‘Protect the standard!’ La Valette shouted in alarm.
Richard was two paces to Thomas’s right, thrusting a ladder back. The moment it fell away he turned and lunged at the Janissary. The man saw the danger and released his grip on Thomas’s wrist. He threw up his arm to ward off the blow and knocked the steel point aside. Thomas moved at once and stabbed his dagger into the man’s arm, and again. With a bellow of pain and rage, the Janissary thrust his sword hand out, smashing Thomas in the chest and unbalancing him so that he tottered on the edge of the fighting step for a moment and then fell back, the standard falling with him.
At once a groan rose from the lips of the nearest defenders, matched by a shout of jubilation from the other side of the wall. The Janissary swung his other leg over the wall and rushed at Richard, slashing wildly with his scimitar. Richard desperately blocked the blows with the shaft of his pike. Another Janissary came over the wall and turned towards La Valette, warily eyeing the lowered point of his pike as he closed. Two more men came over the wall and then a fifth, carrying Suleiman’s standard which he planted on the parapet and waved from side to side. Thomas scrambled to his feet and snatched up the standard of the Order in his good hand, leaving the dagger on the ground.
‘Stand firm!’ he bellowed to left and right. ‘Stand firm!’
‘Drive them back!’ La Valette yelled. ‘For God and St John! Kill them!’
Figures surged past Thomas and he saw a young boy, no more than twelve, pull himself on to the wall and throw himself at the Janissary attacking Richard. His puny fists clawed at the Turk’s face and he bit into the bare skin of his arm, above the gauntlet. The Turk glared at the boy, then grabbed his hair and wrenched him away before dashing his brains out on the parapet and flinging the wretchedly skinny bag of bones down beside Thomas. A shrill cry of grief and rage cut through the air and a thin woman stepped over the body and hurled a rock at the Janissary. The sharp-edged stone split his eyebrow open and blood coursed over his eyes, forcing him to pause and wipe them clear. The moment’s distraction cost him his life as Richard rammed his pike into the Janissary’s stomach, twisted the point to both sides and ripped it free. The Turk tumbled inside the wall and at once the woman leaped upon him, another rock in her hand, which she punched into his face repeatedly, pulverising flesh and bone as tears streamed down her cheeks and an animal keening strained at her throat.
More women and children charged forward, snatching and tearing at the Janissaries, pulling them from the wall and beating them to death. The enemy standard bearer on the wall looked down aghast as the Maltese slaughtered his comrades like wild animals. Then Richard cast his pike aside and rushed at the man, striking him in the face with his mantlet, the metal finger guards tearing into the Janissary’s cheek. He struck the man again and again and then seized the shaft of the standard in his left hand in a desperate struggle for its possession. There was a sudden lull in the fighting around the two men as the combatants on both sides watched the struggle.
The Turkish standard bearer clung on to the shaft as he endured Richard’s blows. He tried at first to ward them off with his left hand, and then suddenly thrust it forward, clamping his fingers round Richard’s throat. Thomas saw his son’s face contort in agony. Richard renewed his efforts, punching with all his failing strength. Then the man’s head snapped back with a deep groan and he staggered, dazed, his fingers releasing their grip on Richard. He stumbled and fell across the parapet and Richard tore the enemy standard from his hand before thrusting him over the side. At once Richard held the standard aloft and a wild cheer erupted from the defenders on and behind the wall. Richard waved it back and forth for a moment, taunting the Turks, and then contemptuously hurled the standard back towards Birgu where it landed in the mud.
The Turks fell silent. Then the first of them began to back away, and the motion rippled through the ranks as the rest followed. Thomas climbed up beside Richard and held the Order’s standard high in the air and added his cheers to those of the other defenders. Below him he saw Mustafa Pasha threaten his men with his sword as he screamed at them to continue the attack. Some stopped and turned back, and then a rock struck the enemy commander on the chin and he stumbled and fell to his knees, blood pouring from a deep gash. A wail of despair rose up from those immediately around him and the urge to retreat became unstoppable. Mustafa Pasha’s bodyguards hurriedly picked up their commander and bore him away, towards the breach. Around them the Turks fell back across the open ground to the main wall.
