This was very true, as the passage of time would continue to- prove. However abandoned, neglected and poverty-stricken these North African garrison towns were, there was rarely a. shortage of men available to defend them when the need arose. And this was done without payment, without help and without glory, out of desperation, pride and concern for reputation. And so as not to end up as slaves. I know of what I speak, as you, dear reader, will learn from this story. There has always been a certain kind of man for whom, at the final moment, paying dearly for his life has brought some degree of consolation. Among Spaniards, this was a familiar story, and so it went until, one by one, those towns, forgotten by God and by the King, fell into the hands of Turks or Moors.
This had already happened in Algiers in the previous century, when Barbarossa attacked El Penon. One hundred and fifty Spanish soldiers were blocking the entrance to the harbour there, and what happened? Spain abandoned them to their fate and they waited in vain for help to come. 'The Emperor,' according to his chronicler Father Prudencio de Sandoval, 'had more important matters to deal with at the time.' The soldiers fought like the men they were, and, after sixteen days of artillery fire that demolished the redoubt stone by stone, the Turks took only fifty prisoners who were battered and wounded. Barbarossa, enraged at such fierce resistance, had one of the prisoners, Captain Martin de Vargas, beaten to death with sticks. As for Larache, a few years after the events I am describing, it was attacked by twenty thousand enemy troops, who were repelled by a mere one hundred and fifty Spanish soldiers and fifty ex-soldiers who all fought like demons. The loss and recovery of the so-called Tower of the Jew was particularly fiercely fought — all to defend six thousand feet of city wall.
Oran, too, had honourably withstood various assaults; indeed, one provided the inspiration for Don Miguel de Cervantes' play The Brave Spaniard. We also owe to Cervantes — he was not a veteran of the Battle of Lepanto for nothing — two sonnets written in memory of the thousands of soldiers who died fighting, abandoned by their King - a very Spanish custom. The poems, which he included in Don Quixote, recall the defenders of the fort of La Goleta, opposite Tunis, who were killed after resisting twenty-two attacks by the Turks and killing twenty-five thousand of the enemy, so that, of the few Spaniards who survived, not one was captured unscathed.
'Life failed before valour did,' says one of those sonnets, and the second begins:
From this battered, sterile land From these clods of earth brought low Three thousand soldiers' holy souls Rose, still living, to a better home. Having first, in vain, spent all The strength and effort of their arms, Until, at last, so few, so weary, To the enemy's blade they gave their life.
As I said, all this sacrifice was futile. After Lepanto, which marked the extreme point of the collision between the two great Mediterranean powers, the Turk had turned his interest more to Persia and Eastern Europe and our Kings had turned theirs to Flanders and the Atlantic. Philip IV showed no interest either, discouraged by his minister, the Count-Duke of Olivares, who disliked ports and galleys (not that he ever visited such places; the stench, he said, would give him a headache). Olivares despised sailors, too, for he considered theirs to be a low and vulgar occupation, fit only for Dutchmen — except, that is, when it brought back from the Indies the gold he needed for his wars. And so, what with Kings, their favourites and one thing and another, once the days of the great corsair fleets and the stalemate of various empires' naval chess games were over, the Mediterranean became a blurred frontier, the realm of low-grade pirates from the countries along its shores; and piracy, while it changed the course of many lives and many fortunes, did nothing to quicken the pulse of History. Also, more than a century had passed since the conclusion of the Christian Reconquest, a period that had lasted nearly eight hundred years during which we Spaniards had forged our identity; and the subsequent policy of carrying the fight into Islamic territory, once backed by Cardinal Cisneros and the old Duke of Medina Sidonia, had now been abandoned. Africa held very little interest for a Spain that was at daggers drawn with half the world.
The garrison towns in Barbary were more symbolic than anything else. They were maintained only in order to keep the corsairs at bay, as well as France, Holland and England, who, watching for the arrival of our galleons in Cadiz, did their utmost to establish themselves there with their pirates, as they had in the Caribbean. They were always snapping at our heels, which is why we would not leave the way free for them, although in the corsair republics they were already well supplied with consuls and merchants. And although we will return to this subject, I will only say that, years later, Tangiers ended up belonging to the King of England for two decades — thanks to the Portuguese rebellion — and that during the siege of La Mamora in 1628, a year after the events I am describing, the men digging the trenches and directing the siegeworks were English sappers. Well, bastards of a feather will flock together.
We went out for a stroll. Copons guided us through the narrow, whitewashed streets with their tightly packed houses, which, apart from the flat roofs, reminded me a little of Toledo; the buildings had solid stone quoins and few windows, the latter being set low and protected by blinds or shutters. The damp sea air had caused the plaster and rendering to flake, leaving dark ugly patches. Add to this the swarms of flies, the clothes strung along washing lines, the ragged children playing in courtyards, the occasional crippled soldier sitting on a stone bench or on the steps outside his house, eyeing us suspiciously, and you have a fairly faithful picture of how Oran appeared to me. Yet there was also something inescapably military about the place, for in essence the town was a vast barracks inhabited by soldiers and their families.
