The Raging Footsoldier - a short story

Godfrey was in the stocks again. It was past midnight but this time it was mercifully warm. Last time, in early spring, he thought he'd perish from the cold. The previous afternoon, a laughing crowd had been pelting him with dung, offal and old vegetables. A large onion, rotted quite soft, spattered across his left shoulder; its pungent, disgusting smell was inescapable. The smell of dung he could cope with. Putrid onion, soaked into the fabric of his woollen tunic – no.

Clouds scudded across an August moon. Alone on the village green, seated in extreme discomfort with his ankles held fast before him, Godfrey reflected upon his punishment. A slight and generally placid man, Godfrey was nearing his thirtieth year; in the stocks he considered the twists and turns of his life. Once again, a merry evening at the inn had turned very nasty; once again he had to face the squire, who finding him guilty of affray, punished Godfrey to three days and three nights in the stocks.

That Lammasday eve, with the first wheat harvest over, and the hard, hot, summer’s work behind them, Godfrey and his friends Myles, Lambert and Piers, had supped back many tankards of ale. All were in high spirits, when someone said something that suddenly got Godfrey fighting mad. He picked up his stool and, raging, hurled it at the man who’d uttered that ill-judged comment. It all started from that.

In the stocks, Godfrey’s mind ran back to another time he’d got fighting mad. Edgecote Moor. Three summers ago.

The two battle lines were drawn in close array; taunts began being shouted across the twenty yards of marshy ground that separated the two forces.

Was it something that someone said – or was it a loose arrow zipping past his ear – he couldn’t recall. But he remembered clearly losing control of himself and flying into a fury. Waving his poleaxe above his head, he charged the Yorkist line, oblivious of the fact that his Lancastrian comrades weren’t with him. That madness – familiar to Godfrey from his earliest childhood – had taken him over. Wide-eyed he ran, blinded by rage, cursing incoherently at his foe. He swung his pole-axe at the legs of a short, tubby soldier, who failing to parry the blow with his shield, toppled forward, his left shin shattered. Godfrey then deftly jabbed the poleaxe straight into the face of the man behind the fallen soldier. Godfrey was raging, maddened with anger, quite unstoppable.

A moment passed, then the Lancastrian line spontaneously surged forward, a ragged cheer rising from the soldiers as they followed Godfrey’s lead. The Lancastrians soon punched a sizeable hole in the Yorkist line. Godfrey, still wild with fury, speared a Yorkist pike man through the chest with such force that he could not pull his poleaxe free. With only a dagger to defend himself with, Godfrey would have been sliced in half by an enemy broadsword had a Lancastrian cavalryman not waded into the broiling mass of foot-soldiers on his huge war horse to shatter the skull of the threatening Yorkist with his mace.

At this moment, kneeling in the mud, still trying to pull his poleaxe free from the dying man’s chest, Godfrey suddenly recognised where he was and what mortal danger he was in. His weapon stuck fast, he was now forced to do something he’d not done for the previous few minutes – he had to think. About him heavy, sharpened blades were raining onto heads and bodies, there was an unbearable tumult of angry shouting, horses neighing, cries of men in agony.

Godfrey had become acutely conscious of where he was, aware of the peril about him, he had to decide – pull back or play dead or keep fighting. The first two he instinctively knew to be the most dangerous. As he stooped to pick up a fallen sword, an armoured foot of a dismounted knight pressed his hand into the mud. The sharp pain awoke Godfrey’s ire once more. As the knight moved on, Godfrey picked up the sword and yelling like a lunatic, he swung the sword upwards with a deft stroke to the back of the knight’s neck; it proved a lucky blow, for the blade slid under the nape-piece of his helmet, cutting him to the ground. As blood covered the knight’s back, a cry went out – “Richard of Pembroke is dead!” The Yorkists suddenly fell back, one of their leaders seemingly killed.

Mounted knights of the Lancastrian side surged into the crumbling Yorkist line, boosted by the Earl of Warwick’s men who had arrived in time to join the fray. The Lancastrians pushed forward their advantage on all sides, to rout the enemy who were fleeing the field.

That day on Edgecote Moor, Godfrey was the hero. He was told by one and all that he had been the bravest of the those fighting there, without equal on the field. Braver than the knights in armour on their horses, braver than the captains, lords or earls. But Godfrey knew that it was his uncontrollable fury, his old demon, which had caused him to attack the enemy line; and it was that same uncontrollable fury which had now made him the object of derision in his home village following his shameful performance in the inn. Godfrey bowed his head and prayed for Redemption. 

