“It’s the name of a song, no?” she asked.
He smiled, “Song?” and shook his head and continued to look toward the horse farm on the other side of the split rail fence. They loved to sit on their deck in the late afternoon… and unless it was a hurricane or a blizzard they would find time to enjoy the quiet of their backyard. Enjoy the setting sun… if it was that time of the year. Crank up the wood fire pit… if it was that time of the year. Sip a Sancerre or maybe something from the Rhone… each to their own thoughts… each together. It was their tradition.
“Lucy Eating Watermelon… or Strawberries… In the Sky… or something like that?”
Now his reverie ground to a halt. Wherever his mind had taken him, he now had to stop and pivot to her line of thought.
He chuckled in disbelief. “I don’t know how you do it… you’ve just managed to murder two different Beatles’ tunes: Strawberry Fields Forever and Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds. Congratulations! Few human beings could accomplish that. My Mom could, so can you… maybe 15 other people, past or present. No, it’s not a song.” And he smiled warmly.
The horse in the nearest paddock approached the fence, pawed at the ground with its hooves and whinnied. It was difficult to know who had trained whom. Had he trained the horse to come to the fence for the price of two crisp apples? Or had the horse trained him to always have two apples at hand during their “deck time?” Regardless, it was understood by both he and she (and the horse) that at some point, sooner rather than later once whinnying began, the apple situation would have to be addressed. This, too, was part of their tradition.
The horse had a stately bearing, a glossy black coat that shined in the lowering sun, a small flash of white between its eyes and muscles that rippled when it moved. It always surprised him how big they were. He loved large animals. Horses, buffalo, moose, rhinos… he loved them all. When he shared this with her when they visited the Bronx Zoo one day, she laughed “It’s the little boy in you. If you could, you would bring back the dinosaurs.”
She was right about the dinosaurs. But she was wrong about the song. “I said, ‘Wielopolski’, maybe it sounded like ‘watermelonski’… watermelon sky. And besides, I should have pronounced it correctly: Vee-lo-pol-ski.“
“Wee-lo-polski, Vee-lo-polski… so? And where did this come from?” Although she was well used to his verbal fragments, unconnected to anything apparent, that would break a quiet.
“Count Anton Wieloposki was a Polish Nobleman and a Colonel, in the 18th Uhlans Regiment.”
“A relative?”
He had a good laugh at that thought. “That’s good… no, my family came from more humble origins.” Her family had come from Bocki and his from Warshava Gubernia… neither could be mistaken as rising from Nobility.
He eased into his story… “We have lost our connection to the Age of Chivalry… to the days when Mounted Knights took an oath to serve his Liege… and went into battle in plate armor and chain mail, on horses laden with armor of their own… can you imagine what it must have sounded like? Horses, huffing and puffing, the clump of their heavy hooves, the crash of steel sword and iron mace on shield. It must have been a frightful din.”
She knew she had lost him to his dreams… every bit as much as if he imagined a stegosaur locked in battle against an allosaur.
He knew that Cavalry had traced its beginnings to well before the Mounted Knights of the Middle Ages, and well before Alexander the Great, and even before the chariots of Pharaoh. Over the years the type of armament used, and the tactics had changed; but whether it was a heavy sword and lance, or a sabre and a side arm, the mode of transport was always the horse.
“Today armored Cavalry’ uses Hummers and tracked vehicles mounted with heavy machine guns… it’s not the same.”
He looked at the black horse nibbling at the grass and beginning to get edgy for its apple treat. “In the 18th & 19th Centuries, the Officer of Corps of the Cavalry invariably came from men of landed wealth… men who owned horses, men who knew horses, men who could ride and hunt. Any idiot can be given a gun and told to march over there and shoot… but someone who was in the Cavalry had to know how to ride. He was in the elite… and further, horses weren’t cheap… a Noble background was practically a requirement.”
“Now, I’ll grant you… the concept of Nobility maybe open to some interpretation… the Hetman of the Don Cossacks on first appearance may not be on the same social level perhaps as the Earl of Cardigan who led the Charge of the Light Brigade into the Russian guns at Balaclava. But look closer, it’s really the leading of men on horse that confers nobility regardless of specific station.”
