The Sun Over Breda

Now masses of enemies were upon us, and Lieutenant Chacón was running up the small incline before us when a ball struck him in the back, and he dropped where he was. We could see his bearded face, the gray hair of a veteran soldier, and watched as his clumsy fingers reached for the pole of the standard he had lost as he fell. He succeeded in grasping it and was struggling to his feet when a second shot tumbled him face up. Our standard lay crumpled on the ground beside the corpse of the lieutenant who had fulfilled his duty so honorably. Suddenly Rivas leaped from behind the gabions and ran toward the standard. I have already told Your Mercies that Rivas was from Finisterre, which is like saying the very ends of the earth; he was, pardiez, the last man anyone would have imagined leaving the parapet to retrieve a flag that he could take or leave. But with Galicians one never knows, and there are always men who surprise you. Well, there went our good Rivas, as I was saying, and he was halfway down the incline before he was struck by several musket balls and rolled down the terreplein almost to the feet of don Pedro de la Daga and his officers, who were being battered without mercy by the wave of attackers. The six Germans performing their obligations without imagination or complication, as men do when they are well paid, were killed as God would have it, surrounding their colonel and selling their hides dear. The colonel had had time to buckle on his breastplate, which was the only reason he was still on his feet, though by now he had two or three serious wounds. The English kept coming, shouting, sure of their endeavor; the standard lying halfway down the slope merely fortified their daring, for a captured standard meant fame for the one who won it and shame for the one who lost it. That bit of checked blue-and-white cloth with a red band represented—in a sacrosanct tradition—the honor of Spain and of our lord and king.

“No quarter! No quarter!” the whoresons shouted.

Our fire had downed several of them, but by that point there was nothing that could save don Pedro de la Daga and his officers. One of them, unrecognizable because his face had been cut to ribbons, was trying to hold off the English so the colonel could escape. In all justice, I have to say that Jiñalasoga was faithful to himself to the end. Swatting away the officer who was tugging at his elbow and urging him to climb the hill, he left his sword in the body of one Englishman, blasted the face of another with his pistol, and then, neither ducking nor cringing—as arrogant on the road to hell as he had been in life—he gave himself to the blades of a pack of Englishmen who had recognized his rank and were competing for the spoils.

“No quarter!…No quarter!”

Only two of our officers were left alive, and they ran up the terreplein, taking advantage of the fact that the attackers were too busy feeding on the colonel. One died after a few steps, skewered by a pike. The other, the one with the badly cut face, staggered forward toward the standard, bent to pick it up, stood, and even managed to take three or four steps before he fell, riddled with pistol and musket balls. Again the standard was on the ground, but now no one was focusing on it; we were all too occupied spraying harquebus balls at the English, who were nearing the top of the slope above us, eager to add to the colonel’s body the trophy of our standard. As for me, I was still handing out powder and balls, the supply growing dangerously low. I used the intervals to load and fire the harquebus Rivas had left behind. I loaded it clumsily, for the weapon was enormous in my hands, and it kicked like a mule, almost dislocating my shoulder. Even so, I got off at least five or six shots. I would ram an ounce of lead into the muzzle, carefully fill the pan with powder, and place the cord in the serpentine, concentrating on keeping the pan closed as I blew on the cord, exactly as I had seen the captain and others do so many times. I had eyes only for the combat and ears only for the thunder of the powder whose acrid black smoke was burning my eyes, nostrils, and mouth. Angélica de Alquézar’s letter lay forgotten inside my doublet, next to my heart.

“If I get out of this,” Garrote growled as he hurried to reload his harquebus, “I will never come back to Flanders, not even for gold.”