Guano (16 page)

The natives hadn't lied.

The new president of Peru, Mariano Ignacio Prado, was trying to prove that he was a man of action rather than contemplation. They had applauded his investiture speech: unlike his predecessor
Pezet, the only theatre he would care about would be the theatre of operations.

He had immediately ordered the frigates
Apurímac
and
Amazonas
to head to Abtao Island. They were to join the corvettes
Unión
and
América
and then attack the Spanish fleet. They wanted to engage the enemy, someone to blame, results. They wanted people dancing in the streets.

A schooner, until recently Chilean, the
Virgen de Covadonga
, would escort them. The ship still hadn't been to the Philippines or seen any mail.

But there was a bit of a setback: the currents dashed the
Amazonas
against a rock and eviscerated her. This was followed by a ballet of men in the water, between the planks, their bodies drifting, their legs rippling like mops and their arms clutching barrels: like a painting by Géricault.

They feared the octopus below, with its poisonous suction cups, the strange bird-like beak, the ink that Satan writes with. They had to force themselves to think of what the barrels could hold: wine, fresh water, a stowaway. Then they kept their minds busy with a
Pater Noster
or a
Hail Mary
.

Quite a few were fished out of the water, and the rest were officially missing, giving their families hope that they were spending a dream life on a desert island or were rescued by mermaids.

Although they were sinking their own ships and others were being stolen from them, the Spaniards were at least trying to avoid the reefs. The
Villa de Madrid
and
Reina Blanca
successfully kept their course and sighted Abtao on February 7, 1866. As a result of his new ambition, Núñez had given the order to break up the blockade of Valparaíso and go say hello.

They entered the strait beyond which the allied fleet was anchored. The fleet politely came to meet them. A lot of numbers followed.

Spain opened fire at three in the afternoon, trying to reach the enemy over 1,600 metres away. The Peruvian/Chilean fleet returned fire. With surprising precision, it almost hit the Castilian hulls. The renegade
Virgen de Covadonga
(Chile) even hit the
Reina Blanca
(Spain) over 600 metres away. It was Spanish built, the Spaniards explained, hence its performance and good looks. They didn't pay any attention to Simón, who pointed out its ineffective firing at point-blank range during the battle of Papudo. Cannonballs that couldn't hit an elephant.

That was a case of bad weather, my dear man. Grey on grey, you know. Whereas today the sun casts a shadow.

Whatever.

Finally two lines of ships squared off against each other. The Spanish line was rather short. They saluted the intention. They fired. The ships eventually dispersed and filled with smoke. They looked like floating cauliflowers. They spun around, sped up and slowed down, formed and reformed pairs. The North Wind was the gentleman dancer's arms. They searched for it to get back in step. The small ships had white skirts of sails and smoke over their heads. At around five o'clock, drunk from the wind, no one really knew what they were doing anymore.

There were still results. The
Apurímac
(Peru) was hit repeatedly below its waterline and had to retreat. The
América
and the
Unión
(Peru and Peru) were each hit once. Two men died: a recruit and a cook. But the
Villa de Madrid
and the
Reina Blanca
(Spain and Spain) were the big winners, receiving eleven and sixteen cannonballs respectively (Peru and Peru).

One thousand five hundred shots were exchanged, and then the two Spanish frigates bowed out of the dance. It was because of the shoals and the fatigue. It had been nice, violent, a satisfying battle in the heart of the bay, a respectable show. Finally a real war was coming together, with the numbers to back it up.

Simón was still alive.

His hands were proof that the battle had indeed taken place: the joints were black and there were scratches on his palms. The blood under his nails would be hard to remove, as everyone knows. It didn't matter, though, because he thought he had lost the letter. Three times he patted his inside pocket to reassure himself and, at the end, when all of his senses were dazed, he took it out to look at it. Combat had improved it: the sea water added tears, blood added kisses. The letter had lost some of its machismo, and yet, given the causes – the emotion, the war – the effect had remained intact.

Both sides were waiting for reinforcements from home. Both sides tried to intercept the enemy's reinforcements. The ships floated at a distance, watching. The sailors didn't do much of anything. Clean the decks, report to the admirals.

Think of Montse, whose face was becoming a mere spectre.

Simón searched his memory, which was increasingly filled with cannons, elephants, skirts – Montse.

Sometimes he saw her between two waves, a sort of apparition floating on the surface of the water with hair of algae. Talk to me, sing. But she moved silently, her image broke apart, disappeared in a waltz of sails.

Sometimes it was just a seagull.

Núñez scratched his sideburns with his left hand, then with his right. His pipe moved from his lips to the fingers of each hand in turn. Then a thought came to him that broke the pattern: the pipe was put down.

He was disappointed at having caused so little destruction.

The bombardment of Valparaíso had been an insipid exercise in style, the battle of Abtao a disappointing mazurka. Then he had personally headed toward the archipelago with the
Numancia
, the
Resolución
and other ships to force a decisive battle, but the allies had refused him. They feared his panache, to say nothing of his sideburns. Who could blame them?

