I understood exactly how the Venetian captains must have felt—I had the same experience years ago when we swept into the harbour at Tunis and found the forewarned Tunisian fleet had been pulled ashore and was being guarded by an army of soldiers.
Bringing their galleys ashore worked for the Tunisians by forcing us to blockade the harbour for days, and then leave with a relatively minor ransom instead of immediately sailing away with prizes.
What we hoped was that having our galleys pulled up on to the strand, and having their sailors in a battle formation and ready to fight, would delay the Venetians until reinforcements could begin reaching us from the men on the city’s walls; what we had not taken into account was the possibility that attacks on the wall and on our galleys would be coordinated so they occurred at the same time, or that the bowstrings of the archers we were counting on as reinforcements would be wet and usable.
Chapter Thirty-six
The tide of battle turns—but which way?
There was chaos and desperation all around me on the wall as the last of my archers’ longbows ceased to be able to push out arrows and half of all of the available men began running through the pouring rain to join the battle at the harbour.
The men had to be sent to the harbour. It was a decision I did not regret. We needed to save our galleys so we could escape on them if we were defeated on the walls. But sending half of all the available men meant there would only be fifteen or twenty archers and auxiliaries in front of each Greek footbridge. That might have been enough if the archers could use their longbows. But they could not because of the rain.
Making things even worse was the fact that the spirits of the archers on the wall were low. Many of the men who remained felt abandoned without weapons even though their captains had stayed with them, and Henry and I constantly moved up and down the wall to show our men that we were still on the wall with them.
Our problem was not that our numbers were few, but that the rain had caused our men to be woefully under-armed and unable to defend themselves. A few of the archers were now carrying the pikes that had been issued to their auxiliaries, but most of them had no other weapons at all except for their personal knives and the piles of large stones that could be dropped on anyone trying to climb a ladder.
Truth be told, dropping rocks on attackers was a sad and unexpected comedown for men who had rightly considered themselves to be the best trained and best armed fighting men in the world—and the only ones who were Marines ready to fight both on land and at sea.
Looking back, I could see that weeks ago I should have ordered the men to bring their short swords and shields to the wall as well as their longbows and all the pikes that had been aboard each of our galleys. But I did not. And now we were about to pay heavily for my not considering the possibility of rain until it was too late to prepare for it.
In any event, all of our longbows had been rendered ineffective by the rain by the time the archers with even numbers began running for the harbour. The men with odd numbers who remained and I pressed ourselves up against the stones of the archer slits so the men of the galley companies who were “Evens” could come running past us on their way to the harbour.
Henry watched them go. And then he suddenly turned to me and said something that so surprised me that my jaw dropped and I slapped my own face in disgust and dismay when, a few moments later, I understood what he meant.
“Richard and Harold’s men at the harbour do not need pikes because the Venetians will not be charging them with horses. Besides, they can use their longbows.”
“No, they cannot use their bows; not with this rain.”
“Yes, they can. The sails Richard set up to keep the men from having to stand in their ranks in the sun will also keep the archers’ bowstrings out of the rain. Using tents is what your father did years ago right here in Constantinople when the Byzantines took some of our men for ransom.”
“My God, Henry; you are right.” And I just sent the men with half of the pikes that had been on the wall to the harbour.
At Henry’s suggestion, I had an order passed down the wall from man to man—I ordered each captain to send four of his remaining men running back to the harbour to bring back all the pikes they could carry, even those that the “Evens” had just carried to the harbour. Immediately thereafter, Henry and I each once again ran in opposite directions along the wall to make sure the order was being carried out
And then, whilst both the “Evens” and the pike fetchers were gone so that the strength of the wall’s defenders was at its weakest, encouraging news began to come in even though the Greeks had begun pouring over their footbridges unopposed such that it seemed to everyone that all was about be lost.
Everyone’s spirits rose a bit when word was passed from man to man along the wall that some of the Greek footbridges, perhaps as many as half, had failed for one reason or another and were unusable.
“They cannot cross the bridge at enclosure eighteen. They are just standing in front of bridge looking at it.” … “They are only crossing on one bridge at thirteen.” … “They be just standing there.”
Those were the word-of-mouth reports coming along the wall that turned out to be true. Some of the footbridges had apparently broken when they were toppled off the wagons. Others appeared to have fallen short when the wagons carrying them failed to get close enough to the moat before they toppled them over. And some bridges appeared to be usable but the Greeks assigned to them had run away as a result of taking fearsome casualties before the archers’ bowstrings became unusable.
Unfortunately, saying that as many as half the Greeks’ footbridges were unusable was also the same as saying half of their many foot bridges were intact. And they were intact and were either already being crossed in the rain by the surviving Greek ladder carriers, or soon would be when the Greeks realized we were no longer capable of pushing arrows at them.
Our situation was difficult and we all knew it—there were a lot of usable footbridges across the moat, an average of perhaps two or three in front of every enclosure, and many hundreds of Greek soldiers waiting to cross at each of them and begin climbing the wall.