As I discovered, it was spread over quite a large area and was arranged on different levels, with no shortage of ordinary shops, as well as bakers, butchers and taverns. The grand, well-proportioned kasbah, which housed the governor and was the military headquarters, dated from the days of the Moors — some said from Roman times — and it contained a; magnificent parade ground. The town also had a prison, amilitary hospital, a Jewish quarter — to my surprise, there were still Jews living there — and various monasteries: Franciscan,' Mercedarian and Dominican; and in the eastern section of the medina, there were several ancient mosques that had been converted into churches, the main one having been, transformed by Cardinal Cisneros, at the time of the Conquest, into the Church of Our Lady Victorious. And everywhere, in, the streets, in the cramped squares, beneath canvas awnings and in doorways, people stood absolutely still — women glimpsed behind shutters; men, many of them veteran soldiers? maimed and scarred and clothed in rags, their crutches leaning, against the wall beside them — all of them staring into space. I thought of that former comrade, Yndurain, whom I had never met, leaping over the wall at dead of night, prepared to go over to the Moors rather than stay here, and a shudder ran through me.
'So what do you make of Oran?' Copons asked me.
'It's as if the town were sleeping,' I replied. 'All these people ... standing so still, staring.'
Copons nodded and wiped the sweat from his face.
'People only wake up when the Moors attack or when we organise a cavalcade,' he said. 'Having a scimitar at your throat or pelf in your pocket works wonders.' At this point, he turned to Captain Alatriste. 'And speaking of pelf, you've arrived at just the right time. Something's afoot.'
There was a flicker of interest in the Captain's pale eyes, beneath the broad brim of his hat. We had just reached the arched Tlemcen gate, on the opposite side of the town to the harbour, where a few reluctant stonemasons — Moorish slaves and Spanish convicts, I noticed — were trying to patch up the crumbling wall. Copons greeted the sentinels sitting in the shade and then we strolled outside the town. From there we could see the village of Ifre — inhabited by friendly Moors — situated about two harquebus shots from the town wall. That whole section was in a parlous state, with bushy plants growing in between the stones, many of which had fallen to the ground. The
sentry box was dilapidated and roofless, and the wooden drawbridge over the narrow moat — almost entirely clogged with rubble and filth — was so rotten that it creaked beneath our feet. It was a miracle, I thought, that the town could resist any attack at all.
'A cavalcade?' asked Captain Alatriste.
Copons gave him a knowing look. 'Possibly.'
'Where?'
'No one's saying, but I suspect it will be over there.' He indicated the Tlemcen road that ran south through the nearby fields. 'There are a few Arabs in that direction who are none too happy about paying their taxes. There are livestock and people — so there'll be some decent booty to be had.'
'Hostile Moors?'
'They can be, if it serves our purpose.'
I was watching Copons and listening intently. This business of cavalcades intrigued me, and so I asked for more details.
'Remember those raids we used to go on in Flanders?' he said. 'Well, it's the same here: you leave at night, march quickly and in silence, and then you strike. We never further than eight leagues from Oran, just in case.'
'And you take harquebuses?'
Copons shook his head. 'As few as possible. The whole thing is very much hand-to-hand so as not to waste gunpowder If the village is near, we take people and livestock. If it's further away, we just take people and jewellery. Then march back as fast as we can, see what we've got, sell it and share out the booty.'
'And there's plenty of it?'
'That depends. With slaves we can earn maybe forty escudos or more. A healthy female of child-bearing age, a strong Black man or a young Moor means thirty reales in the pot. If they're suckling babes and in good health, ten ... We did well out of the last cavalcade. I made eighty escudos, and that's double my year's wages.'
'Which is why the King doesn't pay you.'
'As if he damn well would ...'
We were nearing the fertile, leafy banks of the river, along which there were mills and a few waterwheels. I admired the view — the green terraced fields dotted with trees, the town with its kasbah perched halfway up the hill and downriver, the sea, spreading out like a blue fan into the distance. An old Moor and a little boy passed us on their way into town. They were both wearing threadbare djellabas and carrying baskets full of vegetables on their backs.
'Without the cavalcades and what these fields produce,' added Copons, 'we wouldn't survive. Until you arrived, we'd spent four months with just a bushel of wheat per month and sixteen reales for any soldier with a family. You've seen the state of the people here, almost naked because their clothes are literally falling off their backs. It's the old Flanders trick, eh, Diego? You want your pay? Well, see that castle full of Dutchmen over there? Go and attack it and then we'll pay you. Moors or heretics, it's all the same to the King.'
'Do they take the royal quint from you here as well?' I asked.
'Of course,' said Copons. There was the King's quint, and the governor's 'jewel', as it was known. The latter got the pick of the bunch: the best slaves, even a village chief's entire family. Then it was the turn of the officers, with the normal soldiers last in line, according to how much they earned. Even people who hadn't gone on the cavalcade had a right to a share. Not forgetting the Church.
'You mean the monks dip their fingers in too?'
'You bet they do, to supplement their alms. The cavalcades benefit everyone, including the tradesmen and merchants, because later the Arabs come into town to buy back their loved ones, with money or produce, and the whole city becomes one great bazaar.'
