Song of the Legions (16 page)

The walk to Wola was frightful. We had drunk plenty of vodka as usual, but the cold September wind wrung us sober all too quickly, and we struggled under our deadly burden through the deserted streets. I was beginning to think better of my bravado.

“I don’t care much for this,” I grumbled. “One spark, and there won’t be anything left of us to bury. I prefer cold steel, myself, to these infernal devices.”

I have never been fond of grenades. These crude bombs are metal flasks full of bullets, nails, scrap iron and gunpowder, with a fuse dangling like a ribbon from the top. Godebski grinned. Horrified, I watched him take out his pipe and flint.

“Stop grumbling and have a smoke!” Cyprian grinned.

“Damn it, Cyprian!” I snapped. He laughed and put away his tobacco. Despite the gloom, the moonlight lit up his lugubrious features. Much as I admired my dear friend, he was hardly an Adonis. His head was too large, for one thing. His receding, greying hair, which he fancied made him look distinguished, simply made him look old. His huge ears stuck out like saucepans. His big, fleshy lips spoke of passions too earthly for our chaste Polish ladies. Still, he had the heart of a lion, and he was a gentleman. I pitied him his plight, which was so hopeless as to make our impossible war seem a fair fight. For Madame had chosen the dashing young Captain Elias Tremo, who was aide-de-camp to General Dabrowski, and a man with a future. And that was that. Godebski was outgunned.

“I never stood a chance against that boy Tremo,” Godebski admitted. “Madame L is a good Catholic. Very devout. She won’t have anything to do with me, because I am divorced from my wife. I’m an outcast, my friend. No decent woman will have me.”

I commiserated with him. “Plenty more fish in the river, old boy. Anyway, I shouldn’t trouble yourself about decent women. We’ll get you a French girl instead!”

I heard Godebski’s mind ticking like the clock in Madame’s hallway.

“What a fine idea, comrade! I may take you at your word!” Godebski rubbed his hands with glee and perked up immensely.

“Now then, come on, boy – let’s chase these Prussian scoundrels back to Valmy Ridge, and then take our pick of the Parisiennes!”

Dawn was breaking as we reached Wola. Paris itself is a mere thousand miles further west, beyond Valmy Ridge, where the fanatical French Revolutionary army had kicked the Prussians arses up in the air for them, back in 1792.

“Here we are,” Godebski exclaimed, “the Field of the Electors.”

“Devil take this accursed place,” I spat. The Field of the Electors was in Wola, a large and fashionable suburb at the west end of Warsaw. For the last three hundred years Poland had chosen Her Kings here. At our last election, Catherine of Russia had foisted her chosen candidate upon us – the Bullock. His election had been won with gold and lead, for where bribes fail, bullets prevail. Thus we had been saddled with our traitor king, and set on our road to ruin.

We stepped from the shadows onto the open field. A gentle incline ran downhill from beneath our feet. Where the incline ended one could see the outline of a wooden pavilion. Half of it had been torn down. The campfires of Prussian troops smouldered around it, for they burned our buildings to cook their sausages.

“I vote we do battle with these Prussians,” I said. In reply, there was a colossal explosion from a battery of Prussian cannon. We hurled ourselves into a nearby trench, and kissed the dirt. Behind the trench was a handsome red brick townhouse. It had taken the full force of the blast. We watched as the facade began to crumble, with an awful, yawning noise, like the tearing of silk. A great cloud of black dust rose up in the air. Then I felt a knife at my throat. We were surrounded.

“Time to die, Prussian pigs!” an officer hissed. Then he grinned. It was Sierawski. He sheathed his dagger. “It’s alright, boys, they’re ours,” Sierawski told his engineers.

In one corner of the trench was a pikestaff. Our flag, the white eagle, hung from it. There were a dozen of our comrades holding this trench and they were a sorry sight indeed. Sierawski himself wore rags barely recognisable as clothing, let alone a uniform. He was covered from head to foot in mud. His eyes were wild and he appeared to have a woman’s nightcap on his head. He and his men had dug this earth rampart and they had been living in it for weeks, like human moles.

“Where are the reinforcements, Captain?” he demanded.

Godebski grinned and pointed at me. “Here we are!”

“What? Two of you?” Sierawski gestured wildly at the Prussian lines. “Out there,” he raved, “is the most professional army the world has ever seen. They outnumber us more than five to one! I have no cannon – what am I supposed to do? Fend them off with my farts?”

“Your farts could clear a barnyard,” I retorted. “Anyway, cheer up. We have brought vodka for you and your lads, and some grenades.”

Abruptly, his demeanour changed, as I passed him the bottle. “Ah! Vodka! That’s a different matter! Welcome to Wola, comrades!”

We handed out the grenades, and tapers to light the fuses. No sooner had we done so, than the Prussian bugles sounded. As if summoned by some evil magician, a cohort of Prussian soldiers, muskets shouldered and colours flying, stepped out of their trenches, and began to march across the Electors’ Field towards us. On they came, marching in perfect order under their banner, red, black, and gold, with a black eagle. There was almost a battalion of them, perhaps sixty men strong, and they were a formidable sight. We could see their immaculate blue uniforms, the plumes in their hats, and the gleam of their swords and bayonets. We could hear the stamp of their leather boots and the beat of their drums.

Halfway across the field they halted. Their bugler sounded a signal and they aimed their muskets. They were forming up to give us a volley. We kissed the dirt again. Bullets whined over our heads like a thousand devils. Before they could reload, we lit our bombs and flung them into the ranks of oncoming Prussians. The grenades ignited with awful roars, blinding red flashes and plumes of thick grey smoke. It was a volcano of fire. The Electors’ Field burned like the slopes of Mount Etna. The first rank died where they stood. The second rank of Prussians faltered, but did not break.

