Complete Works of Henryk Sienkiewicz

by Henryk Sienkiewicz

  Kmita looked through the broken centre into the depth of the field, and saw at once a regiment of red dragoons flying like wind to the aid of the broken cavalry.

  “That is nothing!” thought he; “Volodyovski will cross the ford in a moment to aid me.”

  At that instant was heard the thunder of cannon so loud that the earth trembled in its foundations; musketry rattled from the intrenchment to those ranks of the Poles who had pushed forward most. The whole field was covered with smoke, and in that smoke Kmita’s volunteers and Tartars closed with the dragoons.

  But from the side of the river no one came with assistance.

  The enemy had let Kmita pass the ford purposely, and then covered the ford with such a dreadful shower from cannons and muskets that no living foot could pass through it.

  The troops of Pan Korsak tried first, and turned back in disorder; next the squadron of Voynillovich went to the middle of the ford, and turned back, — slowly, it is true, for that was the king’s regiment, one of the most valiant in the army, but with a loss of twelve noted nobles and nineteen soldiers.

  The water in the ford which was the only passage through the river was plashing under the blows of balls as under a dense pouring rain. Cannon-balls flew to the other bank, casting around clouds of sand.

  Gosyevski himself rode up on a gallop, and when he had seen this, he knew that it was impossible for one living man to reach the opposite bank.

  And still that might decide the fate of the battle. Then the forehead of the hetman frowned sternly. For a while he looked through his glass along the whole line of the enemy’s troops, and cried to the orderly, —

  “Rush to Hassan Bey; let the horde pass the deep bank as it can, and strike the tabor. What they find in the wagons will be theirs! There are no cannon there; it will be only hand to hand.”

  The horseman sprang forward with what breath was in his horse; but the hetman advanced to where under willows on the meadow stood the Lauda squadron, and halted before it.

  Volodyovski was at the head of the squadron, gloomy and silent; but he looked in the eyes of the hetman, and his mustaches quivered.

  “What do you think?” asked the hetman; “will the Tartars cross?”

  “The Tartars will cross, but Kmita will perish!” answered the little knight.

  “As God lives!” cried the hetman, suddenly; “this Kmita, if he had a head on his shoulders, might win the battle, not perish!”

  Volodyovski said nothing; still he thought: “It was necessary either not to send any regiment across the river, or to send five.”

  The hetman looked awhile yet through his glass at the distant confusion which Kmita was making beyond the river; but the little knight, not being able to endure any longer, drew near him, and holding his sabre-point upward, said, —

  “Your worthiness, if there were an order, I would try the ford again.”

  “Stop!” said Gosyevski, rather sharply; “it is enough that those will perish.”

  “They are perishing already,” replied Volodyovski.

  And in truth the uproar was becoming more definite and greater every moment. Evidently Kmita was retreating to the river.

  “As God lives, I wanted that!” cried the hetman, suddenly; and he sprang like a thunderbolt to Voynillovich’s squadron.

  In fact, Kmita was retreating. After they had met the red dragoons, his men fought with their last strength; but the breath was already failing in their breasts, their wearied hands were drooping, and bodies were falling faster and faster; only hope that aid might come any moment from beyond the river kept courage in them yet.

  Half an hour more passed, and the cry of “Strike!” was heard no longer; but to the aid of the red dragoons sprang Boguslav’s regiment of heavy cavalry.

  “Death is coming!” thought Kmita, seeing them approaching from the flank.

  But he was a soldier who never had a doubt, for a moment, not only of his life, but of victory. Long and hazardous practice had given him also great knowledge of war; therefore lightning at dusk does not flash and then die out so quickly as the following thought flashed to the head of Pan Andrei: Evidently the Poles could not cross the ford to the enemy; and since they could not, he would lead the enemy to them.

  Boguslav’s regiment was coming on at full sweep, and not more than a hundred yards distant; in a moment they could strike and scatter his Tartars. Pan Andrei raised the pipe to his mouth, and whistled so shrilly that the nearest dragoon horses rose on their haunches.

