A Place Called Armageddon

by C. C. Humphreys

  Achmed had been lying bare-chested because some fool had vomited on his shirt. Now he dug into his satchel and pulled out the vest he’d purchased from a gypsy with one of the few coins he’d managed to keep for himself. The girl had merged four letters of his name – ACMD – with one of the ninety-nine names of Allah, al-Qarib. He could not read, but he knew it meant ‘near’, and when he chanted the names, he did feel near to Him, the garment and the conjoined names protecting him.

  He needed to void the boza he’d drunk. But Farouk was already organising them into their files and he could not move. At their bolukbasi’s command, they left the lee of the hill, went up and over it. He expected the sight to be the same as ever – the walls sweeping to the sea, the flapping standards, the crumbling stone bastions, the stockade the Greeks would have thrown up in the night to close each breach the mighty cannon had opened. But this time he could see nothing but what magic had wrought.

  The tower. It was so large it must indeed have been made by a powerful djinn and his thousand helpers, only the most potent of spells raising something so vast, so swiftly, where there had been nothing before. Set up in the fosse, flush against the low outermost wall, it loomed over that, dwarfing even the second wall, the one the Greeks defended. It faced one of their bastions, one so battered by cannon that only a single stone crenel still stood, like a solitary tooth in Farouk’s mouth. And Achmed, who had begun to learn a little of the way of the siege, could see what the djinn’s tower had achieved: archers on top of it, sheltered on a roofed platform, could shoot directly down on the infidels, keeping them from their repairs, keeping them from harassing the swarms of the faithful who attacked the stockade with axes and poles.

  He watched flaming arrows shot from the third, last and largest wall behind and saw them bury themselves in the thick hide that covered the structure. But the material did not dissolve in flames; the hides had to have been soaked, and even as he watched, he saw one small fire doused with water thrown from that sheltered platform.

  They had reached their own wooden stockade. ‘Line up! You too, whoreson dog.’ A blow accompanied Farouk’s words. ‘Only swords! Leave the rest here.’ There was a clatter as axes, spears and the few shields were stacked against the stockade. ‘Now, each man grab as much wood as he can carry.’ There were stacks of logs, each about half the height of a big man. Achmed bent with the others, lifted. ‘Come on, giant.’ Farouk prodded him with his bastinado. ‘You can manage more than that.’ As Achmed bent and lifted three more logs to add to the three he had, Farouk continued, ‘Good. Good. Now … forward!’

  Achmed took his gaze from one miracle … to another! From the base of the hill, a wooden tunnel ran the hundred paces to the tower. They would be sheltered the entire way from the arrows and quarrels and flung stones that usually fell hard upon them. Men were filing out six abreast, so wide was its entrance. Then Farouk peered into the tunnel and yelled, ‘Forward!’

  They marched into the darkness. Yet it was not pitch; Achmed could see men ahead of him, though he was near the front, and there were openings every dozen paces that admitted the sun. It got darker as they got closer to the noise. It wasn’t just the ever-present screaming of men in combat. As they neared the tunnel’s end, he also heard the distinct sound of digging.

  The tunnel splayed wide, and Achmed realised that it gave directly onto the tower. The front of it, which was in the fosse and pressed against the Greeks’ lesser wall, was open, and bare-chested men stood there, hacking into the earth and stone, yelling and cursing in a foreign language. They had already carved out a cave, and other men were erecting props to hold up its roof.

  He looked up … and gasped. The tower rose above him, hollow save for the stairs that went up inside it, and the three platforms the flights linked that rose to the very top. Raschid stood beside him, also looking up, the same awe on his face. ‘Man could not have made this,’ he whispered. ‘The djinns of the earth and the heavens fight for us.’

  Achmed saw that their bolukbasi was listening to a senior officer, in a rich wool gomlek and purple turban, who was talking rapidly and gesturing all around. Farouk nodded, then turned back to his waiting men. ‘Everyone behind Iqbal stack their wood to the side. Carry these sacks of earth back down the tunnel and fetch more logs. You at the front, you dozen …’ he gestured to Achmed and the men around him, ‘bring yours up the stairs.’