‘After them!’ La Valette commanded. ‘Drive them out! They must not be allowed to hold the wall!’
His order was repeated and the defenders slid over the parapet and began to chase after the Turks. Knights, soldiers, women and children all joined the pursuit, sprinting after the enemy and falling like wolves upon those that lagged behind their comrades. Watching from the wall Thomas felt sickened by the sight. This was not a war any more, but a savage, bloody massacre. Women and children attacked their prey with knives, axes and clubs, splattering blood and gobbets of flesh across the ground where the rain struggled to wash them away. An old woman hacked away at a fallen Janissary and then leaned down to clench his beard in her fist and raise the bloodied head aloft with a shrill cry of triumph.
‘Richard!’ La Valette called out. ‘Take up the enemy’s standard. The trophy is yours. Then follow me.’
The three men waited briefly while the wagon was unchained and rolled aside. Then they emerged from the wall and picked their way through the bodies scattered across the open ground and returned to the bastion. Romegas greeted the Grand Master with a wide smile, then waved his arm in the direction of the enemy trenches. The ground in front of Birgu’s outer defences was covered with a sea of fleeing figures. Ranged along the wall and standing on the piles of rubble in the breaches the soldiers and people of Birgu stood in the rain, cheering, waving, and shouting their contempt at the backs of the enemy.
‘Thanks be to God,’ Thomas heard the Grand Master mutter. ‘We survive.’
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
11 September
The rain stopped and for several days the sky cleared and the sun shone down on the devastation of the battlefield. The Turkish bombardment resumed, interspersed with a handful of attacks that were not pressed home and quickly disintegrated under the withering fire from the defenders crouching in the rubble along the line of the walls of Birgu and Senglea. The Grand Master no longer held meetings for his advisers. There was nothing to discuss. Rations were running short, their numbers were so diminished that one more determined assault was bound to result in defeat and annihilation. It was simply a matter of holding on for as long as possible.
Each morning Thomas rose before dawn to take his position in the bastion, alongside Richard and the other defenders, and then watch and wait, senses straining to pick up any warning of another assault. But eventually the attacks stopped coming and only a few of the enemy batteries still maintained their bombardment of the defences. To Thomas it seemed as if the enemy no longer had the heart to continue the siege and for the first time he allowed himself to hope that he, Maria and Richard might yet survive. They would return to England, he resolved, and begin to live the life that had been denied them for so long. There was a rightness about the quiet fantasy he allowed himself to indulge in. It was meant to be, Thomas told himself with a smile of contentment, surely, after all that they had endured?
He would not pray for such an outcome, though he knew that Maria prayed for little else, and she prayed fervently. He had watched her, kneeling before the small shrine that she had erected in the cellar of the house, rosary beads clenched in her hand, eyes gazing at the small statuette of the Virgin Mary, lips working faintly as she muttered her imprecations. She paused whenever a Turkish cannonball droned overhead, or smashed into a building nearby. Thomas looked on with a fatigued sense of disappointment in Maria, and in all those who held to their conviction that this world was the creation of a loving compassi
onate God. But her religious convictions did not extend to denying herself the full pleasure of their relationship, one of many compromises among the faithful that Thomas took as a sign of the emptiness of religion.
He was aware that he no longer felt the burden of guilt that had formerly accompanied his abandonment of belief, when he had felt that he had failed himself and all those around him. Now it was as if a cloying mantle had been lifted from him and he felt free, and just a little afraid of the idea of the finality of death. At the same time, it served as a stark reminder of the need to live fully in the moment. There was no eternity of reward in the afterlife, just a shallow promise of paradise to sugar the bitterness of the brief span of life that for many was little more than a struggle against starvation and violent death. What better way to hold people in thrall, Thomas thought to himself, his expression bitter.
‘What is it?’
Thomas blinked as his thoughts refocused. Richard was watching him curiously where they both sat behind the parapet of the bastion.
‘What were you thinking?’ Richard asked.
