Song of the Legions (35 page)

“What of my comrades?” I replied, shaking my head.

“By Satan’s beard, that’s why I want you! Because you look after your men. Have no fear,
Colonel
Blumer - I have another three daughters, after all! One for each of your captains, here! Each of your comrades will captain one of your companies!”

Now I’ll be damned if I won’t say it wasn’t tempting. If Felix Potocki had tried this on me, why I doubt I should ever have left Podolia. But damn it, Blumer, I said to myself, your blood is as cold as a lizard’s, you are a man of steel and slaughter. You cannot fall for this old trick. Yet there we sat transfixed, like the lotus eaters, transformed into pigs by this stinking Circe and his siren slaves. Hassan sought to made us into golems. Killers to do their master’s bidding.

“Of course you will all have to convert,” Hassan was saying, “and that means no pork, and no more vodka.”

Sierawski looked up from between a girl’s thighs. “No more pork? No more vodka, you say?”

Hassan tapped the water pipe. “The lotus is better than any drink, and the harem tastes sweeter than any pig’s flesh.”

Birnbaum tried and failed to get the girl off his lap. “Convert? This Jew will die first,” he said, unsteadily, his jaw slack, his eyes glassy.

“Be still, sweet Jew,” Hassan crooned, “you have already had the unkindest cut, what more have you to fear from me?”

Tanski looked up from his stupor. He had hardly looked at the girls, he was so out of sorts. He was hardly moving. It was most unlike him, for he loved to chase women above all things. “Wives, you say? The Devil take that,” Tanski muttered. “I’ll not give up my freedom!”

“Four wives and ten concubines is enough for any man’s appetite,” Hassan laughed.

Then one of the girls took my hand, to lead me off to the dark of a nearby chamber. Hassan sat on his cushion, wrapped in wreaths of smoke, grinning and laughing. All the earth spun around the room. The second girl took hold of my other hand. She saw the ring, and cooed at it, covetously. My mother’s ring. One hundred ducats of gold, rubies and diamonds. She saw my drowsy drunken eyes. She made to slip the ring from my finger and spirit it away.

“Damn it!” I shouted, wide awake from the evil dream, pushing the slave girls away, roughly. They cowered, and cried. At last I looked at them, and the scales fell from my eyes. I saw them for what they were, through the haze of smoke. I saw the hanged girls from Podolia, the women that Szymon Korczak had murdered. Then I saw them again for what they were, two poor whores, slaves to the Janissary. I shoved them roughly away, and the redhead shrank back, and tripping across the carpet, kicked over the great pipe. It shattered on the ground with a crashing hiss, like a huge angry serpent.

The spell was broken.

“Comrades!” I called, dragging the nearest to his feet, and rousing the others with sharp kicks, “a guest stinks like a fish after three days! We have outstayed our welcome!”

“We’ve only been here for three hours!” Sierawski whined. I seized him by the hair and hoisted him to his feet. Tanski was lying on the floor, out quite cold. I grabbed him and hoisted him over my shoulder. There was a great commotion, as you can imagine, and a great deal of wailing and gnashing of teeth, and angry girls demanding their fee. Hassan sat among the broken pipe, as his slaves hastened away the shards and debris. He gazed at me as we struggled into our kontusz, and away from the chamber.

“Fare thee well, General,” I said, with the insensible Tanski slung over my shoulders, head down, “we will all long remember this night. I thank you for your hospitality. I thank you for your offer. But my heart’s desire lies not within your city.”

“Then go with God, Blumer,” Hassan said, and bowed, his face immobile as stone. I dragged and carried my reluctant comrades out of Hassan’s palace back onto the jetty.

“What the hell did you make us leave for?” Sierawski complained as we made our way through the cold dark moonlight back to the boat. “I was just starting to enjoy myself!”

“Tanski is ill,” I said, by way of excuse. “Wake up, Kasimir,” I said to him, slapping his face gently, and pouring water on his lips. He stirred somewhat, and cursed, and called for his mother. The next moment he was quite insensible.

“It is surely the drink,” I said, concerned, but Tanski had barely touched a drop that night.