  That instant other pipes of the Tartar leaders repeated the whistle; and not so swiftly does the whirlwind twist the sand as that chambul turned its horses in flight.

  The remnant of the mailed cavalry, the red dragoons, and Boguslav’s regiment sprang after them with all speed.

  The shouts of the officers— “Naprzod (Forward)!” and “Gott mit uns (God with us)!” — rang like a storm, and a marvellous sight was seen then. Over the broad meadow rushed the disordered and confused chambul of Tartars, straight to the ford, which was rained on with bullets and balls; and they tore onward, as if carried with wings. Every Tartar lay on the horse, flattened himself, hid himself in the mane and the neck, in such fashion that had it not been for the cloud of arrows flying back toward the cavalry, it might be said that the horses were rushing on riderless; after them, with roaring, shouting, and trampling, followed gigantic men, with upraised swords gleaming in their right hands.

  The ford was nearer and nearer; there was half a furlong left yet, and evidently the Tartar horses were using their last strength, for the distance between them and the cavalry was quickly decreasing.

  A few moments later the front ranks of the pursuers began to cut with their swords the Tartars closing the rear. The ford was right there; it seemed that in a few springs the horses would be in it.

  Suddenly something wonderful happened.

  Behold, when the chambul had run to the ford, a shrill whistle of pipes was heard again on the wings, and the whole body, instead of rushing into the river to seek safety on the other bank, opened in two, and with the speed of swallows sprang to the right and left, with and against the flow of the river.

  But the heavy regiments, rushing right on their shoulders with the highest horse-speed, raced into the ford with the same force, and only when in the water did the horsemen begin to hold in their furious beasts.

  The cannon, which up to that moment had been showering a rain of iron on the gravel, were silent in a second; the gunners had to spare their own army.

  But Gosyevski was waiting for precisely that instant as for salvation.

  The cavalry were hardly in the water when the terrible royal squadron of Voynillovich rushed at it like a hurricane; then the Lauda, the Korsak, the two squadrons of the hetman, and the volunteer squadron; after that, the armored squadron of Prince Michael Radzivill.

  A terrible shout, “Kill, slay!” thundered in the air; and before the Prussian regiments could halt, concentrate, use their swords, the Voynillovich squadron had scattered them as a whirl of air scatters leaves; they crushed the red dragoons, pushed back Boguslav’s regiment, cut it in two, and drove it over the field toward the main army of Prussia.

  In one moment the river was red with blood. The cannon began to play again; but too late, for eight squadrons of Lithuanian cavalry were sweeping with thunder and roar over the meadow, and the whole battle was transferred to the other side of the river.

  The hetman was flying with one of his own squadrons, his face radiant with joy, and with fire in his eyes; for once he had the cavalry beyond the river, he was certain of victory.

  The squadrons, emulating one another in slashing and thrusting, drove before them the remnant of the dragoons and the cavalry, which fell in a dense body; for the heavy horses were not able to flee swiftly, and merely covered the pursuers against missiles from the front.

  Meanwhile Waldeck, Boguslav, Radzivill, and Israel sent forward all their cavalry to restrain the onset, and hastened themselves to p
ut the infantry in line. Regiment after regiment ran out of the tabor, and took their places on the plain. They thrust the butts of their heavy spears into the earth, with the heads pointing forward, inclined like a fence to the enemy.

  In the next rank musketeers stretched forward the barrels of their muskets. Between the quadrangles of regiments they placed cannon in hot haste. Neither Boguslav nor Waldeck nor Israel flattered themselves that their cavalry could restrain that of the Poles very long, and their whole hope was in the artillery and the infantry. Meanwhile in front of the infantry the mounted regiments struck breast against breast. But that happened which the Prussian leaders foresaw.

  The pressure of the Lithuanian cavalry was so terrible that their opponents could not restrain them for one moment, and the first hussar regiments split them as a wedge splits wood, and went without breaking a lance through the dense mass, as a ship driven by strong wind goes through waves. The streamers were visible nearer and nearer; at times the heads of the hussar horses rose above the throng of the Prussians.

  “On your guard!” cried the officers, standing in the quadrangle of infantry.

