“From a dead tree,” he added.
Then, with a flick of the reins, he made his mount rear and wheel to face each of the twelve companies of the tercio, as if defying any inclination to discuss his order, which added to a dishonorable death by hanging the insult that the adjudged would not swing from a leafy green branch. I was with the other mochileros, close behind the troop formation, keeping our distance from the women, the curious, and the rabble watching the spectacle from afar. I was a few paces behind Diego Alatriste’s squad, and I could see some of the soldiers in the last rows, Garrote among them, mumbling under their breath when they heard de la Daga’s words. As for Alatriste, his eyes were fixed on the colonel, and his face was as emotionless as ever.
Don Pedro de la Daga must have been about fifty, a small man from Valladolid, with bright eyes, a quick wit, and long experience in the military, though little esteemed by his troops. It was said that his sour temperament came from bilious humors, that is, a constipated nature. A favorite of our General Spínola and with influential patrons in Madrid, de la Daga had made his reputation as a sergeant-major in the Palatinate campaign and had been granted command of the Cartagena tercio after a falconet ball blew off don Enrique Monzón’s leg in Fleurus. Jiñalasoga was not a nickname someone dreamed up out of nowhere; our maestre was one of those men who, like Tiberius, chose to be despised and feared by his men, using such means to impose discipline. That he was courageous in battle was indisputable. He scorned danger as he did his soldiers (you recall that his personal escort consisted of German halberdiers), and he had a good head for strategy. He was close-fisted with money, sparing with favors, and cruel with punishment.
When the two prisoners heard the sentence, they showed little reaction; they already knew the outcome of the affair; not even they could get away with running through a sergeant. The rules of the game were clearly established. The two men stood in the center of the rectangle, guarded by the chief bailiff of the tercio, both bareheaded and their hands tied behind their backs. One was older and had many scars, gray hair, and an enormous mustache; he was the one who had made the first move against their victim, and seemed the calmer of the two. The second was somewhat younger, thin, heavily bearded, and while the elder man kept looking up to the sky, as if none of this had anything to do with him, the thinner one showed more signs of dejection, looking down at the ground, then toward his comrades, then at the hooves of the colonel’s horse only a short distance away. But, like his companion, he comported himself well.
At a signal from the bailiff there was a drum roll, and don Pedro de la Daga’s bugler blasted a few notes to seal the matter.
“Do the adjudged have anything to say?”
A shiver of expectation ran through the companies, and the forest of pikes seemed to tilt forward, the way the wind bows grain, as those holding them leaned in, trying to hear. Then we all watched the bailiff, who had approached the prisoners, tilt his head to one side and listen to something the elder of the two was saying. He looked toward the colonel, who nodded assent, not out of benevolence but because it was the traditional protocol. Then those of us on the esplanade heard the gray-haired man say that he was an old soldier and, like his comrade, a man who had performed his duty up to the present day. Dying went with the profession, but to die of rope fever—whether from a green or dead or devil-may-take-it limb didn’t matter, pardiez—was an unfitting insult to soldiers like themselves who had always put their legs into their breeches like true men. So, seeing that they were to be shuffled off this coil, he and his comrade were asking if it could be by harquebus ball, the way a Spaniard and man of courage dies, not hanged like peasants. And if in the end it was the cost that was the essential factor, he would provide the balls for the harquebuses and save the good colonel the expense. His own were cast from good Escombreras lead, surplus from provisions that he kept in his powder flask, and they wouldn’t do him any damn good where he was going. But be it known, he said, no matter the method, rope or harquebus or singing camp songs, his comrade and he were being sent on their way with a half year of lost pay still owed to them.
Once he had spoken, the veteran shrugged his shoulders with a resigned air and stoically spat on the ground between his boots. His companion spat too, and there were no further words. A long silence ensued, and then, from high atop his horse, don Pedro de la Daga, still with his fist on his hip and not moved in the least by the request, repeated, unrelenting, “Hang them!” At that, a clamor arose from among the various banderas that set the officers on their heels, and there was agitation in the rows of soldiers. Some even fell out of line and shouted, and no orders from the sergeants and captains could put an end to the tumult. Watching all this uproar openmouthed, I turned toward Captain Alatriste to see which side he was taking. He was shaking his head very slowly, as if he had lived through all of this before.
The mutinies in Flanders, offspring of poor discipline deriving from bad administration, were the illness that sapped the prestige of the Spanish monarchy, whose decline in the rebellious provinces—even in those that remained loyal—owed more to mutinous troops than to the actual conduct of the war. Already in my time, insurrection was the one sure way to collect wages. The mutineers would take a city and barricade themselves inside it; indeed, some of the worst sacking in all of Flanders came at the hands of troops seeking compensation for unpaid wages. In any case, it is fair to point out that we were not the only ones. For if we Spanish, as patient as we were cruel, resorted to blood and fire, the Walloon, Italian, and German troops did the same, and they reached the peak of infamy when they sold the forts of San Andrés and Crevecoeur to the enemy, something the Spanish never did. It was not that they were not willing, but they preferred to avoid shame and preserve their reputations. ’Sblood! It is one thing to kill and sack over not being paid, but treachery and acts affecting honor are a different matter.
And on the subject of honor, there were still examples as memorable as the business at Cambrai, where things had come to such a disastrous point that the Conde de Fuentes had to ask the soldiers, the “caballeros” of troops then mutinying at Tirlemont, in his most solicitous tones “to be so kind as to assist him” in taking the stronghold. That horde suddenly became a disciplined and fearsome force again and attacked in perfect order, capturing the citadel and the plaza. And it was mutinous troops who bore the worst of the fight in the dunes of Nieuport, where they requested the position of greatest danger because a woman, the infanta Clara Eugenia, had asked for their help. And I should not overlook the mutinies in Alost, where men had refused to accept the conditions offered in person by the Conde de Mansfeld and had allowed to pass, unhindered, several Dutch regiments that were about to wreak terrible damage upon the king’s estates. Those same troops, when finally they received pay and saw that it was not payment in full, would not accept a single maravedí, refusing to fight even though Flanders, Europe itself, was being lost. However, when they learned that in Antwerp six thousand Dutch and fourteen thousand civilians were about to exterminate the one hundred and thirty Spaniards defending the castle, they set out at forced march at three in the morning, crossed the Escalda, placed green twigs in their helmets as an indication that they anticipated victory, and swore either to eat with Christ in Paradise that night or take their supper in Antwerp. In the end, as their lieutenant, Juan de Navarrete, knelt on the counterscarp waving their banner back and forth, they yelled, “Santiago and Spain!” arose as one, and, rushing the Dutch trenches, they stabbed, slit throats, and crushed the heads of any being in their path. In short, they did what they had sworn to do. Juan de Navarrete and another fourteen did in fact dine with Christ—or with whomever courageous men who die on their feet dine with—but the remainder of their comrades ate that night in Antwerp. For if it is all too true that though our poor Spain has never known justice, or good government, or honest public servants, and has been granted kings barely worthy of wearing the crown, she has also never, as God is my witness, lacked for subjects willing to overlook indifference, poverty, and injustice, willing to clench their teeth, unsheathe steel, and fight for the honor of their nation. For when all is said and done, Spain’s honor was the sum of the negligible honor of each individual.