Poland: A Novel Part 7

'Each man a warrior. Each man on the fastest horse you've ever seen.' He hesitated, desiring to nail down the agreement. 'You promise there'll be looting?'

'There will be,' Pawel a.s.sured him, but one of the Lithuanians warned: 'No killing of women and children.'

'That happens only under necessity,' Tughril said, dismissing the implied criticism of Tatar methods.

'There will be no killing of women,' the Lithuanian repeated.

'Not even in the German towns we capture?'

'Not even there.'

Tughril shrugged his shoulders as if he had been instructed not to use bowmen against a stone castle; if that was the rule, so be it.

The compact was arranged: Tughril promised that fifteen hundred Tatar hors.e.m.e.n would leave Kiev on the first of May 1410 and arrive in the north one week before 24 June, the day the battle was to begin. The four men embraced, heads were nodded sedately, and the mission was completed, confirmed-that is, unless the Teutonic Knights visited Kiev in the interim, converting the Tatars to their side with the promise that they could loot Polish villages.

When the three travelers reached the separation point, at Zhitomir, the Lithuanians headed north to report to Witold; Pawel, going west to inform Jagiello, had perplexing doubts as to the propriety of enlisting an infidel army in a fight against a Christian king, and he could still hear the voices of the German knights at Marienburg hammering on this very point. It did not seem right. It was a travesty to ally one's self with a Muhammadan in a fight against soldiers of the Pope. But the more he reflected on the matter the more he felt instinctively that in a battle of this magnitude and importance, it was much better to have Tughril fighting for you rather than against you. He was not unhappy with the outcome of his visit to Kiev.

All across Poland, that winter was spent in military husbandry: pikes were given new hafts, swords were sharpened or annealed if they had lost their temper; horses were shod and armor was closely fitted. And the peasant Janko of Bukowo told his wife: 'It's time to cut the ash,' so together they went into the Forest of Szczek where for some years he had been watching over a young ash tree, now about ten feet tall and three inches thick. At various intervals over a long period of time he had cut deep incisions into the trunk, into which he had inserted rather large pieces of jagged flint, encouraging the ensuing growth of the tree to close upon them, making their bases almost a part of the living tree but allowing their knifelike edges to protrude. Some two dozen of these implantations were now so securely wedded to the ash that nothing could dislodge them, not even the hardest blow against a suit of armor, and when Janko tested each with his thumb and forefinger he found it well rooted.

'I'll cut it first down here,' Janko said, 'to give me a good k.n.o.b, then up here for the handle.' He asked his wife's opinion, and with her smaller hands she grasped where the handle would be and said: 'Maybe it's too thick there,' but when he tested it he could find nothing wrong.

It was a solemn moment, deep in the woods, when a man was about to harvest the weapon on which his life would depend, and he could not bring himself to destroy the tree that he had tended for so long. Stepping back, he studied his home-grown war club once more and asked his wife if she really thought he was cutting to the right length. Grabbing the axe from him, she made a big gash at the lower end, then handed him the axe with the a.s.surance: 'It will be just right.'

From his various villages Kazimir of Castle Gorka a.s.sembled a battalion of one hundred and eighty-seven men all told, including himself. He had seventeen gentry of minor category, four or five of whom self-styled themselves as knights, a t.i.tle few outsiders recognized, about two dozen professional soldiers whom he paid, the rest knaves, farriers, armorers and peasants. One priest, Father Franciszek, completed the roster. Kazimir would allow no women or boys to accompany him, but his definition of the latter category was flexible, for the youngest knave was only thirteen.

They started north in May, like a minute streamlet heading for a distant ocean, but as they moved they acc.u.mulated other groups-sixty from this castle, only twenty from that, four hundred from Sandomierz-until by the middle of the month they const.i.tuted a vast throng marching slowly, resolutely toward an inevitable battle of tremendous magnitude. And one night as they camped well to the north, Pawel could imagine that in the lands ahead the German knights were doing the same, a.s.sembling from the farthest reaches of their territory, and from France and England and Holland as well. Only then did he appreciate what a t.i.tanic battle this was to be.

