But each piece still retained a range of only a hundred yards, and it needed a stake to steady it, and it still took several minutes to re-load. When Anthony recalled the long-ranged, accurate, quick-firing volleys of arrows delivered by his sipahis on the road to Wallachia, he could not help but suppose that the best feature of the handgun was the alarming noise it made when fired.
The Byzantines opened fire as soon as the bashi-bazouks came within range, their pieces braced in the embrasures of the walls, and soon the plain was dotted with writhing figures. Dull explosions mingled with the shouts of both attackers and defenders, the screaming of women inside the city, and the clanging of bells — for it seemed every church was endeavouring to encourage the inhabitants. Above the combatants, clouds of smoke rose so thickly that it was impossible to see exactly what was happening from the gun emplacements.
The bashi-bazouks swarmed into the ditch and began to erect their ladders, but Giustiniani, in personal command above the St Romanus Gate, now opened fire with everything his soldiers possessed: handguns, wall guns, bows, crossbows and catapults fired their missiles into the ditch. Ladders were erected and then thrown down again. The bashi-bazouks trampled on one another in their endeavours to gain a lodgement, but were repulsed time and again. The Anatolians went to their aid and were similarly struck down.
The Janissaries had now advanced within range, and began a steady firing which seemed to have no effect on the defenders. They were not launched into the assault itself, as there was no point in adding more men to the squirming, screaming mass in the ditch.
John and Anthony looked at each other glumly. The Emir was sacrificing his men unnecessarily; this assault was clearly not going to succeed. But Mahomet continued to sit his horse and watch the fighting before him.
Then an aide-de-camp came galloping up from Zagan’s headquarters, on the Golden Horn.
“O Padishah!” he cried, “Admiral Baltoglu has been repulsed from the great boom. The Grand Duke Notaras himself commands there, and our ships have been defeated.”
“Strike off that man’s head!” Mahomet screamed.
Four Janissaries hauled the aide-de-camp from his saddle.
“With respect, O Padishah,” John protested rashly, “he is but a messenger.”
Mahomet glared at him — then waved his hand. “Spare the dog.” Then he growled. “Damn Notaras — I will have him flayed.”
“We will not win today,” Anthony said.
Mahomet glared at him, too, but then gave the signal for the tabalcans to sound the retreat.
The rumble of the drums spread across the morning and slowly the message reached the fighting men. Sullenly and angrily the Turks withdrew, pursued by the arrows and derisive jeers of the exultant Byzantines.
Mahomet rode forward towards the walls, although out of range. All around him the bashi-bazouks were dragging away their dead comrades, and they did not even look at the Emir.
“We have been defeated,” Mahomet said. “The Ottomans have been defeated. How can that be?”
“The only defeat or victory in a siege is the final outcome of that siege,” John told him. “The Byzantines are defending themselves with desperate valour, but we will yet triumph.”
“They have killed so many of our men,” Halil Pasha sighed, watching the growing pile of dead.
“We are many, they are few. If but one Byzantine fell today for every ten Turks, they are more grievously harmed than ourselves,” John insisted.
“Ha!” Mahomet shouted. “You are right, of course. They have to bury their dead in there. Well, we shall give them more work to do.” He pointed at the corpses of his own men. “Send these carrion to our trebuchets, that they may be tossed into the city. Let us see what they make of that.”
Halil looked at his master in consternation, and then at John.
“With respect, Padishah,” John protested, “to do that would turn Constantinople into a pesthole.”
“Even a bashi-bazouk needs a decent burial,” Halil ventured.
“Bah!” Mahomet said. “Do you suppose I care for the soul of a bashi-bazouk? Or whether the Byzantines die of the plague?”
“Indeed,” John agreed tactfully, “it is nothing more than they deserve. But do you not intend to take the city as your own? If plague once enters, it will not be habitable for years.”
Mahomet stared at him for some seconds. “What are you become? My conscience?” he asked at last. He turned his horse. “Very well. Have them buried.”
*
The bells of St Sophia tolled a Te Deum in thanksgiving for the repulse of the Turks; the Emperor led the service, flanked by Lukas Notaras and Giovanni Giustiniani. The population prayed and sang with sincere fervour; they had been in a state of terror since the siege had commenced with the reverberations of the great cannon which had sent them shrieking into the streets.
But the cannon had not yet breached the walls, and the assault had been repulsed. A return of some of the old Byzantine arrogance could almost be felt.
Catherine Notaras and Anna Drakontes knelt and prayed together. They were now the closest of friends. After the service, they sought out their husbands at the Notaras palace.
“Have we really won?” Anna asked, anxiously.
Count Drakontes looked at Basil Notaras.
“We have won only a battle,” Basil declared. “But we shall win, eventually. There is nothing more they can do. Not even your father’s great cannon has been able to destroy us.”
Catherine kept silent. Though she and her sister-in-law had drawn closer together, she and her husband had drifted apart. He was as handsome and compelling as ever, but he was bored with his foreign wife, regretting the sexual rapture that had led him into marrying her. He seldom came to her bed, and now was more likely to taunt than tempt her.