Part Two here. Find out whether Godfrey found Redemption!

This time last year:
Graffiti and street art

This time two years ago:
A dove flew into our house

This time three years ago:
Landing from the East

Fountains by the New Town

The official opening of the fountains was on the night of the most recent Warsaw Blogmeet (7 May) but heavy rain held me back from attending. On Friday nights in summer there's a son et lumiere display, but this starts at 9:30 (too late for me). With two hours to go, the sun sinking over the Vistula escarpment back-lights the main fountain.

Looking at the happy crowds enjoying a rare sunny and warm afternoon outside, I must say I think the money the City authorities spend on renovating this part of Warsaw as a fountain park was well spent. Urban folk, young and old, parents with children, teenagers and pensioners all enjoying being here, a welcome focal point for summer chilling out.

Eustonlike - Poland's fascination with the UK

A busy day; three live TV interviews, one live radio interview and one recorded TV interview - all about the English rioting. (Moni's in Ealing and reports that the Polish shop on Haven Green has had its window stoved in.) The third of my five interviews was in the Superstacja studio in Praga. On my way there, I passed the Warsaw directorate of Polish state railways PKP on ul. Targowa (below).

Why does this look historically familiar? Hints here of the famous, long-gone and lamented Euston Arch. The Warsaw building was completed nearly a century after Euston station's Doric arch, and is much smaller in scale, but even so, an interesting and imposing building. Across the road from Centrum Handlowe Warszawa Wileńska shopping mall.

With regards to the riots - while driving from studio to studio this afternoon, I'm listening to TokFM and Radio Trójka - the riots are not only headline news here in Poland, they are a major talking point. So much more coverage than the recent riots in Spain or Greece or previous disturbances in the French banlieus - indeed, and far more than the so-called Arab Spring. Britain exerts a much more important place in the Polish imagination; on par with America, Germany or Russia.

This time last year:
A place in the country

This time four years ago:
I must go down to the sea again

Once again into a linguistic gap

Today's missing word is 'impostor'. The sense in English - 'someone who attempts to deceive by using an assumed name or identity' (Wiktionary).

This has caused many intellectual contortions among my students over the past week. Stanislawski, compiler of what is regarded as one of the best English-Polish dictionaries, gives oszust, szalbierz, szarlatan. Yet these all miss the mark. Oszust is simply 'cheat'. No attempt to assume another's identity. Szalbierz -'fraudster'. Ditto. Now, szarlatan - 'charlatan' - a word of Italian origin, is nearer the mark.

Does this mean that maliciously impersonating someone else with a view to personal gain is something that does not happen in Poland? Remember the hold-ups of TIRs by gangsters posing as traffic police? Or kradzież 'na wnuczka'? [For my non-Polish readers: A guy phones up an old lady pretending to be her grandson. 'Hi, Babcia, it's your grandson. I'm right out of cash and in a tight spot. Can I come round and you'll give me some money to help me out?' Most babcie will see through this, but some dim ones will tell wnuczek what his name is "Kubusiu, dla Ciebie, oczywiście!". Then "Kubuś" calls, says he can't make it, and says he'll send a friend over for the money.

So impostors are plying their nefarious trade in Poland too.

The phenomenon whereby a word or phrase is missing its direct equivalent in the other language has long fascinated me. 'Table' = stół. But stoliczek? Simple. English lacks the function of creating diminutives (or indeed augmentatives - formy zgrubiałe). And those words where a direct match is lacking in the other language. Brak odpowiedniego słowa. Not really a problem when writing business emails, but when tacking a literary translation - especially poetry - the lack of that precise word causes difficulty. Here, experience and talent mark out the good translator from the poor one.

So when you come across a word that seems to be lacking a direct translation - don't just let it be - analyse it, research it, ponder it - and share it with others who have an interest in the Polish- English linguistic space.

This time last year:
Running with the storm

This time three years ago:
London's St Pancras station

This time four years ago:
Mountains or sea?

Rhetorical question: Why the fuss?

I picked Moni up from W-wa Centralna this morning just before seven - she's back from the seaside on the night train. Driving home, she remarked "What are all the flags up for?" "Warsaw Uprising," I reminded her. "But that was on the first of August," she said. "Yes, but it lasted 63 days," I replied.

