Song of the Legions (19 page)

“Captain Godebski,” she said, her eyes and her voice imperious, “I entrust this sacred mission to you and your men. The situation is critical. I fear Warsaw will fall. You will take these two ladies, and these treasures, and you will quit the city, evading capture. Then you will go to Pulawy, to await further orders. You will not engage the enemy unless attacked. I will not allow these relics to fall into the hands of our enemies.”

“Madame,” Godebski said, sweeping off his hat, bowing, and saluting, “I obey!”

“Thank you, Cyprian,” she said, softly this time, and dismissed us.

“So here we are,” I said afterwards, “risking our lives for tarts and trinkets! This is a foolish errand. God help us, if we are caught, they shall hang us for looters and rapists! Ah, well, it could be worse. I've had my fill of sieges. A good ride in open country – pursued every inch by the Cossacks – will be wonderfully invigorating for one's health!”

We stood in silence in the courtyard, smoking our pipes, and watching the leering moon. Whorls of white smoke from our pipes curled out into the night sky, and had Pan Twardowski but had a nose, then he should have smelled the sweet tobacco.

“Will Warsaw fall?” Sierawski asked, anxiously.

“It will be a hell of a battle,” I said. “
We have only five regiments to defend the city. We are facing fifteen regiments of Prussians and thirteen of Russians, with eleven batteries of cannon.”

“Well,” Godebski said after a while, “they do say the darkest hour comes before dawn.”

“Fool! The darkest hour doesn’t come before dawn,” I retorted, “the darkest hour comes before everything goes completely black! Suvarov is coming!”

One minute you’re riding the horse – the next minute you’re under it. On the 10 October, the Commander, outnumbered four to one, was defeated at Maciejowice, forty miles south of Warsaw. He was trying to break through the ring of enemy armies that encircled us. It was said by the Prussians that he shrieked – like a woman! – ‘Finis Poloniae!’ –
this is the end of Poland
! – as he was shot from his horse. Of course this story was not true, but what difference did it make?

We had lost.

Madame L gave us orders, coldly and quietly, at the crack of dawn. There were only ten of us – Godebski, Tanski, myself, and seven private soldiers. Sierawski had rejoined the engineers, and would not go with us. We stood in her courtyard by the stables. Our eyes fell to the ground. Our chins sank into our chests. Up above, in the heavens, only Twardowski bore witness as the rest of Europe averted its gaze. Poland might as well have been on the moon.

“Farewell, boys,” said Madame L. We gathered up our bags, our few weapons, the trunks of gold and trinkets, and our reluctant passengers, for now there were not two but four ladies, the wives of important officers. Madame Z was wailing most piteously at the time. She was inconsolable. For her husband, the wild-haired cavalry general Zayonczek, was to stay behind.

“Hush, dearest,” said Madame L, clasping the lady’s milk-white hands, “God will protect him.”

“What, as God has protected us?” she cried in fear and desperation. Madame L embraced her as she sobbed. “God has forsaken us all!”

“What the hell is the matter with her, the damned insufferable woman?” said Tanski, blunt as always.

“Have a care, Kasimir,” I replied, “she is only a woman, after all. She may bathe her skin in ice, but not her heart. Zayonczek leads our army now, and we all know what that means.”

We said nothing about this, in case she heard us, although judging by her anguished cries Madame Z was all too sensible of her husband’s fate. It was, we all knew, a death sentence. Even if he survived, by some miracle, the Russians would take him to Siberia, whilst the Prussians would simply put him up against a wall – ‘shot whilst escaping’. As a known Jacobin he would receive no mercy.

“Quite right too,” Tanski retorted, insensitive as ever, “he is the commander now, it is his duty to die, and it is all exactly as it should be. A pox on that Huguenot harlot – will she not hurry up?”

There was fire in the sky. Suvarov was here.

“Why is it that women always take so long to get ready?” we sighed in frustration. If only I had known the trouble that would have been caused by Tanski and Zayonczek’s wife, more than a decade later, why, I would have left them both behind for Suvarov.