In the second week of June, only eleven days before the armistice was to end, the Polish forces were surprised by the arrival of three Teutonic Knights in full armor and bright trappings. They unfurled a flag of truce and sought to speak with King Jagiello: 'The Grand Master proposes that we extend the armistice for three weeks.'

'Why?' Jagiello asked, always suspicious that the Germans might seduce Cousin Witold to join them.

'Because knights from the other nations of Europe wish to partic.i.p.ate, and we feel that honor should not be denied them.'

'Sensible condition,' Jagiello said, and the extension was granted.

He did this not out of consideration for the Order, but because he judged that he could use the extra days constructively in aligning his heterogeneous units into a more compact battle array. He was especially insistent that the Tatar cavalrymen be used effectively.

His plan was threatened when Tughril's men did arrive-not the fifteen hundred promised, but only eleven hundred-for they proceeded at once to sack a village, as was their wont, but it turned out to be not a German village but a Lithuanian one, and Witold was enraged. The two leaders had a harsh meeting with Tughril, who looked contritely at Jagiello with one eye, at Witold with the other: 'Our men killed no women, as we promised.'

'You are to sack nothing till after the battle,' Witold said angrily.

'All right! I understand.'

On the next day Witold summoned Tughril to a bivouac area, where a branch of his Lithuanian troops had been marshaled, with a stack of tree trunks and planks in the center. Two of Witold's men, hearing about the Tatar sack of their village, had taken it upon themselves to do a little sacking of their own, and it was bad luck that they, too, had struck at a Lithuanian village, not a German one.

'Did you sack the village?' Witold shouted at them.

'Yes.'

'Then build your own gallows.' And everyone watched in silence as the two men stuck the tree trunks in the ground and fastened crossbars, which they secured with diagonal members. When the gibbets were in order, having been tested by Witold himself, he ordered the men to attach ropes to their necks, after which they were hauled into the air and left kicking.

'That's how we discipline our troops,' Witold snapped at the Tatar commander, who said: 'You lost two good soldiers that way.'

'What would you have done?'

'Forbidden them to share in the looting when we win.'

The extended armistice ended at sunset on 4 July 1410, but the battle did not begin on the following day because the two huge armies, like two great beasts on a darkened plain who knew that struggle was inevitable, moved and parried to gain advantage, and the Grand Master, who had been in such situations often before, laid clever traps to trick Jagiello. Deep trenches were dug and covered over with sod on planking intended to break the legs of the Polish cavalry, but crazy-eyed Tughril took one look at the areas from a distance, and because his focus danced back and forth, the camouflage became ridiculously obvious, and he told Jagiello: 'Charge your cavalry far to the south, then back up.'

On the sixth of July the armies sweated as each tried to outflank the other. On the seventh a heavy rain impeded everyone, but on the eighth the ground dried and it looked for a while as if the Teutonic Knights were going to charge, but Jagiello deftly withdrew to such a distance that the German horses would have been exhausted by the time they reached the Poles.

On July ninth the armies had moved so close together that engagement on the next day was inescapable, and late that afternoon the two generals made characteristic moves. The Grand Master brought his entire force onto open ground so that when dawn came their superior hors.e.m.e.n could sweep with terrible fury at the larger but less skilled body of the Polish-Lithuanian troops. And Jagiello, appreciating the superiority of the Germans, positioned his vast army deep among the trees, where the first charge of Germans could not reach them, for he intended to send his men forth when and how he wished.

As night fell each general prayed, and Von Jungingen asked his aides: 'Is it true that no Tatars joined them?' and his spies a.s.sured him: 'A chieftain named Tughril was supposed to come, but as always, he deserted at the last moment,' and Von Jungingen said: 'I'm glad. I don't want to face those little fleas. They confuse a battle.'

As midnight neared and the fatal day-10 July 1410-began, one could have imagined all Europe holding its breath, for this battle had been so long coming that its tremendous significance was widely understood. And then one of those curious twists of history occurred: the Teutonic Knights positioned their headquarters near the little village of Grunwald, while some three miles distant the Polish commanders slept not in but near to the equally small village of Stebark (Tannenberg), yet in subsequent history the Poles would call this the Battle of Grunwald, after the Teutonic headquarters, while the Germans would name it Tannenberg, after the Polish quarters, but both names would echo with tales of heroism, feats of honor, and dead innumerable.

