Song of the Legions (10 page)

“Pepi should have taken the crown,” I said, as the Russian soldiers lined up.

“We shall be lucky to have any crowns upon our heads at all by the end of this day, or any heads upon our shoulders, for that matter,” Tanski replied gloomily.

No sooner had the Commander departed for exile in Leipzig, than the Prussians, our supposed allies, also hastening to our aid, had invaded us from the West – skewering the country in two. After them, the Austrian armies were lining up to provide further friendly aid from the south. With all of these friends hastening to our aid, Russians, Prussians, and Austrians, it was just as well we had no enemies!

Now all of the cities had fallen – Danzig, Vilnius, Warsaw, and finally Krakow. Sierawski noted that his home town held out longest with grim satisfaction. We last partisans, a few thousand of us under Prince Poniatowski, had fought on awhile. We were a ragged enough band of insane cavalry, and we paid court to the lady of death. Only her sweet kiss could cleanse the sins of defeat and dishonour.

We were run to earth at a dusty hole named Markuszem. We were holed up at one end of a valley. Sunset fell upon us from above, spitting red through the blazing white clouds. Ahead of us, the Russian cannon were wreathed in grey, with great gasping mouths like beasts. We had no reserves nor allies, we had only prayers and dreams. Against the cannon fire we matched our rosary beads. As the noose tightened at Markuszem gallows, Pepi lowered his lance with the swallow-tailed pennon and charged. He charged across the waste, with the storks and herons of those marshes squawking and clattering angrily into the air before him. As he disappeared into the midst of the Russians, they parted before him like a grinning mouth, with the cannon fire churning up the earth like a foaming ocean. Then the teeth of the beast closed in around him.

“The Prince must not die!” cried one of the officers. “To me, you men!”

Tanski and Sierawski and I exchanged incredulous stares before the Russian guns.

“He means you!” we all said, grinning, and pointing at one another, before setting spurs to our horses, and without further ado we three charged into the whirling maelstrom.

This officer spurred his horse hard, drawing blood. We did likewise, and our horses fairly flew, not Pegasus himself could have covered the ground so fast. In a trice we had caught up with him, and our dear Prince Pepi. Unnerved, the Russian infantry scattered before us, just as the birds had flown, moments before. Pepi was unhorsed and was assaulting a battery of cannon, quite alone, on foot. The gunners, naturally, were reluctant to surrender their gun to a lone madman. For gunners, as you know, are as proud of their guns and limbers as cavalry are of their steeds, or infantry of their colours. A number of these fellows surrounded the Prince, who held them at bay with his sword.

As we approached, we saw that the Prince had laid his czapka across the still smoking mouth of the cannon – the sign of capture! As he did so, one of the gunners stole upon him from behind, wielding an axe. I rode this treacherous fellow down, trampling him with my horse, and shot a second in the face with my pistol. Fortunately, the remaining gunners fled at the sight of us, conceiving that they were the object of a more general assault. But close by we heard the coarse shouts of the Cossacks, counter-attacking. We glimpsed their ragged beards and bloody lances through the haze of gunsmoke.

“We have them, boys!” cried Pepi, deluded in his despair.

“Indeed, Sire,” said the high-born officer who had led us to the rescue. He spoke like a courtier, in a smooth and calm drawling voice. “Perhaps we might continue the chase by horse?”

I caught Pepi by the collar and hoisted him up onto his bloodied horse. Spatters of gore streaked its pure white flanks. The high-born officer took the bridle from me and led Pepi off without a backward glance at us. Then the Prince's shame-faced bodyguards reappeared from the mist, surrounding him with a thicket of friendly swords as he had lately been enclosed by the deadly blades of our foes. Pepi, thus ensconced, was carried from the battlefield. To what fate we knew not – to foreign exile? To hide in the cellars of ruined palaces? Or walled up in the tomb of an impenetrable gulag? We were left behind to cover Pepi’s escape.

“So what do we do now?” Tanski spat angrily. “Those noble bastards have left us high and dry!” There were about one hundred horse remaining, with no officers, and the Russians closing in like the Red Sea over Pharaoh’s chariots.

“Comrades!” I raised my sword, “form on me!” They needed no second invitation, for a drowning man cares not for the quality of the rope.

“Where the hell are we going, Blumer?” Sierawski demanded.

“Where else? To the arse of the earth, comrade!” I shouted back. “To Podolia!”

Thus I rode back to the wild land of my birth. I had dreamed of riding back as the chief of a regiment of cavalry. In my mind’s eye I pictured it clear as a Canaletto. Bright flags, burnished swords, bands playing, girls flinging rose-petals under our horses’ hooves...
Be careful what you wish for, comrades. I rode home, a lowly warrant officer, at the head of a ragged band of defeated men. Our dirty and bloodied standards draped about us like funeral shrouds. Our horses limped, our swords were rusted, and our broken lances trailed along the ground. We no longer knew if we were deserters or patriots. We gazed at the black-earthed fields. The harvest was over, and they were fallow now.

