I also remember pride. Among the emotions that flash through one’s head in combat are, first, fear, then ardor and madness. Later, exhaustion, resignation, and indifference filter into the soldier’s soul. But if he survives, and if he is from the good seed from which certain men germinate, there also remains the honor of a duty fulfilled. I am not, Your Mercies, speaking of the soldier’s duty to God or to his king, nor of the inept but honorable soldier who fights to collect his pay, not even of the obligation to friends and comrades. I am referring to something else, something I learned at Captain Alatriste’s side: the duty to fight when one must, aside from the question of nation and flag, the moral burden of a fight that tends not to be occasioned by either of these but by pure chance. I am speaking of when a man grasps his sword in hand, takes his stance, and demands the true price of his hide rather than simply giving it up like a sheep to the slaughter. I am speaking of recognizing, and seizing, what life rarely offers: an opportunity to lose it with dignity and with honor.
So, I was looking for my master. In the midst of all the fury of sword thrusts, pistol shots, and gutted horses treading on their entrails, I pushed and shoved my way with pounding heart, dagger in hand, yelling for Captain Alatriste. There was death on all sides, but by now no one was killing for his king; they just did not want to give up their lives too cheaply. The first rows of our squad were a pandemonium of Spaniards and Hollanders locked in deadly embrace, their orange or red bands the only guide as to whether one should drive in steel or stand shoulder to shoulder with a comrade.
This was my first experience of real combat, a desperate struggle against everything I identified as the enemy. I had been in my fair share of scrapes: shooting a man in Madrid, crossing steel with Gualterio Malatesta, attacking the gate of Oudkerk, in addition to minor skirmishes here and there in Flanders. Not, if you will forgive me, a trivial record for a youth. And only moments before, my dagger had drawn the last breath from the heretic wounded by Captain Alatriste, whose lifeblood stained my jerkin. But never, never until that Dutch charge, had I been in anything like this, sunk in such madness, to the point where chance counted more than courage or skill. Every man was giving his best in the fight, joining together in a mob of men slipping and sliding over the dead and wounded, stabbing each other on grass slick with blood. Pikes and harquebuses were useless now, even swords were of little use, the best weapon for cutting and slicing and stabbing being a dagger or poniard. I do not know how I managed to stay alive through such havoc, but after a few moments—or was it a century? Even time had stopped running as it should—I found myself, bruised, shaken, filled with a mixture of fright and courage, beside Captain Alatriste and his comrades.
By my faith, but they were wolves. In the chaos of those first rows, my master’s squad was grouped together like a formation within a formation, back to back, their swords and daggers so lethal they were like monstrous maws chewing up the enemy. They were not yelling “Spain!” or “Santiago!” to give themselves courage; they fought tight-lipped, saving their breath for killing heretics. God knows they succeeded in this, for there were disemboweled bodies everywhere. Sebastián Copons still had his blood-soaked kerchief around his head; Garrote and Mendieta were wielding broken-off pikes to hold back the Dutch; and Alatriste had his usual dagger in one hand and sword in the other, both of them crimson to the quillons. The Olivares brothers and the Galician Rivas completed the group. As for José Llop, their comrade from Mallorca, he lay on the ground, dead. I was slow to recognize him because a harquebus ball had blown off half his face.
Diego Alatriste seemed to be somewhere far beyond all that. He had thrown off his hat, and tangled, dirty hair fell over his forehead and ears. His legs were planted firmly apart as if nailed to the ground, and all his energy and wrath were concentrated in his eyes, which gleamed red and dangerous in his smoke-blackened face. He fought with calculated efficiency, dealing lethal blows that seemed propelled by hidden springs in his body. He blocked swords and pike blades, slashed out with his dagger, and used each pause in the action to lower his hands and rest a moment before fighting again, as if avariciously conserving the flow of his energy. I worked my way toward him, but he gave no sign of recognition. He was far away, as if he had traveled down a long road and was fighting without looking back, at the very threshold of hell.
My hand was numb from gripping my dagger so tightly, and out of pure clumsiness I dropped it. I bent down to pick it up, and when I stood, I saw Hollanders rushing toward us, shouting at the top of their lungs. Musket balls were whizzing by, and a wall of pikes crashed above my head. I sensed men dropping around me, and again I gripped my dagger, wanting nothing more than to be out of the fray, convinced that my hour had come. Something struck a blow to my head that staggered me, and countless pinpoints of light swam before my eyes. I half-fainted, but I did not let go of my dagger, determined to carry it with me to wherever I was going. All I wanted was not to be found without it in my hand. Then I thought of my mother, and I prayed. Padre nuestro—Our Father—suddenly flashed into my mind. Gure Aita, Padre nuestro, I repeated over and over in Basque and in Spanish, dazed, unable to remember the rest of the prayer. In that instant someone grabbed my jerkin and dragged me across the grass, over the dead and wounded. Blindly, I made two weak swings with my blade, thinking I was dealing with an enemy, until I felt a pinch on the nape of my neck and then another that stopped my pitiful swipes. I was deposited inside a small circle of legs and mud-stained boots, overhearing the clash of weapons—clinnng, cur-rac, swish-swash, cloc, chasss—a sinister concert of torn flesh, shattered bones, and guttural sounds from throats exhaling fury, pain, fear, and agony. In the background, behind the rows still holding firm around our standards, the proud, impassive tum-tum-tum of the drum continued to beat for our poor old Spain.