Since the two villages lay far to the north, and since it was midsummer, the sun rose at about four in the morning, so at half after three Pawel of Bukowo was awakened and, with his serf Janko, was directed to help erect a tented chapel, where shortly after dawn King Jagiello, Witold of the Lithuanians and the other commanders reported for morning devotions.

A slight, misting rain obscured the proposed battlefield and a.s.sisted the warriors in that it kept the dust down, but as the commanders entered the chapel they could not keep from casting furtive glances at the terrain, calculating where and how their troops would move on this fateful day.

All the commanders were present except wild Tughril of the Tatars; as a pagan, he felt no need of Christian ritual, but when Jagiello sent for him particularly, dispatching Pawel to relay his request, the tough little horseman shrugged his shoulders, looked this way and that with his wandering eye, and said: 'Why not? On a day like this a man needs all the luck he can find,' and he marched to the chapel, where Jagiello greeted him with an embrace, standing him in the forefront.

When the priest finished the words of the Ma.s.s, ending with Christ's blessing on this great venture, Jagiello spoke: 'Brothers, we move this day to end the tyranny which has oppressed our lands. The Teutonic Knights will come against us with the blessing of the church and the cross of Christ upon their bosoms, but they come also clothed in lies. We ride forth with truth as our banner and the deep love of Jesus Christ as our s.h.i.+eld. To freedom! To victory!'

Kazimir of Gorka supposed that at the closing of the Ma.s.s, Jagiello would bring his cavalry out from the trees and line them up for battle, but the king did nothing of the sort. He talked with his captains, joking with those who seemed nervous, and when Kazimir asked: 'When do we move into battle position?' he replied with a broad smile: 'We don't.'

Jagiello was sixty years old that day, senior to any of his commanders or to any of the enemy leaders, and he had devised a plan which would give him every possible advantage, for his inescapable disadvantages were numerous and could destroy him if he made mistakes or wasted what power he had. The Poles had provided 18,000 knights, 12,000 retainers and 4,000 foot soldiers, to which must be added 11,000 Lithuanians and 1,100 Tatars, for a grand total of about 46,100 troops. But only a precious few were heavy cavalry; most of the Lithuanians were armed with clubs; he had only sixteen cannon; and in almost every respect the allied equipment was inferior to that of the German.

The Teutonic Knights could a.s.semble on this day 21,000 superb heavy cavalrymen, 6,000 ma.s.sively armed infantry, 5,000 servants trained in battle and armed better than most of the Lithuanians, and about one hundred excellent cannon capable of throwing with tremendous force b.a.l.l.s larger than a man's head. In addition, the Germans had the best field leaders in the world, men tested in many battles: Ulrich von Jungingen as Grand Master; Frederick von Wallenrode as Grand Marshal; Kuno von Lichtenstein, one of the finest swordsmen of the century, as Grand Commander; and Albrecht von Schwarzenberg, a marshal serving as Commander of Supply. Each of these men wore a suit of full armor, the chain-link kind and not the ma.s.sive plate favored by the Poles; each rode a huge horse; each carried a powerful lance which a young knight would not have been able to heft let alone handle; and each wore as a kind of special a.s.surance from G.o.d the huge black cross upon the front of his white tunic. Most important, each Teutonic Knight approached battle with the knowledge that his Order had known one smas.h.i.+ng victory after another since moving into Prussia.

Outnumbered in bodies, 46,100 Poles and allies to 32,000 Germans, the knights were vastly superior in armor, in horses, in experience and in battlefield leaders.h.i.+p. This was to be one of the decisive battles of the world, an immense clash of arms which would determine the history of the Baltic and the destiny of two emerging nations, Poland and Lithuania.

But still King Jagiello did nothing. Five o'clock came and the ma.s.sed Teutonic Knights could be seen waiting on the horizon, but no Poles opposed them. At six o'clock, when the sun was driving away the mists and making the summer fields oppressively hot, three Polish champions, the heart of the army, came to Kazimir of Gorka, asking him to intercede with them, and together they presented themselves to the king: Zawisza Czarny, Black Zawisza, known on many battlefields as the premier knight of the east; Jan Zyzka, the huge Czech who wielded the heaviest and deadliest sword; Firczyk of Plock, with the ma.s.sive iron ball at the end of its heavy link chain.