I began moving along the wall to once again consider our prospects. Was it time to pull the archers out of the city and try to make a run for it?
As I moved along the wall I discovered something important and, without being aware of it at the time, my hysteria and panic passed and I totally calmed down. Indeed, my spirits rose and I shouted a joyful “Yes!” when I saw Captain Smith of Number Nineteen Galley use one of our long-handled bladed pikes to push a ladder off the wall with its Greek climbers still on it.
Indeed, I literally skipped for glee and clapped my hands when I saw how effective the bladed hooks on our long-handled pikes could be used to push over a scaling ladder that was leaning up against the wall. And every company had at least a few of them left even though I had just sent half the pikes to the harbour when I sent half the men there with their weapons.
But then I asked myself if there were pikes in front of every usable footbridge over the moat—and I did not know. It was time for another run along the wall.
******
I met Henry coming the other way as I moved along the wall. He had gone all the way down to the gate, and was coming back along the wall to see what was happening. He immediately reported that he had seen the same thing I had seen—Greeks crossing on the footbridges but unable to climb the wall on their ladders both because our men kept pushing them over with their pikes and dropping rocks on them, and because their ladders were too short.
Henry and I hurriedly conferred, and enthusiastically agreed, that the long-handled bladed pikes made by our company’s smiths had found a new use at which they excelled. Then he and I began running along the top of the wall in opposite directions to move men and pikes from in front of the unusable bridges to reinforce the men in front of the usable bridges where the Greeks were now crossing or soon would cross.
&nbs
p; Once again, Henry ran along the top of the wall back towards the wall gate; I ran towards the harbour with Nicholas pounding along behind me with a pike I had taken from a company that seemed to have more pikes than it needed and thrust into his hands.
Several things were certain—the archers on wall knew Henry and I had not deserted them, and my feet and legs were getting sore. I decided that if I got out this alive, I was going to find a better pair of sandals as soon as possible.
Richard, Michael, Eric, and my father were not on the wall with us. Michael was still at the gate organizing the return of the states’ soldiers from the coin-earning sortie that was underway; Richard was at the harbour to lead the sailors and the “Evens” against the Venetians; Eric was in the city with the Empress’s Varangian guards defending the Latin Quarter; and my father was commanding the citadel’s defences in order to keep the Empress happy and him and my younger brother occupied and out of trouble.
The Empress, her daughter, Elizabeth, and her son, Robert, the boy Emperor, were, or so I suspected, hysterical with fear and shouting at their servants and lackeys. Or perhaps my father and Eric had not yet informed them how serious the situation had become and they were still calm. I never did find out.
****** Henry Soldier returns to the gate.
What I found as I made my way back towards the gate was that we were continuing to keep the Greeks from reaching the top of the wall despite the rain. Along the way I periodically ordered men and pikes to move to new positions opposite the Greek bridges that appeared to be usable.
I was not surprised that no Greeks had yet made it on to the wall—it is hard to climb a long ladder if you have never done so before, particularly when it is wet and you are carrying a weapon in one hand and the men above you are dropping big rocks on you and trying to push the ladder over so that you fall on to the rocks or into the water below you.
The situation at the gate, however, had greatly worsened during my brief absence. In a word, the states’ men who had sallied out in response to the offer of double coins had been mauled by the Greeks who had abandoned their useless bridges and returned to their camp carrying their weapons. The states’ men had taken heavy losses and come away with relatively few weapons they could exchange for coins. They were clearly disheartened.
And, to make matters worse, Prince Ivan had suddenly disappeared. Apparently he had run because he was afraid his men and those of the other states, particularly their nobles and knights, would turn on him for sending them out on the failed sortie. According to Michael, the prince was last seen riding into the city’s Latin Quarter with his personal guards.
Michael and I agreed: It was likely the end of the states’ forces as an effective fighting force, though it is well known that a hot meal, a bowl of ale, and a good night’s sleep sometimes works surprising wonders on a defeated soldier, especially if he is young and inexperienced.
Later, and much to my surprise, George seemed quite interested and almost pleased when I re-joined him on the wall and told him about the sad shape of the states’ men and Prince Ivan’s sudden departure. At the time, of course, I did not know how George intended to use what was left of the states’ men, or what the surprising outcome of the plan he was hatching would be.
Chapter Thirty-seven
Confusion at the harbour.
Confusion reigned everywhere on the decks of the first two Venetian galleys as they slowly and cautiously rowed into the empty harbour for a look. Both the sea-poxed Greek soldiers who had been recently added to their crews and their regular crewmen were on deck and as ready to fight as they could be, but there was no one to fight.
All they could do was stand in the pouring rain was watch as the last two of the Company’s galleys were each hauled up on the strand by several hundred men pulling on tow ropes. The Venetians had obviously received bad information from the Patriarch’s spies.
What the Venetians saw as their galleys slowly approached the shore were thirty or forty of the Company’s war galleys pulled up on to the strand, and two more galleys in the final stages of being pulled ashore by a large number of men pulling on tow ropes. They also saw what appeared to be a line of tents on each side of the galleys. Other than that and the men pulling on the ropes, the strand appeared totally empty.