  At this word the Prussian soldiers braced themselves more firmly on their feet, and strained their arms holding the spears; and all hearts were beating violently, for the terrible hussars had come wholly in sight, and were bearing down straightway against them.

  “Fire!” was the word of command.

  Muskets rattled in the second and third ranks of the quadrangle. Smoke covered the men. A moment later the roar of the coming squadron was nearer. They are right there! All at once, amid the smoke, the first rank of infantry see there above them, almost over their heads, thousands of horses’ hoofs, wide nostrils, inflamed eyes; a crash of broken spears is heard; a fearful shout rends the air; Polish voices shouting, “Slay!” and German voices, “Gott erbarme Dich meiner (God have mercy on me)!”

  That regiment is broken, crushed; but in the spaces between other regiments cannon begin to play. Other squadrons come up. Each one strikes after a moment on a forest of lances; but perhaps not every one will break the forest which it strikes, for none has such terrible force as Voynillovich’s squadron. Shouting increases on the whole field of battle. Nothing can be seen; but from the mass of combatants groups of yellow infantry escape in disorder, fleeing from some regiment which evidently was also beaten.

  Horsemen in gray colors pursue, cut, and trample these men, and shout, —

  “Lauda! Lauda!”

  That was Volodyovski, who with his squadron had fought against a second quadrangle.

  But others were “sticking” yet; victory might still incline to the Prussians, especially as at the tabor stood two regiments intact, which, since the tabor was safe, might be summoned at any moment.

  Waldeck had in truth lost his head. Israel was not present, for he had been sent with the cavalry; but Boguslav was watching and managing everything. He led the whole battle, and seeing the increase of great peril, sent Pan Byes for those regiments.

  Byes urged on his horse, and half an hour later returned bareheaded, with terror and despair in his face.

  “The horde is in the tabor!” shouted he, hurrying up to Boguslav.

  At that moment unearthly howling was heard on the right wing; this howling came nearer and nearer.

  Suddenly appeared crowds of Swedish horsemen approaching in terrible panic; after them were fleeing weaponless, bareheaded infantry; after the infantry, in confusion and disorder, came wagons drawn by wild and terrified horses. All this mass was rushing at random from the tabor toward the infantry in the meadow. In a moment they fell on the infantry, put them into disorder, scattered them, especially when in front they were pressed by Lithuanian cavalry.

  “Hassan Bey has reached the tabor!” cried Gosyevski, with ecstasy; and he let out his last two squadrons like falcons from their rest.

  At the same moment that these two squadrons strike the infantry in front, their own wagons rush against them on the flank. The last quadrangles burst as if under the stroke of a hammer. Of the whole brilliant Swedish-Prussian army there is formed one gigantic mass, in which the cavalry are mingled with the infantry. Men are overturning, trampling, and suffocating one another; they throw off their clothing, cast away their arms. The cavalry press them, cut them, crush them, mash them. It is no longer a battle lost; it is a ruin, one of the most ghastly of the war.

  Boguslav, seeing that all was lost, resolved to save at least himself and some of the cavalry. With superhuman exertion he collected a few hundred horsemen, and was fleeing along the left wing in the direction of the river’s course.

  He had already escaped from the main whirl, when Prince Michael Radzivill, leading his own hussars, struck him on the flank and scattered his whole detachment at a blow. After this Boguslav’s men fled singly or in small groups. They could be saved only by the speed of their horses.

  In fact, the hussars did not pursue, but struck on the main body of infantry, which all the other squadrons were cutting to pieces. The broken detachment fled over the field like a scattered herd of deer.

  Boguslav, on Kmita’s black steed, is rushing like the wind, striving in vain by cries to gather around him even a few tens of men. No one obeys him; each man flees on his own account, glad that he has escaped from the disaster, and that he has no enemy in front of him. But rejoicing was vain. They had not gone a thousand yards when howling was heard in front, and a gray host of Tartars sprang forth from the river, near which they had been lurking till then.

  This was Kmita with his men. Leaving the field, after he had brought the enemy to the ford, he turned so as to cut off retreat to the fugitives.

