Song of the Legions (22 page)

Amidst them all, right in the centre, riding on a pale horse, waving politely to the ladies, was the tall blond man, and his band of killers. At once we saw that this blond scoundrel was using these churchgoers as a living shield. The devil – he must have smelled us.

“Damnation,” Sierawski snapped, “these people are in our line of fire.”

“Then we need to scare them off,” I replied simply.

“But that will give the game away,” Tanski cursed, “and we are outmatched, five to three. Damn it all!”

“Being outmatched is nothing new,” I said negligently. “We can still have our fight. Kasimir – run behind the church. Jan – get yourself behind the elephant.”

“Now look here,” said Tanski, pulling rank again, “I’m in charge here!”

I ground my teeth with anger.

“Do as I say, Kasimir,” I said. “For you both need to run, to make your marks in time. I cannot run, I am as slow as a snail on this damn leg. Go!”

Tanski assented. With that they were away, fast as hares, and not a moment too soon, for the crowd was breasting the rise and would soon be upon us.

My blond friend was talking to the priest, and to a number of young ladies and some old babcias, who were riding in a two-horse carriage. He talked calmly and politely, but I could see him casting around for us, as if he had indeed smelt the ambush. As he rode, he was obliged to screw his eyes up against the sun, which was shining in his face. Around him, his hired killers were scowling and sweating in the midday heat.

One could see the unease in the faces of the wary townsfolk, their hands clutching their children and their rosaries, and their jittery horses, afrighted at their masters’ fear. I felt a great pang of regret, for this had been the sweetest of hiding places, and we could have swatted the whole bunch of them like so many flies before they could have returned a single shot at us.

With that, after a brief whispered prayer, I stepped out of the hollow, into the open, and discharged a shot into the air. My shot frighted the birds from the trees and echoed through the valley. Polish guns had a voice still.

There was plenty of time to sit on a tree stump and carefully reload my musket and watch the scene unfold. Down below, the townsfolk imagined they were about to be set upon by the Cossacks, as so many other villages had been. They fled in terror. Carts upturned, horses reared, men shouted, ladies screamed, children shrieked, and dogs barked. Every rank of person, from the highest to the lowest, ran scrambling for cover in unseemly haste. Nor was there any differentiation between the sexes, for husbands elbowed their wives and mothers aside in a mad dash for ditch, hedge, wall, or tree to shelter behind.

Amid the dust thrown up by all this confusion I observed my blond friend. He remained admirably calm throughout. He and his men kept their horses reined tight in at the bit and under good control. After a few moments the avalanche of villagers had swept away, leaving behind a few pathetic remnants – hats tumbling in the dirt, spilled baskets of eggs, a child’s doll. One of the blond man’s party shooed away a loose horse with his whip, and then all was quiet again.

Now the field was clear for the combatants, although our element of surprise was forfeit. The blond man, Szymon Korczak, saw me straight away, as I had intended. Pointing me out to his fellows, he gave a great beam of delight and satisfaction, and then he doffed his cap to me.

“Ho there, Blumer!” he called good naturedly. “We are here to take you back to Podolia in chains! Hetman Rzewuski has ordered that you ride the whole way backwards, as befits a traitor, an outlaw, and a renegade. There, the flesh will be flayed from your back with the knout, and then you are to be broken on the wheel, drawn between four horses, and finally, as you beg for mercy, hanged like a dog!”

Evidently there was to be no trial. Sighting down the slope, I could see all five of them, bunched together from when the villagers had charged past in their headlong flight. It reminded one of stalking pigeons, lining them up to knock down two or three with one round of birdshot. In a moment, surely the same thought would occur to my antagonists.

“A Happy Easter to you too, you Targowica bastards!” I replied, raising my czapka, and then raising my musket. By now, I reckoned, my comrades would have enough time to be in position. I could see Szymon’s crafty eyes judging the distance between us and the strength of the wind. His men carried pistols, which by now they all had in hand, and were training on my person. Despite the distance, for I knew them to be well out of range, it was an uncomfortable feeling.

“Where are your comrades, my dear Blumer?” Szymon called, casting around the horizon for Tanski and Sierawski, of whom there was no sign. Emboldened, he and his men began to walk their horses towards me, slowly, to close the range, before they charged. Good, I thought.

“Come up here and I’ll tell you, you cowardly son of a bitch,” I laughed, staring through my sights at the blond mane of hair. It was still somewhat of a range and I doubted the bullet would carry true, for as you know I am a poor shot.

“Very well then!” declared Szymon, and one could not doubt the cruel resolve in his traitor’s heart. His men, I noticed, seemed far less sure of themselves.

“There are five of us, and only one of you,” he chided.

“I will be happy simply to hit you alone, my lord brother,” I replied, and this gave him pause for thought. Man pulls the trigger, but God guides the bullet. I squeezed the trigger, and the gun kicked like a mule.

Damnation! A miss!

“Unlucky, Sir!” Szymon called, “now it is our turn.”

He and his men began to fire at me with their pistols. All around me the earth tore up with bullets and the bumblebees flew past my ears, plucked at my coat, and lifted off my hat. Miraculously, I was unhurt. They, too, were poor shots. Tossing my musket aside, I drew my pistols.