Then there had been a bit of hide and seek, some skirmishes, an interception here, reinforcements there, a Chilean ship (
Pampero
) captured by a Spanish ship (
Gerona
), to even the score. And so it went, passing each other on the Pacific, staging ambushes in the inlets, growing flotillas into fleets, with the ultimate goal of forming an armada that would finish off the dance partner for good. After three months of this far-off goal, Núñez was coming to a conclusion: what this conflict lacked was decisive action – action that would result in a laying down of arms and flags captured.

Núñez stared across the room at a chart that could no longer be seen through the smoke and the crude markings. The outlines of the Americas with no national borders, names of oceans without a legend, arrows related to possible operations disappearing behind a grey veil that created a brand new war. That's it, Núñez said to himself, we have to start over.

Nothing had happened yet: no victory, no defeat, their hulls were still virtually intact, because of the previous admirals' fear of a misstep that would cost them Isabelle's favour. They had sidestepped, taken the enemy from behind, studied the situation, tried to preserve
their meagre force, not realizing that with every dispatch, it was expanding by a few ships.

It had casually become the largest fleet ever assembled in South American waters: fourteen ships and 250 souls. Assembled might be an overstatement, because the different operations had it scattered along a ridiculously long coast. Spain had been entranced by the Chilean serpent.

Núñez scratched both sideburns at once.

All he had to do was to concentrate this force into a single closed fist and strike the enemy a fatal blow on its largest protuberance. A clout fairly played, however, militarily speaking, so that the European newspapers couldn't question the legitimacy of the Spanish victory. It was like a fight between rams – did they ever attack from behind?

In a fit of passion, he invoked Corneille.

Once the invocation was over, the smoke dissipated and an omen appeared. Núñez could make out the city of Callao on the chart.

Destroying it would be just the thing:

1.
TIt was an adequately defended fortress.

2.
It was the largest port in Peru.

3.
The location that wasn't all that ugly – landscape artists could do something with it.

For example:

3a.
the city's ruins; 3b. me posing at the bow of the ship; 3c. the sfumato of the background, and all that. I could be touching a leper. Why not?

Núñez picked up his pipe again.

The next time, he swore, the smoke would be from the cannons.

The weeks trickled by in days of fog, days of overcast skies, the sun coming out occasionally to create the impression of holidays.

Most of the allied fleet waited off the coast of Chile for reinforcements from other places. Then they would track the coast north to engage the enemy.

The Spanish fleet was slowly assembling not far from Callao.

Soon they would head toward the port, where they would start the bombardment and force a confrontation. They would have to pick up the pace, because the Peruvian-Chilean-Ecuadorian fleet, while still unclear as to its official designation, was increasingly a force to be reckoned with.

Indeed, on March 22, 1866, Bolivia joined the ball. At that point it still had access to the sea and could play with its ships elsewhere than on Poopó Lake. It would kick itself for supporting Chile a few years later during the War of the Pacific (1879–1884), when the very same Chile would be its enemy. The stakes would no longer be shit and Spain, but rather saltpetre and British influence. It would lose a province, a good deal of pride, and it would look back with yearning at the no longer existent possibility of an alliance, a few years earlier, with Madrid.

As for Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, they had given their final refusal to join in on the affair at the end of March. It was because they were already occupied with their own war with Paraguay. The conflict, forged without the help of the Europeans and waged just as independently, was over industrial jealousy and a mad dictator: Francisco Solano López, a fan of both Prussia and Napoleon III.

The embassies offered their excuses: you understand, of course, that there is nothing encouraging happening on the battlefield that would prompt us to get involved. The conflict was in its early days, the enemy forces were well matched, Asunción was harbouring a despot. Still, it was moving to see a continent united against a former colonial power. So they would see what they could do, in a few years, if Spain still hadn't left.

We'll keep you in mind.

The
Villa de Madrid
was still afloat. Its sails had a few scars, and its hull showed signs of a squabble or two. Simón shut himself in his new cabin, which reminded him of his old one, a small closet filled with barrels and rigging. He was not reading, not writing, not eating. He was worrying. Engaging Abtao was no longer in the cards after Núñez's arrival; they were headed to Callao. There was talk of destroying the city.

A nice little project for Spain, but Simón was worried that his love would be harmed in the process. He thought of Montse sleeping, the bombardments. Montse frightened, the pillaging. Montse under rubble, certain parts of her body crushed, necessarily the most delicate parts under the least delicate rocks.

He checked the condition of the letter and the integrity of its seal once more.

He wondered whether she thought of him – if they were thinking of each other. Will she contact me? Does she want me to contact her? Should I have deserted? Now they might die. Love was becoming less amusing. Once the mystery and the naiveté are gone, all that remains is the torment.

On April 25, 1866, Simón and Núñez finally sighted Callao. For a while, fog shrouded the cannons newly decorating the city. Then they gradually appeared, eyes of wildcats lit up by the night around the camp, or in this case the metaphor turned on its head: daylight around the water, the black eyes rather than light. Eyes of creatures that curse you.