Somehow managing to turn and look behind me, I saw that lunatic Ballester in fits of laughter, though he was keeping his voice down. He pointed around us; it had finally dawned on him why, in the early stages of the siege, I’d insisted on the looting of furniture from houses across the city. The braces for this long, winding tunnel were made from the beams and planks we ourselves had removed. Window frames made the perfect tunnel supports, girding the roof and the sides. Table legs buttressed the walls.
I pushed on, bringing us through into a corridor that seemed to go on forever. Then we came to a fork. I chose the right branch.
I halted somewhere along the way and set one of the plugs against the tunnel wall. Putting my ear against the ceramic part of the large plate and hunching myself over it, I gestured for Ballester to be quiet. His men piled up behind him, their curiosity overcoming any battle seasoning.
It’s hard to believe the number of sounds that can travel through earth. They were redoubled by the ceramic, which acted like a microscope for acoustics. I introduced the first of the canes through the hole in the center of the plate. The earth was soft, and the cane, or sounding line, passed easily into it, traveling farther and farther into the wall. Once it was all the way in, I screwed the next one onto its bottom and resumed pushing. Then another sounding line, then another. Finally, I could tell, combining my senses of hearing and touch, that the lines in series had come out into a space; the resistance of compacted earth wasn’t there anymore. Then I had to feed a thinnish piece of cable down the center of the line, thereby clearing the earth out of it. And when that was done, withdrawing the cable, I could look along the interior of the line, which functioned like a periscope.
The only thing I could tell was that it was an enemy gallery — flickering lights, movements, shadows. I could hear as much as see them. But they were there, all right.
Dark bodies came across my field of vision. I could hear their picks, and the sound of baskets full of earth being dragged along. Their presence became more and more sharply defined, details such as someone clearing his throat.
“What on earth are you doing?” whispered Ballester.
The movements I was making must have struck him as strange. I’d put my eye up to the end of the line for the briefest moment, then pull my head back, and again go to the line — back and forth, like a chicken pecking for seeds. I gestured for him to be quiet.
Too late. Perhaps they heard Ballester, or perhaps they saw my line poking through into their gallery; whatever it was, within moments they had sent a line of their own in our direction, and it emerged into our gallery between Ballester and me. A tubular worm poking through into the space, a metal circle no wider than a thumb and forefinger. And yet what a terrifying thing, for it meant that we’d been discovered.
That little tube of metal — apparently inoffensive — signified death. The men at the far end were killers, and they had sniffed us out. French sappers, veterans of a thousand skirmishes, possibly trained by Vauban himself. And what adeptness they showed: The moment they’d heard or perhaps only sensed us, one sank a sounding line into the wall and located us at the first attempt. I was paralyzed with fear.
Ballester understood what was happening and responded in typical fashion: He inserted his pistol into the opening at the end of the enemy line and pulled the trigger. We heard cries. Ballester’s bullet had doubtless hit the enemy sapper in the eye. Perhaps now my chicken-head movements will make sense. Indignation among the dead man’s colleagues, shouts, insults. I decided to skip the niceties: “Back, back!” I cried. “Get out, before they smoke us out!”
I by no means ordered the retreat for the sake of it. On top of my habitual cowardice, there was what I’d been taught at Bazoches.
When a brigade of miners locates the opponent’s gallery, it will proceed to drill a small trou, that is, a hole. Into this hole, a bolus of pine needles will be introduced — the size of a cannonball, smeared with pitch and on fire — and stuffed all the way through. Innocuous it might seem, but far from it. In such narrow spaces, smoke becomes a lethal weapon. In under a minute, all breathable air will have been consumed; the men will pass out and die from suffocation. And if the lack of air doesn’t kill them, the enemy will, breaking into the gallery as soon as the smoke has cleared and knifing the fallen bodies.
The French miners had far more expertise than the Miquelets in such matters; they’d be sure to drill a smoke hole far more quickly than we would. And as it says in the manual of good old Zuvi, if you cannot win a race, best to run in the opposite direction. And be quick about it!
We shuffled out of there like centipedes, reaching the ladder just in time. As soon as we were back above earth, the mine shaft began to vomit black smoke, like an underground chimney.
All I said to Ballester was: “How did you know it’s standard procedure to shoot your pistol along an enemy sounding line like that?”
“I didn’t.”
Feeling ever bleaker, I went and sat in the corner of the abandoned house, head in hands. The Miquelets, not understanding my despondency, tried to console me. I let out a bitter laugh. “You’ll soon get it,” I said.
Los Cucs soon showed up, and their captain asked me how it had gone.
“What?” he cried. “You’ve given away the whereabouts of one of our galleries? And they smoked you out?” He looked despairing. “Do you know what it took for us to make that tunnel? All that work, ruined in half an hour! How am I supposed to lead my men down into a gallery that the enemy has detected? We’ll have to block it up and start a whole new one! What kind of imbeciles has the government sent me?”
The final days down in the mine comprised unutterable horrors. Worst of all were the reproachful glances I got from the leader of Los Cucs (his name is still a blank!) when we went back down the shaft.
Above, ramparts that might succumb at any moment; below, a hidden deposit of gunpowder, tons of it, that might blow before we found it. One day when we were about to go underground again, I told Ballester’s men to wait: There were voices rising up out of the mine, distorted by how far underground they were, but clearly not belonging to Los Cucs. The Miquelets pointed their guns down into the shaft.
Everyone was silent. I placed my ear to the entrance of the shaft. Whispers in French and Catalan. The Bourbons had plenty of botifleros in their service, so it would make sense to use some of them in the mines.
The Miquelets’ fingers were on their triggers, guns encircling the shaft entrance. Then a head appeared, and it had fair and very knotty hair. He looked up at me and said in a happy voice: “Hello, jefe! What are you doing here?”
Behind Anfán came Nan, and behind them several Cucs. I was speechless. Their leader explained. “The boy and the dwarf save us all kinds of work. They’re so small and agile, we can send them into the tiniest shafts and have them listen for enemies. You know them? Why are you looking at me like that?”
This sparked the final fight between Amelis and me. Dashing to the beach with long Zuvi strides, I found her in line at the camp mess.
The only free food provided by the government was a bland fish soup. The line was strictly regimented — the Red Pelts had posted a guard to see that no one got too much — a couple of ladlefuls was the maximum. Amelis ignored me totally. She was so exhausted that her eyes were violet-red, and all her attention was focused on the back of the person in front of her. I grabbed her by the arm and dragged her out of the line. Then she came to life, thrashing around desperately, trying to get clear of me. Her scrawny body felt light as a feather.