“How many men do you see, Antonio?” the Venetian captain asked his lieutenant. They were standing on the roof of their galley’s forward castle. Unlike the sailors and soldiers crowding the deck below them, the two Venetians were wearing foul weather rain clothes and were fairly dry.
“Four hundred would be my guess, Captain. Perhaps a few more, but not too many more. And they do not seem to be carrying weapons. They look like unarmed sailors.”
“That is what I think also. It would seem the Greek report that there were lightly crewed English galleys in the harbour was wrong, but that the report that only the English sailors were at the harbour to defend their galleys was correct.”
“Ah, look there. We are about to have visitors.”
What the Venetian captain was referring to was a small group of men wearing brown hooded tunics who had walked casually down to the water’s edge and were watching them as they approached. To the Venetian’s surprise, one of them raised his hand in greeting. The captain lifted his hand in return and gave an order.
“Tell Giuseppe to move in a little closer. Perhaps we can hail them. They may realize they are outnumbered and want to surrender.”
The lieutenant hastened to shout an order to the overseer of the galley’s slave rowers. They both knew it was too good an opportunity to pass up. The prize money and fame would be tremendous if they could take the galleys on the strand as prizes before the rest of the fleet reached the harbour. And they needed to hurry—because prize money was shared with every other galley in sight and already a third galley was coming into the harbour behind them.
******
The thinking of the men who had walked down to the shoreline to look at the Venetians was not about surrender, very much to the contrary. It was Richard himself who had led the little band of archers down to look at the Venetian galleys and lifted his hand to greet the Venetian galley.
“We might as well give them a welcome,” he said as he picked up his unstrung bow and motioned for his men to follow him. “And bring your longbows.”
There were only nine of them—Richard, the seven archer sergeants who had been helping Richard improve the sailors’ abilities to fight, and one of the wounded men, a lieutenant who had recovered enough to be able to climb walk about. Every one of them was carrying his unstrung longbow and four dry bowstrings.
“Their captain is probably the man on forward castle roof with the hood up on his foul weather tunic. He lifted his hand to acknowledge mine and then said something to the man next to him who leaned over the railing to give an order. Everyone is to mark him for their first target.”
******
The shade tents the Venetians saw as they rowed closer were Richard’s doing. He knew from bitter experience that nothing saps a man’s strength faster than working or fighting under a blazing hot sun.
Accordingly, he had taken no chances that the sailors and archers guarding the galleys would be weakened by the hot sun that usually fell upon Constantinople in the middle of the summer—he had taken the spare sails out of our crewless galleys and hung them over upright wooden poles to provide shade in which he and his men could stand whilst waiting for enemy attackers to advance. The poles were available from the galleys because they had been bought with the intention of using them to make pike handles.
Erecting the shade tents had been easy since there were plenty of men available to do the necessary work, and more than enough spare sails with so many galleys pulled ashore. And because he did not know where the Venetians would land their men in order to attack us, Richard had the Company’s sailors set up a line of open-sided “shade tents” on each side of the thirty or so Company galleys which had already been pulled ashore or soon w
ould be.
There were only two lines of tents because the nearby city wall towering over the little strip of land between the city and the harbour meant there was no room for the Venetians to form up their attackers on the city side of the galleys, and the nearby water meant there was no room for them to form them up on sea side.
In other words, if the Venetians and their allies came ashore to fight, they would have to land their men and come at the galleys’ defenders from one side of the strand or the other, or both. Those were the only places where there would be enough space for the Venetians to gather a force strong enough to launch an effective attack. And when and if the Venetians did attack, they would find Richard and his men waiting out of the sun or rain and as ready as possible to defend themselves and their galleys.
Richard’s decision to set up the two lines of shade tents had suddenly became very important when the rain began to fall and the Venetians arrived—because tents that would protect the Company’s men from waiting hour after hour in the hot sun would also protect them and the bowstrings of their longbows if it started to rain. The basic problem with Richard’s plan for defending the galleys, of course, was that the defenders he had immediately available only included a small handful of archers, just nine of them including himself and his apprentice sergeant.
Using the shade tents to protect the nine available longbows from the rain would help, of course, but the few arrows they would push out would not likely be sufficient to stop the attack or even greatly weaken it. There was no doubt about it, he thought bitterly, either reinforcements arrived or the Company was likely to lose most of its galleys.
Strangely enough, the use of a line of open-sided tents made from galley sails to protect the galley defenders’ from the weather was not a new idea. Richard had been learnt about using them when he attended the Company’s school for apprentice sergeants and Angelovian priests at Restormel Castle—where he had heard many times about the Company using such tents from the very men who had successfully used their galleys’ spare sails as open-sided shade tents many years earlier during a somewhat similar scorchingly hot summer campaign. It had been during another war and the Company’s shade tents had been erected near where the Orthodox army was now camped.
The Alchemist's Revenge Page 26