“To sword, comrades!” Cyprian roared, climbing up out of the trench – “Charge!”

We followed him, roaring like madmen. It must have been unbelievable for the Prussians. They stood facing us, their muskets discharged. Caught in the act of reloading – caught with their trousers down – the Prussian soldiers were struggling manfully with their clumsy ramrods, powder flasks, and wad cutters.

We hurled more bombs among them and followed up with a charge, bayonets and sabres swinging. Our bombs took a dreadful toll on our enemy, blasting them off their feet like skittles, tearing through the ranks like an iron fist. A stink of shit and sulphur filled the air. Grey coated soldiers lay all about, crumpled, in heaps. Wounded and dying men groaned and shrieked, shouted, whimpered, and pleaded. The ground was strewn with discarded swords, muskets, bandoliers, boots, knapsacks and kit.

Ahead, I saw Cyprian, bellowing like a bull, as he slashed left and right with his sabre. There was no time to help him. A knot of Prussians ran at me. I was amazed at their discipline, to have held firm after our devastating barrage of grenades. I had not yet fired my musket, and so I discharged it at them. I saw a man fall and then the others were spectres, fleeing through gunpowder smoke.

At last, they had had enough, and they fell back, but in good order, to their lines. Now it was our turn to retreat.

“Fall back, fall back!” Cyprian called, calm as you like. Our killing frenzy was over. It had evaporated as soon as it had begun, like a pan of water boiling over. So we fell back, snatching up a few weapons and cartridge belts as we did so. We scrambled back into our trench, the Prussian sharpshooters sniping after us as we went. Across the field we heard a bugle call. By now, we knew the Prussian signals as well as we did our own. They were calling ‘Advance’.

“Out of this trench!” Sierawski called, “retreat! If we stay here, they’ll catch us like rats! Go! Go!” he shouted, clouting us with the flat of his sword – for now he had a sword in his hand, and not a dagger, a strange German sabre, with a gold pompom hanging from it, like a curtain pull.

“To the house!” he called, pointing to the ruined house, the very same that had been wrecked by the Prussian artillery. At that time I had no experience of sieges and street fighting, but even I could see the sense in putting this ruined rampart betwixt us and the Prussian guns. Lead buzzed off the walls like angry bumblebees. We scrambled through the ruined doorway and into the hall of what had once been a grand townhouse, home of a rich merchant, doctor, or lawyer. A cockeyed crucifix hung in the hall, beneath it, a tumbled grandfather clock spilled its springs. God Bless This House, said a tapestry on the wall.

Heaps of broken bricks, masonry and stonework, and tangled beams spilled in all directions, as if the house had been poured down a hill. At the broken windows of the front parlour we paused. A walnut table was set with bread, ham, cheese and salt. On one wall was a portrait of a smiling old basia, with her husband beside her. Opposite and facing them was a picture of the Holy Virgin, the Black Madonna of Czestochowa. It stood above a long walnut sideboard decorated with trophies and ornaments. Crystal, fine china, gold and silver plate, all cracked, and broken, beyond repair. A fine shroud of white dust lay on everything, like a layer of icing on a cake.

Cyprian took up position next to the stern old wife. Above us the ceiling swelled alarmingly, like the sail of a ship in a storm. A chandelier hung from it like a bunch of golden grapes. Hurriedly, we swept the last of the broken glass from the lintels and the window frames with our swords.

Outside, the Prussians came on. Dread footsteps, like the golem, slow, implacable, never faltering. I could see their white faces streaked with black powder, their shining bayonets, their gleaming blue uniforms, hear the creak of their leather cross belts and boots.

I bowed to the Virgin, the Queen of Poland, and crossed myself. Godebski and I drew our pistols, like duellists.

“God bless this house,” I said.

The first Prussian was a blond giant of a man and he came out of nowhere, clad in their damnable grey-blue. I desperately parried his thrust with my sword, his bayonet catching on the hilt, and twisted it aside. With desperate strength I struck him full in the face with the brass hilt of my cavalry pistol, like a club. He staggered, and Godebski ran him through the body with his sword.

“They are coming in the windows!” someone called. Another blue figure was crouched on the wide sill, armed with a pistol and a firebrand – they meant now to burn us out. Godebski calmly shot the figure through the forehead with his second pistol, then roughly shoved the man’s body back out, where it tumbled amongst his comrades in a chaos of shots and shouts.

But the brand had tumbled to the floor. A shower of sparks touched the parquet, the rugs, and the velvet curtains. Consumed by the fire’s ardour, red tongues bloomed. Crimson mushrooms spread up the wood panelled walls, the curtains, the floors and ceiling. Black smoke billowed. Blue devils clambered resolutely through the smoke and into the inferno.

We ran back to the hallway, where Sierawski was holding off a Prussian soldier armed with an axe. Godebski swung a backhanded cut at the base of the man’s spine, and he collapsed, with a scream of shock, like a girl soaked in cold water on Easter Monday.

“OUT!” Godebski ordered, unflustered, picking up the axe from the floor and hefting it. More of the dogs were at the door, running up the stairs, coming in the windows. Godebski flung the axe at them and we fled through the kitchen. I remembered the ham in the front parlour and sure enough, there was a haunch on a chopping block on the kitchen table, which I grabbed and shoved in my pocket. Eat, or be eaten.