The Siege

by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

  Sergeant Labiche, whom Desfosseux brought with him to lend a hand, is approaching. The NCO is no genius, nor does he have a head for battle, but he is the only man the captain can spare just now. And at least Labiche gives the right impression. Perhaps the change of scenery has given him a burst of energy—or perhaps he is simply taking out all the accumulated boredom and frustration of life at the Trocadero on his subordinates here—but for the past two days this man from the Auvergne has been barking orders like a foreman, swearing at the local troops and impugning the mothers who bore them.

  “The cannons have arrived, sir.”

  “I want them unloaded immediately, please. And prepare the gun carriages.”

  The air is thick with the smell of low tide. Next to ships grounded in the mud—many of them no more than charred frames—the white blots of seagulls spatter the stretch of greenish shore alongside the docks, where Desfosseux is pacing amid a bustle of soldiers coming and going with carriages and carts. The captain made a study of the situation as soon as he arrived yesterday morning; by the afternoon he set everyone to work and kept them working, without a break, through the night into today. It is now just after 4 p.m. and a detachment of sappers, aided—reluctantly, given the sweltering heat—by marines and artillerymen, have just finished placing the last gabions filled with mud and sand to protect the new bulwark: a semicircular rampart from which six 8-pound guns, three on either side, will cover the entire stretch of coast around the village. In principle.

  Desfosseux wanders over to the square to look at the iron tubes stacked on mule carts. These are old artillery pieces, six feet long, each weighing more than half a ton, brought from El Puerto de Santa María to be fitted to the Gribeauval gun carriages that are currently being lashed into position. The Duc de Belluno’s haste means that the cannons will have to be fired from the parapet with no embrasures and no protection for the artillerymen, beyond a three- to five-foot-high rampart formed by the mud and gabions, supported with planks and stakes driven into the ground. This, Desfosseux reckons, should be enough to keep the Spanish gunboats at a distance, at least during daylight hours, although he is a little worried about certain changes in the enemy’s artillery deployment—a fact he has made clear to his superiors. His information was brought up to date by an English officer who defected to the French side after a duel: longer-range cannons at the Lazareto battery, the reinforcement of the English redoubts at Sancti Petri and Fallineras Altas, the deployment of additional Portuguese troops and artillery to Torregorda, including 24-pounder field guns and 36-pounder English carronades. All of this lies beyond Desfosseux’s area and does not worry him unduly. There is, however, a new threat to the Trocadero: plans are afoot to throw a pontoon from the battleship Terrible to be used as a floating battery, firing at elevated angles on Fort Luis and the Cabezuela to silence Fanfan’s shelling of Cádiz. Or to try. In this siege—which is a combination of blind man’s buff, a house of cards and a game of dominoes—every new development, every move, however slight, can have complex repercussions. And the Imperial Artillery, with Simon Desfosseux at the center of its web, is forced to play the part of a firefighter tackling a blaze with a single bucket of water, constantly running here and there without ever putting it out.

  Slipping off his uniform jacket, with little concern for his rank, Desfosseux goes over to Sergeant Labiche’s men, who are unloading the cannons amid the shriek of ropes and pulleys, setting them on the wooden gun carriages painted olive green. Their bases are shaped like an inclined plane on a limber set of rails to dampen the recoil. The sheer weight of the iron tubes makes installation a slow and painful process, further aggravated by the men’s lack of experience. So cack-handed, Desfosseux thinks; they should be made to run the gauntlet. But he doesn’t blame them. There is a genuine scarcity of artillerymen in the six regiments that cover the coastline between the Trocadero and Sancti Petri, weakened by poverty and the inevitable casualties of war. In such a situation, even the halfhearted Labiche is a boon, since at least he understands his position. In the gun batteries trained on Cádiz itself, Desfosseux has been forced to make up the numbers using ordinary infantrymen. Even here, in Puerto Real, with the exception of two artillery corporals, five soldiers and three Navy artillerymen who arrived with the cannons from El Puerto de Santa María—their blue frockcoats with red piping distinguishing them from the white breastplates of the infantrymen—those dealing with the field guns are drawn from the Line regiments.

  The gun carriage creaks. The captain jumps back with a start, narrowly avoiding a wheel that would have crushed his foot to a pulp. The devil take it, he thinks. Take him and the Spanish gunboats and Marshal Victor and his infuriating whims. Any officer could have seen to the artillery at Puerto Real, but in recent months not a shell can be fired in either direction without the Duc de Belluno and his general staff considering it the exclusive territory of Simon Desfosseux. “I’m giving you everything you asked for, Captain,” the Marshal said at their last encounter. “Or everything I can. So just sort things out and don’t trouble me unless it’s with good news.”

  The upshot of all this is that now every last high-ranking artillery officer in the Premier Corps—including General of Brigade d’Aboville, who has taken over from Lesueur—harbors a deep-seated loathing of Desfosseux; a barely concealed contempt, evident in their manner and their ordinances. The Marshal’s right eye, they call him. The Ballistics Genius, the Marvel from Metz, etc.… the usual. The captain knows that any one of his superior officers would gladly give a month’s pay to have a Villantroys-Ruty howitzer explode in his face, or a providential Spanish bomb finish him off. Let the rifle change his tune, in the neat euphemism common in the Imperial Army.