'Your Highness,' Zyzka said, 'we grow impatient.'

'But I do not,' the king replied, and then he revealed his strategy: 'Let them wait there in the hot sun. Let them wait all morning while we stay here among the cool trees. When they're exhausted by the heat and lack in water, only then do we engage them in battle.'

The three powerful champions were not entirely pleased with this strategy, but when the sun grew hotter at six and extremely hot at seven, they began to see the wisdom of their king's plan, for they remained under the trees where cool breezes were blowing.

At half after eight, when the Teutonic Knights were dripping with sweat, Grand Master von Jungingen engaged in a superb maneuver: he detached two of his finest knights, handed each a flowing banner and a handsome long sword, and thus armed, the two men, one showing a black eagle against a golden ground, the other a red griffon rising from a white field, cantered their horses easily across the intervening ground toward where the Poles waited amid the trees.

When their horses rested, about twenty yards from the Poles, one of the heralds cried in a loud voice: 'Lithuanians and Poles, Dukes Witold and Jagiello, if you are afraid to come out and fight, our Grand Master sends you these additional weapons.' And with contempt the heralds threw their swords point-down into the earth, where they quivered. 'Also, you cowardly ones, if you feel you require more room for your maneuvers, the Grand Master says that he will now withdraw our troops one mile to aid you.' And at a signal from the other herald, the Teutonic Knights on the distant field did turn about and retreat a full mile.

This insult enraged warriors like Black Zawisza and Jan Zyzka, but Jagiello remained unperturbed and sent one of his aides to recover the swords. Brandis.h.i.+ng one, he said: 'I accept both your swords and your choice of battleground, but the outcome of this day I entrust to the will of G.o.d.'

At this challenge the heralds withdrew, gave a signal indicating the failure of their mission, and wheeled their horses to rejoin the monstrous wave of their fellow knights as the latter prepared the charge which would rout the Poles and Lithuanians from their forest and destroy them.

Now Jagiello was ready, and with maneuvers as graceful as the unfolding of a petaled flower, the various groups of knights moved into their a.s.signed positions, each group edging forward to be first in the fray. Trumpets sounded. Cheers rose. And the allied forces waited for the savage charge of the Germans, who came over a slight rise waving their banners and chanting 'Christ has risen' as they bore down on the pagans.

In that first moment of battle disaster overtook Jagiello's troops, for with his customary skill the Grand Master had detected where the major weakness in Jagiello's dispositions would probably be, and he had dispatched his foremost cavalry, under the leaders.h.i.+p of Kuno von Lichtenstein, cras.h.i.+ng into that spot, where the eleven hundred Tatars with their light swift horses ab.u.t.ted the Lithuanians with their light armor.

When Tughril and his lieutenants from the steppes looked up the hill and saw this descending array of giant horses and equally giant Germans-four Germans to every Tatar-he made the only rational decision. He fled. Wheeling his horse before the Germans could get to him, he led his entire complement in undisciplined, chaotic flight. Away from the protecting trees and out onto the gently rolling fields the Tatars galloped, hoping that their speed would save them from the monstrous Germans, and any Tatar who fell even two horse lengths behind was cut down.

Cheering and shouting battle cries, the Teutonic Knights swept on, routing the men from Kiev completely. For more than five miles the chase continued, and whereas more than fifty Tatars were killed, not one Teutonic Knight was even badly wounded. It was as complete a victory as the Germans would gain that day, and it started their part of the battle with a burst of glory.

Of course, when the sweating knights returned from their rout of the Tatars, they were spread out and some were burdened with spoils lifted from dead bodies, and in this careless formation they pa.s.sed where Grand Duke Witold waited with a contingent of his best Lithuanians, and suddenly the knights were engaged in an entirely different kind of battle.

Now men of roughly comparable strength engaged one another, and the incessant clash of swords was like the rolling of thunder across a field. Lance countered lance, great two-handed swords clove enemies from neck to hip, horses whinnied and went down, throwing their masters under the hoofs of other horses, and a wild, confused and terrible hand battle raged for nearly half an hour, producing no victor. When Kuno von Lichtenstein fought clear and was able to rejoin the Teutonic commanders, he gasped: The Tatars proved craven, but those d.a.m.ned Lithuanians have learned to fight.' When questioned, he said gravely to the Grand Master: 'Sire, we can afford no more errors this day. It's going to be fierce battle to the end.'