We rode on by a walled village – a village of penniless nobles, the kind of place where they wore wooden swords, and pulled their ploughs by hand. My mother hailed from such a village as this. These noble brothers and sisters, fallen on hard times, degenerated to a condition of wretched destitution below even that of serfdom. Old Poland was studded with these rotten boroughs in those days, like maggots in a good cheese, spreading their rot. Each wretched hovel was distinguished only from peasants’ huts by their wooden porch, proudly displaying their coat of arms. Everywhere, on every porch, was the double cross - the Pilawa.

These were Felix Potocki’s clansmen. We would find no refuge here. A tattered militia of ragged scarecrows came out to meet us, afoot, dressed in threadbare crimson robes, armed with scythes, wheel-lock muskets, arquebuses that might have seen service at the crusades, wooden swords, and Cossack lances. My men, filthy and exhausted as they were, regarded them with disdain.

This Targowica rabble would lend us no aid, nor lift a finger to assist us, not even permit us to water at their troughs and wells. After fruitless hours of tense argument, conducted at swordpoint, we moved on, for we would not butcher or rob our own countrymen.

As we took our leave, however, we gloried in the visitation of angels. Two young women of the village ran after us. They were barefoot, and their cheeks were sunken with hunger, but their eyes shone at our sight. Both were tall, straight backed, majestic girls, one raven and one redhead. The raven haired girl pressed a wineskin into my hands, together with a hogshead and a bag of potatoes. The second, a haughty, tawny creature, her hair the colour of amber and Russian gold, had similar presents for Tanski and Sierawski. Greatly heartened, we kissed their slender hands and thanked them a thousand times. Then they melted away into the gathering dark.

A heavy sky hung overhead, the winter moon staring blank as a dead man’s eye in the grey firmament. Twardowski’s moon. We nodded our greetings, and crossed ourselves and rode on. It was almost dusk when I called a halt at the lee of a small river in the shelter of a stunted coppice of hanging trees. Mine was a savage country, ravaged by war, plague and famine. Yet it was also a fertile country. We Podolians ploughed our tears back into the black dirt and now it was growing rich and fat. So, naturally, cruel eyes and jealous hearts sought to wrest our land from us. It is not enough to be brave and true. If you wish to eat the fruits of your labours you must be strong and ruthless, comrades. Otherwise, you shall eat only hunger in the pit of your stomach.

Hunger was eating up my little troop, and would consume it whole if I should permit it.
An army marches on its stomach,
after all, as Napoleon said. My men – they were mine, for, in truth, they could be nobody else’s now – had fallen into a shambles. Some lay on the ground, moaning, others sat weeping with their heads in their hands. Weapons, uniforms, knapsacks lay strewn about in the worst disorder imaginable. Yet, with a start, I realised I could still have my homecoming.

“Tanski! Sierawski!” I roared. “Get off your skinny arses!” With a few clouts with the flat of my sword I stirred them into action. “Collect up all of the food and water and bring it to me. Have the men attend to their horses. Get a fire started.”

Tanski blinked. “Won’t the Russians see it?”

The land was as flat as a pancake, they would see us anyway. They would catch up with us sooner or later, but in the meantime, we would wash and eat and warm ourselves and water our horses. If they caught us now, in our disordered state, we were dead anyway. I did not relate any of this to Tanski, he could work it out for himself.

“You have your orders, Tanski,” I barked, “I shall not ask you again.” To my surprise, he obeyed without further question. I think it was a relief for both of us. It took a good hour, but I roused the exhausted troops to action. I posted sentries and then we unhitched our horses, drew water for them, pitched shelters, and lit fires. Sierawski even dug a latrine. After posting sentries and pickets I had the men swab their uniforms, polish their brasses and clean their weapons and their tack, bridles, and saddles, and so forth. The men worked painfully slowly, as if in a dream. Yet it had the desired effect. The exercise warmed our cold bodies and restored a sense of order and pride, and distracted our minds from the dire nature of our plight.

Oh, our poor, abused horses! My own horse was named ‘Muszka’ which means ‘Little Fly’ in our tongue, for he is a troublesome beast, always sticking his nose where it does not belong. As soon as I could I attended to my dear nag. I had sorely neglected him of late, owing to the lamentable end to the campaign. As I unhitched the saddle, Muszka blew out his guts with a great angry snort, tossed his mane, and danced on the spot, letting out a fart as loud as a gunshot. With immense relief and utter joy I saw that, by some miracle, there were no saddle sores.

I am no heavy-footed rider. I ride lightly enough, but I am a big heavy man, accoutered with heavy sword, musket, and pistols withal. We had been campaigning hard for months with little respite. When I removed the bridle from his mouth there was dried blood crusted on the bit, and I felt a deep pang of burning shame.

For all of the ill-treatment he had suffered at my hands, I apologised unreservedly to the nag, with an endless stream of soothing words in a soft, low voice. At first, he remained in ill humour, but permitted my examination of him. He did not attempt to kick or bite me as I examined his feet. One by one, I removed the clods of mud, and nicked the accumulated stones from his shoes, before wiping the nails of his hooves with a rag.