  He led the way. Achmed, strong though he was, felt the pressure in his knees as he bore his double load up the stairs. Felt the pressure in his bladder too, still unrelieved, but he knew that was not just his burden. The noise of battle inside the tower was muffled, by ox hides and thick wood, but the screams of men, killing, dying, still came through along with the thump of arrows, the drum of flung stones, the steam hiss of flames suddenly engulfed in water. More faintly, he could hear the never-ceasing call of the pipe and the drumming of the kos. And the tower, like all the earth around it, shook when the big cannon roared. He was hot too, and not just from the exercise, as he struggled up the second flight. Hell, he thought quite clearly, would be like this.

  To his relief, Farouk halted him at the first platform. ‘Here, giant. Set it down, but keep hold.’ He turned to a man, another officer, who was peering through slits in the tower’s front wall. ‘We are here, master,’ he said.

  The man turned. ‘Good,’ he said simply, then gestured to a soldier beside him, who immediately pulled hard upon a rope that ran to a hoist above. A section of the front wall swung up … and Achmed was looking at Greek stonework twenty paces away.

  ‘Throw!’ the officer commanded, and Achmed was the first to lift his logs again, step to the open doorway and fling his wood into the evening air. He heard them clatter below, stepped back and heard more of the same as his comrades threw their burdens. When the last had done so, the officer peered swiftly out, down. ‘Water!’ he called, a bucket was handed to him and he tipped the contents down the front of the tower. All heard the fizz as flames died. ‘Good,’ he said, putting the bucket down beside five others, then turning back to Farouk. ‘More wood,’ he commanded.

  He was not quite sure what they did – raising the level of the land, he supposed, up to the Greek battlements – but it was better than fighting. It reminded Achmed of the work he did upon his own land, the clearing of stones from the fields he needed to sow. The constant bending, lifting, carrying, throwing. His back, legs, arms all soon ached but, just as at home, he did not stop. It was comforting, the rhythm, even the pain, the memories that brought. And no one was running at him with a sword, no one was flinging a stone at his head or an arrow at his chest.

  He carried, more than other men, up and down the stairs. It got dark, outside and within, but still they laboured. Soon another pain, one that had never really left him, became too strong finally to bear. ‘Master,’ he said, turning to Farouk after he’d dropped his latest logs, ‘I have to piss.’

  ‘Can’t you wait?’ his lieutenant replied irritably. He was as exhausted as any of them. ‘We are about to be relieved.’

  The officer brought his head back in from looking down the front of the tower, empty bucket in hand. As the door lowered, he held out the bucket and said, ‘Piss in that. Save us bringing up more water. Giant like you will probably fill it.’

  Gratefully, Achmed dug within his robes. He was so desperate now that he couldn’t start under Farouk’s impatient gaze; also the Christians were screaming even louder, as if begging him to stop. Finally he trickled, trickle became flood and he sighed in joy. He did near fill the bucket, to the wonder of his watchers. ‘Now, man, one more load,’ said Farouk, ‘and then we can fill you up again with boza.’

  They descended to the ground. Achmed could see by torchlight that the tunnel under the wall had progressed, was a few paces in. In the edge of the flame flicker crouched Raschid. He had complained that his twisted leg could not stand so much climbing up and down and had sought to avoid it whenever he could. But Farouk knew him and his lazy ways of old.
‘Up, dog,’ he cried, striking at him with his bastinado. ‘Why should we carry for you?’

  Whining, Raschid picked up two small logs, Achmed two more than his usual six. Now it was near the end of the work, now his inner pain had ended too, he was content. He needed to eat, drink, pray, sleep, dream. The djinn had come and helped the children of the Prophet. They were filling in the land of the Greeks for the forces of Mehmet to run across. Soon, maybe as soon as tomorrow, they would storm the city, and then, if Allah let him live and did not claim him as a martyr, he would be rich and go home.

  One more load. He climbed the stairs, grunting on each one, Raschid complaining on each one behind him. When they reached the platform, even Achmed’s legs wobbled, and he moved to the side to set down his load against the wooden wall. Raschid, unwilling to move a step further, just set his down in the middle, closest to the rising shutter, closest to the ending of his task.

  Achmed watched the officer step to the gap, one hand raised behind him to signal them forward, saw him lean a little way out, to check that the hides were still unburned … and saw a huge tongue of fire flash through the gap. It consumed the man, almost on the instant; one moment leaning carefully out, the next a swirling mass of flame. He whirled, staggered, flesh whining as he burned, his scream snatched away by instant white heat.