In the third hour the Germans gained a notable advantage and one which came close to ending the battle altogether, and in their favor, for Marcin, the Chamberlain of Krakow, had been awarded the honor of bearing aloft at the heart of battle a big Polish flag marked with the sign of a white eagle, and when the Germans saw this they supposed, sensibly, that King Jagiello must be nearby, fighting at the head of his troops in the European fas.h.i.+on, not realizing that he had stationed himself atop a small hill well to the rear, in the tactic dictated by Genghis Khan and his inheritors.

With enormous courage and determination, a squadron of German knights crashed into Marcin, wounded him, and cast down his flag. In the average battle this would have signaled the defeat of the army to which the flag belonged, and the Germans so interpreted it, with hundreds of knights rus.h.i.+ng to kill the fallen king and disperse his immediate entourage.

But this was not an ordinary battle, and when the flag fell Black Zawisza and a remarkable Polish warrior named Florian of Korytnica rushed forward to defend it. Each Polish n.o.bleman had his own heraldic banner-eagle, bear, hawk, Kazimir of Gorka with his castle-but Florian, who loved battle the way some men love wine, had as his insignia a twisted length of human gut, testifying to the fact that even in the remotest part of his intestines, he had never known fear. At his side galloped the mighty Jan Zyzka, and these men not only saved their flag, they drove back the cras.h.i.+ng knights and used this event not as an excuse to surrender, as the Germans had antic.i.p.ated, but to renew the battle.

It was now two in the afternoon, the hottest time of that long, brutal day, and Jagiello's strategy began to show results. The German knights, among the bravest men in the world, had been sweating in the saddle since dawn and some were beginning to tire, especially those who had galloped after the fleeing Tatars. And it was at this precise time that Jagiello released a contingent of his knights who had not yet seen battle, and when these rested warriors joined the fray, the line of German knights was slowly driven back.

But this was exactly what the Grand Master had planned, and waiting until the Poles were extended, he threw in a huge reserve of his own, and these powerful men began to smash the Poles.

The fight was now a general melee, single sword against single sword, one horseman galloping after another and cutting him down from the rear. Like the echo of a vast storm, the sounds of battle rose and fell over the fields of Tannenberg-Grunwald, and the dead fell like wheat stalks cut down by summer hail.

In the individual fighting, the advantage seemed to lie with the Germans, for at this kind of battle they were supreme, but Siegfried von Eschl, perhaps the most astute of the Teutonic Knights, did not entirely like what he saw, and he reported to the Grand Master: 'I have ridden everywhere, Sire, and I a.s.sure you, the Polish and Lithuanian foot soldiers have not yet been released. Sire, they are lurking somewhere. We must smell them out.'

'Good Siegfried, look at the battle. We are winning. At sunset the rabble will have been driven from the field.'

'I am afraid, Sire. I am afraid of those d.a.m.ned foot soldiers coming at us from some unexpected quarter.'

Von Eschl, a superb tactician, had good reason to be apprehensive, for in the dense woods near the village of Tannenberg, Janko the peasant from Bukowo and two thousand like him had huddled throughout this steaming, explosive day, uttering not a word on pain of death. There they hid beneath the trees, their clubs and scythes and pikes at ready, and three times Janko deemed it right for them to surge forth and cut at pa.s.sing knights, but always they were held back.

Now it was almost five in the afternoon, and the Germans sensed that before darkness the outcome of this t.i.tanic battle would be known, and although they were tired, with many close to exhaustion, their superiority in physical stature, armament and the strength of their horses began to tell.

