Song of the Legions

by Michael Large

  My good Podolian countrymen threw back the Russians and gave them a sound beating – and gave the nation yet more cause to rue Felix Potocki's treachery. Oh for a few thousand more of us! Four hundred men was a mere cobweb against a deluge. The Russians immediately retorted with an infantry charge, securing the village of Zielence, which was on our flank.

  Our brigade had not even drawn a sword yet. A rumour spread that Pepi had ordered cavalry to eject the Russians from the village – and so he had, but it was not our brigade. The honour fell to others. We stood by, bitterly cursing our luck, as another squadron flew by us – only to fly back again, leaving the village in flames, and the Russians also withdrawing from it, but in good order.

  It was a stalemate, with the armies locked together like two wrestlers trying their strength.

  When the Russian assault finally came, it came on the right. A massive bombardment fell on our elite cavalry. Simultaneously they were charged by massed ranks of Cossack horsemen. Our view of this was obscured by the hills and the pall of powder smoke. We heard all the evil sounds – the crack of gunshots, the random, disembodied shouts, the rattle of drums, and the call of the bloody trumpets. We heard first the barrage, then the hideous cries of dying men and the shrieks of stricken horses. Then, finally, we heard the Cossacks, and their bestial war cries –

  “Pole-Jew-Dog – Die!

  Die, Lachy, Die!”

  ‘Lachy’ is a derogatory Russian and Cossack term for Pole. This particular ‘song’ dated from the massacres at Uman, in the great Cossack rebellion in the last century.

  “The Cossacks are splendid looking fellows, but they write very poor songs,” I said, to try to steady my platoon's nerves. Inside my stomach churned like a milk pail, but I kept my face impassive and lit my pipe with a steady hand. Men are like horses. You must show them you are not afraid, and they will think you are made of iron.

  Next we heard hoof beats and trumpets – shouts – and saw gallopers haring to and fro, carrying messages. A cannonball trundled past us, taking with it the leg of an unfortunate horse.

  “Our right wing is retreating!” came a shout.

  “We have no orders!” some laggards yelled. “Give us orders!” came shouts from all around, and pathetic cries of “Run! Save yourselves! Every man for himself!”

  “Here’s the order!” I roared, drawing my pistol, “the first man to run, dies!” I caracoled my horse, and trained my gun on my wavering comrades.

  “Here we stand, here we die!” I roared, my voice hoarse but calm. “We hold the line! They shall not pass!”

  The platoon, who knew that I was a man of my word, held. Still, it was pandemonium everywhere else, as we saw a line of our cavalry streaming past us in full flight.

  “Bastards! Cowards! Traitors!” we jeered, shaking our fists at them.

  “What do we do, Sir?” a soldier shouted.

  “I told you! We hold the line, damn it!” I roared, brandishing my pistol. I remember that I felt oddly calm and happy, almost exhilarated, in that moment. By some miracle, the right wing held. More than that, it began a counter-charge, utterly decimating the Cossacks and the Russian cavalry.

  It was General Zayonczek – he had rallied them. Zayonczek, my fellow son of the black earth, came hurtling back and forth, laughing like the wrath of God. A Podolian is worth ten ordinary soldiers, by God! The men began to recover their courage, and forget their fear. Thus is a battle fought, with the heart and mind swinging wildly from fear to bravery, and sometimes back again.

  At that point, with the men starting to take heart, Pepi came ambling past us, as if on a summer stroll in the country. He was on foot, at the head of those of the Potocki regiment who were still alive, and two more battalions from other regiments. We cheered them to the heavens. The infantrymen were powder-blacked, covered in mud, bloodied, in tatters. How we envied them! Fools that we were!

  Pepi was conversing with Zayonczek, who leaned over from his saddle to take his orders. The Prince was on foot, and armed with musket and bayonet, like an infantryman, as was his wont. Pepi was fond of quoting our enemy, Suvarov, who held to the dictum ‘the bullet is a fool, but the bayonet is a fine fellow!’ The army loved Pepi for many reasons, but not least because he would regularly dismount from his horse, roll up the silk sleeves of his gilded tunic, and wade into the trenches with the bayonet alongside the common soldiers.

