“We’re going to give Pópuli such a kicking that he’ll go flying, all the way over the Mediterranean and back to his Italian boot!” Then, turning to the officers alongside the corpulent colonel, I said: “As for you, come any closer and we’ll riddle your bodies so full of holes, you’ll end up more like cream sieves, you bunch of blockheads!”
It goes without saying that there ended the courtesies. The Pelt was so dismayed that he didn’t say a word during our walk back to the city. For my part, when Villarroel asked how it had gone, I merely replied: “Mission accomplished, Don Antonio.”
2
So began the long, cruel, and singular siege of the city of Barcelona. Within a few days, the Bourbons had closed their cordon, just about, from one side of the city to the other. Following that, they were so occupied in applying the finishing touches that they didn’t bother to begin firing at us.
The mood inside the city fluctuated more than the London Stock Exchange; very quickly, the Barcelonans shifted out of euphoria and into the monotony of a never-ending standoff. Neither did the city consider surrender, nor did Pópuli attack. There were some routine artillery exchanges between the cannons on the bastion tops and the besiegers, more colorful than dangerous, the occasional cavalry sortie into no-man’s-land, and some desertions from either side. Strange as it may seem, more soldiers flowed in the direction of the city than fled it. The Spaniards tended to desert more regularly than the French, doubtless because they were given worse food. The defectors usually exaggerated the hardships they’d undergone — to win our sympathy — but we could see that the soles of their boots had rotted, and that spoke volumes.
Things were increasingly strained between the French and Spanish. The French accused their allies of being good for nothing, incapable of looking after their own allies in a siege. The Spaniards retorted by pointing out that the French navy was as good as pointless. (And right they were; the naval blockade was a constant source of embarrassment for the French, at least until Jimmy arrived.)
As an engineer, I couldn’t have been happier with the way the siege was going. Let me remind you that when a city was besieged selon les règles, even if everything went as well as it could for the attackers, they still had only thirty days. All an engineer in my position wanted, therefore, was to draw things out. What the government chose to do with that time wasn’t my concern: negotiate a respectable peace, bring in foreign reinforcements, or wait for other world powers to intercede with diplomacy. Any of these. If Barcelona’s cries were heard in the rest of Europe, sooner or later, someone would have to do something. Thus I reasoned, vaguely. Everyone did. Meanwhile, the months passed, and Pópuli never embarked on his Attack Trench, and so to us, every new dawn was like a victory.
A curious drôle de guerre, yes. Consider it: Most of us soldiers did a shift on the ramparts or in a bastion and would then go home for dinner or breakfast, often a stone’s throw from our battle post. I myself, within five minutes of being up on a bastion observing the Bourbons with the telescope, or directing defense works, would be back at my table with Anfán on my lap and Amelis putting a plate in front of me. “How was your day, darling?” “Great, sweetie, they sent out a patrol, and we dropped our breeches and showed them our bare behinds.”
People would go down to the seafront parade for aperitifs. Sometimes becoming the audience for exciting skirmishes between the two navies, our own ships sailing out into the bay to slip past the blockading French ships, who could do little to stop them. The crowds cheered and clapped, as though it were some kind of stage play on water going on, and not a siege.
News and provisions came into the city by boat. From what we could piece together, it sounded as though, outside the city, far bloodier fighting was taking place. The Red Pelts were also keen to hear any and all news — some of the boats bore Archduke Charles’s letters from Vienna. I believe I’ve already made mention of that swine having sold us out, but in his royal little letters, his message was always: Well done, my boys, keep it up, keep on smiling at your executioner.
Between the city and the enemy line, there were a few workers’ cottages, inns, and in the lanes near the city, brothels. Through the course of the siege, these gradually fell to pieces and were destroyed. By the artillery and, mainly, because both sides sent crews of foragers to bring back tiles, bricks and slabs. They needed anything they could lay their hands on to reinforce the cordon, and we, to bulk up the ramparts.
Usually, a patrol, one of ours or one of theirs, would occupy an abandoned building midway between us and the enemy. They’d dismantle anything of interest as quietly as they could and then, when the sun went down, return to their own side, arms or sacks full of whatever they’d plundered. If possible, we’d keep out of sight by making our way back along a dry riverbed or a disused irrigation channel. Logically enough, skirmishes were commonplace. Truth be told, they usually happened suddenly and confusedly more than out of any great desire to fight.
Pillaging is generally associated with an outbreak of savage brutality when, really, methodically taking apart a building is one of the most tedious tasks known to man — particularly, say, when you’re charged with leading a certain Ballester and his men in the operation. (This fell to me, of course; other officers declined such a great honor.) To begin with, rather than keeping their heads down, the Miquelets tried to provoke the enemy. They couldn’t, or didn’t want to, understand that we’d gone to that abandoned farmhouse, or that stable, to gather matériel for our side, and to keep it out of Bourbon hands. I became incensed, seeing them wasting time — pulling women’s clothing out of trunks and japing around in it. And instead of staying silent, it would be a noisy jamboree, with petticoats for scarves. Good old Zuvi — he was like a hen trying to order a dozen wolves about. And more often than not, they simply found my orders incomprehensible.
“The frames! Pull the window frames out!”
“Why the cojones do you want us to take wooden window frames with us?”
“Do as you’re told!”
“You engineers have very strange ideas when it comes to war.”
We’d fall back, and always, always, one or two of them would have a petticoat draped around his neck. With six or seven large window frames weighing them down, they’d run along at a stoop.
I brought the scrapping schedule forward. To try and get in before the Bourbon crews, and because if we went out later in the day, the Miquelets were sure to be drunk. Not that I could stop them from coming back drunk; in the early days of the siege in particular, wine and liquor were still being found in abandoned larders.
I was sometimes less harsh with them when they seemed downcast. Those rooms, now empty, had been occupied not long before by people like them. Or at least the people they’d been before joining the Miquelets. Their thoughts were plain: If we’re here to defend a city, what are we doing destroying its houses, outside the walls though they may be?
It fell to me to teach them a few things. “Your life is no longer your own! It belongs to the city now, and it is for the city to decide what you do and when you shall give your life. As long as the siege lasts, we cease to exist as individuals. Accept it!”
Ballester would come back with some retort, and we’d have an altercation. A very isocratic form of command, of course, though that didn’t make it any less tiring. I felt snared — Ballester closing on me from below and Don Antonio from above.