Tanski was gravely ill – his malady had returned. Abruptly, he awoke from his deep sleep, and fell into a delirium, half asleep, half awake, shrieking and crying out. When we were some distance from shore he thrashed weakly about in the boat like a fish, and tried to climb out of it. I held him fast in my arms and whispered to him until he calmed himself. There was scarcely more strength in him than a rabbit. He drifted in and out of consciousness. When we reached the embassy, he fell to his knees, and vomited. There was blood in his soil.

“What is the matter with him?” Sierawski whispered.

“It is the plague,” someone said, and we crossed ourselves.

Two days out of Constantinople, in the Mediterranean, bound for Genoa, we were attacked by pirates. They were waiting for us. Four galleys. Black flags.

We had three brigs. The first, a quarantine ship, carrying the wounded, flew under a yellow flag – quarantine, infectious diseases. Leprosy, yellow fever, cholera, plague. Aboard was Tanski, lying helpless as a babe in his hammock, bleeding out his life from every orifice. Not surprisingly, the pirates let them go.

Our second brig was a swift merchant vessel, with a complement of only seventeen. It contained a vital passenger – the French Ambassador, Du Bayet. He had been visiting us, and inspecting our troops. When told of Sierawski’s exploits – his bravery at the sieges of Krakow and Wola, his cunning at the ford of the Dniester, and his ingenuity during our shipwreck – he had appointed Sierawski his personal bodyguard. Sierawski was to be promoted, and paid in gold. I could scarcely credit it.

Sierawski’s brig was fast. It sailed south, as we had agreed beforehand, with three of the pirate galleys in hot pursuit, stretching every stitch of canvas to catch their quarry, a fine prize for ransom. Soon they were gone.

With a pang, I felt the loss of my friends. The loss of Cyprian Godebski – disappeared. The loss of Tanski – mortally ill, for all we knew. The loss of Sierawski, caught up on a fool errand protecting a damned Frenchman, bound for a fate unknown.

“Hassan sold us out,” I said to Birnbaum, who was loading a blunderbuss.

“Do we run?” Birnbaum asked.

“No need,” I laughed, “Tis a fair fight – one to one.”

“You should raise the white flag. They will ransom you in Tunisia, you will see. You cannot win. The pirate ships always carry big crews, for boarding merchant ships,” one of the Turkish sailors said. It was the ship’s helmsman, a craven fellow indeed.

“So do we, you damn fool,” I replied, “we have twenty Legionnaires aboard.”

Through the glass, I took in the pirate ship. Algerian, flying the flag of the man in the moon – like Pan Twardowski, I thought, with delight. How apt. I swept the decks, saw what I expected to see, and snapped the telescope shut.

I was well used to the sea now. My body ducked and rolled like a boxer, swaying with the wild heaves and gentle lurches of the ship. I had my sea legs, and I fancied myself alright – as a pirate captain, the same as these pirates on the horizon. I had no nation. I was bound by no laws. I was hunted by all.

“Aha!” I said, with delight. “There he is. Birnbaum – break out the sabres, have the men load every musket and pistol, but tell them to keep their weapons out of sight. Assemble them on deck.”

“What about me?” said the cowardly sailor.

“You were absolutely right, sir,” I said to him, with a wicked grin. “Raise the white flag, and lower the sails.”

The Turk quailed, and ran off, hastening to raise the traitor flag, and save his skin. I gathered the men. My men.

“Comrades!” I said, “Silence! No one must cheer, or shout, for such noises carry far across the water. Commanding that ship is Szymon Korczak, a Targowica man, and now a Captain in the Russian army. He has been sent to kill us. He will offer no quarter. Neither will we.”

I took out my mother’s ring. I had nothing else. I showed them the rubies, the diamonds, the gold.

“This ring is worth a hundred ducats. I will give it to the man who takes Szymon Korczak. Dead or alive.”

Then the white flag snaked up the mast, and the men stared at me angrily. I held up a hand. “The white flag is a ruse. Otherwise they will turn their cannon on us, for they have four guns, and we have none. In a moment we will be boarded, and I will raise the red flag. Then, under our flag, our own dear flag, the old red and white, we will fight to the death.”

The men grinned, and went about their business. I touched the ruby and diamond ring to my lips for luck.

A roar of cannon, a shot across the bows. Roundshot churned the depths. I ordered us to stop and weigh anchor. I gripped my rosary under my shirt. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of our death. Had I miscalculated? We would find soon out.

