“In Barcelona!” specified the deputy, wagging a finger. “Under the watchful and paternal eye of the Generalitat. But once inside Mataró, can you guarantee that discipline will hold?” He turned and addressed me once more. “Lieutenant Colonel Zuviría, I hear you served as an engineer in His Majesty’s army in 1710?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Tell us, in that case: Is it reasonable to suppose of a place that has been turned into a general storehouse, and in which a huge quantity of grain has been gathered, that other goods and stuffs will also be gathered in that place?”
“Of course, Your Excellence,” I said, because it was true, and because this way there would be more arguments in favor of an attack. “Weaponry, munitions, material that can be used for sapping and for building trenches, certainly, and possibly carts and horses we’ll need to transport it all away—”
That old graybeard with his drooping eyes was both canny and astute, because before I could finish, he cut in. “What about wine? Cheap liquor?”
“Well—” I hesitated. “Possibly.”
He raised his voice. “Possibly? They’ll have food enough for an entire army and not a drop of filthy alcohol? Lieutenant Colonel! Before an attack, what do men use to calm their nerves?”
I gave in, to my great regret. “A little alcohol, doubtless.”
“Not a little, a lot!” he said scornfully. Taking a couple of breaths, he turned back to Dalmau. “The first thing your men will do is to get drunk. And once they’ve turned into a drunken mob, any discipline you’ve instilled will melt; nothing will hold them back. There are very many of the most noble families in Mataró, lineages going back to King Jaume I. Ill-advisedly, they’ve betrayed their country, but we can’t allow them to be massacred, least of all without any kind of a trial! We have here the ideal conditions for the lowest plebes to wreak the lowest vengeance: stabbing noblemen and taking advantage of ladies. Need I tell you what our enemies would do if they heard news of such an atrocity? Spread it around Europe, debasing Catalonia’s blessed name! We’re a small country; international consensus matters to us. No, sirs, I will not allow a minor victory to annihilate all our possibilities.”
I was so riled by all this that I myself took the floor. “Don Antonio would never approve such a decision! Quite the reverse.”
“Our commander in chief is at the government’s command, and my orders come from the government,” shouted the deputy. Like any Red Pelt, he was immediately incensed by any discussion about the Generalitat and Don Antonio’s competing influence. “It isn’t a military dictatorship!”
“Don Antonio, a dictator?” I said, becoming animated. “I’ve never heard such bilge in all my days!”
My tone forced Dalmau to intercede: “Lieutenant Colonel Zuviría! Act in a manner more befitting your rank — that’s an order!”
But I couldn’t control the frenzy taking hold of me. “If Don Antonio loved the saber regiment so much, he’d be fighting for the Bourbons; they offered him far higher wages than Vienna now pays him! And if our lads get their hands on a few botiflero petticoats, where’s the harm in that? That’s how it is in war, and these cowardly, self-serving so-and-so’s abandoned their people to join the butchers. What should we do with them? Pin medals on their chests? Extol their honorable virtues? We could exchange them for patriots! Take this many botifleros and we’d stop the execution of hundreds, thousands, of Miquelets!”
A number of the officers in the room wanted me arrested. When I put my hand to my sword hilt, Dalmau came and pushed me to the door. “Easy, Zuviría,” he said as he led me out. “You’ll achieve nothing, speaking to people like that.”
I still had time to shout over his shoulder: “What is this war, anyway? Let clockmakers make clocks and politicians politic — soldiers should be left to do what they do, make war!”
All there was for me to do then was sit at the foot of a tree with my head in my hands.
The pendulum of war, indeed. Lose, win, lose again. Everything changed within minutes, incomprehensibly, and on the basis of decisions that seemed divorced from the military. How were we to stand any chance of winning with this kind of people leading the way? They cared more about their own kind, even if they were botifleros, than their own soldiers.
Before I realized it, Ballester had come up and was standing next to me. “I’ve just come back from reconnaissance with my men,” he said. “Mataró is impossible to defend, and the garrison is a trifle. Should I report to someone with the details?”
I didn’t answer but kept my head buried in my hands. Ballester hit me on the shoulder. “Are the battalions ready?” he asked. “There are three entry points. I don’t even think we’ll need them; they’ll surrender as soon as we come into view.”
I could hardly look at him. “There isn’t going to be an attack,” I said. “Mataró isn’t going to be taken.”
An eternity seemed to pass before he spoke again: “But why not? Why not?”
It was one of the few times when I saw him become upset. I found this show of vulnerability unbearable; I felt responsible.
“Ballester,” I stuttered, “I’m sorry. You’re right about the Red Pelts. I shouldn’t have made you come.” I got to my feet, avoiding eye contact. “You should take your men and leave. Or join up with Busquets. Do what you like.”
He took me by the scruff of the neck and slammed me against the tree. “Who do you think you are? Who, damn it? You’ve as little right to eject me as you had to make me join up! Now tell me: Why no attack on Mataró?”
I didn’t even try to resist. In my confusion, I was as sincere as I could possibly be: “I don’t know why.”
Just then a couple of officers came by. “Ho! What’s happening here?”
“What’s happening,” said Ballester, letting go of me and beginning to walk away, “is that there are some people who have no idea what’s truly happening.”
3
There is perhaps only one thing sadder than watching fortune slip between your fingers, and that is to be moving away from it out of your own free choosing. It had been decided: The expedition would move on, no attempt would be made to take Mataró, and so we went on, like a treasure seeker who, having orders to bring back gold, discards a diamond as big as a rock. The cavalry went first, with the infantry bringing up the rear. A late-summer Mediterranean downpour began to fall.
The Miquelets under Busquets watched the army leave; despairing, grievous looks they gave us. Their silence was an accusation. I’d met them after a defeat — this was worse still. It was as though their souls had been extracted from their bodies. Even in victory, they’d suffered a defeat, and yet none could tell at whose hands.
The only one to raise his voice was Busquets. As the rain came down, he rode alongside the ranks of blue-uniformed soldiers.
“Why, why go?” he cried. “Victory’s right there!” He gestured in the direction of Matarós. “We only need to knock on the door, and the whole rotten building will come tumbling down!”
I have stored up a great array of memories in my life, and the image of Busquets then is one of the most pathetic. His arm in a sling, his long blond hair wet with rain, his useless entreaties.
Ballester and his nine Miquelets were in the column’s rearguard. They looked up at Busquets impassively, but I knew them, I knew that inside they were on fire. I spurred my horse over to where Ballester was. “If you want to leave,” I said, “do it now. It wouldn’t be good for the officers to catch wind of it. Legally, they could have you for desertion.”