“They’re falling back!…After them!…They’re falling back!”
The tercio had held. So many men in the first rows lay where they had fallen that the piles of corpses replicated the formation as it had been at the beginning of the battle. Bugles were blowing, and the sound of the drum was more intense as more were now headed our way. Along the dike and the Ruyter mill road we saw fluttering banners and relief pikes coming to our aid. A squad of Italian cavalry carrying harquebusiers on the croups of their mounts galloped past our flank, the horsemen saluting as they raced by to overrun the Dutch, who, having come for wool and instead been shorn themselves, were retreating in defeat and gratifying disorder, seeking the safety of the woods. The vanguard of our comrades, coseletes, pikemen, with short lances and musketeers, had already reached the field on the other side of the road, where Soest’s Walloon tercio had been chopped to pieces, albeit with no little honor.
“After them! After them!…Close in for Spain!…Close in!”
Our camp was yelling victory at the top of their voices, and men who had fought all morning in obstinate silence were exuberantly calling out the names of the Virgen Santísima and Santiago. Exhausted veterans set down their weapons to kiss rosaries and medallions. The drum was pounding without mercy, without quarter, marking the pursuit and capture of the conquered enemy, a time for collecting spoils and for making them pay dearly for our dead and for the arduous day they had put us through. The lines of the tercio were breaking up to chase after the heretics, catching first the wounded and the stragglers, then splitting open heads, lopping off limbs, and cutting throats. In short, mercy for no man. For if the Spanish infantry was fierce in attacking or defending, it was twice as fierce when taking revenge. The Italians and Walloons were not far behind, the latter fervently desiring blood in return for that their Soest comrades had shed. The landscape was dotted with thousands of men racing about helter-skelter, killing, then killing again, pillaging the wounded and dead scattered across the field, so badly butchered that at times the most intact body piece was an ear.
Captain Alatriste and his comrades were participating like everyone else, as heatedly as Your Mercies could imagine. I was trying
to keep up with them, still stunned by the melee and by the egg-sized lump on my head but yelling as wildly as any. Along the way, I took a splendid short Solingen sword from the first dead enemy I came across and, sheathing my dagger, moved on, thrusting that fine German blade at anything dead or alive in my path, like someone stabbing blood sausages. It was carnage, game, and madness all rolled into one, and what had once been a battle had turned into a slaughter of young English bulls and Flemish cuts. Some did not even defend themselves, like the group we caught up with splashing waist deep in a peat bog. There, we descended on them, taking a fine catch of Calvinists, plunging our swords into them, slicing and ripping right and left, deaf to their pleas and to upraised hands begging for mercy, until the blackish water was bright red and they were floating in it like chopped tuna fish.
We did a lot of killing, for we had a place to do it. And since there were so many, we could not stop with a few. The hunt went on for a league and lasted till nightfall, and by then my fellow mochileros had joined in, along with local peasants who knew no band other than their greed, and even some vivandières, whores, and sutlers who had migrated to Oudkerk, drawn by the smell of booty. They followed after the soldiers, plundering anything that was left, a flock of crows leaving in their passing nothing but naked corpses. I was still in the chase, keeping up with those in the vanguard, not feeling the exhaustion of the day, as if fury and desire for revenge had given me strength to go on to the end of the world. I was—and may God forgive me if it be His wish—hoarse from yelling and red with the blood of those wretched Dutch. A pink dusk was closing over the burning villages on the far side of the forest, and there was no canal, no path, no road along the dike that was free of the dead. At that point, bone-weary, we stopped by a small cluster of five or six houses where even the domestic animals had been killed. A group of Dutch stragglers had hidden there, and finishing them off took the last moments of light. Finally, in the reddish glow of burning roofs, we calmed down, little by little, our pouches stuffed with booty, and here and there men began to drop to the ground, suddenly seized by untold fatigue, breathing like beaten animals. Only a fool maintains that victory is joy. As our senses slowly returned we fell silent, avoiding one another’s eyes, as if ashamed of our filthy hair standing on end, our black, strained faces, reddened eyes, the crust of blood drying on our clothing and weapons. Now the only sound was the sputtering of the fire and creaking of beams collapsing among the flames, but occasionally from the night around us came shouts and gunfire from those who continued the kill.
Bruised and battered, I squatted down by the side of a house, my back against the wall. My eyes were tearing; I was breathing with difficulty and was tortured by thirst. In the light of the fire I saw Curro Garrote knotting into a cloth the rings, chains, and silver buttons he had scavenged from the dead. Mendieta was stretched out face down; you would have thought he was as stone-cold dead as the Hollander corpses strewn about were it not for his raucous snores. Other Spaniards were sitting in groups or alone, and among them I thought I recognized Captain Bragado with one arm in a sling. Gradually, low-pitched voices reached my ears, mostly queries about the fate of some comrade or other. Someone asked about Llop and was answered by silence. A few men made small fires to roast strips of meat they had cut from the dead farm animals, and soldiers slowly began to congregate around the flames. After a while they were talking in normal voices, and then someone said something, a comment or a jest, that drew a laugh. I remember the profound impression that laugh made on me, for I had come to believe that at the end of that long day men’s laughter had vanished forever from the face of the earth.
