Song of the Legions (13 page)

“Damn it, Blumer, that was good sport!” Felix said, applauding wildly, as at the theatre, and wiping vodka from his thin lips. “You’ve bested both Rzewuski, and now his finest sabre, Szymon Korczak! The door is always open to you, my lad!”

As I was led from the chamber, I paused and smiled with satisfaction. "Gentlemen,” I said to the Masons, “I see that our flag is restored to the altar!”

The altar cloth was white above, and red with blood below!

Felix Potocki celebrated the New Year by firing off ten brace of cannon. God knows, our poor country had little enough to celebrate. We had lost a third of our land and our populace to Russia, Prussia, and Austria, the Satanic Trinity. The Constitution was torn up. Our army was all but disbanded. Many of the regiments were taken into the hands of the Russians, or of kroliks such as Felix Potocki, to act as their own rent-collectors and jockeys.

Felix would not permit Szymon Korczak and I to kill each other like civilised men. Having declined to fight Pepi on the field of honour, he could not allow duels in his fiefdom, for fear of appearing a coward himself. Instead, my squadron was given unto Severyn Rzewuski's disposal, and he did all that he could to place us fellows in harm’s way, by giving us dangerous and evil tasks.

That night, we huddled at the rail for midnight mass in the draughty Potocki chapel, making hurried confessions. “Bless me father for I have sinned. The day before yesterday we built gallows. Yesterday my men evicted serfs from land they had worked for generations. We dragged children from their hearth and homes, threw families to the wolves, extorted taxes from honest farmers, all in the name of Felix Potocki.”

We trudged into the gathering dark of a Polish land under a foreign boot. Austrian, Russian, Prussian, it mattered not. After a hunter's breakfast of scrambled eggs we set off, freezing, at the crack of dawn, snow blowing in our faces, to hunt the deadly minotaurs that plagued Potocki's estates – bison!

Tanski was confident, hefting his lance with great bravado, twirling it like a choirmaster's baton, to great gasps from his adoring female admirers. The lads seemed to have warmed to the novelty of exile. Sierawski had filled out. No longer a gawky scarecrow, he had become a young adonis. His long hair shone. His skin was weatherbronzed. A veteran of the War of the Constitution, he rode with his czapka at a jaunty angle, with swooning girls grabbing at his saddle.

Myself, I was bereft of all soul and vitality. I sank into a bottomless melancholy. Not even the sweet wine of our fine Podolian girls, with their ebony hair and white skin, could rouse my mind from the black dog of lethargy. I was insensible to the charms of the girls. They took my ill-tempered brooding for the despair of a sensitive and tortured soul, and were greatly enamoured of me. Had I but cared, I could have cut a swathe through them as a scythe at the harvest. The more I spurned them, the more they coveted my glances. Such are women!

“Forget him, girls, all he cares for is bison-grass vodka!” Tanski said, waving his czapka on the end of his lance. We rode off into the forest. The snow was luminous in the darkness. Fire danced on the torches of the hunters.

“Cheer up, damn it, Blumer, you miserable hairy bastard!” Sierawski shouted, “we’re better off here than in Siberia!”

Laughing, Tanski and Sierawski rode off. A shout came – the beast had been cornered. Cursing, I spurred Muszka mercilessly on, and gave the old warhorse his head. I should rather die than be last into any affair. Truth be told, at that moment I should have welcomed death, such was the depth of my despair.

Nearby there was a fusillade of shots, darts and arrows, that shook the very snow from the branches of the fir pines. The hunters and the hounds had caught up to the bison. They had drawn the beast round and round a great towering oak tree, with ancient spreading branches, like the arms of an old gnarled giant. As I drew nearer, hearing the cries and whoops of the hunters, the crack of shots and broken branches, I saw red stains of blood on the snow.

Between the three of us fellows we cornered the great beast in an open clearing ringed by pine trees. Tanski was playing the great bison and teasing it until it dropped from its wounds. Darts and arrows stood out on the bison's great mane like broken crosses. Tanski raised his lance for the
coup de grace
– but missed. The spearhead sunk impotently into the snow, and the shaft shivered apart.