  Scurrying behind Pepi were two liveried servants, carrying some sort of collapsible bed or table. It was Pepi's harpsichord. As the cannon balls fizzed overhead and buried their noses in the Zielence mud, Pepi's servants unfolded his music box and a camping stool. Smiling serenely beneath his moustaches, the Prince settled before the instrument and, quite extempore, proceeded to perform a short recital of the marvellous, nameless, jaunty mazurka that we had heard on the Third of May. A great cheer rang out across our ranks as he concluded, and he stood to a round of applause. Behind him, a crew of artillerymen was desperately dragging a cannon into position.

  “Ah!” Pepi cried with delight, “here is the percussion! Play well, boys, and don't miss a note!”

  We could see Zayonczek haranguing Pepi as he played upon his keyboard. There was no love lost between the two of them. After a short and bad-tempered conference, Pepi reluctantly put up his instrument and the two generals made their way over to our line.

  “Comrades,” Pepi addressed us genially, “the right wing has held, after a small affair with the Cossacks, who have now been put to their heels.” This brought a huge cheer of relief. A weight lifted from all our hearts. Pepi grinned and held up a hand. “However, the Ekaterinoslav Grenadiers are now on their way to meet us, instead. These Podolian fellows and I shall receive them warmly.”

  Grenadiers, as you will know, are the elite of the infantry. As one, our brigade begged and pleaded with him to let us run them down. We had not fired a shot or drawn a sword all day, and it was now late, so late, in the early evening. Pepi declined. “Thank you, comrades, but no. You are my reserve, and will await further orders.”

  It was more than we could stand. It felt like a gloved slap. Heartbroken, humiliated, we sat on our horses, cursing, fuming like caned schoolboys.

  On came the Russian grenadiers, giant men, splendid in their blue and grey uniforms and bulbous fur hats. Rays of evening sun glinted off their shouldered muskets as they marched towards us in perfect order. As they marched up the slope, Pepi and his sharpshooters began to fire on them. At every shot a grenadier seemed to fall to the ragged crash of rifle fire. On they came, these brave fellows, the men in the second rank stepping over their dead comrades.

  By now, our cannon had found its range, too. It scythed down ranks of these splendid grenadiers, and their advance collapsed, decimated.

  Despite them being our mortal enemies, I felt a stirring of pity for them, and I felt pride at the wonderful spectacle of arms they presented, even as the bullets tore through their breasts. I thought of my Irish grandfather, a mercenary, who wore that same Russian uniform.

  Finally it was our turn. General Zayonczek, boiling with impatience, rode up to our ranks. It was a warm day but he was wrapped in a thick fur over his uniform. Tanski, who had never seen him up close before, later remarked that this General should have had a sheep, rather than a pig, on his coat of arms, for the General's thick, curly blond hair was cut close to his scalp, like a ram's fleece. He had bushy blond cavalry moustaches to match it. Zayonczek was not one to mince words:

  “Szarza! Charge!” he called, chopping down his flashing sabre. The front rank lowered their lances, the swallow-tailed pennants fluttering in the breeze. Then we hurled ourselves forward in a mad charge, a wave of furious cavalry emitting blood-curdling screams, spearpoints and brandished sabres glinting in the sun – szarza! Szarza!

  We wielded those slim chivalric ashwood lances and wore a fine uniform – tight red trousers, a blue jacket with red or yellow facings, depending upon one's regiment, silver epaulettes, and a fur-trimmed red czapka. The
front rank was a charging mass of beautiful Polish steeds, the descendants of the Arab chargers our Sarmatian forefathers brought with them from Persia.

