“Well,” Godebski said after a while, “they do say the darkest hour comes before dawn.”
“Fool! The darkest hour doesn’t come before dawn,” I retorted, “the darkest hour comes before everything goes completely black! Suvarov is coming!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
FINIS POLONIAE, OCTOBER 1794
One minute you’re riding the horse – the next minute you’re under it. On the 10 October, the Commander, outnumbered four to one, was defeated at Maciejowice, forty miles south of Warsaw. He was trying to break through the ring of enemy armies that encircled us. It was said by the Prussians that he shrieked – like a woman! – ‘Finis Poloniae!’ – this is the end of Poland! – as he was shot from his horse. Of course this story was not true, but what difference did it make?
We had lost.
Madame L gave us orders, coldly and quietly, at the crack of dawn. There were only ten of us – Godebski, Tanski, myself, and seven private soldiers. Sierawski had rejoined the engineers, and would not go with us. We stood in her courtyard by the stables. Our eyes fell to the ground. Our chins sank into our chests. Up above, in the heavens, only Twardowski bore witness as the rest of Europe averted its gaze. Poland might as well have been on the moon.
“Farewell, boys,” said Madame L. We gathered up our bags, our few weapons, the trunks of gold and trinkets, and our reluctant passengers, for now there were not two but four ladies, the wives of important officers. Madame Z was wailing most piteously at the time. She was inconsolable. For her husband, the wild-haired cavalry general Zayonczek, was to stay behind.
“Hush, dearest,” said Madame L, clasping the lady’s milk-white hands, “God will protect him.”
“What, as God has protected us?” she cried in fear and desperation. Madame L embraced her as she sobbed. “God has forsaken us all!”
“What the hell is the matter with her, the damned insufferable woman?” said Tanski, blunt as always.
“Have a care, Kasimir,” I replied, “she is only a woman, after all. She may bathe her skin in ice, but not her heart. Zayonczek leads our army now, and we all know what that means.”
We said nothing about this, in case she heard us, although judging by her anguished cries Madame Z was all too sensible of her husband’s fate. It was, we all knew, a death sentence. Even if he survived, by some miracle, the Russians would take him to Siberia, whilst the Prussians would simply put him up against a wall – ‘shot whilst escaping’. As a known Jacobin he would receive no mercy.
“Quite right too,” Tanski retorted, insensitive as ever, “he is the commander now, it is his duty to die, and it is all exactly as it should be. A pox on that Huguenot harlot – will she not hurry up?”
There was fire in the sky. Suvarov was here.
“Why is it that women always take so long to get ready?” we sighed in frustration. If only I had known the trouble that would have been caused by Tanski and Zayonczek’s wife, more than a decade later, why, I would have left them both behind for Suvarov.
“Hurry up!” champed Tanski. For it was the barbarian, the invincible, our nemesis, who came for us now. Suvarov had raised a new Russian army in the Ukraine and marched on Warsaw, destroying everything in his path.
We made haste to leave. Before I mounted I tightened Muszka’s saddle. My horse! It was still a joy and a consolation to be back with my horse, even on that darkest of days. Muszka still sucked in as much air as he could to try to bulge out his belly, and loosen the girth. Before he could take another breath, I tightened the strap to its proper proportion, greatly satisfied.
“Why are you grinning, Blumer?” Godebski asked. “the Russians come, and yet you laugh!”
“Blumer is only happy when things are bad,” Tanksi observed sourly.
“By God, it is good to be back in the cavalry, though, or near enough,” I smiled, as I swung myself up into the saddle. We had lances, swords, muskets and pistols, but as ever, bullets and gunpowder were in short supply. We had long since exhausted the supply of grenades. We had wineskins and waterskins, bread and hard tack, only enough for seven days. Besides Muszka, I had a string of six remounts and pack animals. Each was laden with either supplies or a tearful lady refugee. These would encumber us mightily, but they were also our sacred charges, and we were ordered to defend them to the death.
