Bang the Drum
Hostile armies may face each other for years, striving for the victory which is decided in a single day.
- Sun Tzu
Lizkow, Poland - August 1914
The banging of the drum began shortly after the breaking of the morning fast. Rhythmic, incessant, it tolled ominously, sounding through the village, calling the people out.
Slowly at first, then with increasing urgency, the villagers left their tools, muck buckets, animals, and chores and assembled in the village square. One by one they came, then in small groups led by a dour peasant farmer, angry at his daily routine being interrupted, or a matronly nana, hurrying the children before her like a flock of geese. All of the villagers came, except those too old or sick to walk. These stayed behind, anxiously awaiting the news from family or neighbors. And still the drum continued to bang.
"What could it be, papa?" wailed a young girl, frightened near to tears.
"What have we done?" demanded the farmer, smelling like the pigs he left unfed.
"Who is that with the burmistrz?" another asked. A man in a dirty dark woolen uniform of the Austrian II Corps wearing the rank of captain stood stoically beside the village magistrate.
The young apprentice of Boleslaw Chmielowiec, the miller, stood at rigid attention in the center of the market square, the only spot paved with stones in a circle three meters round, the only spot not soured with mud and the manure horses, pigs, and oxen. He banged the drum, unceasing, until Burmistrz Ligon finally raised his hand. The banging of the drum stopped.
The silence filled Karolina with an even greater fear.
They waited for the magistrate to speak. Instead, the uniformed captain stepped forward.
Henryk Pientka had seen this before, in 1904 as a young boy. First they banged the drum, and then soldiers came and took away the young men to fight for the Austro-Hungarian army against the Russians. Most did not return, including his father.
He knew better than to try and hide. He had seen his neighbor Florjan Sirek slip away from the square when they banged the drum in 1904. The soldiers burned his father's cottage, slaughtered his milk cow, and brutally raped his older sister, who died the next day. He was arrested when found hiding in a nearby cottage, and shot in the square for all to see. No, he knew better than to try and hide. He stood with his brother Lukasz, 3 years younger, and simply watched.
The soldier unfolded an official looking paper, and read aloud to the villagers assembled in front of him.
"Owing to the unprovoked aggression by the Province of Serbia against the Imperial Crown of Austria following the diabolical assassination of the Crown Prince The Arch Duke Ferdinand and his wife, the Royal Consort Sophia, by order of His Imperial Majesty, Francis Joseph I, Emperor of Austria and Hungary, all able bodied men of the village over the age of assignment, up to and including age 30 years, are herewith ordered immediately to arms of the II Brigade of the Polish Legion under the command of General Stanisław Puchalski."
With that announcement, the captain lowered his paper, and barked an order. Soldiers with fixed bayonets began to appear at the edges of the square where the rude mud road entered from the east, and took positions blocking the only exits from the square. Henryk simply handed his shovel to his younger sister, Karolina, and kissed her on the cheek. He stepped forward toward the line of soldiers. Lukasz dourly followed him. He looked back briefly, and called to Karolina, "You are head of our house now." Karolina was only ten years old.