“Surrender or die!” came the cry.

Szymon’s galley drew near. The man himself stood by a second cannon. He was swathed in a black cloak that flapped in the wind like a vulture’s wing. He held a lit cigar in hand, and with a wild, melodramatic gesture, put it to the touch-hole. The blast blew out a section of our rail, hurling wood splinters and debris in all directions, cutting a man in two. Then grappling hooks and lines flew through the air, like fishing lines. Pirates, rough handed Algerians, with burnished skins, and Russian marines in blue capes, swarmed across the decks of the pirate ship.

“Surrender or die!” Szymon roared.

“Will our lives be spared if we surrender?” I yelled back through the bullhorn.

“They will,” he lied.

“Have I your word of honour?” I asked, grinning at Birnbaum.

A pause. “Yes.”

“Then we surrender!” I replied, “You have my word of honour, too!”

Szymon looked sceptical, but his hired men relaxed, and stared at our white flag. Some fools even sheathed their weapons.

“Prepare to be boarded!” came the shout. Our ships clashed together with a violent crash, and a great spray of water flew up from between them. Bearded figures with silk scarves around their faces, armed with scimitars, pikes, axes and cutlasses vaulted over the sides, their bodies casting demonic shadows on the water.

“Now raise the red flag!” I called, and Birnbaum hauled up the colours. There, under the old red and white, my men drew heart. They met the pirates with a good volley, then fixed their bayonets and moved in for the kill. They were poor stuff indeed, these pirates. Although we were outnumbered, it was by the barest of margins. We made short work of them all, for their stock in trade was killing innocent sailors, and women and children. They were rapists and murderers, not soldiers. Rarely have I killed so many men in my life at one time, nor took such pleasure in it. After mere moments, the deck awash with their blood, the pirates were on the run.

“Mercy!” said one of them, a young lad barely sixteen, falling to his knees, hands clasped in prayer.

“God will have mercy, for I will not,” I replied, cleaving his head from his shoulders. Barely had I done so, than I turned on the next man. Brushing aside his feeble guard, I knocked his sword from his grasp, and dispatched him with my bloody sabre. Only the Russian marines, of whom there were but half a dozen, put up much of a fight, killing two of my men before they were butchered and bayoneted to death. Birnbaum lead the charge. He ran amok, blasting a group of fleeing scum with his blunderbuss, then swinging his scimitar wildly. Heads and limbs rolled across the decks. Since he had run out of men to kill on our ship, grabbing a rope, he swung over to the pirate vessel.

The rope swung back across. I gazed for a moment down into the deep dark depths, running black with blood, churning with foam like gnashing teeth. For a moment my stomach heaved as the deck lurched beneath my feet. Then the rope was in my hand, and I was swinging through the void. Szymon, my quarry, was but yards away.

As you know, I am a heavy man. As I swung, a line snapped, or a spar broke, with a crack like a knout. My momentum carried me across the water, and I landed heavily on deck. My ankle cracked. The wound in my leg seemed to tear open. But I had made it, with sword in hand, and a great length of rope in the other. I fell to the deck in a heap as Szymon ran for the other deck, Birnbaum hard on his heels. A Russian stepped between Birnbaum and his cowardly quarry, but I drew my pistol and shot him down from where I sat on my arse. We heard a splash from the other side of the boat. Birnbaum cursed, leaned over the side, and drew his pistol.

All was quiet. It seemed as if everyone was dead except for our men, and Szymon. And indeed, they were. No quarter. We were true to our word. I limped over to the opposite side of the boat next to Birnbaum. Down below was a pathetic lifeboat, a coracle, a dinghy, with oars no longer than lances. We were a hundred miles from land. The dinghy was still tethered to the pirate ship by a rope, which Birnbaum was reeling in, like a fishing line. Szymon Korczak sat in it, desperately and pathetically pulling on the oars. I turned to Birnbaum.

“This is yours, comrade,” I said, taking off my ring.

“Nonsense. It was your mother’s,” Birnbaum replied, immediately returning it to me. A hundred ducats!

Sitting in the dinghy, soaked and terrified, was the traitor Szymon. He had drawn a knife, and was attempting to cut through the rope.

“Put up that knife, and fear thee not, Szymon.” I said. “He who swings cannot drown.”