  It was a spectacle indeed, green grass beneath blue sky. Before us were the Russians on their stout, sturdy steeds, gaudily caparisoned, snorting, neighing, and prancing gracefully beneath their grim faced grey riders. The enemy cavalry were clad in varied grey costumes and greatcoats, with gleaming silver and gold cuirasses, many wearing bearskin hats decked with eagle feathers, others in helmets and wolfskins. They were armed with sabres and pistols.

  Our lances were slim and graceful weapons, twelve feet long. The lance was difficult to wield but deadly in a skilled hand, and it could be handled almost as dexterously as a sabre. It was feather light, cut from ashwood, impregnated with linseed oil and tar, with a metal heel, and a red and white silk swallow-tailed pennant behind the steel spearhead.

  The front rank held their lances between the looped forefinger and the middle finger of the right hand, before raising them high above their heads to deliver a powerful thrust at the enemy – this was called ‘par le moulinet’.

  The sabres of the enemy cavalry met the lances of our first rank. The enemy may as well have been wielding dandelions as sabres. Our lances tore them apart, a flying wall of deadly spears. Many of the Russian horses had broken and run before us. They were transfixed and terrified by the fluttering swallow-tailed pennons on our lances, which were not merely for decoration, but terrorised the simple minds of the beasts. It was an unbelievable chaos – horses and cavalrymen falling together, felled like trees, men with their clothes on fire, set alight by the blazing wads from muskets and pistols, men impaled on lances like suckling pigs.

  Only the front rank of the cavalry carried the lance, together with a pair of pistols. The second and third ranks, following behind, carried a musket into battle at the charge instead. I myself was relegated to the second rank, to make use of my English gun, for we were sorely short of firearms. Thus I arrived moments after this first great wave of devastation, and the front rank were already chasing the retreating Russian cavalry from the field.

  Beside me were Russians, wounded, in a heap, burning, trying with their sabres to slash the legs of our horses. I realised then how fanatical and determined were our foes. Ahead, a distinguished boyar with a fine long beard was brandishing their Russian flag, sabre in hand, his reins tied around his wrist. A great slick of bloody foam ran from his horse’s mouth. The boyar was trying to rally his regiment. They were in full flight from the field, to his great disgust and shame. He was bawling obscenities at the backs of his retreating comrades.

  At the sight of this insolent invader I was overcome with anger. Bringing my steed to the gallop I broke out like lightning from the ranks and joined battle with this audacious boyar. With a lucky shot from my musket I knocked him from the saddle. He fell from his mount still clutching the flag, which trailed behind him in the mud. I had merely wounded him. He sat on the trampled grass, his long white beard running with blood, his sabre across his knees, wheezing for breath like an old grandad. Naturally I assumed that he wished to surrender, and, as an honourable man, accordingly extended my hand to accept his sword and flag.

  I had underestimated him. The boyar jumped to his feet and lunged at my horse with his sabre. Cursing, I reined to one side to avoid these blows, and the boyar's sabre glanced wide. Furious, I slashed at him with my sabre, and fetched him a good downward cut.

  He fell to the ground still clutching the flag.

  Gasping with the exertion, I sat heavily back in my stirrups, and gulped down a good breath. Then and only then I took stock of the situation. Precisely no one had paid the slightest heed to this inept and bloody single combat, being much too preoccupied with their own pressing concerns. Blood ran from the boyar’s wounded head.

  But even then, the old boyar came back at me. He was on hands and knees, barely even moving now, wracked with exhaustion and sorely wounded. Sickened, I wiped the sweat and blood from my face and dismounted, in order to capture the flag. Suitably angered, and in no mood for any fresh treachery, I marched up to him and drew both my pistols. We were at point blank range.

  “Now then, your lordship. Surrender that flag, and I will spare your life,” I said firmly, “no sense in dying for a length of cloth, now, is there?”

  Neither I spoke any Russian nor he any Polish, but our mother tongues are so very similar, that we could make ourselves plainly understood. Besides that I trusted in the eloquence of my pistols.

