Song of the Legions

by Michael Large

  There was no shelter. A wild jackal wind that could pare flesh from bone drove great columns of biting grey dust into the sky. Dust as black as the Devil’s cape. We and our beasts did great penance under these accursed storms, which chafed the skin like a hairshirt.

  This void of rocks was naked of trees and of all vegetation save bristly tamarisk and great crowns of razor-sharp thorns. A huge outcrop of rocks thrust out of the dusty grey earth. Steep, sheer sided rocks. We marvelled at them, and ran our hands over their smooth faces. Some were as shiny as glass, and the mass of them was quite impassable. I expected to see the Devil on that outcrop, offering us our souls in exchange for turning the flat stones that lay at our feet into bread. We were sorely hungry.

  We took a long detour around the outcrop, down into the belly of a great crater. It ran for many leagues across the plain. Our horses slid sideways, like crabs, down the edge of this pit. There, my last packhorse, a pretty white mare, took a tumble. She dragged old Muszka, my stallion, down with her. We three rolled down the slope in a chaos of crashing rocks, stones cracking against my head like musket balls. I felt as Twardowski must have done, falling from the Devil’s claws through empty space onto the moon.

  “Are you alright, Blumer?” someone shouted. The little column halted. We were still about fifty men strong. The men sat heavily in their stirrups and waited.

  “I’m alive,” I called back, “but what of my poor horses!” I shouted, in despair. Amid a crop of thorns I found old Muszka, sitting on his backside like a dog by a fireside, and blinking. Ignoring the pain in my jolted bones I dragged him, growling, to his feet, whereupon he bit my arm. He stood easy and unlamed on all four hooves. I braced myself, sickened, for the shock to come.

  In a fever of fumbling, I ran my fingers over every leg, from fetlock to shoulder, over every bone, muscle and sinew. Nothing. No injury. Next I counted every rib of the great barrel of his fat belly. At each I gave a tearful prayer of thanks, still awaiting the inevitable mortal wound. I ran my hands over his backbone, his flanks, and neck, his ears and eyes, and into his mouth. He had a thorn stuck in his foot, which I plucked out, and deep cuts in his shaggy hair, from which blood flowed freely, but these were mere flesh wounds, and soon staunched.

  “Thank God!” I shouted at the top of my voice, and danced a mad mazurka around my bemused horse, with the void echoing to my words. By some glorious miracle he was unharmed, and whole. My stallion stood staring at me patiently as if I were an idiot, as he always did. Then he turned his huge head. I followed his gaze, and saw Tanski standing by my poor white mare. She lay stricken, soaked in sweat, her flanks heaving, and panting as heavily as if she were in foal. Her leg was completely shattered.

  “I’ll do it, if you like,” Tanski said kindly, clapping hand on my shoulder.

  “Thank you brother, but no. It’s my horse,” I replied.

  The pistol shot illuminated a tiny corner of that desolate place, and put an end to the poor creature’s suffering. Her burden of baggage we divided up between us. Then we swiftly butchered the dead beast into steaks with our knives and bayonets, and collected the warm blood in our canteens.

  A halt was called, and we struck camp for the night. In truth, one could not tell if it was night or day, so dark and desolate was what passed for the day in that endless void. Down there, in the crater, the contours of the land were like beggar’s cupped hands. It gave us shelter from the gnawing gale, and we were thankful. Yet still we froze in the eternal black of the miserable gloomy place. Desperate for warmth, we found a thicket of thorn scrub and painstakingly cut it up, with frozen fingers. Our hands were lacerated and the flesh hung in shreds. We suffered such torments in those thorns as would have tested the patience of a saint.

  “Well, we have made it out of hell, at least,” I said grimly, for the fire was made, and we ate strips of meat from the mare, and drank the last of the blood, mixed with wine. “Now we are merely in purgatory!”

  Tanski said nothing, but glowered. We thought that this was because he was jealous of Sierawski’s fame. How mistaken we were! Our comrade was gravely ill, but he said nothing. He merely shouldered his share of our burdens without complaint.

