The Sun Over Breda

any compatriots still alive in mind, or perhaps by that point they were convinced that no one could have survived. The current of air favored their operation, and in less time than it takes to recite an Our Father, the noxious smoke would have poisoned the air. With a sudden sense of urgency, Alatriste scrabbled back through the rubble and bodies, bumped into the comrades clogging the mouth of the caponniere, and finally, after what seemed like years, was again pulling his body rapidly through fallen earth and remains from The Cemetery. The grunts and curses of someone he thought was Garrote pressed him from behind. The captain passed beneath the opening in the ceiling of the caponniere, desperately gasped air from outside, and then continued along the tight passageway, lips pressed and breath held, until over the head of the comrade preceding him he saw light ahead, gradually growing brighter. At last he emerged into the large tunnel, which had been abandoned by the German sappers, and then fell into the Spanish trench. He ripped the kerchief from his mouth and frantically gulped air, then used the cloth to scrub the sweat and dirt from his face. All around him, like cadavers restored to life, were the wan, grimy faces of his comrades, exhausted and blinded by the light. Finally, once his eyes had adjusted, he saw Captain Bragado waiting with the German sappers and the rest of the group.

“Is everyone here?” Bragado asked.

Rivas and one of the Olivares brothers were missing. Pablo, the younger one, his hair and beard no longer black but gray from powder and dirt, started toward the tunnel to look for his brother but was held back by Garrote and Mendieta. The Dutch, enraged by this turn of events, were now sending heavy fire our way from the other side, and musket balls whizzed past heads and bounced off the gabion baskets of the trench.

“Well, we really fucked them,” said Mendieta.

There was no triumph in his tone, only profound weariness. He still had his spade in his hand, covered with clumps of blood and earth. Copons lay on the ground beside Alatriste, breathing with difficulty, his face covered with a shining mask of sweat and clay.

“Whoresons!” the younger of the Olivares brothers shouted. “Heretic sons of beggars’ bawds, may you roast in hell!”

His imprecations ceased as Rivas’s head emerged from the mouth of the tunnel; he was dragging the other Olivares, half suffocated but still alive. The Galician’s blue eyes were bloodshot.

“God a’ mercy.”

His blond hair was smoking with sulfur. He clawed the kerchief from his face, coughing up dirt.

“Thanks be to God,” he said, filling his lungs with fresh air.

One of the Germans brought a small wineskin of water, and the men drank greedily, one after the other.

“Even if it were ass’s piss,” Garrote muttered, spilling water down his chin and chest.

Leaning against the trench wall and feeling Bragado’s eyes on him, Alatriste cleaned the dirt and blood from his vizcaina.

“How is the tunnel?” the officer asked finally.

“Clean as this dagger.”

Without another word Alatriste sheathed the weapon. Then he removed the primer charge from the pistol he had not needed to use.

“Thanks be to God,” Rivas repeated over and over, crossing himself. His blue eyes wept black earth.

Alatriste said nothing aloud, but to himself he said, “Sometimes God seems to have had enough.” Then, sickened with pain and blood, he gazed toward the other side and rested.

8. ATTACK BY NIGHT

In this way the month of April went by, rainy days alternating with clear days. The grass grew greener in the fields and trenches, and on the graves of the dead. Our cannon battered the walls of Breda; the sapping of mines and countermines continued; and every good Christian made use of his harquebus, skirmishing from trench to trench, with an assault from us and a sortie from the Dutch occasionally breaking the monotony of the siege. It was about that time that we began to hear news of terrible shortages, a true famine suffered by the besieged, although those of us doing the besieging were worse off than they. But with this difference: They had been brought up in fertile lands, with rivers and fields and cities regaled by Fortune; we Spaniards had for centuries been watering ours with blood and sweat just to get a scrap of bread. So, since our enemies were fashioned more for pleasure rather than the lack of sustenance, some by nature and others by custom, a number of the English and French in Breda began to abandon their units and come over to our camp, telling us that behind those walls the deaths now numbered some five thousand, including common folk, burghers, and military. From time to time the dawn would see hanging before the walls of the city Dutch spies who had been attempting to deliver increasingly desperate letters between the head of the garrison, Justin of Nassau, and his relative Maurice, who was only a few leagues away and unyielding in his determination to rescue the stronghold by breaking a siege that was now nearing a year in length.

In those days, too, came news of a dike that the same Maurice of Nassau was constructing near Sevenberge, two hours’ march from Breda, with the aim of diverting the waters of the Merck toward our camp in order, with the aid of the tides, to flood the Spanish barracks and trenches. Troops and provisions could also be brought to the city by boat. It was a grand, ambitious, and very timely enterprise. Also grand was the number of sappers and boatmen engaged in cutting sod and fascines for fortifications and in transporting stone, trees, and timber for its construction. They had already dug three anchorages lined with rubblework and were progressing from both sides, containing the mud with large wood retaining walls and securing the locks with pontoons and palisades. This news was a great worry to our General Spinola, who was seeking, without finding, an efficient way to prevent us waking in water up to our necks. On this point, it was said by way of jest, we would have to send men from the German tercios to thwart Nassau’s project, because they were a nation that could lend their basic skills to the purpose:

He set that crew of Germans downand then he said to them,“The dike that you see there must goor we will all be drowned.”And I am here to let you knowthat as water was not their drink,that dike vanished from his sight’ere he’d had time to blink.

It was also during those days that Captain Alatriste received an order to present himself in the tent of Colonel don Pedro de la Daga. He went there late in the afternoon, as the sun was setting over the flat landscape, bathing the banks of the dikes in a rosy glow and silhouetting the windmills and trees that stretched toward the swamps in the northwest. Alatriste had smartened himself up as much as he was able: His buffcoat hid his mended shirt; his weapons were burnished to an even brighter sheen; and his belts had been liberally treated with tallow. He entered the tent bareheaded, with his battered hat in one hand and the other resting on the pommel of his sword. He stood there, erect, not opening his mouth until don Pedro de la Daga, who was speaking with other officers, among them Captain Bragado, decided to grant him his attention.