Costa’s best artillerymen were from Mallorca. When it came to Costa’s lightning flight after September 11, I would bet anything that it was his Mallorcans who had met him to set sail for the Balearics.
Costa was a small, quiet fellow. He didn’t walk; rather, he slid along, head down and hidden between his shoulders, eyebrows raised as though he was always astonished or apologizing. He never spoke unless spoken to. It was most wearing having to deal with him; the fact is, people who are so shy unnerve any interlocutor. His favorite words were “yes” and “no,” and while concision is highly desirable among technicians, Costa’s excess of reserve was out of all bounds. Let us forgive him. Let us admire him. If anyone could understand him, it would be me. We had parallels that connected us: On paper, command of the artillery fell to General Basset, just as that of the engineers fell to Santa Cruz the elder. In practice, I led on the engineering, and Costa on the cannons. These functions above our rank wove a complicity between us. To people like Costa, reality was no more than the angle and distance at which a bomb fell.
His shyness was innate, and he concealed it by chewing on parsley all day long. By the end of the siege, everybody was chewing on weeds so as to deceive their hunger, no choice in the matter, but for Costa it was a natural impulse. As for the possibility of making conversation with him, as I said, you had to drag every word out of him. I remember the first time we met. I asked him how many artillery pieces we had at our disposal.
“Ninety-two.”
I had expected some complaint or request. But nothing. “Have you set out the pieces according to Don Antonio’s orders?”
“Yes, with a few adjustments.”
“Do you think we’ll have enough?” I asked, still faced with this parsimony of his.
“It depends.”
I waited for some further comment. None came. “And what does it depend on, in your opinion?”
He looked at me wide-eyed, as though only my judgment mattered and not his. “On the ones the enemy’s got.”
“To the best of our knowledge at the moment, bearing in mind that our spies have been giving us reports that don’t all match up,” I said, “their convoy is made up of a hundred and fifteen. We can assume that there will be reinforcements coming in future.”
“Well, then,” he said.
“Well, then?”
“Yes.”
His terseness was irritating me; he must have noticed, and he added, raising his eyebrows higher still and chewing his parsley: “My Mallorcans will keep them at bay as long as they do not outnumber us by a ratio of more than five to three. Beyond that, I cannot give any assurances.” He took more sprigs of parsley from his pocket and began to chew on them like a bored rabbit.
As to the general situation, the good part ends here, and there wasn’t much to it. And so begins the bad bit.
A fortress without troops to defend it is as useless as a garrison in a stronghold without walls. Even you, my dear vile Waltraud, can understand that. Well, we had neither one nor the other. Neither an army nor walls.
The first time I went over the rolls of the army, my soul plummeted into my feet. Villarroel wanted a precise calculation of the resources and forces at his disposal. One day he came through the door while I was discussing matters with Costa. He interrupted us as brusquely as usual. He wanted to know why he hadn’t seen the list of all the units.
“I’m sorry, Don Antonio,” I said, “I haven’t been able to calculate the totals because of a mistake.” I couldn’t help laughing while I showed him some papers. “Some idiot in the government has sent us this. I ask them for the army rolls, and they send us the plans for a proposed new market.”
As Villarroel was reading the papers, I laughed again. “They must have muddled the documents,” I added. “What you’ve got there must be the layout for positions for sellers, suppliers, and traders. As you know, they’re saying that, after the war, they want to restructure the market in Plaza del Born. I’ll go myself to the Generalitat in person today and demand the correct rolls.”
But Villarroel was looking at me with those frowning eyes, saying nothing.
“That can’t be.” I swallowed. “Tell me you’re joking.”
Until that day, I had thought we would be making war like any other European kingdom (albeit with no king). The government would hire professional forces wherever they could be found, or would bring them in from elsewhere by making them a reasonable offer. The local militia would be there for support and supplies. What else could you expect from civilians who were barely more skilled than old Peret?
The only professional troops the city had were remnants of the Allied army, the odd individual who, for one reason or another, had decided not to go when his fellows were evacuated. The best little group were the hundred Germans. They were together in a unit of their own, led by eleven officers of the same origin. And such compact ranks! I had to bring them countless messages, which they obeyed with a watchmaker’s precision. Professional soldiers will always have a bit of the adventurer about them. I say this because Waltraud, who has less imagination than an ant, couldn’t understand what some of her compatriots were doing in Barcelona between 1713 and 1714. In those days, it was hardly the most pleasant place in the world to be, though an adventurer isn’t looking for what’s safe but what’s exciting. Many of them had reasons for not returning home, and the Generalitat paid reasonably well; others, in short, had good reasons for staying.
You must understand, my dear vile Waltraud, that in this world, there is such a thing as mutual attraction between male and female genitals, also known as love. Barcelona was full of beautiful women, either single or married to seamen who were practically never home, and. . Well, need I go on? As for the other enlisted foreigners, there were so few, they’re not even worth counting. Yes, we did have a bit of everything, from Hungarians to Irishmen (even Neapolitans, who were still everywhere). I met one who was from the Papal States.
But as I say, the bulk of our army was made up of simple civilians. I had left my city when I was very young, and was only vaguely aware of what was considered the traditional way of defending it. It was based on the Coronela, the local militia. Each trade was assigned its own unit as well as one of the city gates. This was all very well by the military standards of the thirteenth century, but this was five hundred years later, and we were living in Vauban’s technical age.
To give you an idea of my distress, I shall describe to you the entire roster of the Fifth Battalion.
First company: attorneys-at-law. (And they didn’t even know how to take care of my case! How could we expect them to fire a rifle or man a bastion?)
Second company: blacksmiths and tinkers.
Third company: market gardeners.
Fourth company: potters, upholsterers, and makers of pots and pans. (At least these latter are easier to understand: When the hunger sets in, there will be empty pots and pans aplenty.)
Fifth company: belt-makers.
Sixth company: butchers. (Another group who’ll be out of work before long.)