And on they came. The end of the third parallel would be the end itself. All they had left to do was create the cut that would come through the moat. Then put in place parapets (known as “the gentlemen,” in engineering parlance) and, next, to unleash the final assault, using fifty thousand well-drilled assassins.
The Attack Trench was a labyrinth by now, many thousands of feet long, zigzagging, turning corners, contorting in countless directions. Far to our left, we could see Montjuic, shrouded in smoke so that its peak resembled a flying mountain. All my Bazoches faculties were required, just to have a sense of what was going on a few feet in front of my nose. During one of the bombardments, I came to a particularly painful realization.
I was squatting down on the Portal Nou bastion at the time. I felt desperate seeing the breaches widening by the day, as the enemy cannons continued their work, and knowing there was nothing to be done now to plug them. Next to me was a soldier whose name I didn’t know. Like me, he was sheltering, just about, from the artillery, one hand gripping his rifle, the other clamping his hat down over his head. He was a nobody. A man dressed in poor, tattered clothes, covered in the dust of the battle. At one point, sneaking a look out through one of the many gaps in the battered wall, he said: “What utter whoreson could have come up with something so twisted?”
Perhaps it was this that dragged me to the edge of true torment: feeling myself to be playing a part in our downfall. Then one day I saw a sign for which I’d been hoping for a long while: buckets being passed over the top of a parapet. They were bailing water from the trench.
I’d designed the trench lines to go near the sea, hoping they’d flood. Jimmy’s sappers, trying to dig, suddenly found themselves inundated with salt water. Seeing the buckets, I exploded with glee. I stood up above the rampart and shouted: “Have that! Drown, you rats!”
Ballester yanked me back down. “Lieutenant colonel!” he said, railing at me once I had taken cover again.
I remember that being an extraordinary moment. Why? Because of what I saw in Ballester’s eyes: myself.
Until that moment he’d viewed me as someone reliable but lacking in spirit, skittish, and overly cautious. That day saw the culmination of an insane transmutation in each of us. Ballester, a responsible person, in pay of the government, and Lieutenant Colonel Zuviría, a machine, immersed in our murderous task. Yes, the look we shared then lasted a good few moments.
But if the days were hellish, words cannot describe the nights. Once the third parallel had been established, we were sent out on night sorties more often, and they were bloodier than ever. How could I possibly not take part? I knew every nook and cranny of my trench. My presence was crucial in guiding my fellow soldiers. Combat in the pitch black is always a muddled thing, nothing more so, with grenades, knives, and bayonets in a maze of a thousand ditches and branches.
Yes, the night skirmishes were fought with unprecedented ferocity. We’d set out just as it grew dark or, for variation, before dawn. At first I thought Ballester would be in his element in this kind of encounter. Under cover of dark, he could enact the lowest instincts of man, which consists of killing and then running away. The opposite turned out to be true. Those nights ennobled Ballester to the same extent that they made a savage of me.
Swiftness and time efficiency are key in any sortie. The assault squad’s only aim was to push as far into the trench as possible, then to dig in and hold off the enemy, while, at their back, a second wave sabotaged other parts. Then they’d both fall back, trying to lose as few men along the way as they could.
A signal would be given (something other than a whistle, which the enemy would hear), and we’d run out to the trench, trying to stay low to the ground and silent. Their third parallel was so close by now that it was relatively easy to reach. However watchful the enemy was, we’d be upon them in seconds. Inside the trench, the strangest kind of combat would then commence. First slitting the guard’s throat, then, within minutes, securing part of the trench. The darkness of the night, the depths in which we had to maneuver, and the narrowness of the trench, all made it impossible to see anyone, though there were voices aplenty — howls of entreaty and rage. Whistles being blown by Bourbon officers, five or ten different languages being spoken. Our aims on these lightning attacks were to destroy sapping machinery, flood the trench floor and wreck the cannons. And there was good old Zuvi, directing the destruction. Of the cannons, above all.
Our men would climb all over the cannons like monkeys. One would hold a foot-long nail against the fuse entry point, and the other would pound it with a hammer. The cannon would be immobilized; when the enemy retook the terrain, it would be useless. Where possible, we’d steal their tools. The second wave of men was to follow behind, and when they had gathered a good amount of ammunition, including shovels and mattocks, we’d retreat.
We’d occasionally surprise sappers in the trench, and they wouldn’t put up any resistance. They’d crowd together, down on their knees, hands raised imploringly to the sky, begging for their lives. The flashes of gunfire, the momentary radiance of grenade explosions here and there, lit up their eyes. The last thing they’d experience would be a typically nightmarish scene: fleeing through the night, boxed in by walls sunk in the earth, reaching a dead end. A pitiless enemy coming after them. The best thing was not to look them in the eye.
“Shoot, Ballester, and be quick about it!” was the order I gave. “Kill them and move forward!”
In August 1714, neither side was taking prisoners. What would be the point? The bitterness we felt overcame us all. Falling back, we wouldn’t be able to take our wounded with us. Anyone left behind would be knifed to death by the counterattackers. And in the early hours of the following day, the cadavers would be flung over the front of the trench, and from up on the ramparts, we’d watch them rot in the August sun. A mad time. Everything had grown so dark, we could no longer recognize ourselves.
Anyway, to put aside the darkness for a moment. As an example of le Mystère’s constant sense of humor, even when things were at their goriest, here is an anecdote from August 3 of that year.
I’d just gone in to see Don Antonio, my black hair whitened with ash and fragments of rubble. I was interrupted before I began my report, as in came a battalion of Black Pelts — senior priests, that is. They were there to present a Directive for the Assuaging of Divine Wrath.
The Black Pelts have always done a good line in sarcasm, so the only way to take it was as a not very funny joke. Read for yourselves the recipe they’d cooked up to bring about divine mediation and to liberate the city:
— Permanently put an end to street theater and comedies
Expel all gypsies from the city
Gather up the abandoned children which at this time swarm about in our streets
Do something about the profane, costly manners of the people of Barcelona
Bring back the veneration and respect of the temples
Hail Marys to be carried out in public places throughout the city
That Directive for the Assuaging of Divine Wrath plays in my memory as the perfect conjunction of all that is hypocritical and bizarre. The shelling had long since put an end to street theater, and no one had the energy to go and watch, or take part in, comedies. The poor gypsies, forever scorned, had seen the war as an opportunity to confront the stigma surrounding them: The majority of the drummers in the army had their dark faces. And if children were swarming the devastated streets, like my Anfán, it was because they were looking for food. As for “profane, costly manners,” what world were they living in? Our colorful, joyful city had for a long time been deformed and gray. On top of which, what possible link could there be between a siege in progress, divine favor, and silk skirts?