The Sun Over Breda

We were made to march on a little farther, leaving the mill behind, and the companies spread out in the darkness among the hedgerows and beneath the trees, walking through tall wet grass that soaked us to the knees. 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 Sebastián 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.