  “Let’s hear the Proclamation!” Sierawski said, and we all listened, for his fame glowed stronger still than the miserable fire, all smoke but no flame, and precious little heat. All of the company hung on his word, including the lads who had never clapped eyes on him before the affair at the ford. Whatever he said, we did, for he had earned it back there. So I dug the Proclamation from my saddlebag. We were sorely in need of its consolation now, it was our prayer. My comrades urged me to my feet, and obligingly I stood up. I declaimed it in near total darkness, for by now I knew it by heart.

  “Proclamation to Poles!

  I, Dabrowski, the Polish Lieutenant General, faithful to our Motherland, am forming a Polish Legion in Italy! We struggled for freedom, led by the immortal Kosciuszko. We saw our flag victorious at Dubienka, Raclawice, Warsaw and Vilnius. But our nation fell through violence, and the blood of innocents flowed in the soil that belonged to our forefathers.

  Poles, fresh hope has come from France! Victorious France has come to our aid, so that we may fight our common enemies! France will give us shelter, to await better fortunes for our own country. We shall fight under her Tricolour flag, for these are signs of honour and victory. The Polish Legion, formed in Italy, the Holy Temple of Freedom!

  There are many brave soldiers and officers, your comrades in hardship, here with me. Battalions are forming. Those of you who are conscripts – desert from the enemy armies! Join us! All nations who love liberty are fighting together as allies, under the brave Bonaparte, Victor of Italy. Our only hope to save our nation is the French Republic.

  The Legion’s Headquarters in Milan, the First Day of the Month of Pluvoise, Year Five of the French Republic.”

  Dabrowski’s Proclamation had been made in February of that year, 1797. The strange dates were from the French Revolutionary calendar. It seemed that not even time itself was safe from the Revolution!

  At the end, the men fell to discussing Italy, which was to be reached by ship from Constantinople, and how we would get there.

  “Do you know, Blumer – I think that we have taken a most terrible detour under your inept guidance! We are lost!” Sierawski said, chewing a hunk of horsemeat, savouring it, and savouring the way the men now hung on his every word. The engineer’s head was getting too big for his czapka, I feared.

  “I think,” the engineer continued, “that this is not Turkey at all. We must have journeyed to the moon! You and your damned Podolian maps!” he laughed, clapping his thigh with glee. They all laughed at this, and I frowned. It is not good to hear fifty men laughing at you like damned hyenas. Had my hands not been wrapped in rags, hurting like the very devil, and dripping blood like tears, I should have knocked out every last one of Sierawski’s teeth for him, and seen how well he chewed my horsemeat then. So instead I laughed, too, and Sierawski handed me his flask, and I drank, and calmed myself. For I was a real pistolet in those days, a hothead. It landed me in no end of trouble, I can tell you. My temper had brought me naught but an empty purse and the tarnished badge of a warrant officer, after six long years of toil.

  “Blumer is a good lad – for a Podolian,” Sierawski expounded. “He has the maps and the compass, and he even has Dabrowski’s Proclamation in there. We’d be lost without him. Why, he carries the entire Warsaw library in his saddlebag. Blumer is as organised as our general staff!”

  “I hope not,” I retorted, “or we really are fucked!”

  The others all laughed at this, and they passed me another drink. It occurred to me at last that one catches more flies with honey than with vinegar.

  “Well, anyway,” Sierawski said, generously – as only a man who is cock of the walk can be generous – “we all agree that we’d be lost without you, comrade.”

  “So tell us then,” Birnbaum put in sadly, “where in the
world are we now, Blumer? Are we in hell, or on the moon?” Birnbaum was desolately sad. For he was the last of the Beardlings. His fellow Jewish cavalryman had been cut down by the Austrians, or taken, we knew not. At any rate the poor fellow was lost. We were all Birnbaum had now, and even pig-headed Tanski was kind to him in consequence.

