Song of the Legions (2 page)

I was born in The Year of Our Lord 1773, one year after the First Partition of Poland. Our enemies had cut great swathes from the Republic, devouring it leaf by leaf, like an artichoke. Russia stole land to the East, Prussia stole land to West, and Austria stole land to the South. Our land – Podolia.

Podolia, land of the black earth, lies in the southern wilderness betwixt Muscovy and Tartary. It is a poor, savage place, riven by war and banditry, where water is drunk more often than coffee or vodka. We are a tough border people, proud, and nobody’s fools. This Polish land, now an Austrian province, was ruled by a treacherous Pole named Felix Potocki, a scoundrel in the pay of Russia. A fine state of affairs!

None grieved the dishonour of the Partition more keenly than my mother. Our milksop king would not fight. Had my mother worn the Polish crown, it would have been a different story indeed, I can tell you. My mother Angela was a pious and learned lady, the brightest and the most beautiful in the whole province. She had the wisdom of Solomon and the strength of Sobieski. As a young maiden, she was the darling and delight of her parents.

Those same parents, though of the noblest line, were poor as the meanest serfs. They wore wooden swords and pulled their ploughs by hand. They lived in a walled village with other penniless nobles, locking themselves away like lepers.
The pride of their nobility was their only possession, and they guarded it jealousy. Their wretched hovels were distinguished only from the peasants’ huts by wooden porches, proudly displaying mildewed coats of arms.
In those sad days, there were hundreds of such places in Poland
.

Even there my mother shone like a diamond in a pile of ashes. And the gleam of a diamond will always attract magpies. How my parents came to be wed I know not, for they never spoke of it. My father had a strong sabre arm, and pocketfuls of gold, and the rest can be imagined. It was not a good match. Our house was unhappy, for it was a house divided against itself. A house divided against itself cannot stand.

My father’s home was no peasant hut. It was a grand nobleman's mansion, the most splendid stack of firewood you ever saw. It was single-storied, in the baroque style, with a grand colonnade flanking the massive iron-bound door. From walnut floor to oak beams, every last splinter of that damned house was wood, aye, all save the glass in the windows.

Beyond the vast entrance hall lay the library, where I studied at my mother’s knee, the trophy room and the armoury, where I played among muskets and the stuffed heads of wild beasts, and the dining hall, where I ate prodigiously and grew at an alarming rate. I quickly grew to be a tyrant and a bully, the terror of the other children. For all that, I was good at my studies, a quick learner. My mother was strict, and fear of the strap made me study hard and master my books.

“He’s an able scholar and a strong hand. We’ll make a general of him,” crowed my proud father. My mother, scowling, said nothing.

Close by my father’s house there was a stone bastion for defence, a gun tower with loopholes for muskets and cannon. We often had good cause to take shelter in that tower, for my father was notorious – he was Felix Potocki’s henchman. Tulczyn, Felix’s stronghold, was only a few days ride from our village. It was a dread place, dreary amid the black steppes, built on pyramids of unquiet bones.

Throughout my childhood my father was generally absent. My ageing grandfather, who also lived in the house, spent his days out hunting, or in his cups. Thus my mother ran the estate herself, controlling servants and serfs with an iron hand.

One day I came running in from childish play. I was six years old. My footsteps clattered across the yellow walnut floor. That fine polished floor, burnished to a glorious sheen by the servants, shone gold as honey. I must have marched my toy soldiers across that battlefield to victory a hundred times.

My mother was in the library, which had ceilings with coffers of gilded wood, decorated with intricate carvings. After she had settled the many affairs of the estate, she would attend to my studies, or tell me a story. That day, as the evening shadows drew in, and my books had been set aside, she told me the story of Pan Twardowski, which was my favourite.

You will know the story, for both the Germans and the English call it
Faust
. Pan Twardowski was a great nobleman. He made a pact with the Devil to give him wealth and power, in exchange for his immortal soul. Twardowski signed in blood, as is usual with these satanic pacts. However, as a Polish nobleman, he was not in the habit of ever paying his bills, whether they be to Jews, innkeepers, or the Devil himself. So Twardowski included a
special clause
in the pact, whereby the Devil could only take his soul to Hell if he visited Rome. Then Twardowski swore he would never go there.

