Song of the Legions

by Michael Large

  We stepped from the shadows onto the open field. A gentle incline ran downhill from beneath our feet. Where the incline ended one could see the outline of a wooden pavilion. Half of it had been torn down. The campfires of Prussian troops smouldered around it, for they burned our buildings to cook their sausages.

  “I vote we do battle with these Prussians,” I said. In reply, there was a colossal explosion from a battery of Prussian cannon. We hurled ourselves into a nearby trench, and kissed the dirt. Behind the trench was a handsome red brick townhouse. It had taken the full force of the blast. We watched as the facade began to crumble, with an awful, yawning noise, like the tearing of silk. A great cloud of black dust rose up in the air. Then I felt a knife at my throat. We were surrounded.

  “Time to die, Prussian pigs!” an officer hissed. Then he grinned. It was Sierawski. He sheathed his dagger. “It’s alright, boys, they’re ours,” Sierawski told his engineers.

  In one corner of the trench was a pikestaff. Our flag, the white eagle, hung from it. There were a dozen of our comrades holding this trench and they were a sorry sight indeed. Sierawski himself wore rags barely recognisable as clothing, let alone a uniform. He was covered from head to foot in mud. His eyes were wild and he appeared to have a woman’s nightcap on his head. He and his men had dug this earth rampart and they had been living in it for weeks, like human moles.

  “Where are the reinforcements, Captain?” he demanded.

  Godebski grinned and pointed at me. “Here we are!”

  “What? Two of you?” Sierawski gestured wildly at the Prussian lines. “Out there,” he raved, “is the most professional army the world has ever seen. They outnumber us more than five to one! I have no cannon – what am I supposed to do? Fend them off with my farts?”

  “Your farts could clear a barnyard,” I retorted. “Anyway, cheer up. We have brought vodka for you and your lads, and some grenades.”

  Abruptly, his demeanour changed, as I passed him the bottle. “Ah! Vodka! That’s a different matter! Welcome to Wola, comrades!”

  We handed out the grenades, and tapers to light the fuses. No sooner had we done so, than the Prussian bugles sounded. As if summoned by some evil magician, a cohort of Prussian soldiers, muskets shouldered and colours flying, stepped out of their trenches, and began to march across the Electors’ Field towards us. On they came, marching in perfect order under their banner, red, black, and gold, with a black eagle. There was almost a battalion of them, perhaps sixty men strong, and they were a formidable sight. We could see their immaculate blue uniforms, the plumes in their hats, and the gleam of their swords and bayonets. We could hear the stamp of their leather boots and the beat of their drums.

  Halfway across the field they halted. Their bugler sounded a signal and they aimed their muskets. They were forming up to give us a volley. We kissed the dirt again. Bullets whined over our heads like a thousand devils. Before they could reload, we lit our bombs and flung them into the ranks of oncoming Prussians. The grenades ignited with awful roars, blinding red flashes and plumes of thick grey smoke. It was a volcano of fire. The Electors’ Field burned like the slopes of Mount Etna. The first rank died where they stood. The second rank of Prussians faltered, but did not break.

  “To sword, comrades!” Cyprian roared, climbing up out of the trench – “Charge!”

  We followed him, roaring like madmen. It must have been unbelievable for the Prussians. They stood facing us, their muskets discharged. Caught in the act of reloading – caught with their trousers down – the Prussian soldiers were struggling manfully with their clumsy ramrods, powder flasks, and wad cutters.

  We hurled more bombs among them and followed up with a charge, bayonets and sabres swinging. Our bombs took a dreadful toll on our enemy, blasting them off their feet like skittles, tearing through the ranks like an iron fist. A stink of shit and sulphur filled the air. Grey coated soldiers lay all about, crumpled, in heaps. Wounded and dying men groaned and shrieked, shouted, whimpered, and pleaded. The ground was strewn with discarded swords, muskets, bandoliers, boots, knapsacks and kit.