  “We are halfway to Galatz, Comrade Birnbaum,” I replied, “for I have reckoned it by the stars, and by my compass and maps.”

  “Galatz!” Tanski spat, “What negligence is this? We are supposed to be going to Constantinople, Blumer, damn your eyes! Why the hell are we going to Galatz?” they all demanded, angry with me again.

  How fickle is the mob! I explained it to them all, yet again, very wearily. My comrades knew little and cared less for geography. I had told them a dozen times already.

  “We still have many miles to Constantinople. It is three months’ journey over land from here, hard riding across the mountain passes of Bulgaria and Greece, which are infested with bandits. But from Galatz it is a mere three weeks plain sailing by sea,” I told them.

  “Galatz is the biggest port in a hundred miles. Finding a ship there will be easier than finding a priest in a whorehouse!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  GALATZ, SEPTEMBER 1797

  It took us another month to reach Galatz. I reckoned the time by Twardowski’s face, which waxed and waned, and curved into a silver crescent, in honour of our Turkish hosts. We were armed, and strong in numbers, so the roving bands of Tartar raiders and the bandits let us be. But word of our coming would have spread.

  After emerging from the void we crossed Moldavia, where we encountered naught but marshes, gypsies, and carrion birds. When we reached the River Prul we followed it south. Three rivers drain into this Turkish sinkhole – the Prul, the Siret, and the mighty Danube. The Danube is the Austrians’ sewer, of course, which endeared it not to us. Still, the prospect of sailing to Italy on the Austrians’ own waterway was quite poetic.

  Galatz had been burned down by the Russians in the Turkish War of 1789, eight years before. Judging by the state of the place, it may as well have been yesterday. Even the Danube shared this state of dilapidation, for it ran brown and reeking here, not shining blue and emerald. But there were boats in Galatz, just as I had promised the lads.

  Boats! Hundreds of vessels of every kind and every size, from tiny fishing canoes to vast three-masted merchantmen bristling with cannon. We marvelled at the huge ships as they drifted lazily along the vast, placid river, dozens of them, one after another. We had to find but one. Still, none of us had any experience of anything larger than the grain-rafts of the Baltic grain trade to Danzig.

  “I’m fairly certain we can’t row and punt our way to Constantinople,” Sierawski said, doubtfully. “We need something with sails.”

  “Thank God we have an expert engineer with us!” I sneered at him. “Four years of training were not wasted, I see.”

  Galatz harbour was a filthy and degenerate hole. Toothless old men tried to sell us their young daughters. When we refused, they tapped their hooked noses knowingly, cackled, and brought out their sons, instead. We tried to shoo these scoundrels away but nevertheless a crowd of them gathered. A veritable swarm of bawds, pimps, pederasts, water-sellers, cut-purses and hawkers. They trailed in our wake like the gulls trailed after the boats.

  “Damn it all,” I cursed, “this commotion will bring out the Janissaries.” Well, speak of the Devil, and he will appear. Sure enough, a party of evil-looking brigands came out to greet us. Splendid-looking devils, mark you.

  The Janissaries – the Turkish Army. Bronze-skinned Arab fellows of fierce aspect, with drooping moustaches, pointed beards, and betel-stained teeth, riding magnificent horses or stink-spitting camels. Their finery was splendid to behold. Some wore flowing robes of white, green, or gold, embroidered with bright colours in exquisite geometric patterns. Others wore armour – spiked bronze helmets, breastplates, and chain mail, like fish-scales.

  All their weapons had jewelled hilts and scabbards of exquisite workmanship and beauty. They were armed with great scimitars, up to half a man’s length, and curved daggers, ancient firelock muskets with intricately carved stocks, or spears with silk tassels. Amongst the number of this exotic, fantastical host were massive bare-chested Nubian warriors wielding axes and half-pikes. They looked like executioners from the tale of the Arabian Nights.

  Most incredible of all, the Janissaries brought with them two docile elephants trailing a huge antique brass cannon, of the vintage of the siege of Vienna in 1683. This amazing sight, fearsome as it was, filled my heart with joy. I felt like applauding.

