On the Field of Glory

Henryk Sienkiewicz

On the Field of Glory: An Historical Novel of the Time of King John Sobieski

My Dear Sir Thomas:

Railroads are to nations what arteries and veins are to each individual. Every part of a nation enjoys common life with every other through railroads. Books bring remote ages to the present, and assemble the thoughts of mankind and of God in one divine company. I find great pleasure on railroads in the day and the night, at all seasons. You enjoy books with a keen and true judgment. Let me inscribe to you, therefore, this volume.

INTRODUCTORY

The book before us gives pictures of Polish character and life on the eve of the second great siege of Vienna.

Twice was that city beleaguered by Turkey. The first siege was commanded by Solyman, that Sultan who was surnamed Magnificent by western nations; to Turks he was known as the Lord of his Age and the Lawgiver.

The first siege was repelled by the bravery of the garrison, by the heroism of Count Salm its commander, by the terrible weather of 1529, and also through turbulence of the Janissary forces. The second siege was crushed in 1683 by Sobieski's wise strategy, the splendid impetus of the Poles, and the firmness of the allies.

Had the Polish king not appeared the Sultan would have triumphed, hence Sobieski and his men are hailed ever since as the saviours of Vienna.

The enthusiasm of the time for Sobieski and his force was tremendous.

"There was a man sent from God whose name was John," this was the Gospel read at the Thanksgiving Mass in Saint Stephen's, the cathedral, the noble old church of that rescued and jubilant city. Some Poles went to Rome after that to get relics; the Pope gave this answer: "Take earth steeped in blood from the field where your countrymen fell at Vienna."

Many times have men here in America asked me: Are the Poles really held by such an intensity of passion? if they are, why does it seize them, whence does it come, what is the source and the cause of it? I reply to these questions as best I am able, and truthfully: It comes from the soul of the Slavs in some part, and in some part from history. The Poles have as a race their original gift to begin with; this gift, or race element, has met in its varied career certain peoples, ideas, and principles. The result of this meeting is this: that the Polish part of the Slav world holds touching itself an unconquerable ideal. It has absorbed, as it thinks, certain principles from which it could not now separate.

The Poles could not if they would, and would not if they could, be dissevered from that which, as they state, they have worked out in history, that which no power on earth can now take from them, and to which they are bound with the faith of a martyr.

Through ideas and principles, that is, truths gained in their experience as a people, and which in them are incarnate and living, the Poles feel predestined to triumph, time, of course, being given.

What are these ideas and principles? men ask of me often. Combined all in one they mean the victory and supremacy of Poland. They have been worked out during centuries, I answer, of Polish experience with Germany, with Russia, with Rome and Byzantium, with Turks and with Tartars. But beyond all do they come as the fruit of collisions with Germany and Russia, and as the outcome of teachings from Rome and the stern opposition of Byzantium. Through this great host of enemies and allies, and their own special character, came that incisive dramatic career which at last met a failure so crushingly manifest.

The inward result and the spiritual harvest to be reaped from this awful catastrophe are evident only through what is revealed in the conduct, the deeds, and the words of the people who had to wade through the dreadful defeat and digest the experience.

Polish character in most of its main traits was developed completely even earlier than the days of Sobieski, and the men who appeared then in action differ little from those of the present, hence the pictures in this volume are perfectly true and of far-reaching interest in our time.

January, 1906.

CHAPTER I

The winter of 1682-83 was a season of such rigor that even very old people could not remember one like it. During the autumn rain fell continually, and in the middle of November the first frost appeared, which confined waters and put a glass bark upon trees of the forest. Icicles fastened on pines and broke many branches. In the first days of December the birds, after frequent biting frosts, flew into villages and towns, and even wild beasts came out of dense forests and drew near the houses of people. About Saint Damasius' day the heavens became clouded, and then snow appeared; ten days did it fall without ceasing. It covered the country to a height of two ells; it hid forest roads, it hid fences, and even cottage windows. Men opened pathways with shovels through snow-drifts to go to their granaries and stables; and when the snow stopped at last, a splitting frost came, from which forest trees gave out sounds that seemed gunshots.

Peasants, who at that time had to go to the woodlands for fuel, went in parties to defend themselves, and were careful that night should not find them at a distance from the village. After sunset no man dared leave his own doorstep unless with a fork or a bill-hook, and dogs gave out, until daylight, short frightened yelps, as they do always when barking at wolves which are near them.