  “Over my dead body, Lachy!” retorted the boyar, in peremptory tones. He was an aristocratic sort, hewn from Siberian rock, hardened by winters and vodka. This was madness. I frowned, and brandished my pistols again, and he merely smiled, trying to raise his sword in challenge. A religious medallion glinted at his neck. He clutched his Russian flag white fingered with his other hand. A hand that now shook, with fear or cold, I could not tell.

  We both glanced at this battle flag, a blue flag streaked with mud, with a black eagle inlaid in gold emblazoned upon it. The double-headed eagle of the Tsars, a hideous, mythical beast. I thought of the horses transfixed by our pennants, hypnotised like rats before snakes. I turned back to the boyar.

  “The flag, sir, or you die,” I said, as I took aim with a shaking hand.

  “My death matters not, Lachy,” he shrugged, “U nas mnogo ludei – We have a lot of people!” With a last dying effort he made to run me through with his blade. I fired, and the ball entered his chest three inches below the religious medal, piercing his heart, killing him instantly.

  Some hours after that, their right wing collapsed, and we took the flag from the dead boyar's hand and sent it back to Warsaw. But we could not dislodge the Russian infantry, try as we might, and we were in want of ammunition and food, as ever. As the evening darkness fell, we stole away like hunted wolves in the night. We followed the captured flag, and retreated back towards Warsaw.

  This left General Morkov, the one Russian General who had deigned to actually turn up that day, in possession of an empty field strewn with corpses. Including, among their number, the bearded boyar, stretched out and growing cold on the ground.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  DUBIENKA, 17 JULY 1792

  Thus we fell back, and retreated towards Warsaw. It was a fighting retreat. On the way, the Commander had decided to make a stand at a place called Dubienka. For my part in taking the flag, Pepi rewarded me with a galloper’s errand. Leaving my regiment behind, I rode hard across country with a bundle of papers and orders. I arrived at the Commander’s headquarters filthy and spattered with mud. It did not matter, for the headquarters themselves apparently consisted of a huge dirty hole in the ground. Or as the engineers have it, a trench.

  “Dispatches from General Poniatowski, Sir!” I cried.

  The Commander glanced up from his desk, which was a plank across two barrels, before reluctantly putting down the book he was reading. I handed over the leather wallets, clicked my heels and saluted smartly, and then stared at this legendary man with a mixture of awe and fear. General Tadeusz Andrzej Bonaventure Kosciuszko. Second string to Pepi he may have been at that time, but to us, Kosciuszko was simply ‘The Commander’. And he always will be.

  When I met him at Dubienka he was about forty-five years old, and already a legend, for his feats both on the battlefield (where he enjoyed great success) and in the boudoir (where he did not). Though a gentleman, the Commander was from a humble background. His family had little money, but his prodigious talents were recognised in him as a student. He was educated abroad, at the expense of the King, to study artillery, engineering, naval tactics, and, somewhat improbably, fine arts.

  Upon his return, the Commander became tutor of the youngest daughter of the Grand Hetman, the lady Ludwika Sossonowski, with whom he fell in love. Having no hope of ever obtaining her father's permission, the lovers determined to elope together, for the Commander was not a man to be served black soup[2] by anyone. He crep
t into the house in the dead of night, but was taken by surprise by Ludwika's father's guards. A combat ensued. After fighting like a lion, the Commander was flung out into the street, covered with wounds, half dead. So much for marriage!

  His next amour, it was equally well known, went much the way of the first, but with fewer deaths. After this second desperate faux pas, determining that discretion is the better part of valour, the Commander volunteered to fight for the colonists in the American War. There he built the fortress at West Point, fought in numerous battles, won a great and eternal victory for liberty, and suffered not so much as a scratch in the process. Clearly, his engagements in battle with the English were less hazardous than his engagements to the daughters of our Polish nobility.

  It was said that the first paramour, Ludwika – now married, and a Princess, if you please – still burned for the old warrior, and had connived at court to arrange his career and promotion for him. Naturally I set no store by such idle gossip where my hero was concerned.