As Polish fortunes started perceptibly to wane, Firczyk of Plock became a focus of attention. Standing at the center of a circle, his feet planted wide, with ma.s.sive swings of his oaklike arms he twirled his heavy iron ball about his head, lowering it a few feet whenever a German came into range and smas.h.i.+ng the man apart. Horses, knights, foot soldiers, all felt the cras.h.i.+ng of this tremendous weapon, and Firczyk was beginning to rally the faltering Poles with his mighty shouts and indomitable courage, when Siegfried von Eschl came on the scene. He watched for some moments the tactics of the big Pole, then dropped dramatically to the ground and rolled forward in four complete circuits of his body, thus escaping the swing of the deadly ball-and found himself face to face with Firczyk. 'Page!' the giant warrior bellowed, but before anyone could come to his aid or he was able to slow his swirling ball, Von Eschl drove at him with a dagger, entered his throat above the chain mail, and brought him cras.h.i.+ng to the earth. As soon as the terrible ball fell powerless, other knights swarmed upon the bleeding Pole and finished him. The tide of the battle had turned definitely in favor of the Germans.

At this perilous moment King Jagiello from his hillside far to the rear flashed his long-awaited signal, and from the woods the Polish peasants began to emerge, walking gingerly at first, then half-running with their pitiful wooden weapons in the air, and finally surging forward with cries they might have used in hunting bear. They const.i.tuted a terrible force, a body of men dug out of the earth and determined to protect that earth. On and on they came, their cries growing louder and higher, until like an all-engulfing dust storm they swept into the heart of the battle.

They moved toward the German flanks like a ma.s.s of irresistible ants, on and on and on, falling, dying, shattered by Teutonic power, but never stopping. They hacked and stabbed and pierced; with bare hands they grabbed at rearing horses' hoofs and clutched at wavering knights, and although one mounted knight on a great horse with a long sword could defend himself against eight of the peasants, he could not hold off twenty as they swarmed about him and his horse.

'G.o.d who guides us,' screamed Kuno of Lichtenstein, 'free me of these d.a.m.ned flies!'

Siegfried von Eschl, fresh from his victory over Firczyk, studied the behavior of the peasants and noted something which frightened him. Galloping over to where the Grand Master followed the conduct of the battle, he shouted: 'Sire, do you notice that the peasants are leaving a clear path to their left?'

'Accident,' Von Jungingen said. 'Fall of the land.'

'Perhaps not, Sire. I would send our best detachment of cavalry to that spot.'

'I see no cause,' the Grand Master said, but as he spoke the two German commanders witnessed a most terrifying sight. From the woods that had hidden the peasants through this long day came galloping at full speed the rea.s.sembled Tatar regiment, which the Germans thought they had destroyed early that morning.

At their head rode Tughril of Kiev-small, drooping mustache, wild fury in his good eye-shouting for revenge. Behind him came the thousand desert hors.e.m.e.n who had survived the German rout, and they, too, were l.u.s.ting for a battle in which the odds and the terrain would now favor them. It required about six minutes for the Tatar horde to cover the open ground between their section of the Tannenberg wood and the battle line that had now moved closer to Grunwald, and in that time Von Jungingen, his face ashen and his throat suddenly parched, realized that this was going to be a battle to the death and that his knights might lose. Grasping Von Eschl's arm, he said in hushed voice: 'Now comes the time when we defend the cause of Jesus Christ with our own lives.' And without hesitation or calling for support, he spurred his horse and dashed directly to the spot where the oncoming Tatars would hit.

It was six in the afternoon, with the sun still blazing hot, when the Tatars smashed into the faltering German lines, and in the ensuing half-hour there was a scene of such savagery that no Teutonic Knight had ever known its equal, not even when he had been the author of it. The infuriated Tatars, burning from the contempt with which the Germans had dismissed them in the morning skirmish, knew no restraint, in either the protection of their own persons or in their attack upon the enemy. Astride their swift horses, they swept into a struggling ma.s.s, cut and slashed and killed and sped away. Regrouping at the edge of the entangled battle, they suddenly appeared at some new spot, striking like a bolt of terrible lightning across an empty steppe.

Tughril and some of his men came upon Ulrich von Jungingen and those defending him, and not knowing that this was the Grand Master himself, they fell upon him like a configuration of hawks attacking a wounded eagle and they supposed that they would knock him from his horse and kill him, but with ma.s.sive swipes of his huge two-handed sword, Von Jungingen drove them off, and displaying a heroism which astonished the Tatars, fought his way clean through their attack, and they galloped off to concentrate on some other foe.