During just such a night and in such a fierce frost a great equipage on runners pushed along a forest road carefully; it was drawn by four horses and surrounded by attendants. In front, on a strong beast, rode a man with a pole and a small iron pot on the end of it; in this pot pitch was burning, not to make the road visible, for there was moonlight, but to frighten away wolves from the party. On the box of the equipage sat a driver, and on a saddled horse a postilion, and at each side rode two men armed with muskets and slingshots.

The party moved forward very slowly, since the road was little beaten and in places the snow-drifts, especially at turnings, rose like waves on the roadway.

This slowness disturbed Pan Gideon Pangovski, who, relying on his numerous attendants and their weapons, had determined to travel, though in Radom men had warned him of the danger, and all the more seriously since in going to Belchantska he would have to pass the Kozenitse forests.

Those immense forests began at that period a good way before Yedlina, and continued far beyond Kozenitse to the Vistula, and toward the other side of the Stenjytsa, and northward to Rytchivol.

It had seemed to Pan Gideon that, if he left Radom before midday, he would reach home very easily at sunset. Meanwhile he had been forced in a number of places to open the road close to fences; some hours were lost at this labor, so that he came to Yedlina about twilight. Men there gave the warning that he would better remain for the night in the village; but since at the blacksmith's a pitch light had been found to burn before the carriage, Pan Gideon commanded to continue the journey.

And now night had surprised him in the wilderness.

It was difficult to go faster because of increasing snowdrifts; hence Pan Gideon was more and more disquieted and at last fell to swearing, but in Latin, lest he frighten the two ladies who were with him, Pains Vinnitski his relative and his ward Panna Anulka Sieninski.

Panna Anulka was young and high-hearted, in no degree timid. On the contrary, she drew aside the leather curtain at the window, and, commanding the horseman at the side not to stop the view to her, looked at the drifts very joyfully, and at the pine trunks with long strips of snow on them over which played reddish gleams from the pitch pot, which with the moonlight made moving figures very pleasant to her eyesight. Then rounding her lips to the form of a bird bill she began to whistle, her breath became visible and was rosier than firelight, this too amused her.

But Pani Vinnitski, who was old and quite timid, fell to complaining.

Why leave Radom, or at least why not pass the night in Yedlina since they had been warned of the danger? All this through some person's stubbornness. To Belchantska there was a long piece of road yet, and all in a forest, hence wolves would meet them undoubtedly, unless Raphael, the Archangel and patron of travellers, would pity them in their wandering, but alas, of this they were quite undeserving.

When he heard this opinion, Pan Gideon became thoroughly impatient. To speak of being lost in the wilderness was all that was needed to upset him.

The road for that matter was straight, and as for wolves, well, they would or would not come. He had good attendants, and besides, a wolf is not anxious to meet with a warrior-not only because he fears him far more than a common man, but also because of the love which the quick-witted beast has for warriors.

The wolf understands well that no dweller in towns and no peasant will give him food gratis; the warrior alone is the man who feeds wolves, and at times in abundance, hence it is not without reason that men have called war "the wolf's harvest."

But still Pan Gideon speaking thus, and praising the wolves in some small degree, was not quite convinced of their affection; hence he was thinking whether or not to command an attendant to slip from his horse and sit next the young lady. In such case he himself would defend one door of the carriage, and that attendant the other, while the freed horse would either rush off ahead or escape in the rear, and thus draw the wolves after him.

But the time to do this had not come, as it seemed to Pan Gideon. Meanwhile he placed near his ward on the front seat, a knife and two pistols; these he wished to have near him since he had only his right hand for service.

They advanced some furlongs farther in quiet, and the road was growing wider. Pan Gideon, who knew the way perfectly, drew breath as if relieved somewhat.

"The Malikov field is not far," said he.

In every case he hoped for more safety in that open space than in the forest.

But just then the attendant in front turned his horse suddenly, and, rushing to the carriage, spoke hurriedly to the driver and to others, who answered abruptly, as men do when there is no time for loitering.

"What is it?" asked Pan Gideon.

"Some noise in the field."

"Is it wolves?"

"Some outcry. God knows what!"

Pan Gideon was on the point of commanding the horseman with the torch to spring forward and see what was happening, when he remembered that in cases like this it was better not to be without fire and to keep all his people together, and, further, that defence in the open is easier than in a forest, so he commanded to move on with the equipage.

