The Sun Over Breda

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, vizcaína, 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 soldiers

achieved in war what had not been theirs.

The prolific genius of Toledo, Fray Gabriel Téllez, known by the more famous name of Tirso de Molina, wrote very knowingly on this subject. By basking in the unassailable reputation of the tercios, even the basest scalawag had reason to call himself an hidalgo.