The Pirates of the Levant by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

barefoot and had dirty knees. Copons put some coins on the table and Malacalza looked at them, without touching them. Then he glanced up at Captain Alatriste and winked.
'As you see, Diego,' he said, raising his mug of wine to his lips and indicating the room with a sweeping gesture of his other hand, 'a veteran of the King's army. Thirty-five years of service, four wounds, rheumatism in my bones,' he slapped his injured thigh, 'and one lame leg. Not a bad record really, given that I started in Flanders before either you or I, or Sebastian here, or poor Lope, may he rest in peace,' he raised his glass to me in homage, 'were even of shaving age.'
He spoke without great bitterness and in the resigned tones of the profession, like someone merely stating what every mother's son knows. The Captain leaned towards him across the table.
'Why don't you go back to Spain? You're free to do so.'
'Go back? To what?' Malacalza was stroking his son's curly black locks. 'To show off my bad leg at the door of a church and beg for alms along with the others?'
'You could go back to your village. You're from Navarra, aren't you? From the Baztan valley?'
'Yes, Alzate. But what would I do there? If anyone still remembers me, which I doubt, can't you just imagine the neighbours pointing and saying: there's another one who swore he'd come back rich and a gentleman, but look at him now, a poor cripple, living off the charity of nuns. At least here, there's always the odd cavalcade, and there's always help, however little, for a veteran with a family. Besides, there's my wife.' He stroked his son's face and indicated the other children standing in the doorway. 'Not to mention these
little rascals. I couldn't take my family there, with the Holy Office's informers whispering behind my back and the Inquisitors after me. I prefer to stay here, where things are clearer. Do you understand?'
'I do.'
'Then there are my comrades, people like you, Sebastian, people I can talk to. I can always walk down to the harbour and see the galleys, or to the gates and watch the soldiers coming and going. Sometimes I visit the barracks, and the men — the ones who still know me — buy me a drink. I attend the parades and the campaign masses and the salutes to the flag, just as I did when I was on active service. All of that helps to soothe any nostalgia I might feel.'
He looked at Copons, urging him to agree. Copons, however, gave only a curt nod and said nothing. Malacalza poured him some more wine and smiled, one of those smiles that require a certain degree of courage.
'Besides,' he went on, 'you never really retire here, not like in Spain. We're a kind of reserve, you see. Sometimes the Moors attack and besiege the town, and help doesn't always arrive. Then they call on every man available to defend the walls and the bulwarks, even us invalids.'
He paused for a moment and smoothed his grey moustache, half-closing his eyes as if evoking a pleasant memory. Then he looked up sadly at the sword hanging on the wall.
'For a few days,' he said, 'everything is like it was before. There's even the possibility that the Moors will press home their victory and that a fellow might die like the man he is ... or was.'
His voice had changed. Had it not been for the child in his arms and those standing in the doorway, it seemed he would not have minded meeting such a death that very night.
'Not a bad way to go,' agreed the Captain.
Malacalza slowly turned to look at him, as if returning from somewhere far away.
'I'm an old man now, Diego. I know exactly what to expect from Spain and her people. Here, at least, they know who I am. Having been a soldier still means something in Oran. Over there, they don't give a fig for our service records, full of names they've forgotten, if, indeed, they ever knew them: the del Caballo redoubt, the Durango fort ... What does it matter to a scribe, a judge, a royal functionary, a shopkeeper or a friar, whether, in the dunes at Nieuwpoort, we withdrew