“What makes her think we can get through, when the Commander did not?” Tanski asked me. “Ten of us, and a few women, against the world!”
Godebski began to berate us for cowards. I intervened.
“You misunderstand. We are simple soldiers, Cyprian,” I said, “We do not fear bullets or swords, only the disgrace of the noose – that is, being hanged as common spies.”
“Then fear not, comrades,” Godebski smiled. This cloak-and-dagger business was not new to him. He had been doing Madame L’s dirty work for years. “Where there is no room for a horse, there may be room for a sparrow. We will slip through their grasp, like water through a sieve.”
“We’ll be caught like flies in a web, more like,” muttered Tanski, shaking his head. “See, how the spider draws near!”
Madame L’s fine house lay on the west of the river. The west is the smart side, for the nobility and the fine folks. To the east of the river lies Praga. Praga is the poor relation. Dirty old Praga, on the east of the green, greasy old river. Happy years I spent living there. My old lodgings – a crumbling dilapidated boarding house, sawdust on the floor, small fire in the grate, a hard-faced old landlady. No cursing, no drinking, no house guests, no late nights, all rent in advance.
Over the months and years, I had won her over, walking her to church, bringing her shiny brass buttons and cambric purloined from the cavalry stores, mending the roof and stable. In exchange, she fattened me up on beer, pierogi and apple cake, and turned a blind eye to my nocturnal comings and goings, as I drank, danced and gambled away the days and nights.
In all probability my old landlady would not live to see the sunrise. The Russians came from the east, forced the lines open, and breached the walls. The day of the Slaughter of Praga was attended by the most horrid and unnecessary barbarities – houses burnt, women massacred, infants at the breast pierced with the pikes of Cossacks, and universal plunder. The whole of Praga was strewn with dead bodies. Blood was flowing in streams.
We saw the fire across the river. We heard the screams, the cannon, the musketry. We had seen enough of Suvarov to know what was in store for Praga, and with the same fate prepared for Warsaw. A plague of despair spread through us.
“This is the end of Poland!” came a desperate cry.
Madame L rounded on us. Her eyes shone with defiance.
“Poland is not dead, not as long as we live,” she called. “Remember that! Now go, my boys! Godspeed, and may the Blessed Virgin protect you,” she said, and made the sign of the cross. Godebski bowed from the saddle, doffing his czapka. He took her hand and kissed it. He had Sobieski’s standard in his other hand, and he raised it above his head, the red and white colours whipping in the wind, the colours of blood and heaven.
We swept out of the courtyard of Madame L’s villa, westwards out of Warsaw, leaving the city burning behind us. Behind us the towers were falling. From that day forward Poland was dead, as dead as Troy or Byzantium. Nothing but a myth. These were to be the years of exile, of captivity, of wandering in the wilderness. Thus, we descended into the tomb.
We rode west, fleeing from Suvarov’s army of savages. We quit the city unopposed and rode through the Prussian lines. Sparrows can fly where a hawk may not, and even the mouse can crawl through a hole to escape the cat.
After we had ridden west for a day, we halted in a thinly wooded forest to see out the night. The next morning we saw clouds of dust on the horizon– marching columns of Prussians – and grey lines of smoke. Now we were well behind enemy lines. Godebski and I spread a map over a tree stump, as if it were a tablecloth, and argued. Our ladies took the opportunity to pick mushrooms. Morning passed into aft
ernoon, shadows lengthened. We lit no fires, but the smell of burning permeated the air. The Great Whore was dining on Warsaw, and its bones burned on her fire.
Tanski lay on the ground for much of the time. A worrying air of despondency had overwhelmed him. Eventually we made him guard the women – a pointless exercise, but at least it occupied his mind. In the gathering dark the ladies put down their baskets and took up their psalters and rosaries. Beads clicked softly like grasshoppers in the dark. Godebski doused the oil lamp and rolled up the map.
“We make for Krakow, which is held by the Austrians. They have a far more lenient and negligent disposition than our other enemies. If Sierawski lives, we’ll meet him there.”