‘It was nothing. A passing fancy.’ Thomas stiffly eased himself up behind the parapet and cautiously peered towards the enemy trenches a hundred paces away. The Turkish marker flags were still in position, hanging limply from their standards in the calm morning air. There was no sign of movement there, nor further back beyond the trenches where there were usually small parties of men carrying supplies from the ships to the enemy camps. Richard rose up too and peered over the edge of the parapet, eyes scouring the ground for any sign of enemy snipers.
‘They’re quiet today.’
‘Quiet be damned,’ Thomas muttered. ‘They’ve gone.’
‘Gone?’ Richard scrutinised the enemy’s entrenchments. ‘It could be a trick.’
Thomas pursed his lips. ‘Let’s see.’
He sat down again and unbuckled the chinstrap of his helmet. Then, taking up one of the loaded arquebuses that were leaning against the parapet ready for use, he balanced his helmet on the butt and slowly raised it behind the crenellation so that its plume would be visible above the top of the stone. Then he eased the helmet sideways round the masonry until it was in clear view of the enemy’s trenches.
‘If there’s any of them out there, they’ll not pass up the chance of trying a shot at one of the knights,’ said Thomas.
There was no response to his bait. He waited a moment longer before he lowered the arquebus and retrieved his helmet.
‘Have one of the men report to La Valette. Tell him that there is no sign of the enemy to our front. I’ll confirm that when I return.’ Richard sucked in a quick breath. ‘You’re going out there?’
‘Of course. We need to be sure.’
‘What if it’s a trick? An attempt to lure us from cover?’
Thomas tapped the brim of his helmet. ‘You saw. Not a single shot. They’ve abandoned their trenches, I’m sure of it.’
‘But why?’
Thomas smiled. ‘I would hate to tempt fate, and I will not say what my heart hopes, not until I have seen it with my own eyes.’ He patted his son on the shoulder. ‘No more tarrying, Richard. Send word to La Valette and then keep watch for me. I might just return somewhat more swiftly than I set out.’
He did not wait for a reply but scurried a short distance along the parapet towards the nearest breach where a low breastwork had been hurriedly thrown up. Easing his head up, Thomas swept his gaze over the ground in front of him. Satisfied that there was no movement, he snatched a quick breath, slid over the breastwork and scrambled down the rubble slope and dropped into the ditch where he pressed himself against the ground, breathing hard. He waited, his ears straining for any sound of voices or movement. A short distance to his right he saw a corpse, half buried in dust and rubble. There was a dried brown stain on the turban and torn cloth where a bullet had passed through his skull. His head lay back and his eyes stared into the clear heavens as flies buzzed lazily about the blotched skin of his face and walked undisturbed across his rotting flesh. From the sight and smell of the corpse, Thomas estimated the body must have lain there for at least ten days, one of many that the Turks had not dared to retrieve for a proper burial according to their custom.
Satisfied that he was safe for the moment, Thomas crept up to the rim of the ditch and peered over. Before him the rocky ground was scarred by the rough furrows of enemy shot that had grounded in front of the wall and ricocheted on into the defences. Broken ladders and abandoned weapons and armour lay scattered on the ground, together with the dead, their stomachs grossly distorted by mortal corruption under the glare of the sun. The shattered remains of a siege tower were no more than twenty yards away and Thomas slowly eased himself up before rushing across the open ground towards it, head and shoulders hunched down. Still there was no shout of alarm, nor the crack of sniper’s weapon. He squatted down behind the shelter of the solid timbers and caught his breath before he glanced back towards the bastion. There was a brief glitter of sunlight on steel and he saw Richard watching him.
‘Keep your head down, you fool!’ Thomas hissed and gestured furiously with his gloved hand, but Richard continued to expose his head above the parapet. Fearing for his son, Thomas moved out from his shelter and ran for the nearest Turkish flag indicating the front line of their trenches, trusting that if there was a sniper lying in concealment then he would find him an easier target than Richard. He did not run in a straight line, but zigzagged across the open ground. All the while his heart pounded with a mixture of exertion and fear. Then he suddenly found himself on the parapet of a trench and he dropped into it on his hands and knees, splashing into the muddy water pooled along the bottom. At once he pressed against the side, hands splayed against the stony surface, gasping for breath. He looked quickly from side to side.
