The Marquis of Bolibar

by Leo Perutz

"Is he gone? Has he escaped?"

  "I cannot say," Brockendorf blurted out, utterly bemused. "He hasn't left by this door."

  "So he must still be in there," Salignac exclaimed with the relish of Satan gloating over a lost soul. "He won't escape me this time." He turned to his dragoons. "We have him at last, the traitor. Dismount and follow me."

  The dragoons were uneasy, I could tell. They shook their heads and glanced irresolutely, first at their commanding officer, then at the blazing convent.

  "Salignac!" Brockendorf protested, aghast at the captain's lunatic scheme. "You're going to your death. The powder! Nothing can prevent it from —"

  Salignac ignored him. "Forward!" he cried. "Any man of you worth his salt, come with me!"

  Four of the dragoons, dauntless and intrepid veterans of a hundred engagements since Marengo, leapt off their horses.

  "Comrades," said one of them, "there's only one heaven for the brave, and that's where we'll meet again."

  "You're insane!" Brockendorf bellowed.

  "Long live the Emperor!" cried Salignac, brandishing his sabre. "Long live the Emperor!" echoed the dragoons, and we saw all five men dash through the doorway into a tornado of glowing ashes.

  We stood there, mute and motionless.

  "He'll turn back when he sees how it is," Brockendorf said after a while.

  "He'll never turn back," came Corporal Thiele's voice from behind me. "Not he, Captain."

  "Not a mortal soul will ever leave that hell alive," exclaimed someone else.

  Thiele nodded. "No, not a mortal soul."

  "He's pursuing a phantom to his death," I whispered to Brockendorf, "and we're to blame."

  "I should have told him the truth," groaned Brockendorf. "I should have told him, God forgive me."

  "Salignac!" I shouted into the inferno, and again: "Salignac!"

  Too late. No answer.

  "That officer," said someone, "—he wanted to die, so it seemed."

  "Bravo!" cried Corporal Thiele. "You've guessed it, my lad. I know him of old — I know he goes looking for death." He paused. "God in heaven, what's that?"

  We were suddenly shrouded in darkness. A terrible cloud of smoke filled the street, to be dispersed a moment later by the wind. Then came a violent explosion that hurled me to the ground. The horses shied and raced off down the street with their riders. Silence ensued — a long, deathly hush that endured until I heard Brockendorf yelling like a madman.

  "Get away from here! Back! It's the powder!"

  I found myself in the doorway of the house across the street, not knowing how I had got there so quickly. From overhead came a mighty whistling and roaring, hissing and whirring. Stones and balks of timber, gobbets of fire and fragments of blazing wood spun through the air and pattered down like hailstones. The convent wall had burst asunder to reveal a sea of flames so frightful that the very sight made me tremble.

  Corporal Thiele dashed across the street, arms flailing, and flung himself down in a breathless heap beside me. I could everywhere see men cowering against walls and shielding their faces from the wind-blown smoke and red-hot ash. A corpse lay sprawled beneath a blazing beam in the middle of the street.

  "Jochberg!" It was Brockendorf's voice, but I could neither see him nor make out where he had taken refuge. "Jochberg, where are you? Are you still alive?"

  "Here I am, over here!" I shouted. "And you? And Salignac? Where is he? Can you see him?"

  "Dead!" Brockendorf called back. "No one could escape that inferno."

  "Salignac!" I cried above the hellish din, and for a while we all listened, though without hope.

  "Salignac!" I called again. "Salignac!"

  "Who calls? Here I am," came a voice, and all at once Salignac emerged from the smoke and flames. His clothes were smouldering, the bandage around his head was charred, and the blade of his sabre, which he still held aloft, was red-hot to the hilt. But there he stood before my unbelieving eyes — there he stood, spewed out alive by that holocaust of death and destruction.

  I stared at him, at a loss for words, but Brockendorf gave a jubilant exclamation.

  "Why, Salignac, you're alive!" he cried, his voice betraying a mixture of joy and amazement, disbelief and dread. "We'd given you up for lost."

  The cavalry captain threw back his head and laughed - a gruesome sound that rings in my ears to this day.

