by Alma Boykin
They kept the trot until outside of town, then slowed to a rapid walk. They didn’t need to exhaust the horses yet. Sunlight poured down on them, baking the riders. Wheat and pasture stretched as far as István could see, broken by a few low houses and scattered trees. Here and there old mounds rose from the plain, but nothing provided shade or variation in the long, hot march. They crossed two streams, both shallow and sullen-looking, and some lake-like, marshy areas that the soldiers detoured around. Mosquitoes whined up from the marshes, and Felix spat. “Is there any life here that doesn’t sting?”
“This is good wheat ground once you drain it,” István protested. “But the Turks only left a hundred and a quarter years ago: improvement takes time. This has been a battlefield since the Magyars swept into the plain. And this is horse and cattle country, not small farm country. We’re in the putza, the great horse plains.”
“Humpf. Give me the Bohemian hills any day. You Magyars can keep your plains.”
“We intend to.” István bared his teeth, mimicking the pictures of the robber-horsemen.
They stopped at sunset, taking over a farm for the night. They had another twenty kilometers to go, and Col. Marbach’s orders did not say “as quickly as possible.” István didn’t care to ride into the marshes in the dark, and thanked St. Hubert for someone’s common sense. He’d also tired of the dust and heat. The late summer sun ripened the wheat and battered the riders, turning his dark uniform into an oven. Well, that was fighting in summer, he reminded himself as he checked on his men’s camp. Two more months and it would be cold rain, with snow following behind. Lord willing, by then they’d be in winter quarters after chasing the Russians off.
A few hours after dark, lightning danced to the east, well away from them. The morning crept in under grey skies, but the air felt dry, or as dry as it got in the marshes and grasslands between the rivers. They broke camp as soon as they had enough light and rode east, then cut north to Félegyháza. The area looked more prosperous than had the lands the day before, and not as table flat. A few dark green vineyards appeared along with the wheat fields and pastures. The women in the fields stopped reaping just long enough to give the riders curious looks before returning to their tasks. With harvest underway, no one had time to stare.
“Say, Esterhászy,” Felix said. “These women seem a little dark, even for Magyars.”
“Because they’re not Magyar, not entirely. After the Mongols came through, this region belonged to no one but the dead.” Several of the men around them crossed themselves. “So the king invited some tribesmen who hated the Mongols, Cumans, to come in, provided they became Christians. They did, and did, and stayed until the Turks took over. Then some of them managed to come back. The people look Asian, and the women’s needlework is different from the work farther north.”
“Is there anyone who hasn’t burned this area?”
“It’s a long and honored tradition. They find Roman things around here, turn them up in the fields. There’s a few of the nicer bits in the museum in Buda. Probably someone claimed the plains before the Romans, maybe the ones who left those lumps we rode past yesterday?” Ancient history wasn’t István’s subject. “At least we have a history worth digging up,” he winked at Felix.
“Ja, well, my ancestors rode into a land flowing with milk, wine, and honey, and had no pesky barbarians to deal with, besides you lot and the Bavarians.” He lifted his nose into the air and sniffed, the perfect image of a haughty Bohemian nobleman. Then he sneezed. “Damn!”
More swearing followed their arrival at the train station. “What are you doing here?” The stationmaster demanded in heavily accented German. He waddled, the gold buttons on his black uniform tunic straining, seeming ready to launch like champagne corks. “I received no message about the army coming here. You must be mis— eep!”
Two of the larger troopers grabbed him by the arms as Col. Marbach shook his riding whip in the man’s red, round face. “Following orders from his highness Archduke Thomas. Anders,” he called over his shoulder. “Find the telegraph or phone office.”
“Yes, sir.” The perpetually morose signals officer trotted off.
“We are here for our train. There is a war in progress, as you should be aware by now.” The colonel’s calm, even voice raised the hair on István’s neck. “Interfering with the war effort could be considered an act of treason.” The railroad man turned redder, then blanched to a sickly grey-green. “Let him go.” The troopers did, and the stationmaster sagged, then sat in the dust on the station platform, one hand on his chest, muttering something about his heart and apologizing. It was hard to tell, because his wheezing garbled his words.
As soon as the show ended, István returned to sorting out his men and horses. He needed to find a room for the night and wanted to bathe, change clothes, and get comfortably drunk. But first he had to get his soldiers taken care of. Fortunately, the railroad station sat on the west edge of the city, so his men could set up in the freshly-harvested fields on the other side of the station. A broad, tree-lined street ran east and slightly north to the orange-topped yellow towers of a church. He wondered who the area’s patron was. Ah well, first things first. “You, start getting the squads sorted out.”
The men started lining up at the pumps and taps, filling buckets for their horses and themselves. The overcast did nothing to block the sticky heat of the river lowlands. István patted Braun’s neck and watched as Baltazar gave the gelding a pail of water. The horse slurped it up and nosed for more. “Not yet, boy. You need to cool a little more. Don’t want you getting sick.”
Not long before noon an orderly found him. “Train will be here in two hours. Be ready to start loading as soon as it arrives.”