  ‘Dragon!’ Achmed tried to cry the word, tried to warn, but it stuck in his throat. Tales in the camp had told of beasts that fought on the infidels’ side. The dragon had come to fight the work of the djinn.

  The officer fell at last, shooting sparks. The roaring flame leapt past him, as the beast sought another victim.

  And found Raschid.

  Perhaps the ferocity had slackened a little. Or perhaps the other men standing in its path distracted it, because the monster did not instantly destroy Raschid as it had the officer. Like the other, the little man caught fire, shaking a flaming arm that burned beyond the consuming of his clothes. ‘Allah!’ he screamed, one of scores crying the name, on their platform, above it, for the dragon ranged afar, seeking more victims.

  Achmed looked up in time to see the top archer’s platform dissolve. A man fell shrieking from it and on through to the ground, flames increasing with his speed, a human comet. The giant was stunned, staring, unable to move – unlike Farouk, the veteran, who had also not caught fire and leapt now, snatching up a bucket of water, turning, throwing it onto the nearest of his men. But the water did not douse the flames. Instead, it seemed to spread them, carrying them to every part of the platform not already burning. Achmed jumped over a tongue that lapped at him, stumbled towards the buckets. He did not know what else to use, though the first had had no effect.

  He hoisted one by its rope handle, swung it round. Just before he flung it, he was aware of its sharp, sour tang, knew it for his own excreta. But that did not stop him as he hurled the contents over Raschid.

  Instantly, the flames died. The soaked little man looked at him in astonishment … and then his eyes rolled up in his head and he fell. Achmed, moving fast now, caught him before he reached the floor, flung him over his shoulder. Dodging trails of fire borne on swinging tarred ropes and the sparks from imploding wood, he leapt down stairs that dissolved as he stepped off them and then out into the tunnel. Men staggered ahead of him, some yelling piteously and beating at flames that would not go out. Eventually, up ahead, Achmed saw stars and ran to them.

  The defenders lay draped on the crumbled ramparts, or spread on the open ground of the Peribolos. Genoan, Venetian and Greek, unable to move, while screams reduced to moans and flames dissolved into the embers of the vanished tower.

  Perhaps because to breathe he had to shove aside the body of a Turk who’d fallen over him even as he killed him, Gregoras moved first, slipping down the tumbled stones, between the rock-filled barrels. Some men started and reached for weapons, though they looked too tired to lift them. Gregoras knew it was hard to tell friend from enemy, for all were smeared in soot, earth and blood. ‘Peace,’ he said in Greek, staggering past men falling back again. He wished he could have lain down too. But first he had to check that the man who had saved the city twice in two days had survived.

  He climbed to the bastion, keeping his head low, for there was some fireglow still. At first he thought that the Scot must be dead, so still was he, one hand yet clamped to the bronze pump. Then he heard him, the whisper in his own language, the one that seemed stuck in his throat and made every man, to his annoyance, consider him a German. Gregoras did not speak it, and did not think any could. But he had heard Grant cry out his clan’s war cry often enough to recognise it now.

  ‘Craigelachie,’ came the murmur. ‘Craigelachie.’

  ‘Come,’ Gregoras whispered.

  Grant looked up, his eyes the only light in his blackened face. ‘Did it burn?’ he rasped.

  ‘To the ground,’ Gregoras replied. ‘Come.’ Crouching, still keeping in the lee of the last ruined crenel, he pulled his friend away till he could tuck his shoulder under his arm.

  Other people were stirring in the Peribolos now. Some he recognised, though all seemed much changed by the day and night of fighting. Even the Commander looked smaller, as if shrunk by exhaustion, hands resting on knees as he spoke. ‘I’ll see to the stockade,’ Giustiniani said. ‘The Turk might have lost his tower, but he will come again with the dawn.’

  ‘I will see to it.’ The familiar voice came from beside them, though there was nothing familiar about the face caked in mud and blood.

  ‘Sire,’ said Giustiniani, ‘you must rest.’