  "Where are the others?" called Brockendorf, but Salignac ignored the question.

  "If the Marquis of Bolibar was in there, he'll give no third signal."

  Just then a rafter broke away from the roof, somersaulted through the air, and landed with a crash at Salignac's feet.

  "Over here, Salignac!" I heard Brockendorf shout, and then his voice was drowned by a mighty roar.

  Salignac continued to stand there, erect and unmoving, as the convent's shattered wall caved in and collapsed with a sound like thunder. Flames shot into the air and blazing debris showered the roadway, but I saw him deliberately set off down the street amid those swirling, darting tongues of fire, those hurtling timbers and blocks of stone, as if exempt from the death and destruction around him.

  A PRAYER

  Lieutenant Lohwasser of the Hessian Regiment, who came to relieve us with his platoon at two in the morning, was the first to bring word that the insurgents had taken advantage of the confusion occasioned by the fire to drive our men back and capture the Sanroque, Estrella and Mon Cœur outworks. The Hessians, reinforced by Günther's and Donop's companies, were holding our last fortified line, which intersected with the river Alcar a stone's throw from the walls of the town.

  The bombardment had by then diminished in intensity, and only an occasional shot rang out to deter any of the townsfolk who had ventured forth and shoo them back into their subterranean burrows. Even this sporadic musket fire ceased as the night wore on, perhaps because the attackers had attained their first objective and were now awaiting fresh orders from the Marquis of Bolibar.

  Just as the relief detachment arrived, the town was engulfed by a violent storm that began with driving snow and ended in torrential rain. The narrow lanes were flooded and the ground turned soft within minutes. I waded along, ankle-deep in mire, shivering with cold and soaked to the skin. Back in my billet I threw myself down on the bed fully clothed and slept for three hours, but toward five in the morning I was roused by one of the colonel's orderlies and summoned to headquarters without delay.

  It was still pitch dark when I left my billet. The atmosphere was humid and the sky heavily overcast. I shivered, less with cold than with the vague unease and misgiving that had taken hold of me, for I naturally assumed that the truth was out, and that the colonel wished to see me because I had been present when Donop and Brockendorf gave the organ signal in the night.

  I walked with slow and irresolute tread, pausing and making detours in the hope of delaying my interview with the colonel until I had conferred with Brockendorf and Donop, but neither of them was in his quarters. Their doors were locked and their windows in darkness, nor did I encounter them on the way. The only figures that loomed up out of the murk were those of Spaniards bearing lanterns; now, after all the terrors of the night, men and women from every part of the town were streaming toward the church of Nuestra Señora del Pilar to draw comfort and reassurance from the words of the Mass.

  On reaching the orderly-room, which I entered with a pounding heart, I found it occupied by such officers of the Nassau and Hessian Regiments as were not on duty or manning the fortifications. In their midst I saw Salignac wearing the half nonchalant, half peevish expression typical of seasoned officers of the Emperor's old guard when denied an opportunity to risk their lives in battle. He threw me a glance from beneath his shaggy grey eyebrows as I walked in — a piercing, hostile glance from which I seemed to infer that, although he well remembered our last night's meeting, I would do better not to mention it.

  Günther, whose shoulder had been pierced by a musket ball, was lying on a camp-bed in the room ne
xt door, groaning and delirious. He had been brought there because the hospital was overflowing with sick and wounded, and the surgeon of the Hessian Regiment was standing at his bedside, tearing a woman's tattered old shift into strips in readiness to renew his dressing.

  Close on my heels came Captain Count Schenk zu Castel-Borckenstein of the Hessians, accompanied by his greyhound. He was limping and leaning on a stick, having injured his left leg during the precipitate retreat from the Mon Cœur lunette. Promptly addressing himself to Eglofstein in an irate and petulant tone, he demanded to know why he had been summoned. He had come straight from the outer defences, he said, and his presence was surely more needful there than here. Eglofstein shrugged and silently indicated the colonel, who was perched on the edge of the adjutant's desk. Brockendorf, too, proceeded to grumble. His men had still to be allotted billets and were knee-deep in the mire of the streets, he complained. They were soaked to the skin.