Later, in Park Dreszera in Mokotów, I came across this monument to the Home Army (AK) units that fought in this Warsaw district, still full of floral tributes, votive candles, flags and ribbons.

Behind us, two elderly ladies - old enough to have lived through the Uprising - were sitting on a bench facing this memorial and arguing about... Smolensk. One - dressed in black - was getting increasingly agitated. She wanted the truth. "It's a plot! A conspiracy!" The other - dressed in light blue, was smiling, shaking her head at her friend.

Najważniejsza jest prawda. Prawda zawsze zwycięża ("The truth is the most important. The truth will always triumph") said the one in black. The one in light blue said Trzeba modlić się po cichu, nie należy obnosić się ze swoją wiarą ("One should pray in silence; one oughtn't to display one's faith"), to which the woman in black said nie powinniśmy się wstydzić naszej wiary, nie powinniśmy jej ukrywać ("we shouldn't be ashamed of our faith, we shouldn't hide it"). The woman in light blue said "I can't agree with you," and pulling herself up on her crutch, got ready to hobble off.

The contrast between the two ladies put me immediately in mind of the debate going on just one post lower down on my blog. The tragedy has indeed divided the nation.

Meanwhile, the debate rages about the Uprising. There's increasing clarity emerging from the arguments for and against. In military terms, the losses suffered by both sides - considering this was a battle for a capital city that raged for over two months - were not huge in absolute terms. The civilian losses were. The German strategy of wholesale slaughter of uninvolved civilians (around 180,000, mainly in mass executions) was something the Uprising's leadership should have come to expect from a totally dehumanised foe - yet they didn't. This issue deserves greater attention from historians. Did the Government-in-Exile and the AK leadership knowingly condemn hundreds of thousands of civilians to barbarous slaughter - or did they overlook the Nazi's capacity for such utter barbarism?

Either way, the jury is still out; emotional voices can be heard extolling both points of view - a) the Uprising was inevitable - driven by furious rage at what had happened over the past five years in the Nazi-occupied capital - or b) that it was a foolish waste of life and property that could have been avoided.

Incidentally, my assertion that the Uprising - by halting Stalin's tanks on the Vistula for five months - spared much of Western Europe from 45 years of communism - is echoed in no less hallowed a title than Gnash Dziennik. Prof. Witold Kiezuń wrote there "How deep into Europe would the Red Army have penetrated, had it not been held up by the Warsaw Uprising? Poles paid an enormous price in terms of the destruction by the Germans of the Home Army in Warsaw and the centre of independent, political, patriotic action in Poland... In answer to the outbreak of the Uprising, Stalin halted the Red Army's offensive on the Vistula. The Uprising thus halted for over five months the dynamic 'thrust for Berlin'."

After 67 years, historians are still debating the sense of the Warsaw Uprising. Will the Smolensk debate still be raging in 2077? Maybe not. But in 2017, certainly.

This time last year:
The wonder of a quarterly karta miejska

This time two years ago:
Nerds - mankind's avantgarde

This time three years ago:
Into the fading light

This time four years ago:
A little bit of Poland in Wales

Quiet afternoon in the Bazaar

Fourteen years in Warsaw and I've yet to have checked out this legendary place. Bazar Różyckiego in Praga, just off ul. Targowa (which regular readers will remember is named after the Russian General Targov). The bazaar's heyday was in communist days, when it was one of the only places in Poland where one could obtain highly sought-after items such as blue jeans, t-shirts, fashionable footwear, and other items of clothing that would distinguish Warsaw's hipper citizens (bikiniarze) from the drab proletariat. The klimaty of the place are referred to in Leopold Tyrmand's Zły, Dziennik 1954 r., and Janusz Głowacki's Z głowy.

The bazaar had a very important place in the life of the capital in communist days. Not just for consumers, starved of anything fashionable, colourful or distinguishing. But for the sellers. Many were, like my family in Warsaw, people with connections in the West. My parents would regularly send parcels to their families in Poland; parcels containing (typically) clothes from Marks & Spencer (the well regarded St Michael's brand in those days). Well do I remember driving with my parents and my brother after Polish Saturday school in Chiswick to a small shop on the Fulham Palace Road from where my parents would send knitwear wrapped in brown paper to Warsaw and to Bystrzyca Kłodzka.