Using the Devil's magic, Twardowski became rich. He built splendid castles and held sumptuous revels. One night he summoned the spirits of the dead, using the Devil’s magic mirror. Word spread until he was notorious throughout the land. All the while the Devil bided his time.

“After cheating his fate for twenty years,” my mother said, “Twardowski stumbled blind drunk into an inn – an inn called ‘Rome’. For there are hundreds of inns of this name in our Poland. Waiting with the other drinkers at the next table was the Devil, and all his hideous demons. With a great bloodcurdling cry, the Devil pounced. Grabbing Twardowski in his bloody claws, he dragged him off to Hell, to be damned. Halfway to Hell, in the depths of his despair, Twardowski prayed to the Blessed Virgin Mary for deliverance. He glowed red hot, like a burning coal, and the Devil dropped him, with a great howl!

“So Twardowski fell a thousand leagues, twisting over and over in the void, and landed with a dusty thump on the Moon. There he lives still, to this very day. His only companion on that cold and lonely sphere is a spider. Every so often, Twardowski lets the spider descend to Earth on a silken thread, to bring news from the lost world below.”

That day, I piped up – “Mamusia – that man in the barn, is
he
Pan Twardowski, fallen to earth?”

My mother’s face was all consternation. It was as if a thunderclap had fallen over the spring sky. “What man in the barn, Ignatius?” she said, taking my hand in a grip of iron.

“Why, I saw him today,” I said, “a gentleman from the city, with fine clothes – and a sword!”

“Have you told anyone, Ignatius, my son?” she said, her voice urgent but calm.

That fine gentleman with his silver hair had made a deep impression on me. I had been hunting for mischief amongst the bales of straw, chasing the chickens with my dogs, when I found him.

“Hello, young sir,” the gentleman had said, tipping his hat, and looking up from his book. Although surprised, I was unafraid. I spoke with this fellow, who seemed to me as old as Methuselah, but as gentle as a lamb. He bade me bring him a red apple, and in exchange had given me a zloty, and told me to go directly to my Mama, and no other. I had given my word as a gentleman to do as much.

I was accustomed to such strange comings and goings as these. My mother led a secret life. She held clandestine meetings in our house, under my father’s very nose. All my young days I had been dimly aware of it. Now, on this warm, intoxicating summer’s evening, I finally spoke of it to her.

“I have not told a soul, Mamusia,” I said, truly, “upon my word as a gentleman!” I said, proudly.

“Good boy,” my mother replied, and smiled, for she regarded danger with contempt. In this nest of traitors, my mother was a true patriot. She was an agent of the Confederates of Bar. The Confederates were a band of brave men who had fought on against the Russian invaders long after our own King had surrendered. These rebels had their base in Podolia. The man I had met was one of their soldiers. My mother gave them food, shelter, money – and guns.

On her finger, my mother always wore a diamond ring decorated with a cross of rubies. We sat alone together in the library. The rubies caught my eye, for they were shining as red as blood in the flickering light of the fire.

“Mamusia,” I said, “that silver-haired gentleman wears such a ring as yours. What does it mean?”

“It is a ring of mourning for the brave men who died for our freedom,” she said.

“May I wear it, Mamusia?” I asked, eagerly.

She shook her head. “No. Only those who fight for our freedom can wear a ring such as this,” she said. “Brave men like the gentleman in the barn. Some day, not in my lifetime, but perhaps in yours, Poland will be free.
Do you want to fight for freedom, my son?” my mother said.

“I do!” I said, without hesitation.

“Do you swear it?”

“I swear it,” I said, enthralled by the power of her voice. She drew me towards her, caressed me, and placed the ring on my finger.

“Now run along, my little soldier. But not a word. Don't tell a soul.”

At fourteen, I was bound for the profession of arms. My father’s family were all soldiers.
O'Bloomer
, my warlike Irish forbear, was a colonel in the English army. Upon his discharge, being a younger son with no estate to inherit, and having drunk and gambled away all his army pay, he followed the profession of arms to Russia. Mother Russia, in spite of her naturally peaceful and pacific nature, is constantly having to fight endless wars. These are always provoked by, and always entirely the fault of, the tiny nations that border Her vast lands. Mercenaries therefore being in great demand in Moscow, my grandfather became Peter the Great's artillery instructor, and in due course became rich.