“Hurry up!” champed Tanski. For it was the barbarian, the invincible, our nemesis, who came for us now. Suvarov had raised a new Russian army in the Ukraine and marched on Warsaw, destroying everything in his path.

We made haste to leave. Before I mounted I tightened Muszka’s saddle. My horse! It was still a joy and a consolation to be back with my horse, even on that darkest of days. Muszka still sucked in as much air as he could to try to bulge out his belly, and loosen the girth. Before he could take another breath, I tightened the strap to its proper proportion, greatly satisfied.

“Why are you grinning, Blumer?” Godebski asked. “the Russians come, and yet you laugh!”

“Blumer is only happy when things are bad,” Tanksi observed sourly.

“By God, it is good to be back in the cavalry, though, or near enough,” I smiled, as I swung myself up into the saddle. We had lances, swords, muskets and pistols, but as ever, bullets and gunpowder were in short supply. We had long since exhausted the supply of grenades. We had wineskins and waterskins, bread and hard tack, only enough for seven days. Besides Muszka, I had a string of six remounts and pack animals. Each was laden with either supplies or a tearful lady refugee. These would encumber us mightily, but they were also our sacred charges, and we were ordered to defend them to the death.

“What makes her think we can get through, when the Commander did not?” Tanski asked me. “Ten of us, and a few women, against the world!”

Godebski began to berate us for cowards. I intervened.

“You misunderstand. We are simple soldiers, Cyprian,” I said, “We do not fear bullets or swords, only the disgrace of the noose – that is, being hanged as common spies.”

“Then fear not, comrades,” Godebski smiled. This cloak-and-dagger business was not new to him. He had been doing Madame L’s dirty work for years. “Where there is no room for a horse, there may be room for a sparrow. We will slip through their grasp, like water through a sieve.”

“We’ll be caught like flies in a web, more like,” muttered Tanski, shaking his head. “See, how the spider draws near!”

Madame L’s fine house lay on the west of the river. The west is the smart side, for the nobility and the fine folks. To the east of the river lies Praga. Praga is the poor relation. Dirty old Praga, on the east of the green, greasy old river. Happy years I spent living there. My old lodgings – a crumbling dilapidated boarding house, sawdust on the floor, small fire in the grate, a hard-faced old landlady. No cursing, no drinking, no house guests, no late nights, all rent in advance.

Over the months and years, I had won her over, walking her to church, bringing her shiny brass buttons and cambric purloined from the cavalry stores, mending the roof and stable. In exchange, she fattened me up on beer, pierogi and apple cake, and turned a blind eye to my nocturnal comings and goings, as I drank, danced and gambled away the days and nights.

In all probability my old landlady would not live to see the sunrise. The Russians came from the east, forced the lines open, and breached the walls. The day of the Slaughter of Praga was attended by the most horrid and unnecessary barbarities – houses burnt, women massacred, infants at the breast pierced with the pikes of Cossacks, and universal plunder. The whole of Praga was strewn with dead bodies. Blood was flowing in streams.

We saw the fire across the river. We heard the screams, the cannon, the musketry. We had seen enough of Suvarov to know what was in store for Praga, and with the same fate prepared for Warsaw. A plague of despair spread through us.

“This is the end of Poland!” came a desperate cry.

Madame L rounded on us. Her eyes shone with defiance.

“Poland is not dead, not as long as we live,” she called. “Remember that! Now go, my boys! Godspeed, and may the Blessed Virgin protect you,” she said, and made the sign of the cross. Godebski bowed from the saddle, doffing his czapka. He took her hand and kissed it. He had Sobieski’s standard in his other hand, and he raised it above his head, the red and white colours whipping in the wind, the colours of blood and heaven.

We swept out of the courtyard of Madame L’s villa, westwards out of Warsaw, leaving the city burning behind us. Behind us the towers were falling. From that day forward Poland was dead, as dead as Troy or Byzantium. Nothing but a myth. These were to be the years of exile, of captivity, of wandering in the wilderness. Thus, we descended into the tomb.