  The colonel looked up, spread a map of the town and its environs across his knees, and called for silence.

  I heard a whispering around me when he began to speak, and fancied for a moment that all eyes had turned in my direction - that I was on trial, and that the others had gathered to pass judgement on me. Donop, too, stared glumly at the floor and Eglofstein stole anxious glances at the bed on which Günther lay wounded. Brockendorf alone looked defiant, his sullen and impatient demeanour conveying that he had already wasted too much time on the business in hand.

  The colonel's first few words sufficed to show me how groundless my fears had been, however, for it soon became clear that he had not discovered the truth, and that he still considered the Marquis of Bolibar to be the traitor in our midst.

  My dire forebodings melted away, and the suspense that had kept me on my feet relaxed its grip. Perceiving only now how weary I was, I sank down on a heap of firewood beside the stove.

  The colonel, whose talk was all of the night's hostilities, commended the fortitude of the Hessian troops and the sangfroid displayed by their officers. Of our own regiment he made no mention at all. The Hessian officers regarded us with supercilious smiles, much to Donop's annoyance.

  "If only they had all stood fast like Günther," he murmured to Captain Eglofstein, "the outworks would still be ours."

  Lieutenant von Dubitsch of the Crown Prince's Own, a corpulent man as ruddy-cheeked as a cook who spends his days boiling crabs, overheard Donop's gibe and turned on him.

  "What was that? Are you suggesting that one of us failed in his duty?"

  "You heard what the colonel said," Captain Castel-Borckenstein thundered. "My grenadiers were the last to withdraw from the redoubt."

  Donop made no reply, but he put his lips close to Eglofstein's ear and whispered just loud enough for the others to hear.

  "I came in time to see them take to their heels. They were in such a hurry, they bounded along like March hares."

  This provoked a general altercation. Barbed remarks flew back and forth. Lieutenant von Dubitsch bellowed at Donop with cheeks empurpled, feet stamped, spurs jingled, Castel-Borckenstein's greyhound barked. At last the colonel smote the table with his fist and bade the warring parties be silent.

  The tumult subsided and the antagonists regarded each other with mute ill-will and contempt. Brockendorf alone refused to be quelled. He had taken advantage of the general hubbub to vent his own displeasure, complaining that his company's quarters had been burned down, and that they had yet to be allotted others.

  "For how much longer," he cried, "must my men bivouack outside in the rain? Are they to wait till the mire closes over their heads?"

  "I assigned your men fresh quarters an hour ago," the colonel told him curtly.

  "Quarters? Is that what you call them? A sheepcote and a barn sufficient to house but a quarter of their number, and swarming with rats into the bargain!"

  "There's room enough for two companies, Brockendorf. Why must you always carp and cavil?"

  "Colonel, it's my duty to —"

  "Your duty is to hold your tongue and obey my orders, is that clear?"

  "I'm obliged to you, Colonel," snarled Brockendorf, sweating with rage. "The rank and file can drown in mud provided every gentleman on the staff has his own well-heated room and —"

  He swallowed the rest of what he had meant to say, for the colonel had sprung to his feet and confronted him. His cheeks were suffused, his fists clenched, the veins in his forehead swollen.

  "Captain," he roared, "you seem to find your sword a burden. Should you wish to surrender it, the guard-room isn't far."

  Brockendorf retreated a step. He stared at the colonel, then bowed his head and fell silent. Courage and defiance deserted him whenever our commanding officer lost his temper. The colonel slowly turned about and resumed his seat.

  Silence reigned for a full minute. No one stirred and nothing could be heard save the crackle of the stove and the rustle of the papers in the colonel's hands. Then he calmly continued his exposition in a voice that gave no hint of what had gone before.

  "This town and its garrison are in dire straits," he said, "although the insurgents are unlikely to renew their assault in the immediate future. I have it on good authority" — here he briefly paused and glanced at Captain de Salignac — "that the Marquis of Bolibar, who directed the enemy's operations by means of signals given from within the town, was killed when our powder magazine exploded. For the present, therefore, the insurgents are leaderless and disorganized. All depends on whether d'Hilliers' brigade reaches here before the guerrillas learn that their clandestine commander and strategist is dead. If they renew their attack we're lost, for the plain truth is" — the colonel drew a deep breath and hesitated — "we have no powder left."