It should be empty. But what if it is not? The way the past two days have gone, it will likely be late and overcrowded. Or be full of cabbages. Just because cabbages were out of season did not mean that luck wouldn’t deliver a train full of cabbages.
But the promised train chugged past without stopping, as did a second and a third. The phone and telegraph lines must have been melting from the non-stop traffic, if the constant tapping from the stationmaster’s office told the truth. Col. Marbach growled and gave orders for the men to camp in the field, officers as well. “The hotels in town are full of reservists waiting for the call up. They came early but there’s no room for them in their units yet, so they’re waiting here, sir,” a delivery man said. “And all the trains have been taken by the Army. We can’t ship milk nor meat, nothing coming in, sir.”
István ventured into Félegyháza. The trees provided welcome shade. Brilliantly colored tiles decorated some of the buildings, the flowers and sweeping lines mimicking traditional embroidery. He ventured into the church and prayed, but did not linger. He didn’t trust his men too far, especially given the heat and frustration.
The train finally arrived two days later just before dawn.
Instead of cabbages, it carried the leavings of other soldiers’ horses. “We unloaded and were ordered north,” a conductor said, helping to sweep out the dried horse apples and old straw, “to get your men and then proceed north to receive more orders. Things are a bit complicated just now, sir.”
It took another three hours to load the trains. Two trains, because instead of one dedicated troop train, they’d been sent two passenger trains with horse cars added on. “Colonel Marbach, sir,” the conductor explained, “the lines are a bit unsettled at the moment. Every engine and car that is capable of rolling has been put on the lines, and the system is running at full capacity. All military passengers, no business freight, sir, so there will be delays, but not many, sir, I assure you.”
“Good.”
Ten hours later, the trains rolled into Budapest at sunset. István wanted nothing more than a bath, hot meal, and change of clothes, but it was not to be. The trails refueled and took on water, then chugged out of the station. István managed to buy some fruit and meat-filled pastries from one of the women ha
wking them on the platform, but in his opinion they didn’t count as real food. I miss Cousin Miklos’s private cars already.
At least the train passed through his House’s territory. István lowered his defenses and felt for the state of the Power. He did not sense anything, an absence that reassured him. The train left Budapest and crawled east, then north, first to MezoKövésd at the edge of the mountains, then northeast and north to Miskolcz. The cool, fresh mountain air poured through the windows when they stopped for fuel or water, washing out a bit of the fug of unwashed men and coal soot. Would they stop in Kassa? He wanted to see Barbara, to touch the earth again and get news through the Power, if there was any. He’d tried at Miskolcz, but hadn’t been able to concentrate because of the press of people.
Instead of the Power and Barbara, at Kassa István met the first refugees. “You’re too late,” a nervous woman moaned, wringing her hands before clutching her small, battered hat, then wringing her hands again. “Too late. The Russians have overrun all of Galicia and are coming this way. We left three days ago on the last train out of the city.”
“Stop that, Mother,” the younger woman who accompanied her snapped, glancing quickly to see who might be near. “We don’t know that, and we were planning to come south to the spas anyway.”
“All gone. The house—everything’s lost, I know it is! Oh, Holy Virgin, take pity on me!”
Her daughter flushed, hissing, “Mother, please. Not here. We need to go to the waiting area, please, Mother, come.” She urged the wailing woman, almost pulling her over as she tugged her arm, half-dragging her to the ladies’ waiting area.
Thank You that Barbara has more sense than that, István prayed. He bought some sandwiches and a pint of beer, knocking the beer back in four long pulls. Could there be any truth in the lady’s moans? Probably not, he decided, as he watched a few stragglers rushing to get back on the train. The men who had not been allowed to disembark at Miskolcz had gotten off here at Kassa, but not permitted to go far: the washrooms, café, and kiosks, and no farther. But even getting off the train felt good. No, he told himself again, the Russians had not even gotten closer to Galicia than Warsaw. They’d be attacking the Germans if they harassed anyone.
Another long day and night passed as the trains chugged up the mountains, following the Tareza River around the eastern edge of the Matra, then rushing down into the cavalry country of the Galician plains. The stations grew full of civilians with bundles, peasants and others, fleeing south or west, with more on the roads.
“Is there anything that won’t send a Galician peasant running?” Felix Starhemberg said. He and Taddeus Krzewski stared at a couple and their three children, all bent nearly double under bundles, urging a cow ahead of them down the road beside the train tracks.
“Probably not. They’ve been burned out almost as many times as parts of Hungary.” Krzweski sniffed. “Plus they like to hide from landlords and tax collectors.”
“Doesn’t everyone?” Felix grinned. “Father complains about how the harvest suddenly vanishes from the barns when the time comes to pay us the rents due. And every cow gets sick, and the sows ate all the piglets, and the flax rotted in the ponds, and that poisoned the carp, and the hay molded, my lord Starhemberg. Please, sir, we just can’t pay what you ask this year, my lord, please understand.”