So Sierawski drew his pistol and pulled the trigger. A flash in the pan, a hiss – misfire! At that moment the great beast, wounded, angry, and blinded with rage, turned on Sierawski, goring his horse and unseating him. The bison stood over his prone, crumpled body. I spurred my horse between Sierawski and the bison.

The beast turned, finally, on me. My horse, God Bless him, stood his ground as a ton of bison-flesh bearing those wicked devil’s horn points came charging at us. My breath running in ragged gasps, I shouldered my lance, and struck home. The bison swerved, barrelling down a hollow and careening away. I had but winged it. The broken lance hung from the bison's ribs, another bloody trophy.

As Muszka and I collected ourselves, blood and noise ringing in our eardrums, I saw, with mounting horror, the bison, mortally wounded but still bellowing, running down on a crowd of spectators who had gathered at the foot of the hill. At the centre of this small knot of horse riders was a lady, all in white.

Cursing, I spurred my horse after the bison, and with my free hand I drew my gun from my saddle holster. With scant yards to go, I drew a bead on the dying beast as it bore down on the damsel and a young man who stood, immobile, rooted to the spot. Placing my musket to my shoulder, I fired.

With a titanic gasp, the great beast expired at the lady's feet. Beside her the young man had drawn his sword, and brandished it impotently. Muszka slid to a halt. The branch of a tree had claimed my czapka. So I touched my fingers to the top of my bare head and bowed, full length, from the saddle, smoking musket in hand.

The lady, her eyes colder than the icy snows, colder than the diamond earrings she wore, regarded me with the most wicked dancing eyes I had ever seen, and placed her dainty foot on the bloody head of the bison. It was Madame L. Beside her was Elias Tremo, her young lover.

“There you are, Blumer, at last,” she said coldly. “It has taken weeks to find you. Here, this letter is for you.” She extended her hand imperiously and gave me the paper. Stunned, I took it from her. It bore the seal of the Republic. I broke open the wax. I should have been less astonished had the letter been delivered by Mercury himself, in his winged sandals. Flakes of snow drifted onto the white paper and blotted the words into inky tears.

“Blumer, Take Your Men to Krakow At Once.

Dabrowski.”

“Home at last!” Sierawski cried, waving his czapka in the air.

We saw two towers rising through the morning mist above the market place. These two square towers, of uneven height, like father and son, were crowned with domes, like onions. We rode on through the arches that ringed the market place, with the chimes of our horses' hooves ringing out on the flagstones. Our lances pointed at the heavens like a line of dragon’s teeth.

“Your fame precedes you, comrade,” I remarked. Sierawski beamed and doffed his czapka to the girls as they leaned out of the windows, scattering rose petals and blowing kisses at the soldiers. In his mad vanity, he fancied that their attentions were for him alone.

Word swept through the cities and towns, through every household, church and coffee house, through the fields and the forests. It flowed up and down the Vistula and the Varta with the spring tide, and climbed the peaks of the Carpathians – Uprising!

Krakow was buzzing like a beehive, with armed men of all descriptions converging upon it from every point of the compass – nobles armed with sabres and pistols, peasants wielding scythes, and veterans such as ourselves, in the tattered uniforms of the Republic. I ordered my troop to halt at a water trough. The horses sucked greedily at the water. Then, suddenly, the air was filled with strange music. A sad, silvery, plaintive clarion call from the cathedral tower, six simple notes that echoed hauntingly away into the blue. Then, abruptly, in the middle of a bar, the music stopped.

Tanski stood in his stirrups. “What the Devil?”

“Why, it is our Krakowian Hymn, the Hejnal,” Sierawski, who as you know was a Krakowian, said proudly. “Five hundred years ago, the Mongols invaded old Poland. The Golden Horde flung themselves at the walls of Krakow – a hundred thousand warriors!”

Sierawski pointed to the higher of the two towers.

“A minstrel in that tower of the cathedral sounded the

alarm. His trumpet called the city to arms. Battle was joined around the walls. An arrow from a Mongol bow cut short his signal and his life, but the barbarians were repulsed, and the city saved! Ever after, every single day, morning and evening, the same melody rings out over the city. It stops at the point where the herald died.”

Tanski snorted with derision.