  Ahead, I saw Cyprian, bellowing like a bull, as he slashed left and right with his sabre. There was no time to help him. A knot of Prussians ran at me. I was amazed at their discipline, to have held firm after our devastating barrage of grenades. I had not yet fired my musket, and so I discharged it at them. I saw a man fall and then the others were spectres, fleeing through gunpowder smoke.

  At last, they had had enough, and they fell back, but in good order, to their lines. Now it was our turn to retreat.

  “Fall back, fall back!” Cyprian called, calm as you like. Our killing frenzy was over. It had evaporated as soon as it had begun, like a pan of water boiling over. So we fell back, snatching up a few weapons and cartridge belts as we did so. We scrambled back into our trench, the Prussian sharpshooters sniping after us as we went. Across the field we heard a bugle call. By now, we knew the Prussian signals as well as we did our own. They were calling ‘Advance’.

  “Out of this trench!” Sierawski called, “retreat! If we stay here, they’ll catch us like rats! Go! Go!” he shouted, clouting us with the flat of his sword – for now he had a sword in his hand, and not a dagger, a strange German sabre, with a gold pompom hanging from it, like a curtain pull.

  “To the house!” he called, pointing to the ruined house, the very same that had been wrecked by the Prussian artillery. At that time I had no experience of sieges and street fighting, but even I could see the sense in putting this ruined rampart betwixt us and the Prussian guns. Lead buzzed off the walls like angry bumblebees. We scrambled through the ruined doorway and into the hall of what had once been a grand townhouse, home of a rich merchant, doctor, or lawyer. A cockeyed crucifix hung in the hall, beneath it, a tumbled grandfather clock spilled its springs. God Bless This House, said a tapestry on the wall.

  Heaps of broken bricks, masonry and stonework, and tangled beams spilled in all directions, as if the house had been poured down a hill. At the broken windows of the front parlour we paused. A walnut table was set with bread, ham, cheese and salt. On one wall was a portrait of a smiling old basia, with her husband beside her. Opposite and facing them was a picture of the Holy Virgin, the Black Madonna of Czestochowa. It stood above a long walnut sideboard decorated with trophies and ornaments. Crystal, fine china, gold and silver plate, all cracked, and broken, beyond repair. A fine shroud of white dust lay on everything, like a layer of icing on a cake.

  Cyprian took up position next to the stern old wife. Above us the ceiling swelled alarmingly, like the sail of a ship in a storm. A chandelier hung from it like a bunch of golden grapes. Hurriedly, we swept the last of the broken glass from the lintels and the window frames with our swords.

  Outside, the Prussians came on. Dread footsteps, like the golem, slow, implacable, never faltering. I could see their white faces streaked with black powder, their shining bayonets, their gleaming blue uniforms, hear the creak of their leather cross belts and boots.

  I bowed to the Virgin, the Queen of Poland, and crossed myself. Godebski and I drew our pistols, like duellists.

  “God bless this house,” I said.

  The first Prussian was a blond giant of a man and he came out of nowhere, clad in their damnable grey-blue. I desperately parried his thrust with my sword, his bayonet catching on the hilt, and twisted it aside. With desperate strength I struck him full in the face with the brass hilt of my cavalry pistol, like a club. He staggered, and Godebski ran him through the body with his sword.

  “They are coming in the windows!” someone called. Another blue figure was crouched on the wide sill, armed with a pistol and a firebrand – they meant now to burn us out. Godebski calmly shot the figure through the forehead with his second pistol, then roughly shoved the man’s body back out, where it tumbled amongst his comrades in a chaos of shots and shouts.

  But the brand had tumbled to the floor. A shower of sparks touched the parquet, the rugs, and the velvet
curtains. Consumed by the fire’s ardour, red tongues bloomed. Crimson mushrooms spread up the wood panelled walls, the curtains, the floors and ceiling. Black smoke billowed. Blue devils clambered resolutely through the smoke and into the inferno.

  We ran back to the hallway, where Sierawski was holding off a Prussian soldier armed with an axe. Godebski swung a backhanded cut at the base of the man’s spine, and he collapsed, with a scream of shock, like a girl soaked in cold water on Easter Monday.