We stopped beside a lean-to made of planks and roofed with palm leaves. At night it provided shelter for the guards at the bridge that connected the town and the fields with the castle of Rozalcazar on the other side of the Ouahran River, and with the castle of San Felipe further inland. The former, Copons told us, had almost completely collapsed and the latter had not yet been fully fortified. For although Oran was famous for its fortresses, it was all show, the town itself having only an old wall with hardly any moat to speak of, no ditches, no stockade, no covered entrance, no parapets and no redoubts. Indeed the town's only real fortifications were the living, breathing bodies of those who had to protect it. As some poet or other had said: our only gunpowder our swords, and our only walls the balls of Spain.
'Could we go?' I asked.
Copons glanced at me, then at Captain Alatriste, before looking back at me. 'And where exactly do you want to go he asked with an indifferent air. I adopted a bold, soldierly demeanour and held his gaze without a flicker.
'Where else?' I replied coolly. 'With you, on the cavalcade.
The two veterans again exchanged glances, and Coponrubbed his chin. 'What do you think, Diego?'
My former master studied me thoughtfully, then shrugged. 'A bit of extra money always comes in handy, I suppose.'
Copons agreed. The problem, he said, was that the whole garrison usually wanted to take part in these outings, in order to get a bigger share of the profits.
'Although sometimes,' he added, 'when there are galley crews in town, they do take reinforcements. In fact, you may be in luck, because there's a lot of fever about at the moment brought on by drinking bad water, because there's no shortage of water here, but it's brackish — and a number of people either ill or in hospital. I'll speak to Sergeant Major Biscarrues. He's a Flanders veteran, too, and a countryman of mine. Bu don't say a word. Not a word to anyone.'
He wasn't addressing the Captain when he said this. I returned his gaze — knowingly at first, then reproachfully. Copons stood thinking for a while, then turned to Captain Alatriste.
'The little lad's grown up,' he murmured, 'damn him.'
He looked me up and down, and his eyes lingered on my thumbs looped through my belt, next to my dagger and sword.
I heard the Captain sigh. He did so with a touch of irony, I think, and perhaps some weariness too.
'You don't know the half of it, Sebastian.'
Chapter 3. THE CAVALCADE TO UAD BERRUCH
In the distance, a dog howled. Lying face down among the undergrowth, Diego Alatriste jerked awake. He had been resting his head on his arms, but with the instinct of an old soldier, he suddenly opened his eyes and looked up. He had not slept for long, only a matter of moments, but, like any experienced soldier, he took advantage of every opportunity to rest. In his line of work, you never knew when you might have another chance to sleep or eat or drink. Or empty your bladder. All around him, the slope was dotted with silent, motionless shapes, soldiers making the most of their last opportunity to do just that, rather than have their guts sliced open with their bladder still full. Alatriste unfastened his breeches and did likewise. A man fights best on an empty bladder and an empty belly, that's what his first sergeant in Flanders used to tell them. His name was Don Francisco del Arco, and he had died at Alatriste's side in the dunes of Nieuwpoort, by which time he'd been promoted to Captain. Alatriste had served under him towards the end of the last century, when he was only fifteen, in the war against the Estates General and France, when Amiens was attacked under cover of night and the city was sacked. Now that had been a profitable cavalcade, although the worst came later, when they spent nearly six months besieged by the French.
While he relieved himself, Captain Alatriste gazed up at the sky. He could see the occasional laggardly star, but the grey light of dawn was growing in the east. The bare hills still cast their shadow over the tents and walnut trees, and it wasn't bright enough yet to tell a white thread from a black in the large dried-up riverbed that the guides called Uad Berruch, five leagues from Oran. When he had finished, Alatriste lay down again, having first checked his belt and his weapons, and fastened his buff coat. The latter would weigh on him later, in the heat of the day, when the African, sun was at its highest, but in the dawn chill, he was glad of it. And as soon as the attack began, he would be gladder still of that old buffalo hide, for a knife-thrust was a knife-thrust whether it came from a Moor, a Turk or a Lutheran. He recalled the various pla
ces where he had received such blows — eyebrow, forehead, hand, legs, hip, back ... He counted as far as nine if he included the harquebus shot and ten if he counted the burn to his arm. He didn't have room on his body for many more such wounds.
'Damned dog,' someone whispered nearby.
The dog howled again and, shortly afterwards, was joined by another. It would be bad news, thought Alatriste, if they had scented the presence of the marauders and were alerting the people sleeping in the encampment. He reckoned the group on the opposite side of the riverbed would be in position by now, keeping their horses well back, in case their whinnying spoiled the surprise. Two hundred men on that side and the same number on this, including fifty mogataces — more them enough to take on the three hundred or so Arabs, including women, children and the old, who were camped there with their animals, asleep and unaware of what awaited them.
He had been given the background the previous evening in Oran, when the order had come to get ready. He had found out more details during the six-hour march through the night, guided by mogataz scouts. They had marched hard, first in ranks and then in single file, down the Tlemcen road, along the riverbank, and then on past the lake, the house of the local marabout, the well and the fields, after which they headed west, skirting the hills before dividing into two groups to wait in silent ambush for dawn to break.