We rode in a great horseshoe away from Warsaw, then back towards it, then away and southwards. This sweep took us, as we had hoped, behind the advancing Prussians. Now it took us back towards the Russian lines.
As we rode on, dancing flames lit up the night, near and far. Demented screams of pain and fear rang through the darkness. Our horses ran on, trusting our wisdom as masters. In that eternal dark my blind steed could easily break his leg in a ditch or a rabbit hole, and I my neck. We were all experienced riders, and singularly aware of this grave danger. Throughout it all, the crawling fear of running afoul of Cossacks, whose handiwork we saw and heard in the screams, the flames, and the desecrated bodies of the slain. As we rode, we rode through the very hell.
Each was alone with his thoughts, his terror, and the demons. My weapons could not help me now, this empty pistol and rusty sabre. I tried to put my trust in God, in the cross around my neck, but felt nothing but an empty angry hunger for murder and vengeance in my soul.
Help us, O God! In the hour of need, send your legions of archangels! Place the fiery sword in my hand! Heed my prayer! As God was my witness, as I rode through that awful blackness, I made a promise. I swore on my mother’s grave that I would see Moscow burn, razed to the ground, and take the torch to it myself. I would avenge Praga.
Then I chanced to gaze up, in the depths of my despair, calling on Jesus and Mary. Up in the vault of the heavens was the silver globe of the moon. I saw, quite distinctly, a face. A face in the surface of the moon. His eyes were in the craters and canyons. His nose and mouth and crooked teeth were in the twisting rivers and canals of that white moon. It was, unmistakably, the face of the old man, Twardowski, with his spider perched on his shoulder, like a monkey, and a thread of silver silk hanging like a noose.
God can’t help you now, boy, said the old man. Only I can. Twardowski’s words were soft, and faint, but as clear as the priest in the confessional dark, lulling through the screen and the velvet. Around me, the smoke transformed into incense, but my horse’s nostrils were full of the stink of brimstone.
Then help me, damn you! Lo and behold, the clouds of smoke evaporated, melting away like phantoms. The lines of Cossacks were gone. We rode out, every one of us whole and unharmed, but missing half of our mules and pack beasts, who had been lost along the way – including, to our horror, the one carrying Sobieski’s precious flag.
We halted at a stream, near the village of Mogilinami, the crystal waters running clear. Sparkling diamonds of light reflected on it. Madame Z plunged into the icy waters, her gown billowing around her like angels’ wings. She climbed out, unabashed, the gown clinging to her skin. We pretended to hide our eyes behind our czapkas and the women laughed. We broke bread, and we thanked God.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
A SPLENDID STACK OF FIREWOOD, NOVEMBER 1794
The manor house was single-storied with a grand colonnade flanking the massive iron-bound door. The door hung open, smashed from its hinges. From walnut floor to oak beams, every last splinter of that damned house was wood, aye, all save the glass in the windows. It was a grand nobleman's mansion, and a splendid stack of firewood at that. Nearby was a stone bastion, for defence, and the Russians swarmed over it, like ants.
“You can see them through the glass. Be careful! Don’t draw down the light.”
“How many?”
“A dozen, maybe.”
“What are they doing?”
“What else? Looting, of course,” Cyprian said, putting up the telescope, and passing it back to me. There were books scattered on the ground, like dead ravens in the snow. Soldiers ran in and out of the house carrying bundles of them. Beyond the entrance hall would be the library, the trophy room and the armoury, full of old muskets and the stuffed heads of wild beasts. The Russians were emptying each room in turn, and flinging their loot into a train of covered caissons.
“Damned if I know why they’re stealing books,” I said, “the ignorant bastards probably can’t read.” I knew not how truly I spoke. In the Blue Palace in Warsaw, by the Saxon Garden, was the Library. A serene labyrinth of rooms, adorned with marble statues, and with glorious books rising up to the heavens, it was my favourite place in the whole world. The oldest and finest library in Europe, I learned later that it was the first thing the Russians plundered when they took Warsaw. To this day, half a million volumes languish in St Petersburg, like slaves in the gulag, unread by their witless gaolers. Here was the same larceny, but on a pettier scale, as they robbed this blameless manor house near the village of Krzywacze.