We rode west, fleeing from Suvarov’s army of savages. We quit the city unopposed and rode through the Prussian lines. Sparrows can fly where a hawk may not, and even the mouse can crawl through a hole to escape the cat.

After we had ridden west for a day, we halted in a thinly wooded forest to see out the night. The next morning we saw clouds of dust on the horizon– marching columns of Prussians – and grey lines of smoke. Now we were well behind enemy lines. Godebski and I spread a map over a tree stump, as if it were a tablecloth, and argued. Our ladies took the opportunity to pick mushrooms. Morning passed into afternoon, shadows lengthened. We lit no fires, but the smell of burning permeated the air. The Great Whore was dining on Warsaw, and its bones burned on her fire.

Tanski lay on the ground for much of the time. A worrying air of despondency had overwhelmed him. Eventually we made him guard the women – a pointless exercise, but at least it occupied his mind. In the gathering dark the ladies put down their baskets and took up their psalters and rosaries. Beads clicked softly like grasshoppers in the dark. Godebski doused the oil lamp and rolled up the map.

“We make for Krakow, which is held by the Austrians. They have a far more lenient and negligent disposition than our other enemies. If Sierawski lives, we’ll meet him there.”

We rode in a great horseshoe away from Warsaw, then back towards it, then away and southwards. This sweep took us, as we had hoped, behind the advancing Prussians. Now it took us back towards the Russian lines.

As we rode on, dancing flames lit up the night, near and far. Demented screams of pain and fear rang through the darkness. Our horses ran on, trusting our wisdom as masters. In that eternal dark my blind steed could easily break his leg in a ditch or a rabbit hole, and I my neck. We were all experienced riders, and singularly aware of this grave danger. Throughout it all, the crawling fear of running afoul of Cossacks, whose handiwork we saw and heard in the screams, the flames, and the desecrated bodies of the slain. As we rode, we rode through the very hell.

Each was alone with his thoughts, his terror, and the demons. My weapons could not help me now, this empty pistol and rusty sabre. I tried to put my trust in God, in the cross around my neck, but felt nothing but an empty angry hunger for murder and vengeance in my soul.

Help us, O God! In the hour of need, send your legions of archangels! Place the fiery sword in my hand! Heed my prayer! As God was my witness, as I rode through that awful blackness, I made a promise. I swore on my mother’s grave that I would see Moscow burn, razed to the ground, and take the torch to it myself. I would avenge Praga.

Then I chanced to gaze up, in the depths of my despair, calling on Jesus and Mary. Up in the vault of the heavens was the silver globe of the moon. I saw, quite distinctly, a face. A face in the surface of the moon. His eyes were in the craters and canyons. His nose and mouth and crooked teeth were in the twisting rivers and canals of that white moon. It was, unmistakably, the face of the old man, Twardowski, with his spider perched on his shoulder, like a monkey, and a thread of silver silk hanging like a noose.

God can’t help you now, boy, said the old man. Only I can. Twardowski’s words were soft, and faint, but as clear as the priest in the confessional dark, lulling through the screen and the velvet. Around me, the smoke transformed into incense, but my horse’s nostrils were full of the stink of brimstone.

Then help me, damn you! Lo and behold, the clouds of smoke evaporated, melting away like phantoms. The lines of Cossacks were gone. We rode out, every one of us whole and unharmed, but missing half of our mules and pack beasts, who had been lost along the way – including, to our horror, the one carrying Sobieski’s precious flag.

We halted at a stream, near the village of Mogilinami, the crystal waters running clear. Sparkling diamonds of light reflected on it. Madame Z plunged into the icy waters, her gown billowing around her like angels’ wings. She climbed out, unabashed, the gown clinging to her skin. We pretended to hide our eyes behind our czapkas and the women laughed. We broke bread, and we thanked God.