I turned toward Captain Alatriste and saw that he was looking at me. He was sitting against the wall a few paces away, with his legs drawn up and his arms around his knees. He was still holding his harquebus. Sebastián Copons was by his side, his head resting against the wall, his sword between his legs. His face was marred by the large dark scab on his temple that had been revealed when his bandage slipped down around his neck. The men’s outlines were etched against the glow from a house burning nearby, brighter from time to time as the flames leaped and played. Diego Alatriste’s eyes, gleaming in the firelight, were observing me with a kind of quizzical intensity, as if he were trying to read inside me. I was both ashamed and proud, exhausted yet with an energy that made my heart pound, horrified, sad, bitter, but happy to be alive. And I swear to Your Mercies that following a battle, a man can harbor all these sensations and emotions, and many more, at the same time. The captain kept watching me in silence, more a scrutiny than anything else, to the point that finally I began to feel uncomfortable. I had expected praise, an encouraging smile, something that expressed his esteem for my having conducted myself like a man. That was why I was disconcerted by that observation in which I could discern nothing other than the imperturbable absorption I had seen on other occasions: an expression, or absence of expression, that I could never penetrate. Nor could I until many years later when one day, now a full-grown man, I was surprised to find that I too had, or thought I had, that same gaze.
Uncomfortable, I decided to do something to break the tension. I stretched my aching body, put the German sword in my belt beside the dagger, and got to my feet.
“Shall I look for something to eat and drink, Captain?”
Light from the flames danced on his face. It was several moments before he answered, and when he did he limited himself to a nod, his aquiline face long beneath the thick mustache. He never took his eyes from me as I turned and followed my shadow.
The conflagration outside cast its light though an open window, tingeing the walls with red. Everywhere the house was in chaos: broken furniture, scorched curtains on the floor, drawers upside down, scattered belongings. Rubble crunched beneath my feet as I walked back and forth looking for a cupboard or some larder not yet ransacked by our rapacious comrades. I remember the immense sadness that permeated that dark, plundered dwelling, the lives that had given warmth to its rooms now gone, the desolation and ruin of what once had been a hearth where undoubtedly a child had laughed and two adults had exchanged tender caresses and words of love. And so the curiosity of someone prowling at will through a place to which he would ordinarily not be invited gave way to a growing melancholy. I thought of my own home in Oñate caught in the destruction of war, of my poor mother and little sisters fleeing, or perhaps worse, their rooms trampled through by some young foreigner who, like me, saw spread across the floor the broken, burned, humble remains of our memories and our lives. And with the selfishness natural in a soldier, I was happy to be in Flanders and not in Spain. I can assure Your Mercies that in the business of war, the misfortunes visited on foreigners are always of some consolation. And at such times, the person who has no one in the world, and who risks no fondness for anything but his own skin, is to be envied.
I found nothing worth the search. I stopped a moment to relieve myself against the wall and was buttoning my trousers when something stopped me short. I held my breath an instant, listening, and then I heard it again. It was a prolonged moan, a weak lament coming from the far end of a narrow corridor filled with debris. I might have thought it was an animal in pain except that from time to time I could hear a human timbre. So, quietly, I unsheathed my dagger—in such a narrow space my newly acquired sword was not manageable—and, back to the wall, I slipped closer to find out what it was.
There was enough light from the fires outside to light half the room, projecting shadows with reddish outlines onto a wall covered with a slashed tapestry. Beneath that hanging, propped in the niche between the wall and a battered armoire, slumped a man. The light glinting from his breastplate confirmed that he was a soldier and illuminated a long, blond, tangled head of hair filthy with mud and blood, very pale eyes, and a terrible burn that had left one whole side of his face raw. He was motionless, his eyes staring into the light coming through the window, and from his half-opened lips issued the lament I had heard from the corridor: a hus
hed, constant moaning interrupted at times by incomprehensible words spoken in a strange tongue.
I crept toward him, cautious, still holding the dagger and watching his hands to ascertain whether he was holding a weapon, though that poor wretch was not in any condition to hold a thing. He looked like a traveler sitting by the shore of the Styx, someone the boatman Charon had left behind, forgotten, on his last crossing. I crouched down beside him, examining him with curiosity; he seemed not to be aware I was there. He kept staring toward the window, motionless, uttering that interminable keening, those fragmented, unrecognizable words, even when I touched his arm with the tip of my dagger. His face was a frightening representation of Janus: one side reasonably intact, the other a pudding of raw flesh glittering with droplets of blood. His hands, too, had been burned. I had seen several dead Hollanders in the flaming stables at the back of the house, and I surmised that this man, wounded in the skirmish, had dragged himself through the smoldering embers to take refuge here.