  Taking out his pocket watch, Desfosseux checks the time: it is 4:55 p.m. He is eager to be finished here and to return to the Cabezuela, back to Fanfan and his brothers. Though he knows they are in the capable hands of Lieutenant Bertoldi, he is worried that he has heard no shelling since he has been here. They had agreed that, if the wind were not unfavorable, eight shots would be fired on Cádiz: four inert shells filled with lead and sand, and four containing a powder charge.

  The captain has been more than satisfied recently. The curve on the map indicating the range of the shelling has gradually been moving toward the west of the city and now covers a third of the urban area. From the reports he has had, three lead-filled shells recently fell near the Tavira Tower; its height makes it a perfect reference point when aiming. This means that the impact sites are now only 190 toises from the main square, the Plaza de San Antonio, and only 140 toises from the Oratory of San Felipe Neri where the rebel Cortes meets. With this information, Desfosseux feels optimistic about the future: he feels certain that very soon, given favorable weather conditions, his shells will exceed a range of 2,700 toises. Even now, with an adjustment of fire toward the stretch of bay where the English and Spanish warships are moored, he has managed a direct hit. True, the shot was not very precise and little damage was done, but it forced the warships to weigh anchor and move further off, next to the bastions of Candelaria and Santa Catalina.

  Almost all of the 8-pound cannons are now on their limbers. Filthy and sweaty, the soldiers continue hauling on the ropes, pushing from behind. The burly sappers conscientiously toil away, in silence as always. The artillerymen leave most of the work to them, doing only the bare minimum. As for the infantry, they shirk whenever they can. Labiche viciously clouts one soldier around the ear, then gives him a kick in the backside.

  “I’ll rip your liver out, you blackguard!”

  Desfosseux takes the NCO aside. “Do not hit the men in my presence.” He says this in a low voice, so as not to undermine him in front of the men. Labiche shrugs his shoulders, spits on the ground, goes back to work and five minutes later deals out two more blows.

  “I’ll have your hide … feckless wastrels! Come on, you bastards!”

  The sweltering heat is made worse by the fact there is no breeze. Desf
osseux mops the sweat from his brow, then picks up his jacket and wanders away from the dock toward the water butt set in the shade on the corner of the Calle de la Cruz Verde, next to the watchtower. Almost all the Spanish residents have deserted their homes in Puerto Real, willingly or by force. The village is now one vast military camp. Through wrought-iron railings as high as the houses, broken windows can be seen; empty rooms, doors and furniture smashed to smithereens, mattresses and blankets lying on the ground. Everywhere there are piles of ash from the campfires. The patios of the houses, now used as stables, stink of horse dung and are buzzing with flies.

  The captain drinks a ladle of water and, sitting in the shade, slips a hand into his pocket and takes out a letter from his wife—the first in six months—which he received yesterday morning just before leaving the Cabezuela battery. This is the fifth time he has read it, and once again it stirs no real feeling in him. My dearest husband, it begins, I send up my prayers to God that He will keep you safe and in good health. The letter, written four months ago, is an exhaustive, droning catalog of family news—births, marriages and funerals, minor domestic incidents, the echoes of a city, of a life so distant that Simon Desfosseux reads through it unmoved. His interest is not even piqued by the news that 20,000 Russian troops are massing along the Polish border and that the Emperor is intending to wage war on the Czar. Poland, Russia, France, Metz: they are all so far away. There was a time when this feeling of indifference worried him. A time when he felt guilty about it. That was in the early days, as the army marched south through unfamiliar terrain, leaving a seemingly well-ordered world further and further behind. But things are different now. In this circumscribed world, with its routine and its fixed certainties, his lack of interest in anything that may be happening more than 3,000 toises from here is constructive, almost comforting. It frees him from melancholy and homesickness.

  Desfosseux folds the letter and slips it back into his pocket. He spends a moment watching the men working on the semicircular redoubt, then looks out toward the Trocadero. He is still worried that he has heard no shots from Fanfan and his brothers. He allows his mind to wander, calculating trajectories and parabolas, letting himself be swept along as though in an opium haze. At last the Tavira Tower is almost within range, he thinks with satisfaction. This is wonderful news. The center of Cádiz is almost in his grasp. The last carrier pigeon to cross the bay brought with it a miniature map of that sector of the city, precisely indicating the points of impact: two on the Calle de Recaño, one on the Calle del Vestuario. Lieutenant Bertoldi was literally jumping for joy. As he often does, Desfosseux wonders about the agent who is sending them this information, the man whose dangerous work helps him place these triumphant points on the map. The man, he assumes, is a Spaniard, or perhaps a Frenchman who has long since been naturalized. He does not know his name, or what he looks like; whether he is a soldier or a civilian, a selfless ally or a simple mercenary, a traitor to his country or a hero in a noble cause. He does not even pay this man: the general staff deals with such details. His only links to the man are the carrier pigeons and the secret trips across the bay made by the Spanish smuggler they call the Mulatto. But the Mulatto gives him only essential information. Whatever the truth, whoever is sending the messages must have powerful reasons for doing so. A brave and cool-headed man, judging by what he does. Living in the shadow of the gallows would unnerve an ordinary man. Desfosseux knows that he would find it impossible to live like that, an exile in hostile territory, unable to trust anyone, fearing the heavy tread of soldiers or police on the stairs, in constant danger of being suspected, exposed, of suffering the torture and ignoble death reserved for spies.