And for that she had wrecked her own family, with the youthful arrogance that was so much a part of her nature. She had cause to hate it in herself.
“But if they sit there and starve us out…” Anna probed.
“It is not the Turkish way to sit and besiege,” Basil said. “If they do not soon gain a lodgement, they will melt away — as has always happened before. In any event, my father tells me there is a Genoese fleet on its way to our succour.”
Catherine rose and went out onto the terrace. The sun was setting and the city was bathed in golden light. The Turkish lines, usually so exuberant, were silent.
Soon Anna joined her. “What did you feel when you saw your father and brother out there, riding behind the Emir?”
Catherine looked down at her; she was a head taller than the Greek girl.
“I wished that God could send down a thunderbolt and strike them dead,” she said.
Anna could make no reply at first. She was a Notaras; and her love, her very life, centred on her family, her father and mother, her two brothers. Having come to accept Catherine almost as a sister, she could only feel sorry for her.
At last she remarked, “It must be a terrible thing to hate so much one’s own relatives.”
Catherine snapped, “What else can I do now but hate them?”
Anna lifted her head in consternation. For the first time that she could remember, Catherine Notaras was weeping. Huge tears rolled down those soft cheeks.
“If it is a judgement of God that has sent them against me, for what I did to them,” Catherine continued, her voice quivering, “then either they or I must die.”
Anna shuddered. “If it is Gods judgement that they should not die, then we are all the victims of the devil.”
*
All the pashas were assembled in the headquarters tent that evening to discuss the situation.
“The key lies where I have always known it to be,” John Hawkwood advised them. “Constantine may have only a few thousand fighting men, but he is able to concentrate virtually all of them into a limited space: the land wall. While we, for all our numbers, can only launch the same number against him at one time. If we are going
to succeed quickly, we need to be able to attack another part of the wall in strength, to divert his forces.”
“And how may that happen?” Zagan Pasha demanded. “We have no means of gaining the sea walls. And today has proved that our galleys have not the strength to break the boom across the Golden Horn.”
“There is nowhere else,” Halil said miserably.
Mahomet looked from face to face, his eyes dull.
Anthony snapped his fingers and every head turned.
“With respect, my lords, the only way we can divert the Byzantines from the land wall is by attacking from the Golden Horn.”
“But that we cannot do, young Hawk.”
“We cannot force the boom, but can we not outflank it?”
“Explain.”
“Marching round the boom will accomplish nothing,” Zagan interrupted. “It is ships we need in the harbour, not men on the north bank.”
“I am speaking of ships, Zagan Pasha,” Anthony said. He prodded the map spread on the floor between them. “Here is Galata, on the north bank, held by the Genoese. But the garrison of Galata is not interfering with us; they know we could take them by assault any time we wish, and they desire only to be left in peace. North of Galata the land is low, and at sea level. And less than a mile inland from the sea is the river they call ‘The Springs’. If we could transport our galleys across that strip of land, we could launch them on to the Springs and row them down to the harbour. We would then appear in the Golden Horn behind the Grand Duke and his defenders.”
“Transport ships across land?” Halil asked incredulously.
“It can be done,” Anthony said. “I am sure of it.”
“How?” Mahomet asked, intrigued.
Anthony had not truly thought it out, but now he had an inspiration. “We will make a wooden roadway, Padishah, which we will grease with cattle fat, and over this we will drag our ships.”
“It could be done,” Mahomet agreed, his face glowing. “It will be done.”
“There is one point you have overlooked.” John Hawkwood turned to his son. “Our galleys may indeed be carried overland to the stream, but they can descend the stream only one at a time. What if Notaras concentrates where the stream debouches into the harbour, and so destroys our fleet piecemeal?”
“Notaras has but a score of ships, Father. Of course he can concentrate them at the exit of the stream, but to do that he must abandon the defence of the boom. If half of our ships were retained there, we should then advance wherever he weakened himself.”
“A worthy concept,” Mahomet said. “I am proud of you, young Hawk. Let the work be put in hand. And you will be in command.”
***
Baltoglu was not pleased to discover he was about to share his command with an untried foreigner of barely twenty-one, but the Emir would not be gainsaid. Next morning Anthony commenced his task, requisitioning thousands of workmen and all the wood that could be found, to build his trackway.
Meanwhile the cannon resumed their slow, inexorable bombardment.
The following day Mahomet rode over to see how work was progressing. The slipway had already been commenced.
“You are a man of genius, young Hawk,” the Emir pronounced with pleasure.
He was at once distracted by a messenger with news that four large Genoese carracks had been sighted on Marmara, clearly making for the Bosphorus.
“They must be bringing reinforcements, and perhaps grain,” remarked Baltoglu. “I will destroy them.”
“A victory,” Mahomet said. “At last! You will seize those ships, Baltoglu Pasha.”
The Bulgarian bowed. “It will be my honour, Padishah.”
“Wait! Listen to me,” Mahomet said. “Allow them to enter the narrows. That way they will not be able to escape you. And that way, too, their destruction will be evident to the Byzantines.”
