately and extremely painfully, at my ribs. I tried dragging myself out from under this barrage, and I cried out for help, but where to find help in an enemy encampment? It was more a harpooning than a beating. One blow to the base of my spine made my sight swim with yellow dots. He was going to kill me. I tried crawling away and got a kick to the head for my troubles.
I began not to feel the pain. I got to my knees, straightening up my body. Something wooden struck me between my shoulder blades, and I fell to the floor again. Just then, however, I caught a brief glimpse of someone.
On the cordon wall, a man standing on the highest tier, looking out over the city and the now deserted battlefield with a telescope.
I recognized the shape and size of the man. The expression, not so much venial as great: a pose that suggested solemnity in the face of trivialities, a silhouette with an invincible aura. “Martí,” I said, “it cannot be. This man is dead.” I straightened up again, still on my knees. Delirious or not, I would lose nothing by calling out to him. I held out my hand and cried: “Monsieur de Vauban!”
Without dropping the telescope, the man slowly turned his head.
“C’est moi! Votre élève bien aimé de Bazoches!”
He looked down at me, frowning. “C’est qui?” he asked.
“Moi!” I replied, more a spit than a shout. “Martín Zuviría!”
“Martín? C’est toi?”
His penetrating look gave way to astonishment. He descended the tiers and came toward me. A look was enough to send the captain packing. When he knelt down beside me, my vision had begun going blurry, all color gone.