  “Blumer can talk to them,” Sierawski hissed, “Podolians are practically Turks anyhow.”

  “I will, then,” I said, “damn your eyes. Keep calm, lads,” I called out to my comrades, “this is the Turks’ land. Their ways are no doubt strange to us.”

  I raised a white handkerchief on a lance, and rode forward, alone. It was a tense moment – our men shouldered their arms and raised their lances as a mark of respect. But we would charge or volley if the need arose. Our hearts were beating a triple-march. I flew a flag of truce and so the Janissaries did likewise. We breathed again. Two men, a petty official, a vizier or suchlike, and a great barrel-chested Janissary officer of fifty years rode forward on white Arab chargers from the Turkish lines. Their harnesses shone and jingled with gold rings. Our men watched in disgust as the Janissaries dispersed the crowd with whips, and we politely ignored the resultant chaos.

  It was the old Janissary who took charge. He wore a jewelled eye-patch and his long beard ran to grey. He wheeled his horse and grinned grotesquely with a gap-toothed smile. He began to leer and bawl a challenge at us. At me, I realised. The Vizier translated into French, for we had fewer words of Turkish than the old Janissary had teeth in his jaw.

  “The Austrians say Poland is dead. The Russians say Poles are weak,” he declaimed. “What are you, Poles? Are you the strong sons of Sobieski, or bastard catamites of the Bullock?” The old Janissary made a set of obscene gestures with his hands that could be universally translated. I turned back to Tanski and Sierawski.

  “Whatever happens, don’t fire on them, and don’t draw blood. We are strangers here – they will have the whole country on us. More than that, we need their help. Wait here, and be calm. I will show this old fool who is strong and who is a milksop.”

  With that, I got off my horse, and the old Janissary did the same. His men cheered him to the echo, while jeering at me. Our little legion of fifty men did the opposite, beating their lances on the ground, and waving their pennants, which made the Arab horses buck and shy in fright.

  Between the two sets of troops was a set of stone water troughs and a smithy. The blacksmith had wisely run for cover. His furnace roared untended. Beside it were a set of iron horseshoes, fresh-forged, glowing white- and red-hot. I unbuckled my sword and guns and cast them aside.

  The Janissary grinned and followed suit, and began flexing his arms and cracking his knuckles. His arms were huge and brawny, with thick sinews like whipcords. Although his skin had been burnished dark as teak by the burning Turkish sun, he was a white man by blood. I guessed that he was a Greek, or a Serb, or even a Cossack. For the Janissaries conscripted slaves from all across their vast empire, and not only Turks.

  At first he made to wrestle with me, but I shook my head. For I knew he would put his thumb in my eye, his elbow in my groin, or suchlike chicanery, and I would not brook it. Besides, if he did not maim me, I might kill him, and either way it would end badly.

  “A trial of strength,” I said, picking up a horseshoe in a pair of tongs, and plunging them into the water trough. A great hiss of steam blazed forth. I tossed a second into the cauldron, a third, and so on until six of them lay at the bottom of the water. The Janissary eyed me, warily. Taking off my coat, I fished the horseshoes out of the water, and laid them on the anvil.

  Intrigued, the Janissary made for
me to continue. Thus I picked up the first horseshoe in my bare hands, and with a grunt, bent it straight between my hands. My adversary nodded, and grinned his ragged smile, for now he understood the contest. Negligently picking up a horseshoe, he bent it straight, and cast it aside.

  Now the game was on. I smiled, for I had him. So I picked up two horseshoes. I held them up to my men, and then to the Janissaries. I clinked them against each other, like a conjuror. I struck them against the anvil and drew sparks. Chimes rang out across the dockside. Our men began to cheer and stamp at my back, and waved their lances. Before me, the Janissaries waved their arms and let out wild yelps like dogs and eerie, ululating cries. My adversary watched me with a keen eye, wary, but still confident.