With repet.i.tive force these swift little warriors hacked at the Teutonic Knights, and whenever one of the Germans was thrown from his horse or lamed or left behind, Polish peasants and scythe-swinging Lithuanians swarmed in to slash the stumbling bodies, and three times Janko of Bukowo swung his frightful flint-studded ash tree against a German skull, shattering the bone but leaving the flints unscarred.

Polish hors.e.m.e.n who had been hard pressed at the approaches to Grunwald, where they were trying vainly to attack the German headquarters, took renewed hope when a herald came shouting The Tatars are back!' and they came roaring against the Germans from the opposite direction.

Slowly, like the remorseless tentacles of a giant octopus, the various bands-Lithuanian, Polish, Bohemian, Russian, Tatar-closed in upon the knights who had so abused them, and when the circle was complete, the slaughter began. Lances, daggers, pikes, scythes, poignards, the hoofbeat of horses, the strangling force of maddened hands, all combined to crush the German power which only one day before had seemed so impregnable.

At the height of the killing, Pawel of Bukowo performed an act which eventually modified sharply the development of his village, his own castle and that of his master, Kazimir of Gorka. It began with a feat of heroism that attracted wild applause from those who witnessed it: ferocious Graf Reudiger, who had led numerous German sorties, was about to lead another which might have rescued many of the Germans, but as he spurred his big horse forward, Pawel, with almost superhuman effort, leaped up behind him and struck at him many times, his dagger hitting only the protective chain armor, until finally, one thrust pierced it and severed the spinal cord.

For several swaying, dreamlike moments dead Reudiger and stubborn Pawel dashed through the battle astride the panicking animal-Pawel still stabbing at the body before him, not realizing that it was already dead-until suddenly the horse reared in terror at the sight of a peasant coming at it with a pike, pitching the dead German hero and his bewildered Polish a.s.sailant backward onto the earth.

From that ign.o.ble position, with Reudiger's heavy body atop him and blood streaming from G.o.d knew where, Pawel looked up to see the climax of the battle, for Grand Master Ulrich von Jungingen, aided by Kuno von Lichtenstein, Von Wallenrode and six of the bravest knights, was endeavoring to hold off a tumultuous Polish attack, and with their dreadful long swords they were succeeding, until a group of determined foot soldiers and peasants armed with long pikes rushed at the Grand Master with such force and in such numbers that he could not repel them all. One point caught him in the neck just above his armor, another in his face, one in the side of his head, and a fourth at the left temple. Thus pinioned, he uttered the cry 'Jesus save me!' and perished at a moment when he must have known that his crusade to crush Poland had failed.

Pawel, still pinioned by Graf Reudiger's corpse, tried to break free in order to attack Von Lichtenstein, who was battling to break clear, when he saw rus.h.i.+ng to the side of the dead Grand Master a knight for whom he bore a personal grudge. It was Von Eschl, who had treated him with such contempt at Marienburg Castle, slim, fierce-eyed and brave. With a mighty effort Pawel shoved Reudiger's heavily armored corpse aside, leaped to his feet with blunted dagger still in his right hand, and rushed toward the German, shouting: 'Von Eschl, it's me!'

He missed and stumbled past the German, but quickly he turned and with a wild cry leaped forward, flying through the air parallel to the earth, catching Von Eschl by the knees, dragging him down and knocking his sword away.

Still shouting for revenge, Pawel drew back his right arm and was about to drive his dagger deep into the fallen knight's throat, when he felt his arm gripped powerfully and heard his master's stern voice: 'No, Pawel! Save him for me!' And when Kazimir of Gorka knelt down beside the two fallen men he said softly, in the heart of battle: 'Siegfried von Eschl, you are my prisoner.'

The German looked up into the eyes of his unknown captor and asked: 'Your name, Sir Knight?'

'I am Kazimir of Gorka, and you have two choices. Confess that you are my prisoner and honor-bound to observe that state, or die.'

'I accept your capture,' the German said.

