"It's over! It's all over!"
A soldier had barely run into headquarters when he started retching violently. Henryk Dembiński and the Hungarian high command had no idea what had happened.
A burly officer grabbed the soldier and hauled him up, cursing him.
"We haven't even started fighting! What do you mean, it's over?"
The officers' faces darkened. They had kept the truth about Austria's actual military strength in Pressburg from the ordinary soldiers, but if the men were already this terrified at first contact, how could they fight?
"Put him down. Let him finish."
Henryk Dembiński's face was just as grim. The Austrian Army had been moving its forces more and more frequently, and he knew a battle was inevitable.
"General! There's a fire! A huge fire!"
"A fire? Where? The arsenal?"
Henryk Dembiński asked urgently. He had always worried that there were Austrian spies in the camp, while the other officers all assumed a fire had broken out somewhere inside it.
"Everywhere."
The soldier was clearly terrified. Henryk Dembiński shoved past him and rushed out of headquarters. Chaos reigned all around them, and he could make out black smoke in the distance.
Henryk Dembiński immediately climbed up to the watchtower. Fire! There was fire everywhere! The camp's perimeter was already engulfed in flames, and the blaze was advancing toward them.
"Put it out!"
Henryk Dembiński shouted himself hoarse. Fires on the Hungarian Plain in autumn were nothing unusual, but this one had come too suddenly, at too convenient a time.
More conveniently still, the Austrian Army, dormant for half a year, had finally begun to move. Henryk Dembiński was certain the whole thing was an Austrian plot.
There might not even be enough time to dig firebreaks. Grass fires spread quickly, and sparks danced wildly on the wind.
But