Eventually the old mercenary retired and settled down in Poland. When asked why he had not stayed on in Russia, he would indignantly reply that only a fool would do such a thing, to live under a tyrant, when he could live in liberty! Poland was a democracy, where a man could say and do as he pleased. A man need not fear the dungeon, the knout, nor the gulag. This was my grandfather, the old hypocrite. Compared to my father, however, the man was a paragon of virtue.

My father, the Count Peter Blumer, was named after the self-same tyrant that my grandfather served. His career was even more disgraceful. For my father served in Felix Potocki's private army. By his ruthless conduct and rapacious greed, he quickly rose to a high rank, becoming the chief rent-collector for the Potocki clan.

By treaty, the Austrians had ruled Podolia, this land they had stolen from Poland, for the past fourteen years. But it was Felix Potocki, not the Hapsburgs, that ruled our roost. Podolia was after all far enough away from Vienna for them not to care what went on, so long as they were paid their dues.

Felix was Our Lord Brother. He was a
krolik
, a petty king or warlord, and the head of the powerful Potocki family. Their emblem, the Pilawa cross, a
double cross
, was everywhere. It hung from the door of his castles and palaces, from our door, on the uniforms of Felix’s soldiers, and above my father’s heart. Felix
had a formidable private army. Naturally it had its own officer corps, in which my father was numbered as a general. My father commanded regiments of Cossack and Tartar mercenaries, whose primary duty was to police – that is, terrorise – the peasants.

A magnate, a great landowner, and the richest man in Europe, Felix owned so many castles and palaces across Poland, Austria and France that he scarcely had time to remember them all. He had a magnificent palace in Warsaw that stood right beside the King’s own palace (and was bigger than it, to boot) that he rarely ever visited. On Felix’s rent roll were hundreds of towns, cities, farms and villages. He was so fabulously wealthy that it was rumoured he was an alchemist, and had discovered the secret of turning lead into gold. Of course this was nonsense. The source of this vast wealth was very simple to anyone with eyes to see – my father and his Cossacks were the very devil at collecting those rents!

Felix himself was a cultured and learned man of letters, a pious God-fearing man, a patron of the arts, a philanthropist, always doing great charitable works, a senator, and a politician. In short – a scoundrel!

At fourteen I was old enough to decide my fate for myself – so long as my father approved of my decision, of course. Although I wished to be a soldier, I preferred to enlist in a military academy, for the sake of my education, rather than to serve Felix. My father, much to my surprise, declared this an admirable choice.

Now it was time to cut me loose from my mother’s apron strings. I had grown into a great bull-necked youth, with scarcely more sense than a horse, and as great a thirst for drink and mounting. I could bend two iron horseshoes in my great fists. My bulky frame cast a black shadow over the old wooden house. I stomped around the house like a golem, or a wild beast. I could ride, and shoot, and handle a sword.

For all that, I was apt at book learning, and a keen scholar. Raised a true gentleman, I spoke French like a Frenchman and Latin like a priest. From my grandfather I learned every English oath and curse. At my father’s insistence I spoke tolerable German. I had read the Greek poets and the French philosophers, and I always ate fish on a Friday.

“God bless you, Ignatius, my son,” my mother said, holding my hand, on which I wore the ring with the cross of rubies. The red stones shone in the white morning sunlight. She embraced me for the last time. Then I took my leave of the world of women.

My father and grandfather
were waiting for me outside, in the shadow of the stone tower. They were mapping out my career.

“Only the cavalry is fit for a gentleman,” my father was saying, “I’ll not have my boy foot-slogging like a peasant – how would that look?”

“Nonsense!” roared my old grandfather. He spoke Polish badly, but his Russian was good, and the languages are enough of a kin that the speaker of one may be understood by the speaker of another. “The cavalry is good for nothing but parades and chasing women!” my grandfather spat. “Isn’t that right, Ignatius? Haven’t I told you that a thousand times? Join the artillery! Guns are the future! Guns and firepower! Not piddling wooden lances!” My grandfather, of course, was in the artillery.