“Of course I have heard the story, but you have it all wrong, Sierawski. It was not the Mongol hordes, merely a small raiding party of Tartars that attacked this town of yours.”

“Nonsense,” I said, “it was the Turks, not the Tartars.”

“All of them tried!” retorted Sierawski, “and we men of Krakow beat the lot!”

Thus we fell to bickering as earnestly and bitterly as any faculty of scholars of history.

“Harsh sounds the bloody trumpet of war!” Cyprian Godebski cried out delightedly, tossing back a glass of wine. We had met him on the way there.

“It's a fine story, all the same, comrades. No matter who they were, be they Turks, Mongols, Tartars, Cossacks, or Russians, here we are in fair Krakow, with the barbarians at the gates again! The stage is set for a grand encore of the same old song.”

All around us the swarm of activity increased. Thick-waisted men of commerce, the keepers of inns and taverns, had run out to meet us, like flies after honey. They were rubbing their hands in sheer joy at the sight of thousands of thirsty soldiers, dreaming of the prices they could gouge and the profits they could make. Liquor doubled in price in the time it took to drink it.

A bristle-bearded fellow pressed a glass of wine into my hand. This avaricious fellow was going to be disappointed, for we had not a single zloty in our pockets between the whole brigade. Nevertheless, I drank it at a draught in any event, and made to tear a brass button from my tunic in token of payment.

“No charge, my lord,” simpered this great toad. My lord, indeed – still, a man could get used to leading a brigade.

“On the house! God Bless you, my dear innkeeper,” Sierawski grinned, “you are an honest patriot indeed, for this wine is of an excellent vintage.”

“On the house in Krakow,” I mused, “the Devil it is! Who paid for this, man?”

The innkeeper shrugged, shook his head and jerked a thumb towards a fashionable terrace lined with silk parasols. “His Excellency, yonder.”

Now my mouth was dry and I could taste only the dregs of wine in it. For your nobles will only give away a sprat if they expect to catch a mackerel.

The square teemed with people. We made our way through the thickening crowd, drawing admiring glances from the women and envious stares from the men. Ignoring them, and brushing aside the protests of the waiters, we strode onto the terrace of the coffee house. It was a fancy place, with gleaming walnut tables swathed in white linen cloths, and red velvet cushions on the gilded chairs.

A man dressed in an immaculate blue uniform reclined at a table. He sat under a silk parasol, surrounded by a crowd of beautiful women, flitting around him like so many gorgeous butterflies. Any one of the women could have made a wife for a king. His Highness the Prince Jozef Poniatowski, for it could be no other, who was completely oblivious to their attentions (or at least affected to be so), sat drinking coffee and reading a newspaper.

“There you are, Blumer!” Pepi exclaimed delightedly, and he stood and greeted each one of us by name, shook our hands, and bowed as if each of us, and not he, were royalty. This simple gesture disarmed us completely. “Take a seat, my dear boys!” He held up the newspaper. The writing was clumsy and smudged, for it was an underground paper, printed clandestinely on a press of wooden blocks in a backroom or cellar.

THE SHARPER THE THISTLES,

THE SWEETER THE VICTORY.

The gist of it was this – the French had guillotined their King Louis, and Queen Marie Antoinette. Catherine the Empress, who saw Jacobins under every bed (and she saw many beds), needed no more provocation. Marie-Therese of Austria, the dead Queen's sister, cried revenge. Frederick of Prussia, third of the brigands, scented loot, and followed suit. All three declared war on France. So, while the cats were away, we mice could play.

We had quickly taken our leave of Tulczyn. Felix, the arch-traitor, had been betrayed in turn by the Empress, who had given him nothing for his pains, not a brass zloty. Treacherous German that she was, she had torn the Constitution up, all right, but she had refused to restore any of Felix’s privileges – aye, and dismembered the country into the bargain. Thoroughly betrayed, Felix had gone off sulking to Vienna, and exile. There he sat and brooded alone in a vast empty palace, like a golden prison.

Naturally all this war and treachery had caused chaos in Tulczyn. So my men and I had slipped away, guided by Madame. Then we rode straight to Krakow as the crow flies, there to rendezvous with our comrades. We had ridden the very same road I had travelled five years before, when I had joined the King’s cavalry.