Nothing moved. He was alone.
Once his frantic breathing had calmed, Thomas drew his sword and cautiously headed for an opening that he guessed would lead into one of the approach trenches. The Turks had left little behind them, merely broken tools and rags. Edging round the corner, Thomas followed the trench towards one of the batteries that had fallen silent three days earlier. As he made his way through the silence and stillness, he saw soil- and rock-filled wicker baskets that made up the embrasures of the battery, but no sign of the muzzles of the cannon that had been pounding Birgu for the last two months.
At length the trench sloped up and entered the battery. The air inside the fortified position was thick with the acrid odour of burning and Thomas saw the blackened remains of gun carriages, barrel staves and lengths of timber used to construct the platforms for the Turkish guns. A short distance behind the battery was a large mound. Near the top, a handful of wild dogs had scratched away at the thin scraping of soil that had been quickly thrown over the mass grave, and the half-starved animals were feasting on the dead limbs they had exposed.
From the raised platform in the centre of the battery Thomas could see puffs of smoke from the batteries on the other side of the harbour, but there was no sign of activity from the batteries facing the defences at the end of each of the promontories of Senglea and Birgu. He felt a surge of hope, and then exultation at the realisation that the enemy were abandoning their siege. He took a last look round at the heights on either side and then sheathed his sword and hurried back down the trench towards the bastion, a quarter of a mile away. He had thought about striding directly across the open ground but there was still a possibility that the enemy had left a handful of snipers behind to harass the defenders the moment they ventured too far outside their defences.
By the time he returned to the bastion, the Grand Master was waiting for him, an excited gleam in his weary face. ‘Well?’
‘They have gone, sir.’ Thomas crossed to the parapet and stood in full view of the enemy trenches as he indicated his route. ‘I went as far as that battery, there. I saw no one, and the Turks have carried away whatever equipment and supplies they could and burned
the rest. They have abandoned their positions on this side of the harbour, I’m sure of it.’
La Valette nodded. ‘The lookouts on St Angelo have also seen some of their guns being withdrawn from the batteries on the Sciberras ridge.’
The dull roar of intermittent cannon fire from across the harbour proved that some guns were still in position. Thomas turned towards St Elmo and the peninsula stretching out beyond. He watched the flashes and puffs of the next few shots and said, ‘There’s not more than one gun left in each of those batteries, sir. No more than six in total. They’ve been left to keep our attention and cover the withdrawal of their army to their ships.’
‘Then we’ve beaten them!’ Richard exclaimed and smacked his gloved fist into the palm of his other hand. ‘By all that’s holy, we’ve done it.’
‘No.’ La Valette stroked his chin thoughtfully. ‘Mustafa Pasha must know that we are on the edge of defeat. He only has to wait until hunger, or the failure of our will, brings about our surrender. If I were him, I would stay here to the bitter end and have a prize to hold out to the Sultan. There can only be one reason for this. The Turks know that our relief force is coming. Don Garcia has stirred at last.’
There was a brief silence as they contemplated the Grand Master’s conclusion.
‘Then what should we do, sir?’ asked Richard. ‘Sally out from our defences and harry the Turks?’
La Valette frowned slightly. ‘Young man, it would be a pitiful force that marched out from Birgu to do battle. A company of scarecrows swathed in dressings. No. If Don Garcia is coming, then we shall await him. Except for one thing.’ He turned his gaze in the direction of St Elmo. ‘We shall take back our fort. I would see the standard of the Order flying there again. As soon as can be.’ He looked at Thomas. ‘We have ten horses left in the stables. All that is left. Take them. You, your squire and eight picked men. Ride to St Elmo. If you find no Turks before you, then occupy the fort and raise the standard from the cavalier. Have two of your men climb to the crest of the ridge to observe the enemy, and look for the first sign of Don Garcia’s army. There are still fresh troops at Mdina. I’ll send a man there with orders for the garrison to make ready to march to Don Garcia’s support.’
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