“And this has something to do with Count Watermelonski?” she asked.
“I’m getting there. You see, by the 20th Century… the Horse Cavalry was well on the way into story and legend. The development of machine guns, motor vehicles and the air arm made the Horse Cavalry obsolete by WWI. Yet somehow, Poland escaped complete modernization. As WWII dawned, Poland still retained an active Horse Cavalry. The other major combatants used some horse transport for supplies… the Russians, the Germans, the French and all. But Poland still deployed Cavalry Regiments in their Order of Battle. Cavalry Regiments not with tracked vehicles; but with horse. Cavalry Regiments not composed of Dragoons who rode to position and then fought on foot; but Cavalry Regiments armed with lance, sabre and pistol. And the Officer Corps still reflected its aristocratic bearing and pedigree… traditions that would have made Alexander the Great, Lord Cardigan and Stonewall Jackson proud.”
“Should I be tasking notes?” she asked sheepishly.
“Yes. And I am going to give you the first question on the quiz: ‘Who doesn’t belong… Lord Cardigan, Stonewall Jackson, Count Wielpoloski and Heinz Guderian?”
“If I get this right, you have to make dinner tomorrow night… Guderian.”
“Good guess… do you want grilled rib-eye or grilled flank steak? And while we’re talking about food, I think it’s time for me to bring ‘Bucephalus’ his two apples.”
He quartered them and stuffed them into both pockets. By the time he reached the stone wall some twenty yards from the deck, the black horse, who watched him approach, nodded its big black head. He crossed the stone wall, ignoring her warnings about the poison ivy and perched himself by the tree that stood just this side of the split rail fence. He reached for the first apple quarter; but could barely get his hand out of the pocket before the horse, its head well extended to his side of the fence, raised its upper lip in preparation to getting his snack.
“Ask nicely!” he said; but it was of no use, the horse snapped it away from him in a blink. He liked the way the horse chewed the apple carefully, taking his time, lowering his head to snatch some fresh blades of grass before returning for a second apple quarter.
The size of the animal still amazed him. And the thought of a man sitting on top of this beast, towering over him with a sword or lance, charging him at full gallop… “yeah, I think I would be scared…” He must have been 7 or 8 when his Aunt took him to the Museum of Natural History… or was it the Met? There was an exhibit of Knights in Armor, their weapons and the like. In the center of the hall there was a Knight, in full armored regalia, mounted on a horse, also properly attired… in a position of a charge… with the Knight’s lance lowered in a menacing fashion. It both fascinated and scared him. The Knight, horse and lance had to be the size of a dinosaur!
And then he turned his thoughts to Count Wielopolski leading the 18th Uhlans in a charge against a German Infantry Unit in a wooded area near the Village of Krojanty. It was September 1, 1939… the first day of WWII. Armed with a sense of courage and honor, Wielopolsky led the Uhlans into the position using the same shock tactic that Alexander would have used in 326BC, and dispersed the Germans into the woods. It was later reported that the charge had been against tanks… which was inaccurate. That Wielopolski’s ultimate cause was hopeless is not to be debated… Cavalry units with great esprit de corps are no match for Stuka Dive Bombers and Tiger Tanks; but the exhibition of bravery and action in the face of superior elements had to be admired.
He patted the soft nose of the horse, his supply of apples now exhausted, and said his good-bye. He crossed the stonewall and thought that he may have overdone the “history lesson.” It was hardly a topic that would have interested her, he knew that she disapproved of war and violence. He was against war, too… but he loved military history… loved military history even more than he loved dinosaurs. Against war, loving military history –a type of mental gymnastics.
He looked to the western sky as he resumed his seat on the deck. “I was just kidding…” He looked at the sky again, “I really said, ‘watermelon sky’… just look at the clouds to the west, a soft taupe on top… and their underbellies? Hmmm, more ‘cotton candy’ pink than watermelon? Yeah, ‘cotton candy sky’ would have been better…”
She looked to the clouds, and smiled, too “does this mean I have to cook tomorrow?”