And our traitor King? Well, he was with the Russian garrison in Warsaw. It was as well for him that he was, for had he shown his face in Krakow, we should have given him a drumhead court martial, King or no, and put his crowned head on the end of a pike. Nobody loves a traitor, it is well said!

But we all still loved Pepi. For the sins of the uncle are not to be visited on the nephew. The Prince clapped his hands and called ‘Champagne!’ and the champagne was brought, in buckets of ice. After a few glasses of that we were soon at our ease once more. We were warriors, not ragged vagabonds. We boasted, exaggerating our adventures beyond any shadow of the truth, and chasing the fine soft ladies around the chaise longues and gilt-topped tables. To our great surprise and delight, they seemed greatly pleased by our attentions.

In ordinary times such grand and dainty dames would not have spat on us had our moustaches been afire. Pepi poured another glass of the sweet French liquor. The comrades were flying higher than the moon by now. One of Pepi's gilded ladies leaned on my shoulder and another clutched at my elbow. Their gentle, high voices were sweeter than the sirens singing to old Odysseus, tied to the mast of his ship.

“He’s here!” the crowd roared, “The Commander!”

Bowing to the ladies and doffing our czapkas, we took our leave. We formed up and marched across to the western side of the market square. There we took our place beside our Commander, and his officers, newly returned from exile. The Commander wore the national costume, a blue jacket, red trousers, and a white sukmana, with a peacock feather in his red czapka. He stood, surrounded by the blue and silver of the infantry and the green, black and gold of the artillerymen, at the centre of the market square. The banners of the guilds billowed in the spring breeze, beside placards proclaiming ‘Equality and Freedom’ and ‘For Krakow and the Motherland’!

There the Commander took the solemn oath – the Act of Insurrection of the Citizens and Inhabitants of the Palatinate of Krakow –

“I, Tadeusz Kosciuczko, swear before God and to the whole Polish nation, that I shall employ the authority vested in me for the integrity of the frontiers, for gaining national self-rule and for the foundation of general liberty, and not for private benefit. So help me, Lord God, and the innocent suffering of Thy Son!”

Here was the whole nation, or so it seemed, crowded together in one market square, and in arms. The Commander led us into the Cathedral, the Church of the Holy Virgin, with its bugler in the tower. It was a sombre, gothic church. Serried ranks of warriors processed solemnly through the doors with their lances, swords, and guns held up before them like holy banners. We passed over the threshold, tucking our czapkas under our arms, and making the sign of the cross in the air before us. Though plain and austere without, the church was richly ornamented within. All around were golden scrolls and scallop shells, red, black and golden seals, golden crosses starred with beams of light, mermaids, roses, and fleurs-de-lis. Stone columns of gold and black marble soared up to the heavens, glittering like spears. High above our bare heads the vault of the ceiling was blue as the Virgin's veil, studded with gold bosses. Thickets of guttering candles cast a golden glow over the gilded tombs and monuments of the saints and martyrs and kings.

We took our turn in line and knelt before the magnificent wooden altar. The priests blessed our sabres, lances, and guns. Rosary beads clicked against the hilts of swords. Holy water splashed our faces, mingling with the sweat. Above our heads the censer swung on black chains, and clouds of incense swirled through the air. Beside the altar and the host, the chalice gleamed like a silver sword. The bell was rung and we averted our eyes. We ate the body and drank the blood of Christ. The Lord Be With You.

A spectral company of angels and bearded apostles stood in fine array on that great wooden triptych. It seemed that their crooks and staves were golden lances, with fluttering golden pennants, that this heavenly army was rallying to defend our souls, as our temporal army rallied to defend our sacred soil, our families, and our language.

At last we found ourselves out in the square. It was cold dusk, with the Hejnal resounding once more, our heads dazzled with wine and eternity.

“Soldiers!”

It was the Commander. He was riding a white horse, with the feathers still flying in his cap. With him were Pepi and Dabrowski – who were now General Poniatowski and Lieutenant-General Dabrowski, at the Commander’s order. Beside the three generals was an unruly mob of peasants armed with scythes.