  “OUT!” Godebski ordered, unflustered, picking up the axe from the floor and hefting it. More of the dogs were at the door, running up the stairs, coming in the windows. Godebski flung the axe at them and we fled through the kitchen. I remembered the ham in the front parlour and sure enough, there was a haunch on a chopping block on the kitchen table, which I grabbed and shoved in my pocket. Eat, or be eaten.

  We scrambled out of the back door and into the fresh air. We gulped it down like vodka and coughed like invalids. This was the house’s stable-yard.

  “Horses!” Godebski shouted. “We’re saved!”

  “A horse! A horse!” I cried, “The Republic for a horse!” and Cyprian and I fell into fits of giggles. For the horses were long gone, leaving behind only the evil savour of horse piss lingering in rotted straw. In front of us the ruined house folded up like a burning haystack, and collapsed in upon itself. I laughed, and took a bite of the ham. It tasted glorious. Sierawski and his men were reloading their pistols and muskets.

  “Are you too grand to reload, Lieutenant Blumer?” Sierawski shouted, as he struggled to load an unfamiliar Prussian gun. “Or will you have your butler do it for you?”

  “I have no bullets, Comrade Engineer,” I shrugged, “and no musket either, come to that.”

  “Here!” Sierawski snapped, flinging me my own musket that he had somehow salvaged from the carnage. “You should take better care of that thing.”

  All around us we heard the Prussians gathering like wolves. We reloaded – a slow, clumsy process. At any moment I expected the Prussians to throw themselves upon us. That stable block should have been our execution yard. There were only five of us remaining.

  “We are surrounded,” Godebski said. “Gentlemen, it has been a privilege. Those of you who survive the first charge have my permission to surrender, with honour.”

  “For my part I intend to do the honourable thing and die,” I said. I had finished the ham and it is very easy to be brave on a full stomach.

  “Excuse me, Captain Godebski,” Sierawski butted in, “these are my men! It is up to me to give the orders.”

  “What, these are your men, Lieutenant? Both of them?” Cyprian sneered, pointing at the last two surviving engineers. “Very well, then, what are your orders? How will you deploy your vast battalion, Lieutenant Sierawski? Shall we flank the Prussians, then?”

  “Since when were you made a lieutenant?” I demanded of Sierawski, greatly piqued that I no longer outranked him. We began to bicker amongst ourselves.

  Then we heard the chorus of angels. Bugles rang. God be praised.“My dear Sirs,” Sierawski said, “the tables are turned. It is our foe who is surrounded, and not us. It is our cavalry.”

  At that, two figures came thundering into the courtyard, elated with victory. One was a tall general with a moustache and tight, curly yellow hair, like a sheep. The second was our old friend, Tanski.

  “Warrant Officer Tanski!” I cried, “So good of you to make it!”

  “Lieutenant Tanski, of the cavalry, if you please,” said Tanski, astride his shining grey mare, pirouetting and caracoling, twirling his lance like a wand. I cursed, silently.

  “Who is this?” said the general.

  “General Zayonczek, this is Lieutenant Blumer, of the infantry,” Tanski said, grinning from ear to ear. I could have cut his throat!

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  GENERAL ZAYONCZEK AND GENERAL DABROWSKI

  General Zayonczek’s troop of cavalry had encircled the Prussians during the fight in the house, taking a few prisoner, and chasing off the rest. We searched the prisoners and relieved them of their guns. Not five minutes ago they had been trying with all their might to kill us. Now they were sullen and angry, for the tables were turned.

  “This one’s an officer,” I said, regarding a tall, haughty Von Something, his face a patchwork of duelling scars, his barrel chest beribboned, his handmade boots gleaming like mirrors, except at the knees, where they were brown with fresh mud. He had a small rash of gashes over his forehead that he was allowing, ostentatiously, to spill red dewdrops of blood over his face and uniform, and to collect on his shirt and handkerchief. It was not much – the thump I had fetched Tanski on the Third of May was far worse, and he had slept it off by morning. The Prussian officer had been caught hiding under a privet hedge, while his men died bravely in droves.