  ‘I am younger than you,’ said Constantine, ‘and it is my stockade, after all.’ He looked at the Scot whom Gregoras held up, both men swaying like drunkards. ‘We owe you a great debt, kyr. You have, beyond doubt, and with the aid of God on highest, saved the city this night.’ A smile split the soot. ‘To your beds, all of you.’

  He turned away, to other men rising, began to issue orders. ‘Well,’ yawned Giustiniani, ‘when an emperor commands …’

  The three of them turned toward the gate. Enzo, the Sicilian, offered a shoulder, which Giustiniani took, gratefully. Grant murmured something else, looking to the bastion, and Gregoras said, ‘Do not fear. We’ll bring the pump down later.’

  The Scotsman’s next words were clear – and sad. ‘No point,’ he said, ‘for I used up the last of the fuel for my Greek Fire. I hope it was worth it.’

  ‘It was,’ Gregoras replied, ‘for you have slain the Heleopolis. It will take no city.’ He sighed. ‘And we will just have to find other ways to save Constantinople now.’

  – PART THREE –

  Omega

  – TWENTY-EIGHT –

  Messages

  23 May: forty-seventh day of the siege

  The Man with Long Sight was still at his post atop the Golden Gate.

  It had been over a month since he was the first in the city to spy the four Christian ships and cry out their coming, to the pealing of bells and universal joy. A month of less and less sleep, as the Turkish guns fired through the night and the enemy launched attack after attack against the walls. A month when the bread ration was halved, then halved again, and the bread came ever thicker with sawdust. He’d been sick, too. A rat had bitten him in a tussle over a fallen crust, and though he had killed the rat and roasted it for his supper – the last meat he’d had, two weeks since – the nip it had given him had festered and brought a fever. He’d only just returned to his post and his eyesight was not what it was. Half the time he was squinting at the horizon, he forgot what he was meant to be looking for.

  So it took him a while, to turn the sails into something other than birds or dust motes. It was a dull early evening, with thunderclouds building to the west, so the sun was not glinting on the Sea of Marmara and for once he was able to stare with eyes near full open. He assumed that it was just another enemy vessel, since they ruled the waters. Until the ship tacked and swung side on to him and he was able to note that it had not one mast b
ut two, the smaller foremast square-set, the larger main mast rigged fore and aft.

  ‘Brigantine,’ he whispered, but only to himself. He had made mistakes before in his delirium, laid himself open to ridicule. Besides, there was one particular brigantine he was watching for, the one that the emperor had dispatched to search for the relieving fleet. It would fly the enemy’s red crescent, as it had when it set out, to try and deceive the watchful Turks. But it would unfurl a white sheet over its gunwales when it came in sight of the city, as a signal to the defenders to prepare to admit it.

  The man waited, watched, prayed. He could see it quite clearly now, his eyesight improving with his hope. See the men on deck in the turban and robe of the Turk. See the barefoot sailors in the rigging, adding more sail to catch the lodos wind that had blown them from the Dardanelles. See, finally, the white sheet lowered on the larboard side, thrown out casually as if shaking it clear of crumbs. ‘Lieutenant,’ he called, and had to call again, his voice a dry whisper.

  The officer came slowly up the stair, ducking into the shelter of a crenel – there were Turks who would shoot an arrow as soon as they caught the glint of armour. ‘Well?’ he rasped.

  ‘It is the one, kyr.’

  ‘You are sure?’

  The sentinel nodded. ‘See for yourself.’

  The lieutenant bent, peered, rubbed his eyes, peered again. His sight was not as keen, but the vessel was moving closer fast and he could make out the details. ‘Alone,’ he muttered, rubbing his untrimmed beard. ‘Where’s the fleet it’s supposed to bring?’ He pointed his finger at the other man. ‘Not a word,’ he said, and went back down the stair.

  Slumping into the stonework, the Man with Long Sight closed his eyes. He could do with some sleep, now his job was done. No bells would disturb it; this discovery would not be greeted in joyful carillons as before. For the moment, only two men knew that the ship had returned. The other, whose footsteps were still upon the stair, would ride straight to the emperor and tell him in person. A few more would then be told, but only those needed to raise the boom for the messengers. Then, depending on the message, the bells would ring of approaching salvation and many more Christian ships to come. Or they would remain untolled, and Constantinople would face its fate silently, and alone.