But after a while the horseman reappeared at the window.

"Wild boars," said he.

"Wild boars!"

"A terrible grunting is heard on the right of the road."

"Praise God for that!"

"But perhaps wolves have attacked them."

"Praise God for that also! We shall pass unmolested. Move on!"

In fact the guess of the attendant proved accurate. When they had driven out to the field they saw, at a distance of two or three bow-shots on the right near the road, a dense crowd of wild boars, and a circle of wolves moving nimbly around them. A terrible grunting, not of fear but of rage, was given out with growing vigor. When the sleigh reached the middle of the plain, the men, watching from the horses, observed that the wolves had not dared yet to rush at the wild boars; they only pressed on them more and more eagerly.

The boars had arranged themselves in a round compact body, the young in the middle, the old and the strong on the outside, thus, as it were, forming a moving and terrible fortress, which gleamed with white tusks and was impervious to attack or to terror.

Between the garland of wolves and that wall of tusks and snouts a white, snowy ring was clearly visible, since the whole field was in moonlight.

Some of the wolves sprang up to the boars, but they sprang back very quickly, as if frightened by the clash of the tusks and the more terrible outbursts of grunting. If the wolves had closed in battle with the boars the struggle would have then held them completely, and the sleigh might have passed without notice; but since this had not happened, there was fear lest they might stop that dreadful onset and try then another one.

Indeed after a while a few dropped away from the pack and ran toward the party, after them followed others. But the sight of armed men confused them; some began to follow the sleigh, others stopped a few tens of steps from it, or ran around with mad speed, as if to urge themselves on to the equipage.

The attendants wished to fire, but Pan Gideon forbade them, lest gunshots might bring the whole pack to his people.

Meanwhile the horses, though accustomed to wolves, began to push to one side and turn their heads to their flanks with loud snorting, but soon something worse happened, and this raised the danger a hundredfold.

The young horse which the torchbearer was riding reared suddenly once, and a second time, and then rushed madly sidewise.

The rider, knowing that were he to fall he would be torn to bits the next moment, seized hold of his saddle-bow, but dropped his pot the same instant; the light sank in the snow deeply; the flame threw out sparks and was extinguished. The light of the moon was alone on that plain then.

The driver, a Russ from Pomorani, began to pray; the Mazovian attendants fell to cursing.

Emboldened by darkness, the wolves pressed on with more insolence, and from the direction of the wild boars some fresh ones ran up to them. A few came rather near, with snapping teeth, and the hair standing straight on their shoulders. Their eyes were all bloodshot, and a greenish light flashed from them.

A moment had come which was really terrible.

"Shall we shoot?" inquired one of the escort.

"Frighten them with shouts," said Pan Gideon.

Thereupon rose with keenness, "A-hu! a-hu!" The horses gained courage, and the wolves, impressed by the voices of men, withdrew some tens of paces.

Then a still greater wonder was manifest.

All at once forest echoes from behind repeated the shouts of the attendants, but with rising force, ever louder and louder, as it were outbursts of wild laughter; and some moments later a crowd of dark horsemen appeared at both sides of the carriage and shot past with all the speed of their beasts toward the wild boars and the wolves which encircled them.

In the twinkle of an eye neither wolves nor boars held the snow plain; they had scattered as if a whirlwind had struck them. Gunshots were heard, also shouts, and again those strange outbursts of laughter. Pan Gideon's attendants rushed after the horsemen, so that there remained at the sleigh only the postilion and the driver.

Inside the sleigh there was such mighty amazement that no one dared move a lip for some moments.

"But the word became flesh!" called out Pani Vinnitski, at last. "That must be help from above us."

"May it be blessed, whencesoever it came. Our plight was growing evil," said Pan Gideon.

"God sent those young knights!" said Panna Anulka, who wished to add her word.

It would have been difficult to divine how this maiden could have seen that those men were knights and young, in addition, for they shot past like a whirlwind; but no person asked for her reasons, since the older man and woman were occupied overmuch with what was happening before them.

Meanwhile, on the plain the sounds of pursuit were heard yet for the space of some Our Fathers, and not very far from the sleigh was a wolf with its back broken, evidently by a sling-shot. The beast was on its haunches and howling so dreadfully that every one shivered.