Ugh, that sounds too familiar. I’m glad we don’t have large grain farms, or I’d have to deal with that sort of nonsense. It’s enough to make me wonder why the emperor outlawed flogging peasants. Oh, István knew why. He’d seen that Polish nobleman and had no doubts about what he’d do to a peasant or Jew, given the chance. He probably beat his wife and children, and kept the horses in the house while the family slept in a barn. Granted, some of the Galician peasants acted as stolid as their cattle, and probably benefitted from a bit of a buffet now and then. After so long they couldn’t help themselves—they were Slavs after all. Probably made decent infantry, he thought, but they’d never really amount to much as a group. It was the Germans, Magyars, and Jews who’d made Lemberg into a university city and a business and cultural center.
The train wheezed to a stop several kilometers from Lemberg. “We’re getting off here. Word is the Russians are already at the border, attacking for the Bug River line.”
Then why not stay on the trains and roll straight to the river? Because that’s what the Russians would try to stop, István reminded himself. And because all the plans had them disembarking here, to the west, and going north into Russian Poland to capture Warsaw. “Scouts say there’s artillery with the Russians, although General Auffenberg thinks they are exaggerating.” The orderly pushed through the car, rushing with his message.
And so it begins. We ride to the sound of the guns.
The hot weather sapped István’s patience as well as his energy. But August heat blessed autumn’s wheat, so he rode his patrols and dealt with it. August 15 passed without a sign of the Bear’s presence along the eastern border. Apparently the troops fighting north, toward Warsaw, had found a few, but not many. The Russians had, or so rumor claimed, attacked the German in the north, in the heart of East Prussia, leaving Galicia unmolested. But . . .
István thought back to his lieutenant’s report from a few hours before. “There’s dust to the north and east, sir. Lots of it. And some smoke but more dust. My men couldn’t find anything in our patrol area but it seems like something is moving.” Well, it certainly wasn’t the air moving, István grumbled, waving away a fly. He’d passed the news on already, so there was nothing to do but try and sleep—flies, mosquitoes, and other delights be damned.
He and the others had plenty to grumble about. After all the hurry and strain, and the near disaster of Archduke Thomas reversing half of Army Group B’s travel orders, they found no Russians anywhere. Even so, word had come down from division headquarters that they needed to remove any and every bit of shiny metal from their uniforms and tack, and to take the plumes off their helmets, as well as shedding their hussars’ one-shoulder coats. The latter spawned a wave of fury that István was certain had been heard as far as Belgrade.
“Sir, I must protest,” Radovan Stulich had said. “How can the men identify us without our flashes and full uniform?”
Col. Marbach, already drab without his pins and braid, glared from under bushy black eyebrows. “It is not our own men that are the problem, Captain. Our concern is the Russians, and Russian supporters hiding among the peasants.”
Stulich had chewed on the information. Felix Starhemberg had frowned, lips moving beneath his new brown mustache as if he were trying to recall something.
“Sir, are the Germans reporting francs-tireurs in the east as well as in the west?”
“What?” Stulich turned to look at Felix. “Frawnks-tiroors?”
“Soldiers out of uniform trying to hide among the general population and shoot at us, or damage bridges and railways. The English call them ‘snipers and sappers,’ I think.”
“Something like that,” Marbach said. “Apparently the Russians do not follow the rules of war like civilized people do. Or did,” he said. “The Belgians are suicidal fools, or so it is said.”
So instead of fighting like Christians, the Russians wanted to fight like Turks, István yawned. Two could play that game. His ancestors had harried the Turks as far as the Iron Gates, and he’d do the same to the Russian bear if need be. He yawned again and fell asleep.
Boom.
Thunder? István rolled over. It didn’t feel stormy, the wind had not increased. He heard the sound of feet trotting past, and of a horse protesting.
Brrrooooooom.
“Russian artillery!” someone called outside the farmhouse window. “It’s not possible.”
“Well, no one told the Russians, you fool. Go catch your horse in case they get closer.”
“A night attack? They are damned and blasted!”
A fourth voice ordered, “And if we don’t move we will be too. Get your weapons and be ready to ri
de.”
István rolled off the cot and onto his feet. He dressed by feel, cursing Baltazar and wondering where the man had gone off to. What good is a servant who disappears when I need him? The booms grew louder and István dressed faster, pulling on his boots.
They waited the rest of the night at the horse lines, but the sounds came no closer.
“. . . so they’ve been told never to do that again,” Capt. Johann Eggenberg reported at breakfast. “I heard it from the messenger myself, standing next to the colonel. Our own pulverjuden, panicking like a herd of old women.”
“What are they doing east of us, then?” Felix asked.
Eggenberg swallowed his bit of bread. “I do not know, sir. Probably got lost, bad map or some such excuse.”
“Typical. And then they’ll claim they heard an airplane in the darkness and thought the Russians had advanced,” István said.
“After all, everyone knows that the pilots only give good information and can fly anytime, anywhere.” Felix rolled his eyes. “I have trouble imagining a bear in one of those airplanes.”
Stulich snorted in turn. “Right. People who cannot organize a train system without the French doing most of the work are supposed to have airplanes of their own. Next you will piss on my head and tell me it’s raining.”
“Don’t tempt me.” Felix growled. “There’s a rumor that we’ll have to give up our horses to the wagon draggers.”
