“Thank you, General,” I said, grinding my teeth on the irony in my words. “You can’t imagine how happy that makes me.”
Unfazed, he adjusted his sword in his belt. “Didn’t you hear? I’m not your commander anymore, I’m Don Antonio to you now. All these years I’ve been slapping your wrist when you have had the impertinence to call me that, and now you can. From now on I am, to you and to anybody else, just another citizen. Don Antonio, if that’s what you wish. Understand?”
“Loud and clear, General.” And I added: “From today, I’m allowed to address you as a simple fellow citizen, General.”
For a brief second, emotion seemed to creep into his mien. The ongoing cannon fire added melancholic urgency to his reflections. For I had spoken on behalf of all who loved him. During the time he had commanded armed civilians, they had considered him one of their own, another Barcelonan. And now that he was leaving, the least obedient of these Barcelonans had shown him his true standing, not so much in a military as a moral sense.
Of course, a man like Don Antonio wouldn’t allow himself to be overcome by emotion. He began pacing up and down. As he spoke, he became increasingly incensed. “I’ve done everything I can, I’ve argued and begged, I’ve warned the government of all the ills to come! Defending this city is pure madness now! Staying would mean signing my men’s death warrants. Leaving, I abandon them. What have I done to deserve such ignominy?”
I tried to calm him down. It was then that he revealed the real reason he’d sent for me.
“I saved you from bondage once before, at Illueca. I see no reason why I shouldn’t do so once more. We’ll wake tomorrow in Mallorca, and after that go on to Italy, and from there to court. In Vienna, all your unpaid wages will be seen to: Remember that yours was a royal conscription, not a municipal one. Which means your allegiance is not to Barcelona, and to board a ship would not constitute desertion. And, when I am given a post in the imperial army, I will want an engineer on my staff.”
Before I could speak, he went on: “You have a wife and children, as I do. There are a number of spare berths on the ships. Go and gather up your family, and do it now.” He bade me hurry with a wave of the hand.
I stayed where I was. Knowing what that meant, he demanded I explain myself. I remember the way my voice didn’t seem to belong to me: “General, I cannot,” I said.
He looked me up and down, and finally, our eyes met.
“I don’t understand. Your temperament is entirely opposed to that of the brave men out there still fighting. The city is being sacrificed, and to what end? Answer me that!”
I did not know what to say.
“So starved you’ve eaten your own tongue?” he went on, raising his voice. “What makes you want to be a part of the carnage now? You’ve always been against it. What? You’ve always been the first to support any retreat! Why stay? Tell me your reasoning!”
In spite of myself, I said nothing. Don Antonio insisted. “Say something, even if just a word. One word, Lord above, at least give me a word!”
One word. Seven years on, and Vauban, in the shape of Don Antonio, was asking me that question again. I blinked, cleared my throat. I racked my brains, but nothing.
I’d unwittingly inflicted more pain on an already suffering soul, an immaculate hero whose very honor was forcing him to depart. Even Martí Zuviría, prince among cowards, had decided to stand and fight. A contrast that undoubtedly would have pained him.
Bewildered, I put my tricorn on my head and, without asking his permission, made to leave. He stopped me: “Wait. You were with me at the Toledo retreat and at Brihuega as well. And you’ve been with me throughout this siege. It’s only right you share in my punishment.”
And it was quite some punishment: Before he left, he wanted to bid the troops farewell. Don Antonio de Villarroel, the perfect warrior, had to tell his men that he was abandoning them to the inferno while he sailed away to a palace somewhere. Hard as it would be, nothing in the world would prevent him from bidding that farewell, even if they were going to insult, condemn, and revile him.
We left his residence, and someone brought us horses. We both mounted up, and settling on his saddle, Don Antonio said: “Let’s go to it.”
Spoken like a martyr. I’m certain that what he wanted was a famous death, the chance to die taking part in some heroic action. Instead, fate had presented him with a pitiful exit through the back door. We rode side by side. As we approached the ramparts, and in breach of all protocol, I grabbed him by the forearm and said: “General, this isn’t necessary.”
Offended, he threw my hand clear. “Let me go! I have never in all my days fled an enemy. Am I to do so now, from my own men?”
He spurred his horse on, and I followed. I was consumed by worry — not for myself but for Don Antonio. Very few knew the straits he was in, leaving not out of fear but because there was no way for him not to.
We came to the foot of the ramparts. By some miracle, there was a pause in the fighting. Up on Saint Clara, Portal Nou, and the intervening wall, heads turned. At the sight of Don Antonio, they began to gather at the rear of the remaining fortifications. Once they were all there, crammed together and listening, Don Antonio tried to speak, but words failed him. Something in him broke.
His horse began rearing, and Don Antonio barely managed to steady it. Pinching the bridge of his nose as if to stifle the emotions, he again tried to speak. Again the words wouldn’t come.
At certain rare moments, time stands still. Up on the bastions and ramparts stood those hundreds of skeletal men, thinner than the rifles they were carrying. Gaunt faces and tricorns tattered and rent by bullets and grapeshot. Uniforms dull with soot and ash, sleeves only barely attached to the rest of their jackets. And the smell. Like long-dead carrion. Right down to the last drummer, they’d heard the news: Their commander was departing. What did he have to say? Hundreds of them, they all kept their eyes fixed on Don Antonio.
And after weeks and weeks in which the sun had beaten down mercilessly and not a cloud had been seen, fat drops of rain began to fall. A great crowd had gathered, and yet you could hear the raindrops land. The stones of the city, warmed by a year of artillery fire, smoldered in the downpour. Nobody blinked.
For the third time, Don Antonio tried to find the words. There was a moment when it seemed like the skin on his face would fall from it. Still mute, he exposed his head, lifting off his tricorn with his right hand, saluting the gathered men. His horse skittered nervously, its rider keeping his hat high in the air as the rain continued to fall. He said nothing; there was nothing more. The only thing left for Don Antonio was to depart. For the men of the Coronela, it was back to manning the walls.
Spurring his horse forward, Don Antonio rode along the interior of the ramparts. His hand still in the air, bearing his tricorn aloft, bidding farewell to the citizen army he’d led for so long. I decided to catch up with him. I rode on his right side, between him and the ramparts. Ridiculous, but I thought by putting my body between him and them, even if there were some soldier in deep despair, it might stop them from shooting the departing general from his saddle. What a difference between this and that long-ago battle of Brihuega in 1710, when Zuvi the rat rode with Don Antonio between him and enemy bullets.
I hadn’t quite caught him when a roar went up. I lifted my head.
The men of the Coronela, Castilians, Aragonese, Valencians, and Germans, all waving their rifles above their heads. And they weren’t cursing Don Antonio but cheering for him. A piecemeal clamor, formless, consisting of just his first name, repeated—Don Antonio! Don Antonio! Don Antonio! — that grew louder and louder. The rain intensified, and with it, the commotion. Don Antonio was overcome and spurred his horse on to escape the ovation. Catching up with him, I saw something I thought I’d never see in all my days: The man was crying.