Running my hands over every inch of horseflesh, I found to my immense relief that he was scratched and filthy, and lousy with vermin, but otherwise whole and intact. His muscles were knotted from toe to tail, but the ligaments and bones of his legs rang true as a bell, and I rejoiced again.

By now, Muszka was stripping the grass from the earth with his long yellow teeth and so I ran the curry comb through the matted hair of his coat, pausing to cut out the worst knots with a pocket knife. I sluiced his sides with water, and the steam rose freely from his flanks, mouth, and nostrils like a smoking dragon. Throughout, I continued to talk to him in the most friendly and affectionate tones.

By the time I had finished, Muszka had forgiven all, capering about me like a colt, nuzzling at me with his great head, the huge brown eyes blinking with the kindest and most sincere goodwill. After draping a thick blanket over him, I found the remnant of a sugar lump in my saddlebag and he devoured it in the happiest and most contented fashion, all of his ill-uses and suffering at my heavy hands by now quite forgotten. At last the horse stretched himself on the ground to rest, and I did the same. Horses are the same as men. They can happily abide even the worst treatment as long as one speaks to them in sincere and soothing tones. If only women were so easy to please, then a man’s life should be a bed of roses, rather than a crown of thorns.

Then, and only then, these labours ended, I allowed the men to finish their rations. We ate every scrap of mouldy bread and dried meat that remained in our saddlebags and we drained the last of the wine. I fell asleep with my head on Muszka’s warm belly and my sword in my hand.

The next day I had the whole troop stand to morning inspection,
la diane
, as if we had been in the courtyard of the Poniatowski Palace, not skulking on the frozen steppe. Tanski rode up and, saluting smartly, presented the troop for inspection. Returning his salute, I passed up and down the line, as fastidious and petty as any blueblood officer. In the midst of the line was a boy with his arm shot away to the elbow, bound up with twisted strips of filthy cloth. Green pus ran from the bandage and the flesh stank of mortification. He should be lucky to live to see another day.

The headcount – one hundred horse. About a dozen carried injuries of various stripes, but all were able to ride. I took an inventory. We retained our arms but we had no food and little ammunition – hardly any musket balls and a few grains of powder. Sierawski was in a melancholy humour.

“My dear Blumer, I do so regret that your first command, and your first parade, should be in such circumstances as these,” he said.

“Nonsense, my dear Sierawski,” I replied. “We are alive. We have our honour, and our arms, with which to prosecute this war, and drive these invaders from our lands and our homes.”

“For the love of Christ, Blumer!” Sierawski seized my horse’s reins. “Are you blind? Are you mad? Can’t you see that this war is lost?”

For a moment my temper flashed. Then we grinned at one another.

“True,” I admitted, “this war is lost. But we have youth and strength to win another one, comrade,” I replied, “and another still after that, if we must.”

At this, Tanski rode back from the picket, brandishing his field glasses.

“Comrades, I have dire news to report.”

Through the glass, I observed a pillar of dust on the horizon. Cavalry.

“Do we run?” Tanski asked. I shook my head as I looked at the exhausted and decimated brigade.

“Too late!” I replied. “We are run to earth, comrade. We shall sell our lives as dearly as possible.”

At my order, the men formed up, the trees at their backs. The enemy would have to come up this low rise at us, and we could receive them at the charge, face to face. We were, as ever, outmatched by any number to one. Still, on the bright side, they had no cannon or infantry, so we could meet them in the field like men, and not be cut down like dogs.

“Grey bastards,” spat a young sergeant, his face lined, his beard streaked with dust.

“Hold your fire!” I shouted. The men laughed, in spite of themselves, for we had scarcely a grain of powder to fire those scant few bullets we had. Yet they mistook me. I had observed that the riders wore Polish blue, not Russian grey. They were grey with the dust of the road. They were either our men or they were Targowican traitors.

The cavalry stopped at a good distance. There were several hundreds of them, far too many for us to defeat. A band of riders detached themselves from the rest and this small delegation advanced toward us under cover of a white flag across the open field.

It was somewhat tense. We had suffered so grievously from treachery in this war. We trusted no one. All around, the hackles rose on my men like angry dogs. Swords were drawn and muskets run out, and lances lowered for the charge. For Pilawa crosses glinted on those uniforms, like daggers, in the harsh dawn light. These were Podolian troops of the Targowica Confederation. Felix Potocki’s men. They held a white flag on a lance.

“Hold your fire! No man to fire but on my orders!” I roared, brandishing my sword.

“Damn those treacherous Targowica bastards to hell!” Tanski hissed, levelling his lance at the riders. “It’s a trick, Blumer!”

“Sir, that is a flag of truce. If anyone dishonours it, I will kill him myself.”

Reluctantly, Tanski relented.
The lead officer rode a black horse of great beauty and was equipped with fine and expensive weapons. He and his mount were caked in the grey dust of the road. He rode with a band of bodyguards. He was a huge bear of a man, in his forties, with a genial, round face. It could only be one man.