  The Tartars, seeing the cavalry scattered, scattered themselves in a moment to catch them more easily, and a murderous pursuit began. Two or three Tartars cut off one trooper, and he rarely defended himself; more frequently he seized his rapier by the point, and extended the hilt to the Tartars, calling for mercy. But the Tartars, knowing that they could not lead these prisoners home, took only officers who could give ransom; the common soldiers received a knife in the throat, and died, unable to say even “God!” Those who fled to the last were stabbed in the back and shoulders; those under whom the horses did not fall were caught with lariats.

  Kmita rushed for a time over the field, hurling down horsemen and seeking Boguslav with his eyes; at last he beheld him, and knew him at once by the horse, by the blue ribbon, and the hat with black ostrich feathers.

  A cloud of white steam surrounded the prince; for just the moment before two Nogais had attacked him. One he killed with a pistol-shot, and the other he thrust through with a rapier; then seeing a larger party rushing from one side, and Kmita from the other, he pressed his horse with spurs, and shot on like a hunted deer followed by hounds.

  More than fifty men rushed in a body after him; but not all the horses ran equally, so that soon the fifty formed a long serpent, the head of which was Boguslav and the neck Kmita.

  The prince bent forward in his saddle; the black horse appeared not to touch the earth with his feet, but was black over the green grass, like a swallow sweeping close to the ground; the chestnut stretched his neck like a crane, put back his ears, and seemed as if trying to spring from his skin. Single willows, clumps of them, groups of alder, shot past; the Tartars were behind, a furlong, two, three furlongs, but they ran and ran. Kmita threw his pistols from the holsters to lighten the horse’s burden; with eyes fastened on Boguslav, with fixed lips, he almost lay on the neck of the horse, pricked his foaming sides with spurs, till soon the foam falling to the earth became rose-colored.

  But the distance between him and the prince not only did not decrease a single inch, but began to increase.

  “Woe!” thought Pan Andrei, “no horse on earth can overtake that one.”

  And when after a few springs the distance increased still more, he straightened himself in the saddle, let the sword drop on its pendant, and putting his hands around his mouth, shouted in a t
rumpet-like voice: “Flee, traitor, flee before Kmita! I will get you, if not to-day, to-morrow.”

  These words had barely sounded in the air, when on a sudden the prince, who heard them, looked around, and seeing that Kmita alone was pursuing, instead of fleeing farther described a circle, and with rapier in hand rushed upon him.

  Pan Andrei gave forth a terrible cry of joy, and without lessening speed raised his sabre for a blow.

  “Corpse! corpse!” shouted the prince; and wishing to strike the more surely, he restrained his horse.

  Kmita, when he had come up, held in his own beast till his hoofs sank in the earth, and rapier met sabre.

  They closed in such fashion that the two horses formed almost one body. A terrible sound of steel was heard, quick as thought; no eye could catch the lightning-like movement of rapier and sabre, nor distinguish the prince from Kmita. At times Boguslav’s hat appeared black, at times Kmita’s steel morion gleamed. The horses whirled around each other. The swords clinked more and more terribly.

  Boguslav, after a few strokes, ceased to despise his opponent. All the terrible thrusts which he had learned from French masters were parried. Sweat was now flowing freely from his face with the rouge and white; he felt weariness in his right arm already. Wonder seized him, then impatience, then rage; therefore he determined to finish, and he thrust so terribly that the hat fell from his head.

  Kmita warded with such force that the prince’s rapier flew to the side of the horse; and before Boguslav could defend himself again, Kmita cut him with the very end of the sabre in the forehead.

  “Christ!” cried the prince in German, rolling to the earth.

  He fell on his back.

  Pan Andrei was as if stunned for the moment, but recovered quickly. He dropped his sabre on its pendant, made the sign of the cross, sprang from his horse, and seizing the hilt, again approached the prince.

  He was terrible; for pale as a sheet from emotion, his lips were pressed, and inexorable hatred was in his face.

  Behold his mortal enemy, and such a powerful one, lying now at his feet in blood, still alive and conscious, but conquered, and not with foreign weapons nor with foreign aid.