“Now we have you!” called Szymon. With that they drew sabres, spurred their horses, and made to charge. They closed the gap alarmingly quickly. In a few moments more they should have charged me down into my grave. Before they could do so, Tanski and Sierawski leapt from their hiding places, crying ‘ambush!’ and firing their guns.

This was all too much for the Targowicans, and they broke and ran, as fast as their horses could carry them. From the corner of my eye I saw a horseman tumbling dead from his mount. Then Szymon was upon me, brandishing his flashing sabre, for he was made of sterner stuff than his hired killers. His horse cast a great black shadow, blocking out the sun. At the last minute I discharged my pistol.

The horse reared and fell, with an awful scream, bucking and kicking, breaking its legs as it thrashed in agony. I cannot abide killing horses, and the sight was sickening. Killing men, however, no longer troubled my conscience. There he lay, my blond persecutor, his horse shot from under him. It now lay athwart, and he trapped beneath.

“Bless my soul, Szymon,” I chuckled as I stumped slowly over, my leg dragging like an anchor, as I traversed the mound of bloody and mangled animal. “One minute you’re on the horse, the next minute you’re under it!”

My adversary was not finished. Nimble as a ferret, Szymon somehow slipped out from under the dead horse and away. I was at arm’s length. I extended my second pistol to administer the
coup de grace
, for I had bloody murder and revenge in mind. At the last second, Szymon twisted desperately aside. The flash from my gun set light to his sable coat. The fine fur flared. He ran for the church, ablaze, and dropped his sword.

I trudged after him, grim as the golem. I stopped to pick up his fallen sword, and tramped on. Szymon pushed open the church door and fell over the threshold. His clothes were burning and tongues of flame licked at him hungrily, and he rolled desperately in the nave to smother them. No sooner had he put out the fire than I was upon him, sword at his throat. I stared down at him with contempt. His eyes were full of fear. My persecutor was unarmed, worn out, filthy, dejected, his burned clothes in rags. In short, he was thoroughly defeated.

“You were braver when it was five to one,” I remarked, tossing his sword onto the flagstones. “Here, pick this up, and we’ll finish this in the churchyard – I shall bury you where you die, or you me.”

With one final terrified cry, he shrank back. “Sanctuary!” he cried, throwing up his hands before the altar. It was a pretty little church. Up above the altar, Christ and Mary had gazed down. Their sad faces quite took the murder out of my soul. My anger was quite gone, melted away like snow in a kettle.

“Why didn’t you kill him?” Tanski asked, crossing himself as he stepped over the threshold.

“Rules are rules,” I said simply, “he has sanctuary.” I took a red cord from beside the altar, and proceeded to tie our prisoner’s hands roughly behind his back and drag him out of the church into the spring sunshine.

“Then what are we going to do with this damn traitor?” Tanski said, snapping at my heels, and loading his gun. We were indeed presented with a problem. He was a traitor, and he meant to murder us, but he had claimed sanctuary. So we could not kill him, and we dare not turn him loose, but we had no means of taking him with us.

“You’re the senior officer, aren’t you?” I said to Tanski, coldly, “you decide.”

Tanski pulled a glum expression as we walked out of the church, a strange band of celebrants. We might have been three centurions with Christ – albeit this prisoner was a Judas.

“I have the answer. Here’s a good tree and a stout rope!” Sierawski chuckled, gleefully, “there are three of us – enough for a drumhead court martial! We can try and hang this traitor lawfully by the rules of war!” he cackled, capering around the worried prisoner with a noose. “Then both honour and justice are satisfied. And this bastard of a traitor will be dead, too.”

“I’m no traitor!” our prisoner protested, “I am Captain Szymon Korczak, of Podolia, and I am a serving officer in the Russian army! Shoot me by all means, but you can’t hang me! It would be quite improper.”

“Hang him – the damned traitor!” Sierawski roared, “A Podolian in the Russian army indeed! He’s Felix’s man, a Targowica turncoat! A Russian running dog! I vote him guilty of treason. Let’s hang him and be done with it!”

“I also vote him guilty of treason,” Tanski said coldly, raising his pistol. “It is your vote, Blumer, and the casting vote. We must be unanimous, for this is a capital offence, and two votes to one will not do it. Quickly, now – let’s hang him as a traitor and a coward, as he deserves.”

“Untie my hands and you’ll see how much of a coward I am!” blondie protested, with the false bravado of a chained dog, safe in his master’s yard. Then he gazed at me, I who had been his terror a few moments ago, and who now presented his only salvation. A drowning man cares not the quality of the rope – a drowning man will clutch even at a razor blade.

With that, I cut the cord that bound his hands, and he fell silent, and took to rubbing his wrists and biting his lips.

“Veto,” I said quietly. “I will not allow it –
nie pozwalam
. Captain Korczak is a prisoner of war.”

Tanski and Sierawski howled at me with anger and rage. For a moment I thought they would turn their swords on me. Then our prisoner began to laugh.

“There is no war, Blumer!” the blond Captain said sourly, “It is you men who are the outlaws and traitors. The war is over, and you lost. Poland is dead!”

“Poland is not dead,” I replied, “as long as we live.”

Outside, two dead Targowicans that we had dispatched lay in the dirt, as if asleep. The wind ruffled the grass and their hair. By now, the peasants of the congregation had drifted back. They gathered, at a wary distance, to watch this strange trial unfold.