  The cannons have now been installed on their gun carriages and are pointing over the parapet at the bay. The captain gets to his feet, leaves the shelter of the shade and goes back to the dock to supervise the final adjustments. As he walks, he hears an explosion from the west, a powerful buh-boom that is all too familiar. His trained ear can tell it comes from precisely two and a half miles away. He turns and gazes out past the Trocadero; half a minute later he hears a second blast, then a third. Standing on the wharf, shading his eyes with his hand, Desfosseux gives a satisfied smile. The shots from the 10-inch Villantroys-Ruty are unmistakable: perfect, compact, the clean blast of the powder charge, the emphatic echo that follows buh-boom. A fourth shot. Nice work, Maurizio Bertoldi. He knows how to do his duty.

  Buh-boom. The fifth explosion fills the captain with a sense of pride, gives him a warm feeling inside. This is the first time he has heard the howitzers on the Cabezuela from a distance, the first time he has not been there to oversee every last detail. But everything sounds as it should: magnificent. The last shot was Fanfan: he can hear the slight difference in tone; the blast is deeper and more abrupt than the others. Recognizing it even at this distance fills Simon Desfosseux with a curious tenderness. Like a father watching his son take his first faltering steps.

  “THE PRISONER HAS disappeared …? Is this some kind of joke?”

  “Absolutely not, señor. Heaven forfend.”

  There follows a long, tense silence. Rogelio Tizón coolly holds the furious gaze of Eusebio García Pico, General Intendant and Chief of Police.

  “The man was your prisoner, Tizón, he was your responsibility.”

  “As I said, he escaped. These things happen.”

  They are in the office of García Pico, who is installed behind his immaculate desk—not a scrap of paper on it—by a window overlooking the courtyard of the Royal Jail. Tizón is standing, clutching a folder of documents. Wishing he was somewhere else.

  “The circumstances of the escape are curious indeed,” García Pico mutters, almost to himself.

  “That is true, señor. We are investigating the matter thoroughly.”

  “What exactly do you mean, thoroughly?”

  “As I said. Thoroughly.”

  It is as good a word as any. In fact for more than a week now the prisoner in question—the man caught spying on the young seamstresses on the Calle Juan de Andas—has been lying at the bottom of the bay, wrapped in a canvas tarpaulin weighed down by cannonballs and a grapnel. Eager to secure a preemptive confession, Tizón made the mistake of entrusting the task to his assistant Cadalso and a pair of henchmen who were somewhat heavy-handed. The suspect was not in good health, and the interrogation clearly proved too much.

  “It is not really a problem, señor. No one knows about it … well, very few people.”

  García Pico motions gruffly for Tizón to sit.

  “You brought this on yourself,” he says as Tizón takes a seat and lays his folder on the desk. “The murder of the last girl did not pass unnoticed.”

  “Nothing but an unsubstantiated rumor …” corrects the comisario.

  “But people were demanding explanations. I even had two members of the Cortes asking me about the case.”

  “Only for two days,” protests Tizón, “and they assumed it was an isolated incident. After that the matter was completely forgotten. There is so much upheaval in the city. So many tragedies, to say nothing of the bombs. With so many foreigners and soldiers about, there is no shortage of criminals. Just yesterday an English sailor stabbed a soldier who was strangling a prostitute in El Boquete. There have been seven violent deaths so far this month, three of them women. Fortunately, there is almost nothing to connect that last girl’s death with the previous murders and we managed to persuade everyone to remain silent.”

  García Pico stares at the file on his desk as though it is full of someone else’s problems.

  “Damn it all! You said you had a suspect. The perfect scapegoat—those were your very words.”

  “And so I did,” admits Tizón. “But as I said, he escaped. We were planning to release him, keep him under observation and arrest him again, in order not to break the new laws …”

  García Pico raises his hand in a vague gesture. He shifts his gaze from the comisario and stares into space, focusing on so
me point between the closed door and the inevitable painting of His Majesty Fernando VII—beloved martyr of his country, now languishing in some French dungeon—who gazes down with bulging eyes that hardly inspire confidence.

  “Spare me the details.”

  Tizón shrugs. “As part of our investigation, two of my men took him to the scene of the most recent crime, and he escaped. Unfortunately.”

  “It was an oversight, was it not?” The Intendant is still staring into the middle distance. “He escaped due to an oversight. Just like that.”

  “Precisely, señor. The relevant officers have been punished.”

  “Harshly, I imagine.”

  Tizón decides to ignore the sarcasm.

  “We are still looking for him,” he says calmly. “It is our number one priority.”

  “Number one?”

  “Or thereabouts.”

  “I’ve no doubt it is.”