Today, the bazaar's competition - regular high street stores and shopping malls like Centrum Handlowe Warszawa Wileńska - has made it a shadow of its former self (much like the dear old Giełda fotograficzna camera fair that takes place at Stodoła each Sunday)

The young men and women that were once duckin' an' divin', bobbin' an' weavin' to turn an honest zloty in Gierek's days are now in their advanced middle age, selling dresses for weddings and first holy communions; little three-piece suits for four year-old boys and footwear for the middle aged - but at least its all stuff that's not mainstream, not brand-name regular shopping mall fashion.

But does Warsaw want it? Like the camera fair, the bazaars are in decline, being killed off very slowly by the relentless march of globalised retail. Footfall here is a tiny fraction of what I witnessed just minutes later at Wileńska.

So visit it while you can, a legendary place in Warsaw's history, it's been around for 180 years; it's witnessed uprisings and invasions, it's kept Varsovians supplied with contraband goods during the hard times, it was a free market that survived the planned economy.

And linguistic conundrum of the day: If 'How dare you ...!' in English is Jak śmiesz...!, what's 'I dare you to...' in Polish?

This time last year:
Distracted by the Cross of Smolensk (warning: Smolensk-related content)

Mini-breaks or micro-breaks?

A subject that came up in both of my lessons today: is it better to take one long vacation, or many short breaks? I think the answer is one of life stage - if you have small children, the one long vacation taken during the school holidays is usually the only option. But once they've grown up and holiday independently - then what?

Another new billboard campaign (below), paid for this time from European taxpayers' money, is encouraging Varsovians to take weekend breaks in the Mazowsze province. Yes indeed, I'm all for it. Wonderful countryside just a stone's throw (dwa kroki - lit. 'two paces') from the metropolis where we work so hard. Get the batteries recharged more often, at lower cost.

But as I pointed out yesterday, you can get out into the country with bike quickly and cheaply. While the sun shines, get out there and enjoy Mazowsze. The two-billboard version, above (there's a single board version too) extols cycling in the Puszcza Kampinoska forests - 200km of cycle paths. Having passed by there in March, it is a great place for bikes, but for one minor drawback - many of the cycle paths that run through the forests are soft sand - the worst possible surface for cycling. Still, the idea's a good one. Get on your bike and head out of town - for the weekend, or just for the summer's evening.

This time last year:
Pride and anger (warning: Smolensk-related content)

Twilight rambler

A restless urge to travel seized me this evening; I checked the online train timetable (click here - a brilliant starting place for any adventure), saw a departure for Czachówek at 19:34, grabbed my bike and camera and raced for W-wa Jeziorki station to catch the train. The 17km journey took 21 minutes; shortly before eight I was in Czachówek, in time for Magic Hour, when the twilight creates that sublime mood. The return ticket, from Warsaw's boundary to Czachówek Górny and back again, with bike, cost a mere 13.50 zlotys, or three quid in English money.

I set off from Czachówek towards the east. Above: A shop in Czarny Las. A sign in the window says 'no to windmills'. The building itself is the definition of the Polish adjective zapyziały. Just ten miles from Warsaw's southern borders and the built landscape looks entirely different. There are more and more new detached houses appearing here and there, but this is essentially still wieś rather than exurbs.

Above: a column erected to the glory of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Czarny Las. The fields, the forests, the gardens, the dirt-track roads - all are sodden with rainwater. It's been a wet July, the water table is high, there's nowhere for the water to run off.

Above: a goods train made up of cement wagons trundles slowly eastwards through Czachówek Wschodni station (left); the sun has just set over Czarny Las.

The forest itself exudes an intense smell of mushroom and moss; the air at dawn and dusk smells quite different from how it does during the day.

That golden time of day again; my mind drifts to another time, another place, a lost world from before my birth, I feel it...

Above: waiting for the train home, Czachówek Górny station. Scheduled at 21:08, it arrives on time. During my wait (no more than a quarter of an hour) I am so assaulted by mosquitos that I'm forced to don full wet weather gear - Goretex hooded jacket and over-trousers - despite the pleasant warmth of the evening. This has been a bad year for the mozzies (culex pipiens), the worst I can remember since that awful summer of 1997. Last summer, although also wet, there was a large number of dragonflies about, that feast on mosquito larvae. Very few this year.

(It seems this is the first time I've ever posted on 2 August!)