“Ignorant or not,” said Cyprian, putting up the telescope, “they stand between us and our escape.”
We had been tracked for days by a troop of Cossacks, and now we were caught between hammer and anvil. In that time we had lost two men and another two horses.
“Madame said no fighting,” I reminded him, laughing, and checking my pistols.
“What Madame doesn’t know won’t hurt her,” Cyprian replied. We drew up a hasty plan as the Russians caroused, for they had found the vodka and the wine. They were pouring it down their necks as fast as the liquor would flow.
“Blumer will go behind the house,” Cyprian said, “and I will clear out the bastion. As soon as battle is joined,” he told Tanski, “you will take the other five soldiers, the ladies, and those blasted trinkets, whatever remains of them. Ride straight through these scoundrels, then ride like hell for Krakow. We’ll cover your retreat. Don’t wait for us – that is an order.”
“Sir,” Tanski saluted, and stared at us doubtfully. We shook hands, and he was gone. Cyprian and I drew our pistols and stuck our bayonets in our belts. Then Cyprian was gone behind the bastion. He was fleet of foot, and as stealthy as a ghost. I vaulted over a low fence, and trampled through a herb garden, as I traversed the house.
In the garden, I found three pathetic bodies crumpled in the snow, like broken dolls. A man, a woman, and a boy. A Russian soldier sat beside them, stupefied with drink, his musket lying against the wall. A bloody bayonet was fixed to the muzzle. I picked up the musket, thrust the bayonet into his belly, and moved on.
As I emerged at the front of the house, I faced a number of the Russians. They were preparing to raze the house to the ground, having broken the windows and tossed in bales of straw. It was an act of wanton destruction. Absorbed in their evil task, they took no notice of me. A fat sergeant flung a flaming torch through the front door. Then I heard gunshots, and many things happened all at once.
A Russian officer staggered from the bastion, blood pouring from his eyeless face. Tanski’s horsemen hurtled past the front porch, wildly firing pistols. Several Russians, stupefied with drink, stood and gawped at them. They stared at the ladies, wrapped in white, as they hurtled by, full tilt. Tanski halted, and watched as the rest of his precious little convoy rode past. He counted them off, like a mother goose with her chicks. Then he tipped his czapka, caracoled his horse, and was gone.
“After them!” roared the fat sergeant, rousing his dumbfounded corps of arsonists. A column of flame blazed through the middle of the house, raising the roof. Heat scorched my face and burned the hairs from the back of my hands. I walked up to the sergeant, placed my pistol against the side of his head, and pulled the trigger. I wiped the sergeant’s blood from my eyes w
ith my sleeve. I remember the driver of one of the caissons staring at me. The traces were empty and the horses gone. His face contorted into a cry of fear and anger. He lashed his whip. I felt it kiss my cheek. Drawing my second pistol, and closing the gap with a few strides, I shot him through the liver at point-blank range.
Not a moment later, a young lad, crouched behind the caisson wheel with his pistol, returned the favour. It was as if I had been struck with an axe. All sensation passed from my body. With a groan I sank to the ground between the man I had lately shot, and the other man who had lately shot me. It was as if the very Devil had reached up from hell and struck me down!
I dropped my sabre, for I was fading fast. There is a hole in my leg, I thought. My belt and sash served for a tourniquet, and the bleeding staunched. I saw blood, dripping like tears. When I chanced to gaze up, the house was ablaze from end to end.
Curling claws of smoke rose from the chimney pot, the windows, the doors, and grasped up for the heavens. Coffers and planks flared out yellow tongues. The wood oozed and blackened, twisted and turned. Blizzards of sparks, like a snowstorm blowing in hell. Smoke and flames blinded us, Poles and Russians alike. Waves of heat seared our flesh. Horses reared, broke free from their fetters, and ran screaming into the dark.
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