With Fire and Sword by Henryk Sienkiewicz (big ebook reader .txt) 📕

datetime="1649-07-16">16th of July two valiant colonels⁠—Gladki and Nebaba⁠—struck upon the quarters of the prince, and suffered a terrible defeat. Three thousand of the best Cossacks lay on the field; the rest, pursued by Sobieski, escaped to the tabor, throwing down their arms and powder-horns. An equally unfortunate result met Fedorenko, who, taking advantage of the thick fog, barely failed to capture the town at daybreak. Pan Korf repulsed him at the head of the Germans; then Sobieski and Konyetspolski cut the fugitives almost to pieces.

But this was nothing in comparison with the awful attack of July 19. On the previous night the Cossacks had raised in front of Vishnyevetski’s quarters a lofty embankment, from which guns of large calibre vomited an uninterrupted fire. When the day had closed, and the first stars were in the sky, tens of thousands of men rushed to the attack. At the same time appeared some scores of terrible machines, like towers, which rolled slowly to the intrenchment. At their sides rose bridges, like monstrous wings, which were to be thrown over the ditches; and their tops were smoking, blazing, and roaring with discharges of small cannon, guns, and muskets. These towers moved on among the swarm of heads like giant commanders⁠—now reddening in the fire of guns, now disappearing in smoke and darkness.

The soldiers pointed them out to one another from a distance, whispering: “Those are the ‘travelling towers.’ We are the men that Hmelnitski is going to grind with those windmills.”

“See how they roll, with a noise like thunder!”

“At them from the cannon! At them from the cannon!” cried some.

In fact the prince’s gunners sent ball after ball, bomb after bomb, at those terrible machines; but since they were visible only when the discharges lighted the darkness, the balls missed them most of the time.

Meanwhile the dense mass of Cossacks drew nearer and nearer, like a black wave flowing in the night from the distant expanse of the sea.

“Uf!” said Zagloba, in the cavalry near Skshetuski, “I am hot as never before in my life. The night is so sultry that there is not a dry thread on me. The devils invented those machines. God grant the ground to open under them, for those ruffians are like a bone in my throat⁠—amen! We can neither eat nor sleep. Dogs are in a better condition of life than we. Uf! how hot!”

It was really oppressive and sultry; besides, the air was saturated with exhalations from bodies decaying for several days over the whole field. The sky was covered with a black and low veil of clouds. A storm or tempest was hanging over Zbaraj. Sweat covered the bodies of soldiers under arms, and their breasts were panting from exertion. At that moment drums began to grumble in the darkness.

“They will attack immediately,” said Skshetuski. “Do you hear the drum?”

“Yes. I wish the devils would drum them! It is pure desperation!”

“Cut! cut!” roared the crowds, rushing to the ramparts.

The battle raged along the whole length of the rampart. They struck at the same time on Vishnyevetski, Lantskoronski, Firlei, and Ostrorog, so that one could not give aid to the other. The Cossacks, excited with gorailka, went still more ragingly than during the previous assaults, but they met a still more valiant resistance. The heroic spirit of their leader gave life to the soldiers. The terrible quarter infantry, formed of Mazovians, fought with the Cossacks, so that they became thoroughly intermingled with them. They fought with gunstocks, fists, and teeth. Under the blows of the stubborn Mazovians several hundred of the splendid Zaporojian infantry fell. The battle grew more and more desperate along the whole line. The musket-barrels burned the hands of the soldiers; breath failed them; the voices of the commanders died in their throats from shouting. Sobieski and Skshetuski fell with their cavalry upon the Cossack flank, trampling whole regiments.

Hour followed hour, but the assault relaxed not; for Hmelnitski filled the great gaps of the Cossack ranks, in the twinkle of an eye, with new men. The Tartars increased the uproar, at the same time sending clouds of arrows on the defending soldiers; men from behind drove the mob to the assault with clubs and rawhide whips. Rage contended with rage, breast struck breast, man closed with man in the grip of death. They struggled, as the raging waves of the sea struggle with an island cliff.

Suddenly the earth trembled; the whole heavens were in blue flames, as if God could no longer witness the horrors of men. An awful crash silenced the shouts of combatants and the roar of cannon. The artillery of heaven then began its more awful discharges. Thunders rolled on every side, from the east to the west. It seemed as though the sky had burst, together with the cloud, and was rolling on to the heads of the combatants. At moments the whole world seemed like one flame; at moments all were blind in the darkness, and again ruddy zigzags of lightning rent the black veil. A whirlwind struck once and again, tore away thousands of caps, streamers, and flags, and swept them in the twinkle of an eye over the battlefield. Thunders began to roll, one after another; then followed a chaos of peals, flashes, whirlwind, fire, and darkness; the heavens were as mad as the men.

The unheard-of tempest raged over the town, the castle, the trenches, and the tabor. The battle was stopped. At last the floodgates of heaven were open, and not streams, but rivers of rain poured down upon the earth. The deluge hid the light; nothing could be seen a step in advance. Bodies were swimming in the ditch. The Cossack regiments, abandoning the assault, fled one after the other to the tabor; going at random, they stumbled against one another, and thinking that the enemy was pursuing, scattered in the darkness; guns and ammunition wagons followed them, sticking and getting overturned on the way. Water washed down the Cossack earthworks,