“Yes, grandfather,” I replied, “you have told me so on no less than ten thousand occasions. The cavalry swan about all day in their fancy uniforms, drinking champagne, and going to balls with ladies tarted up to the nines. The real hard work is done by the artillerymen, salt of the earth, up to their necks in muck and bullets. Your wise words have made a deep impression, sir.”

They had indeed!

“Good lad!” beamed my grandfather. Both my father and grandfather, laden with ill-gotten gold, and being of a fierce and mercenary disposition, envisaged my honourable (and lucrative) future in the profession of arms, following in their family footsteps. As I set out to serve my military apprenticeship, they spared no expense, procuring the finest horses and weapons that money could buy. Thus they furnished me with my sturdy horse, first among a gentleman's possessions, and a string of remounts. Hanging from my belt was a hussar sabre, and in the breast pocket of my kontusz were a good German compass, a gold watch, and a snuff box, also in gold.

My father and grandfather made me display my swordsmanship. We fought two bouts of parry and counter, and I disarmed them both, one after another. They roared with delight, clapped me on the back, and poured bison-grass vodka down my throat. After we had downed this vodka, my grandfather produced his old guns – a pair of good English pistols, and a great piece of iron taller than I was.

“This is Brown Bess,” said my grandfather, “the only true female you shall ever meet.”

These English muskets were greatly prized as the finest to be had anywhere in the world. Gleefully I turned it over in my hands. The great barrel was Sheffield steel, engraved with the maker’s name. It had a silver fore-sight, brass-lined touch holes, a bevelled lock with safety-catch, iron mounts, and a horn-tipped ramrod. The walnut stock was figured with a deep red feather grain at the butt, which held a small spring-loaded box for storing greased linen patches and tools – the wad cutter, powder flask, and capper.

“Fire it,” the old man ordered. I drew a bead on a chicken clucking harmlessly in the yard. My eyes spun with vodka. I pulled the trigger. My head rang with the awful bang. Brown Bess kicked my shoulder like a mule. I staggered and nearly fell. The hen vanished in a puff of feathers. My father clapped me on the back again, laughed, and cheered.

“Here, my boy,” my father said, giving me a hefty purse of gold, “spend this as soon as you can, make a good splash, and send me word for more. I’ll not have those Austrian bastards look down their noses at an honest Blumer. Watch yourself in Vienna – it’s a damned expensive place. Borrow not from the Jews. Be disciplined. Obey orders. If you must fight a duel, make sure it is over cards, and not a woman.”

“Thank you for your good advice, sir,” I replied. Unfortunately, whilst I wholeheartedly concurred in all this, affirming that nothing would please me better than a life of sword and saddle, and gladly accepting these good gifts, I had entirely neglected to inform my honoured and beloved kinsmen of
which army
I had decided to join.

Naturally, they assumed that I would join the army of the House of Hapsburg. Podolia was after all a part of the Austrian empire. In those days Austria had the largest army in the whole world, greater even than the army of Russia. Austria’s hussars were the finest to be had anywhere, not least because of the number of Polish mercenaries and conscripts in their ranks.

“Fine prospects, and a great deal of money, await an officer of the Imperial Army,” my father pronounced, and I swear there were tears of joy springing from his money-purse.

“I have no doubt that what you say is true, father,” I replied to the old man. I had not spoken a word of a lie.

“Serve your lawful sovereign, boy,” my father snivelled, “make us proud.”

“Have no fear, I will faithfully serve my lawful sovereign, sir,” I replied, as I swung myself unsteadily onto my horse.

My kin waved me a fond farewell from the farm, on a warm sunny day, and I rode westward, for Krakow. At Krakow, the road turns south for Vienna.

Podolia is a naked ocean of wilderness, half-tame, half-wild, under an endless sky. Painted cornfields spread out like a jewelled tapestry – golden fields of wheat, and silver fields of rye. Over the years, our people had slowly begun to tame this wilderness, to make it a garden of man. We bred fine horses, cattle and sheep. We grew tobacco, potatoes, hemp and flax. The forests sang with bee hives. Here were a million Poles, slaves under a Hapsburg flag, serfs of a lackey of Moscow.

At Krakow, I rode north – for Warsaw
.