Baltoglu galloped off to be ferried out to his waiting ships.
“This will be sport,” Mahomet said.
*
After they had lunched, they rode down on to the beach itself to oversee the coming engagement.
The masts of the carracks, urged on by a fresh southerly breeze, could now clearly be seen. Their sails, emblazoned with the cross and various other devices, billowed towards the Bosphorus, and above them flew long red and blue and gold pennants. But the flags began to droop as the ships slowed on entering the narrows and came against the current. The walls of Constantinople were lined with people cheering as they saw this relief close at hand. Surely these were the advance guard of the fleet they had expected for so long? Flags were flown and trumpets blown to encourage the arriving seamen.
Out of the Prinkopo harbour the Turkish galleys began to creep like an army of beetles: one hundred and forty-five of them, an immense array of oars striking the surface in unison, while their drummers kept up a steady rhythm.
They were soon spotted by the watchers on the walls, and their cheers changed to a great moan. No one could doubt that the Genoese would be destroyed by such overwhelming force.
The Turkish seamen, however, uttered a tremendous shriek of anticipated victory, with a beating of drums and clashing of tambourines, as they rowed straight for their enemies.
Mahomet rode his horse up and down in the shallow water, snapping his fingers as if to urge his men on.
The galleys swarmed towards the Genoese carracks. But the carracks were still impelled by the breeze, and their reinforced prows smashed into the first Turkish vessels to reach them. Sides were staved in and entire banks of oars sheered away as the huge ships forged steadily onwards, leaving their first assailants sinking — with men swimming for the shore, and the chained galley slaves screaming as the waters closed above them.
“Devils!” Mahomet shrieked, raising clenched fists. “They are devils. Why cannot they be stopped?”
“It is the wind,” Anthony told them. “It gives them too much power. But look there!”
The ships had now reached the shelter of the Acropolis, where the wind was dropping; the carracks scarcely seemed to move.
“Now,” Mahomet yelled. “Now we have them.”
As the galleys entirely surrounded the four ships, grappling-irons were thrown. Men attempted to swarm up the high bulwarks of the carracks, but were driven back. The Genoese fought with desperation, panache and superior armament. On to the heads of their attackers they hurled rocks, pots of Greek fire, darts and javelins, while handguns and swivel guns mounted on the bulwarks continually swept the galleys with shot. Those few Turks who did reach the decks were soon cut down with axes.
This battle raged for two hours, and the longer it continued the more agitated Mahomet became. Waving his fists and shrieking encouragement to his men, he urged his horse up and down the beach — and into the sea.
After two hours the four Genoese ships were still untaken — and then the breeze returned.
Now the carracks forged ahead again. Galleys fell away to either side, their oars sliced off, and the ships were through. The boom was dropped, and the Genoese squadron safely entered the Golden Horn.
*
Mahomet said nothing as he rode back to his encampment, but he was clearly in the grip of a powerful emotion; his shoulders were hunched.
The pashas had all gathered there, but none dared speak. It seemed the most humiliating defeat ever suffered by Ottoman arms.
Baltoglu approached and bowed low. “They were too strong for us, O Padishah.”
“Too strong?” Mahomet’s voice was menacingly quiet. “Four ships were too strong for a hundred and forty-five?”
“They were large and well-defended…”
“You lie!” Suddenly Mahomet was screaming. “You are a traitor. You have betrayed me.”
“I, Padishah?” Baltoglu placed his hand over his heart. “I am the most faithful of men. Have I not proved this time and again?”
“You betrayed me today,” Mahomet shrieked. He gestured to his guards. Baltoglu’s arms were grasped. “P
adishah!” the admiral cried in dismay. “I did my best.”
“Prepare a lance,” Mahomet ordered, “and thrust it up his arse. Stand him by the shore so that he may look at the scene of his disgrace, while he dies.”
“Padishah!” Baltoglu screamed in terror, as the Janissaries would have hurried him off.
“Padishah,” Halil protested, “you cannot do this.”
“Halil Pasha is right, Padishah,” John Hawkwood agreed. “Baltoglu did his best.”
Mahomet glared at them both, and then at the other pashas. He could see agreement in their faces, as well. If they were each to be impaled every time some attack failed, they would never dare attack again.
The Janissaries had halted, a weeping Baltoglu in their clutches.
“He can have his life,” Mahomet growled at last. “But he is dismissed my service — and he will be punished. Strip him naked and stretch him on the ground.”
Mahomet snatched up a heavy cane, while his pashas looked at each other in amazement. When Baltoglu was stripped and stretched face-down on the earth, Mahomet began to beat him, blow after blow. The admiral howled in pain as his buttocks began to bleed, but Mahomet did not let up until he was exhausted. Then he threw down the cane.
“Drive him from the camp!” He stalked off towards his tent.
*
Yet that night he seemed as charming as he could be. However, the other pashas were in sombre mood, each counting the risk of personal failure.
“What are four ships and a few hundred men,” the Emir said jovially. “It is your scheme which will bring about the fall of the city, young Hawk. I put my trust in you.”
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