  “Your name, Sir?” I asked politely, for the forms had to be observed. Inside I was itching to give him a few good swipes across the jaw.

  “I am Colonel Hermann Von Boyen,” he replied sullenly. We could converse, this Prussian and I, for we both spoke French, as all gentlemen did in those days. Obviously I took his pistol from him. This he gave up without demur. It was an excellent pistol, too, with a carved handle and a barrel chased in German silver. I sold it later for a bottle of vodka. But the Prussian Colonel’s wallet, watch, decorations, medals, and other effects were of course sacrosanct. Indeed, captured officers did not have to give up their swords, so long as they gave their word to behave themselves.

  All nations – even the Prussians – abided by the Rules of War. Only Russia did not.

  “You may retain your sword upon your parole of good conduct until the war is over, or you are released,” I said, according to the custom.

  “You have my word,” he said sullenly, through gritted teeth, as he was led off with the other prisoners.

  “You there – Blumer!” came a shout in a thick Podolian accent. It was the curly-haired General Zayonczek. He swung himself off his horse and strode over to me. He was chewing the stub of a cigar.

  “Podolian, aren’t you?” the General asked, for he was a Podolian, too. “I might have known! I’ve heard good reports about you, soldier. They say you held these Prussian dogs off single handed.”

  I began to protest. “No, Sir, humbly report, you are misinformed – ”

  “Silence!” Zayonczek laughed. “So modest! Don’t worry, I’ll write a proper report of this little affair. We Podolians should stick together.” Then he winked. This was temptation! Comrades must stick together too, I thought. I threw my shoulders back, shouldered my gun, and clicked my heels.

  “No Sir, I humbly report,” I bellowed, so everyone could hear it, “CAPTAIN GODEBSKI and LIEUTENANT SIERAWSKI repulsed the attack! SIR!”

  Zayonczek shook his head in disgust. “Have it your way, lad,” he said, drawing on his cigar, and blowing smoke in my face.

  He pointed at the Prussian prisoners. “Dabrowski,” he mouthed his rival’s name with distaste, “wants to interrogate a few of these dogs. Speaks their language, you know. If you can call that vile babble a language. He used to serve with these Germans, in the Saxon army – he was Rottmeister Dabrowski in those days, did you know? Doesn’t like to brag about it now, though. Dabrowski speaks German better than the mother tongue. I have to have all his despatches translated into proper Polish.”

  The general spat and pointed out the insolent Prussian Colonel and his men. “Get these scum out of my sight, before I do something I regret. Take them to Dabrowski, he can sit and drink schnapps with them for all I care. Dabrowski’s man can show you the way.”

  He nodded at Tanski, who was, of course, Dabrowski’s man. Zayonczek leant over close, and began to whisper conspiratorially. Smoke from his cigar billowed in my face.

  “You want to watch that Tanski. He says he’s your friend, but he’s the one galloping for that German-loving Targowica traitor Dabrowski, and you’re the one eating dirt and bullets in the trenches.�
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  We stared at the line of prisoners. Insolent invaders in their pristine blue uniforms. We, by contrast, stood in our ragged and dishevelled clothes. But for our guns, a passing observer would have thought them the victors, and we the vanquished.

  “If it were up to me,” Zayonczek said, staring at the Prussians, “I’d put the fucking lot of them up against a wall.”

  “Amen to that, General,” I replied, “but rules are rules. We are not Russians.”

  “True,” he said. He spat out his cigar, and ground it out under his boot-heel, in the trampled dirt of the Field of Electors. As he mounted his horse, he called out to me over his shoulder. “Always room in my cavalry division for a good Podolian lad like you. Think about it.”

  General Dabrowski’s great round face lit up as we herded the Prussian prisoners into the yard. He was surrounded by his jubilant dragoons. They too were leading lines of Prussian prisoners and were flushed with victory. Dabrowski’s cavalry had lifted the siege from the north.