Song of the Legions (26 page)

Lwow, in those days, was a great bustling place. From the top of a hill, we saw the streets spread out below us like wings. With her fine brick houses of red, pink, yellow, green, and brown, she was a bird of rare plumage. Down below were the streets, the bridges, the aqueducts, and green parks full of trees. Spearing up to the heavens were a phalanx of spires. From left to right it was girt with seven great towers, the farthest left being a squat, rotund fellow, the others being variously square or round and with points, crosses, and domes. These stretched away to the right, where there was a huge windmill, spinning like the very devil. Today, this rare bird was a white raven. All was dusted with a shroud of snow. It was February. We were well into another New Year, but we faced the same old enemies.

We stopped to let a cart pass, and it rumbled by, wheels groaning, carthorses’ hooves padding in the snow. Our own horses blew hard from their thin flanks, where their ribs were showing.

“Who is this Godebski?” Birnbaum asked. Snow was falling now, great fat flakes of it like moths. The Austrians were negligent, but even they might notice six armed men. So Tanski, Sierawski and the others were shivering in a barn. Birnbaum and I, alone, had ridden on ahead as outriders. We were freezing on this wind-blown hill, while below us in Lwow, they sang and drank.

Lwow, like Krakow, was now in Austrian Galicia, which was what the Hapsburgs had renamed the province. This so-called ‘Galicia’ was a creation that had swelled like a blood-bloated tick, swallowing Podolia. So this was another bitter homecoming for me! Black Austrian eagles flew from all seven of the spires that I had spied from the hill.

This city, though, was an unruly horse. The trade route here runs through Bar and on to the wild lands beyond, as far away as China. A hundred nationalities pass through the inns and staging-houses of Lwow. Here jostle Poles, Jews, Germans, Austrians, Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians, Cossacks, Zaporozhians, Ruthenians, Tartars, Turks, and many others besides. In this chaotic swirl, conspirators may come and go freely enough. This was another fine forest for we hunted wolves to slink through. A forest of stone.

“Cyprian is my dear friend,” I said, “and we must be careful not to bring ruin upon him. He is a great soldier and a spy, and he will have been as careful as a fox in covering his tracks.”

“So how will we find him?” Birnbaum asked, reasonably enough, shouting to make himself heard above the roaring gale.

“All roads lead to Rome!” I shouted back. Then I cast behind me for the hundredth time, like a hunted animal. No one was taking the least notice of us. We were swathed in cloaks against the wild weather, but then so was everyone else. The customs house had been closed, the Austrian guards were snoring in their bunks or drinking in the taverns.

The two of us wandered the streets for many miserable hours. In all the houses the lights were burning. Smells of food and snatches of songs raced by on the blizzard’s wings. A long fruitless afternoon had run out of the hourglass. Evening was soon pouring into it. We were dripping wet. Snow and ice rimed every inch of our clothes, with only our red raw wind-whipped faces above.

“Hell’s teeth,” I said at last, “let’s have a drink.”

The tavern had an enormous white eagle hanging above the door. The wooden beams were painted red and the plaster was whitewashed. As so many others in our land, the inn was named ‘
Rzym
’ – ‘Rome’. If it was a trap, it was a fairly obvious one, but by now we were long past caring. All roads lead to Rome!

We stabled our horses ourselves, for the servants were nowhere to be seen. After we had seen our horses aright, we shook ourselves like dogs. Great slops of slush and snow fell at our feet and into the straw. Lastly, I slung my musket over my shoulder and we marched up to the door.

It was barred. We thumped on it with our fists. Inside we could hear the sounds of laughter and merrymaking. Glasses and tankards were being clinked, and heavy plates of food clattering down on trestle tables. A heavenly scent of food and mead seemed to permeate through the very oak of the ironbound door. Inside they were singing. A slit in the door opened and suspicious eyes peered out.

“No room at the inn!” jeered a voice. “Piss off!”

“Devil take you,” I roared, shoving my gun through the slit, “what kind of welcome is that for a good Polander? There’s gold if you let us in – and lead if you don’t!”

At this, there was a great commotion, and the sound of chairs being loudly scraped back across the floor. Then, dead silence fell. The singing ceased.

“Sweet Jehovah,” Birnbaum hissed, “what have you done now, you crazy
pistolet
?”

After a moment the bolts were drawn. “Better come in then, boys,” the voice said mockingly. The door swung open and we stepped over the threshold, hands on our swords. Inside was a typical inn – a great blaze in the hearth, with suckling pigs turning on spits above it. Gobs of fat dripped off the meat into the fire and spat and fizzed like grenades. The glorious smell of roasting flesh wafted out.

A host of men and women were gathered in a horseshoe around the door, facing us. Each and every one, the women included, held a gun, a sword, or a knife. We heard the familiar click of hammers drawn back on flintlocks. I walked through the thicket of blades and barrels straight to the bar. The barman was a great lugubrious fellow with a huge domed head and silver whiskers, armed with a blunderbuss, and laughing like a horse. I recognised him at once.

“Two vodkas, Cyprian, and be quick about it,” I snapped, and then added, “on second thoughts, bring the bottle!”

Cyprian Godebski set the vodka before us, and sent a boy to summon our comrades, who were still huddled in a barn. They sneaked through Lwow to avoid attracting attention, not that the Austrians seemed to care in the slightest. A short while later, the four of us – Godebski, Tanski, Sierawski and I – sat down together at a table, reunited for the first time in a long, dreadful year. This was the first of two joyful reunions that day.

