Even my dear vile Waltraud can tell that the letter was meant to throw the Bourbon spies off the scent. As we know, there were more spies swarming around the city at that time than flies on a donkey’s behind. At nine in the morning, Don Antonio did indeed go up to Montjuic surrounded by a large and visible escort. But his plan was to slip back at eleven, a long while before anyone in the Mediterranean would ever sit down to lunch, and then lead the attack.
Among the ministers, Casanova had been beside himself since the moment he’d received word that the Bourbons had begun their trench. Coming across one of our infantry generals, he lost his temper. “Seeing as you’re going to Villarroel’s little party in Montjuic,” he cried, “you can tell him that the people won’t take it all well, not at all well, that the enemy is being allowed to go about its work so freely!”
This general, of course, passed the message on. Appalled at the dressing-down he’d been given, he made out that the conseller en cap’s words had been even more injurious. There was nothing Don Antonio could do but defer the attack to go and conciliate the ministers. Not satisfied with having ruined the ploy, Casanova hardly calmed down even when he was made to understand what the plan had been. To top it off, he held forth on what he thought the approach should be for the sortie. I still think that no one in besieged Barcelona quite understood to what point a military man like Don Antonio had his patience tested. There were a hundred more darts on the part of Casanova, not one of which is worth recounting.
As Casanova and Don Antonio argued, I was huddled in the first parallel, sheltering as best I could from the cannonade raining down from our parsley-chewing artillery chief, Francesc Costa.
Costa, ever his own man, hadn’t waited for any orders to begin firing. Before the sun was up, he’d relocated eight mortars and forty-eight cannons, which then began hurling cannonballs and grapeshot down on the first parallel and my poor head.
If artillery were an art, that dawn bombardment would go down as immortal. The missiles curved perfectly through the air. Smoke trails marked their flight. Some of the shells weighed over a hundred pounds. They flattened everything and raised immense fountains of earth wherever they fell, fajinas in pieces, wicker baskets ejected like cutlery.
Costa’s Mallorcans alternated stone shells with fused explosive ones — when the latter were two or three meters above the ground, they’d burst open in a flash of white and yellow, spilling red-hot shards onto the heads of everyone in the trench. It was no easy thing to make the fuse exactly the correct length so that it would blow just as it came over the trench, not a moment sooner; too high and the grapeshot wouldn’t cause as much damage, too late — once the shell had landed — and the ground would absorb the explosion. If you’re facing someone with Costa’s skills, the only hope is to dig your trench deep and not too wide, thereby reducing the lethal area. But if you remember, I had convinced Verboom to do the opposite, with very wide and shallow trenches.
As you know, though, I wasn’t with our artillery but behind the Bourbon lines. Which twist of fate meant I was on the receiving end of Costa’s artistic talents, the cannonballs whooshing and exploding above me. I remember the smell of the warm, wet earth in the trenches, and its still-to-be-braced walls. All around me — crammed beneath and on top of me — dozens of workers were sheltering, as I was, cowering and whimpering in fear of the aerial detonations. The sheer chaos of an Attack Trench means that any survivor has an extreme tale to tell. It is a three-dimensional fight for your life: on the ground, using your hands, in the air, with the bombs; and under the ground, with the mines. Add to that a fourth: You are fighting against time. The advance of a trench is the world’s most quantifiable truth. Even so, that’s the case only in terms of le Mystère or from the perspective of a Ten Points. To the engineer on the side of the besieging army, the advance will always seem to go at a snail’s pace; to the one inside the city, faster than a running deer. An Attack Trench is both the most precise human endeavor and that which must take place under the most savage conditions.
Finally, after midday, several thousand men sprang from the city — my neighbors — ready for anything. I peeked over the parapet and saw the bones of the stockade thickening with people on their way to attack the recently begun trench.
Sheer pandemonium. The attack came at all points of the trench, right, left, and center. The cavalry came in support, attacking down the wings. Both armies’ artillery fired ceaselessly, and there was so much commotion, smoke, and gunpowder that you didn’t know who was killing whom. My initial idea was to hide in some rift in the ground, wait for the wave of attackers to come past my position, identify myself, and go back to the city with them. Good plan, wouldn’t you say? Unfortunately, it didn’t take into account my proverbial cowardice. Hundreds of men charged in my direction, drunk and screaming like stuck pigs. I thought I recognized them as a unit that had been set up recently, grenadiers under the orders of Captain Castellarnau.
My God, I thought, they seem rather angry. Three Normandy battalions went out to engage them. Castellarnau’s men rushed forward like demons, bayoneting the Normans to pieces and moving on. A little closer and I could see their wine-reddened eyes. Terrified, I said to myself: “Martí, they aren’t messing around.” They advanced, letting out drunken cries, calling Saint Eulalia’s name, and bayoneting any fallen men as they came past. The Normans dispatched, there was nothing now between them and the first parallel.
A troop attacking like that will recognize no one. No one! They in a frenzy, me in a white uniform. I then had one of the most bizarre thoughts of my long military life: Mother of God, my allies are nearly upon us. Mercy!
“Run, run!” I bellowed at the workers around me. “Let’s go or the rebels will cut us to shreds!”
The men near me were all workers and, seeing me flee, wavered. Castellarnau’s drunk grenadiers were nearly upon us, and all the while, the cannonballs continued to fall with devilish precision. If even the officers are fleeing, why would lowly workers, who have no military training, stay?
The entire brigade followed me. (Truly, it was a good thing for them, because as I later found out, the few who did stay were massacred.) Most flung their picks and shovels to the ground, carts and half-full fajinas, and sprinted astonishingly quickly — some were so frightened they even overtook me!
The attack fizzled out without any great effect. A spark rather than a full-blown fire, remarkable only for the numbers of dead. And who cares about the dead? The men in the sortie occupied the trench, yes, did as much damage as they could, yes, but the minute they were gone, another four thousand soldiers, workers, and sappers stepped in and renewed the digging effort.
I was handed a report on the day’s activity to take to Jimmy. On my way to Mas Guinardó I read it — a punishable offense. Six hundred and forty-eight dead and wounded on a single night and day of trench work. The note came from Verboom himself, and good old Zuvi (what irony!) was the one charged with taking it to Jimmy.
As I entered Mas Guinardó carrying the account, my thoughts were on how many more would have suffered had things gone well. Jimmy was standing in his study, looking out of the window. The carnage that had just taken place was clearly the last thing on his mind. He was lost in thought, gnawing a fist. He turned and looked at me and immediately returned his gaze to the window. His only words were a quiet groaning as he repeated obsessively: “She dies, she dies. . ”