  "Water!" came a shrill cry from the inner room where Günther lay. The surgeon, who had been leaning in the doorway pipe in hand, listening to the colonel's account of our predicament, took a pitcher of water and hurried to the wounded man's bedside.

  "No powder left?" Lieutenant von Dubitsch repeated in a halting voice. Eglofstein nodded gravely. We stood there, helpless and utterly dismayed, for none of us had suspected that the position was so desperate.

  "It is, therefore, of paramount importance," the colonel resumed, "that General d'Hilliers should be apprised of the garrison's plight. Here is my letter to him. I have summoned you here because one of you must undertake to carry it through the guerrillas' lines."

  A brooding silence descended on the room. Salignac alone came to attention, stepped forward, and halted as though awaiting orders.

  "You ask the impossible," Castel-Borckenstein said softly.

  "I do not," the colonel exclaimed. "All that's needed is a man with the requisite courage and cunning — a man who speaks Spanish and will disguise himself as a peasant or muleteer."

  Salignac faced about and returned to his corner without a word.

  "A man who'll be hanged if he falls into the guerrillas' hands," said First-Lieutenant von Froben of the Hessians. He laughed mirthlessly and drew a hand over his perspiring brow.

  "That's true," Lieutenant von Dubitsch chimed in, breathless with agitation. "While inspecting our outposts this morning I was hailed by a voice from the enemy lines. Did I know that last year's harvest of hemp was abundant, it asked, and that rope enough to hang us all would cost but little?"

  "Quite so," the colonel said calmly. "The insurgents hang their prisoners - that's stale news — but an attempt must be made nonetheless. Whichever of you volunteers for this dangerous mission may rest assured that—"

  We all flinched, startled by a strident peal of laughter, and turned to see that Günther's fever had driven him from his bed. He was standing on the threshold, cackling, with one hand gripping the door-post and the other the hem of his red woollen blanket. He did not see us. His darting eyes seemed intent on something far away, and his delirious condition led him to fancy that he was at home with his father and mother, having just arrived with the mail coach from Spain. He dropped t
he blanket and waved a hand in the air.

  "Here I am!" he cried, still laughing. "Are you all asleep in there? Open up, I'm home again. Quickly, to work! Slaughter me a pig, kill me a goose, send for wine and music! Allegro, allegro!"

  The surgeon caught him by the arm and tried to coax him back to bed, but Günther recognized the man despite his fever and thrust him away.

  "Leave me be, surgeon. All you can do is wield a razor and open a vein, and neither to much effect."

  The surgeon dropped his pipe, he was so taken aback. He glanced at the colonel in some confusion and sprang to his own and Günther's defence.

  "That's the fever talking," he said, "— anyone can tell."

  "I'm not so sure," said the colonel, clearly annoyed by the interruption. "Get him out of here."

  "I'm a sick man, truly I am," Günther sighed, gazing at some distant prospect above our heads. "It's bad for the liver to wash a hot meal down with cold beer, the verger's wife told me so."

  "He'll not live to see his mother's cat again," Dubitsch murmured to Castel-Borckenstein.

  Meantime, the surgeon had contrived to shepherd his delirious patient back to bed. He was a thoroughly skilful practitioner, albeit none of us gave him the credit he deserved, and had some years earlier written a short treatise on the essential nature of melancholy.

  The colonel settled himself again, glanced at his watch, and readdressed himself to his officers.

  "Time presses. Any further delay could spell disaster. To repeat: whichever of you volunteers for this mission may rest assured that I shall bring him to the Emperor's notice. He may also count on immediate promotion."

  The silence was so complete that I could hear Günther breathing in the room next door. Brockendorf looked irresolute, Donop shook his head, Castel-Borckenstein sheepishly pointed to his injured leg, and Dubitsch tried to interpose Brockendorf's broad back between himself and the colonel's gaze.

  There was a sudden movement at the back of the room. Someone pushed past Dubitsch and Brockendorf, thrust Eglofstein aside, and strode up to the colonel. It was Salignac.