Jordi Bastida was one of our heroes. In 1709 he’d been responsible for repelling the Bourbon assault on Benasque, a small settlement in the Pyrenees. If he’d been in my shoes, have no doubt, he would have interpreted “Well, you’d better go and tell him, then!” to mean, send a messenger; Bastida never would have considered abandoning his post, least of all when a mine had gone off, sending shock waves through the entire city. But I, of course, was not Bastida, and off I ran. And as I ran, I felt sure I’d never see the man alive again.
The Bourbons came at Saint Clara and Portal Nou simultaneously. The latter had just as few men defending it, the tailor and the cup maker companies. But overall, Portal Nou hadn’t had it as bad as Saint Clara; it could count on covering fire from either side, and its breaches were not so severe. As for the subterranean mine, it hadn’t been well positioned: It took out the forward edge of the pentagon, whereas if the Antwerp butcher had calculated properly and placed it a little farther forward, the entire fortification would have been blown sky-high. Imagine that — could someone possibly have fiddled with the numbers and distances in the plans?
Portal Nou was under Colonel Gregorio de Saavedra y Portugal. (I imagine he was Portuguese, with a surname like that.) For a few long minutes, his tailors and cup makers found themselves blinded by a thick cloud of black smoke. It rained clods of earth and rubble. They must have thought the world had come to an end. But the error in the calculations meant that the vast majority would come away unscathed. And Saavedra, who was a veteran officer, promptly sent his men into the gap.
Which bright Bourbon spark came up with the idea of returning to the time when pikemen were in force, I don’t know. (Years later, Jimmy assured me it hadn’t been him, but bearing in mind the disaster that took place, and his tendency to never tell the truth, his wanting to deny responsibility would make sense.)
Militiamen from each bastion converged in the breaches and began firing their rifles dementedly. They had covering fire from the ramparts above and were camouflaged by the screen of smoke from the exploded mine below. And the attackers came so thick and fast that they just needed to shoot into the mass of them. The first to fall, logically enough, were the men with the pikes. They were the most strapping men, and their armor was too heavy, and as they went rolling back down the slope they took dozens of others with them.
In the first part of this book, I said a little about the horror of a grenadier attack. I didn’t think it necessary to specify at that point that one doesn’t need to be a grenadier to use a grenade, and that in Barcelona, we had thousands upon thousands of grenades. A deluge of those black balls now came pouring down on the attackers. That the opposition was so tightly packed together made it many times more effective. At certain points, some of the defenders simply lit a single fuse to one of the grenades in a sack and threw the whole thing. But in spite of the carnage, the Bourbons still made headway.
Meanwhile, good old Zuvi sprinted to find Don Antonio again. I didn’t have to go far to find him. He was behind the area under attack, with officers and intermediaries bustling around him. There was nothing I could tell him that he didn’t already know, which I found somewhat humiliating.
One of the officers awaiting Don Antonio’s orders was Marià Bassons, a law professor who had taken up the position of captain in the Coronela. A small man with a round head and his spectacles firmly in place, even there in the midst of battle, Bassons was one of these men who keep old age at bay by being phlegmatic, making observations on the world as though they themselves are not a part of it.
“Ah, Lieutenant Colonel Zuviría,” he said, peering at me through his little glasses. “Tell me, any developments on your legal tribulations? Did you sort it out with those Italians?”
I was out of breath from running, and above our heads, missiles of all calibers were flying to and fro, and Bassons wanted to know about my pending trial. Someone ought to have pointed out to him that most of the courts had been destroyed by the bombardment. I never quite worked out if he was senile or one of these stoic creatures that society props up, as long as there’s someone saying it’s possible to prop them up.
His company, made up of law students, was nearby, sheltering from stray bullets as they awaited orders. One came over and, both eager and respectful, asked Bassons: “Doctor, are we to attack?”
The law students’ company was easily recognizable. Since they were at university, that meant they all came from good families. When enlisting, they each bought themselves not one but two or even three of those uniforms with their long blue jackets. They’d get one dirty during a shift, then have another waiting for them, one of their servants having cleaned it. They struck up an agreement with the tailor company, who would patch their holes for them. I must admit, they never filled me with confidence. The only thing they were any good for was parades, because they scrubbed up so well in their immaculate uniforms with their wide yellow cuffs. The civilians, up on their balconies, found encouragement from seeing them, due to their tendency to confuse a pretty army with a hardened one. My qualms were based on the fact that war and the arts have never been happy bedfellows. “They’ll bolt as soon as the first shot is fired” was my view.
Bassons, who always acted like a father with his students, clapped the young soldier on the back. “Aviat, fill meu, aviat,” he said. Soon, my boy, very soon. “And remember: Nihil metuere, nisi turpem famam.” The only thing to be feared is ill renown.
Old Bassons had enlisted, like many of the people of Barcelona, almost without having to think. For them, war was part of your civic duty, somewhere between paying your taxes and taking part in carnival. Once the Crida went out, the students made it clear to the government that their professor was the only man they’d serve under. The Red Pelts, always very understanding (to the upper classes), made Bassons a captain. (Possibly they worried that if they did otherwise, the students would drag them out and stone them.) In return, Bassons couldn’t have felt more proud of the youngsters under his command. Mon Dieu, quel bon esprit de corps!
The young soldier went back over to the troop, and Bassons couldn’t help but sigh condescendingly. “Youth, always so impatient!” This he said as though my rank somehow meant I wasn’t also young.
“Storm,” I know, is very overused as a description for battle, but there can be few better ways to describe the situation we were in. Clouds of ash and stone chips came tumbling from the bastions as the cannonballs continued to fall. In our positions just below the ramparts, pulverized fragments rained down on our heads. I didn’t want to imagine what it was like inside Saint Clara. With a little luck, I thought, I’ll be forgotten about. Ha! I should have been so lucky! One of Villarroel’s officers came rushing over: “Zuviría! Is it right you’ve been up on Saint Clara? You’re to show Captain Bassons the way — the students are going as backup for Bastida. Tell them they must hold until further reinforcements arrive!”
I didn’t even have time to patch together an excuse.
“Got that?” cried the man. “Hold the position! Hold, or all will be lost!”
I wanted to say no, no, he couldn’t send a collection of rosy-cheeked infants to Saint Clara, that the Bourbons would brush them aside in seconds, and it would be of no practical use in the defense of the city. But that would have been to offend Bassons and his hundred or so bluecoats, who were already trotting over. Very enthusiastic about getting themselves killed!
What else could I do but take them to Saint Clara? We crossed the narrows of the gullet, we hurried up the infernal steps. And dear Lord, what a scene we found!