'I accept your word of honor,' Kazimir said. Then, helping Pawel to his feet, he commissioned his man: 'You are responsible for this prisoner. With your life you are responsible for him.' And during the remainder of the battle Pawel guarded Von Eschl, and when he saw Janko of his village roaring past with a pike wrested from a wounded German he whistled, the familiar sound used often in the Forest of Szczek when the two were hunting wild boar, and Janko joined him, eager to stab the prisoner, but Pawel explained that this one they must keep alive, and so the great Battle of Grunwald, or of Tannenberg if one preferred, ended.

At twenty past seven, when there still remained a half-hour of daylight, Jagiello rode down from his command position and embraced his cousin Witold, who had been the greatest of the allied battle commanders, a man of supreme courage following his years of siding first with the Germans, then with the Poles, then the Russians, then the Tatars, and finally with his own Lithuanians against their mortal enemy. Vytautus the Great, he would be known in subsequent Lithuanian history, savior of the nation.

Together the two leaders, surrounded by their splendid captains, moved across the darkening battlefield, while men who knew the enemy read out the names of the fallen for scribes to indite: This is the body of Grand Master Ulrich von Jungingen, died bravely, let his corpse be covered with purple. This is the body of Wallenrode, died at the head of a charge, let his corpse be covered with purple. This is their greatest hero, Kuno von Lichtenstein, died grappling with seven, let him be treated with honor. This is Schwarzenberg, this is the great Graf Reudiger, let them be treated with honor.

'And here we have placed the foreign knights who fought against us because they thought we were pagans who knew not Jesus Christ. This is Jaromir of Prague, none braver, and this is Gabor of Buda, who led the Hungarians with skill, and this is Richard of York, who brought four other Englishmen with him, and these two are the French brothers Louis and Francis, knights without reproach. Let them all be buried with honor.'

At dusk, after prayers of victory and thanksgiving, King Jagiello performed two acts which brought him praise. a.s.sembling some three dozen Poles who had distinguished themselves in battle-men like Pawel of Bukowo, who had slain the famous German champion Graf Reudiger-he asked them to kneel and commissioned them battlefield knights. And then he went to where the surviving Teutonic Knights were crowded into a circle guarded by peasants with scythes, and he asked each Pole who had captured a German to stand forth and identify his prisoner, and Janko pushed Siegfried von Eschl forward for Kazimir of Gorka to claim, and when captor and captives were paired, the king said: 'You Knights of the Cross fought bravely today, and you have work to do at home. You are set free, on your word of honor as knights that you will report to me at Krakow four months hence on St. Martin's Day. Do you accept the charge?' The Germans did, and they were set free.

Jagiello next ordered all captured wine barrels to be split open, lest his troops riot, and Janko, seeing the drink flowing on the ground, lamented: 'The only battleground in history where the blood of the defeated mingled with the wine of the victors, one loss as great as the other.'

Eighteen thousand Teutonic Knights and their helpers were slain that day. Of sixty leaders of the Order, more than fifty perished. Of the foot-soldier Lithuanians who attacked without serious weapons, more than two-thirds died, and of the eleven hundred Tatars, one hundred and twenty-six were killed.

It was these Tatars who caused the Battle of Tannenberg to become something of a scandal, because Priest Anton Grabener of Lbeck, who did not partic.i.p.ate in the fighting, drafted an emergency report to all the capitals of Europe informing the courts that the Teutonic Knights were defeated only because the pagan Jagiello and his heathen cousin Witold had imported one hundred thousand Tatars, who overwhelmed the defenders of Christianity. Later German historians would claim that the figure was 'two hundred thousand mad, screaming followers of Islam who killed any Christians they captured with long-drawn agonizing tortures.'

Polish historians, somewhat embarra.s.sed by Jagiello's reliance upon infidel Tatars, insisted that their total number was only two hundred, a substantial difference from the German figures. A Czech commentator on the discrepancy suggested that the Germans could be forgiven their exaggeration because Tughril's eleven hundred screaming little devils must have seemed like two hundred thousand.

In the week prior to St. Martin's Day, 1410, some hundred and thirty Teutonic Knights straggled in to Krakow, where in conformance with their vow, they surrendered themselves for a second time to their Polish captors. Kazimir took Siegfried von Eschl to Castle Gorka and sent Pawel to Germany to arrange for a ransom, and in the castle town of Eschl, along the right bank of the Rhine, Pawel located members of the wealthy family who were eager to ransom their bold nephew from pagan hands.