The Sun Over Breda

The order was to not light fires and to wait. Occasionally a nearby shot or a false alarm sent a shudder through our lines, evoking a burst of “Halt!” and “Who goes there?” Fear and watchfulness are bad companions to repose. The men in the vanguard were keeping their harquebus cords lit, and in the dark the red tips glowed like fireflies. The real veterans dropped to the wet ground right there, determined to rest before the battle. Others chose not to or were unable, and were wide awake, alert, their eyes staring into the night, attentive to the sporadic fire of the advance scouts skirmishing nearby.

As for me, I kept as close as I could to Captain Alatriste, who, with the rest of his squad, had gone to lie down by a hedgerow. I followed them, feeling my way, and had the bad luck to run into a patch of brambles that tore at my face and hands. Twice I heard my master’s voice calling me to make sure I was keeping up. Finally he and Sebastian asked for their harquebuses, and they charged me with keeping a cord lit at both ends in case they needed it. So I took my steel and flint from my pack, and in the shelter of the hedge I struck my spark and did what they had ordered me to do. I blew hard on the slow match and hung it on a stick I set in the ground so it would stay dry and lit. Then I curled up with everyone else, trying to rest from the march and perhaps sleep a little. It was no use; it was too cold. Beneath me the wet grass soaked my clothing, and from above, the night dew drenched us thoroughly as if Beelzebub himself had ordered it. Scarcely aware, I pushed closer to the warmth of Diego Alatriste, who lay stretched out with his harquebus tucked between his legs. I could smell the odor of dirty clothes mixed with traces of leather and metal, and pushed closer still, seeking warmth. He did not discourage me but lay absolutely still when he felt me near. Only later, when the coming dawn streaked the sky and I began to shiver, did he turn over an instant and without a word cover me with his old soldier’s cape.

The Hollanders appeared, capable and confident, with the first rays of the sun. Their light cavalry scattered our advance harquebusiers, and in no time they were upon us in close, orderly rows, their aim to take control of the Ruyter mill and the road that led through Oudkerk to Breda. Captain Bragado’s bandera was ordered to form up with the rest of the tercio in a hedge-and-tree-bordered meadow between the marsh and the road. The Walloon infantry of don Carlos Soest—all Flemish Catholics are loyal to our lord and king— lined up on the other side of the road so that between our two tercios we covered a strip a quarter of a league wide through which the Dutch would have to pass. And by my faith, it was an admirable and noble sight, those two tercios stationed in the middle of the meadows with banners flying above a forest of pikes and detachments of harquebuses and muskets covering the front and the flanks, while the gentle roll of the land atop the nearby dikes was filled with the advancing enemy. That day we were going to be one against five; it almost seemed as if Maurice of Nassau had emptied the Estates of inhabitants in order to throw every one of them against us.

“By heaven, this does not augur well,” I heard Captain Bragado say.

“At least they don’t have artillery,” Lieutenant Coto, the standard bearer, pointed out.

“At the moment.”

With eyes squinting beneath the brims of their hats, they, like the rest of us Spaniards, were making a professional assessment of the glinting pikes, breastplates, and helmets that were beginning to blot out the landscape that spread before the Cartagena tercio. Diego Alatriste’s squad was at the forefront, harquebuses at the ready, their muskets resting in forks, musket balls in mouths, ready to be spat into barrels, and cords lit at both ends, forming a protective shield for the left wing of the tercio and aligned in front of the picas secas and coseletes who stood only half an arm’s length from the next. The former had only their pikes as protection while the latter were armored in helmet, gorget, and cuirasses, and waited with their sixteen- foot-long pikes rammed into the ground.

I was within earshot of Captain Alatriste, ready to provide him and his comrades with powder, one-ounce lead shot, and water when they had need of it. My eyes traveled back and forth between the ever-thicker rows of Dutchmen and the expressionless faces of my master and his comrades, who were standing motionless in their positions. There was no conversation among them other than an occasional comment spoken quietly to the nearest companion, an appraising look here and there, a silently mouthed orison, a twist of a mustache, or a tongue run over dry lips. Waiting. Excited by the imminent combat and wanting to be useful, I went over to Captain Alatriste to see if he needed a drink or if there was anything I could bring him, but he scarcely took note of me. He was holding his harquebus by the barrel, with the butt set on the ground, and he had a smoldering cord wrapped around his left wrist, while he intently observed the enemy field with his gray-green eyes. The brim of his hat shaded his face, and his buffcoat was tightly wrapped beneath the bandolier with the twelve apostles and the belt with sword, vizcaina, and powder flask strapped over a faded red band. The aquiline profile dramatized by the enormous mustache, the tanned skin of his face, and the sunken cheeks unshaved since the previous day made him look even leaner than usual.

“Eyes left!” Bragado alerted them, snapping his captain’s short lance to his shoulder.

On our left, between the peat bogs and the nearby trees, several Dutch horsemen were reconnoitering, exploring the lay of the land. Without awaiting orders, Garrote, Llop, and four or five harquebusiers stepped forward a few paces, poured a bit of loose powder into their pans, and, aiming carefully, fired off shots in the direction of the heretics, who pulled up on their reins and retired without further ado. Across the road, the enemy had already reached Soest’s tercio and were battering them at close range with harquebus fire. The Walloons were firing back, shot for shot. I watched as a large company of horse approached with the intention of charging and saw the Walloon pikes tilt forward like a shimmering grove of ash wood and steel, ready to welcome them.

“Here they come,” said Bragado.

Lieutenant Coto, who was armored in a cuirass with chain-mail sleeves—in his role as standard bearer he was exposed to enemy fire and all manner of enemy aggression—took the banner from the hands of his second lieutenant and went to join the other banners in the center of the tercio. Outlined before us by the first horizontal rays of the sun, the Dutch were approaching in their hundreds, reforming their lines through trees and hedges as they came out into the meadow. They were yelling and shouting to keep up their courage, and the many Englishmen with them were as vociferous in fighting as they were in drinking. Still advancing, they lined up in perfect formation two hundred paces away, their harquebusiers already firing at us, though we were out of range.

I have already told Your Mercies, I believe, that despite my experience in Flanders, this was my first combat in open country, and never until then had I witnessed Spaniards steadfastly standing their ground in the face of an attack. What was most memorable was the silence in which they waited, the absolute fixity with which those rows of dark-skinned, bearded men from the most undisciplined land on earth watched the enemy approach with ne’er a word, a flinch, a gesture that had not been regulated in accord with the commands of our lord and king. It was that day, there at the Ruyter mill, that I truly came to understand why our infantry was, and for so long had been, the most feared in all of Europe. The tercio was a faultless, disciplined military machine in which each soldier knew his role; that was their strength and their pride. For those men, a motley army composed of hidalgos, adventurers, and the ruffians and dregs of all the Spains, to fight honorably for the Catholic monarchy and for the true religion conferred on any who did so, even the lowest of the low, a dignity impossible to achieve in any other way.

I left my land to fight in Flanders,Where, though not firstborn nor heir,younger sons, by being soldiersachieved in war what had not been theirs.

The prolific genius of Toledo, Fray Gabriel Tellez, known by the more famous name of Tirso de Molina, wrote