“Thank the Lord!” Godebski cried, clapping us each on the back. We introduced our new comrades, including Birnbaum and his two fellow Beardlings. Then we all of us, Jew and Gentile, cast longing eyes at the roasting pigs on the hearth. Our stomachs gave a volley of rumbling.

“Hey, sweetheart,” I said to the cook as she passed, “get some fish! These boys don’t eat white beef!”

“Yes we damned well do,” said a ravenous Birnbaum. As it was, he was spared the sacrilege, for the girl was a fine hostess. She could turn her hand to kosher as well as any rabbi’s wife. When she came back from the kitchen it was with several fish for us to eat along with the pigs, and we would have eaten her, too, had we caught her. Instead, we watched her frying the fish three times. For a fish must swim three times – in water, in butter, and in wine. We regarded these fish with great interest. There were several of them, of different species. It made a fine allegory.

“Here we have Poland!” I exclaimed, “for here are both pike and carp, and both of them are roasting on the fire.”

The girl took a shine to Birnbaum – he was, as I have said, a wickedly handsome villain – and made him pike in grey sauce, a favourite Jewish dish. This pleased me greatly, for it annoyed Tanski immensely. He was a jealous soul, was Tanski. The womenfolk of Lwow seemed to prefer Birnbaum to him. So Tanski seethed at Birnbaum and we set about the food and drink with a will, like jackals. This tavern had a fine wine cellar, seemingly bottomless, and I could see the wheels of Birnbaum’s mind turning like clockwork.

Birnbaum asked the girl whose tavern this was. It was hers, she said. Her father, a volunteer, had died at Maciejowice, leaving it to her. She would not take payment for our lodge and board – “Sooner you boys drink the place dry and burn it down,” she said, “than let the invaders take a drop of mead or a bite of fish.” If only others were as faithful!

Thereafter, she collected our dishes. As she bent over the table, Birnbaum watched the crucifix bobbing on the girl’s bosom. There he sighed, defeated, for that immovable fortification was most likely the end of his campaign.

“Pike do not swim with carp, after all,” he said sadly, but he still ate every drop of his grey sauce, until his black beard ran with it. No sooner had we finished, than the church bells tolled.

“Time for mass!” Cyprian exclaimed, wrapping himself in a great fur cape. “Come with us, lads,” he said to Birnbaum and the other Beardlings. Birnbaum’s face fell, as did all of the Beardlings, thinking themselves ill-used by this.

“When in Rome, do as the Romans do,” I said. After some dark mutterings, they tucked their skullcaps under their hats and we all set off, pike and carp together. That day there were two reunions. Cyprian and I went off, arm in arm, to midnight mass. We had drunk somewhat of the vodka. Our drinking was medicinal, for it remained ferociously cold, and I was suffering from a fever. Drink stilled the pain. Even so, I ran with sweat even in the cold, such that the snowflakes steamed from my body as if from a hot anvil.

We trudged off to mass, a few at a time, to avoid suspicion. Had the Austrians but eyes to see, it should have been quite manifest as to what we were about. Yet no one molested us. The little stone church was heaving with a congregation of armed insurgents, such that they spilled out into the graveyard that stood beside it.

As we passed over the threshold, and doffed our czapkas. I dipped my hand in the freezing water bowl and made the sign of the cross. The holy water stung my brow, for my skin was burning hotter than gunmetal. By now I was fading fast, my head steaming and my nose and eyes streaming, so Godebski conveyed me to the front of the church. A few men recognised me and there were muted cries of joy and concern. For I read in their faces that I was in a bad way. My limp had returned now. A cold burning fire was spreading from the old wound in my leg.

“So you command all these men?” I asked Godebski, between coughs and increasingly violent sneezes.

“No,” Godebski shook his head, as we reached the front of the church, “here is our commander – Lieutenant Colonel Jablonowski.”

At the front, the wounded were seated, or kneeling, according to the severity of their injuries, and the strength of their piety. In the centre of the pew, swathed in bandages and sitting amongst the other wounded, was as a tall black gentleman. A handsome fellow, to be sure, but a black man all the same, with a head of hair of tight black curls swept back from a wide brow. He wore a bushy cavalryman’s moustache above full lips. His skin colour and features were all distinctly African. Who was this? To confound me even more, he wore the uniform of a lieutenant-colonel of the Republic. Could this blackamoor be Cyprian’s commander? Impossible! Still, I kept my mouth firmly shut, to avoid placing my boot in it. For the second time in our acquaintance, Birnbaum came to my rescue.

“Sir! I thought you were dead at Praga!” Birnbaum cried, in delight, much to our surprise. He raced forward and embraced the black colonel, who warmly embraced him in turn.

“Karol!” replied the black man, delighted. In spite of his injuries, he hauled himself to his feet, with some difficulty. Swaying on crutches, he and Birnbaum embraced. The black officer shook his head and pointed at his wounds.

“It was close! No, as you see, I escaped – along with your Colonel of the Beardlings.”

“Is the Colonel here?” Birnbaum asked eagerly.

“No,” the black officer shook his head. “He has gone to Paris, with Dabrowski. Perhaps they will raise another Jewish legion there!”

“Certainly there are enough moneylenders in Paris,” someone muttered unkindly.