by Dan Davis
But the Sultan had not thrown everything he had at us. There was one part of his army that had yet to engage.
“Janissaries!” came the cry from atop the wall. Trumpets sounded and men jumped to their positions, racing back up to the tops of the walls. Our cannons fired again and again.
“Wait here,” I said to my men and went forward toward the wall, pushing my way through the crowds. I was one of the few men dressed entirely in plate armour so they tended to let me through and so I stood at the top, looking out through the crenellations at the scene beyond.
Thousands of Janissaries advanced from their defensive ditches. They came marching in tighter formations than I had seen from any infantry in my life until that point. Our hand-gunners fired from the walls and brought down the advancing Janissaries in their dozens but sill they came on without hesitation and without breaking formation. Arrows rained down on them, killing more and their lines became wavered. Still, they reached the filled in sections of moat and the half-burned pontoons and rafts and crossed without hesitation to the lower outer wall, where they threw up ladders.
Our soldiers on the wall below stood ready to meet them either side of the great breach that led through the outer wall to the inner one.
“Those bastards,” Walt said.
“I told you to wait below,” I said, turning to see not only Walt but Rob and Eva, also. “All of you.”
The Janissaries reached the breach, as we had known they would, and cut into the militia, spreading out even as they were shot and killed by the men in the towers and on the inner wall. On they came, relentlessly, as if they cared nothing for their own lives.
“Our lads are getting nervous,” Walt said, nodding to the Greeks along the wall. I saw at once how right Walt was. The men were inching back, afraid of the assault. In no time, they would find false reasons to escape from the wall in ones and twos and then they would be in full flight.
“We will hold them,” I shouted. “They are no better than us. They are weaker than us. We have the walls!” I turned to my men. “Take up the cry, lads. Spread the word.” I raised my voice again and called in Greek as loudly as I could. “We have God on our side. We have the walls. We have Constantinople! Constantine! Constantine! For the Emperor!”
They took up the cry in time, and it spread along the wall until they were cheering themselves. The crossbowmen were a steady lot who took immense pride in their skill and they worked tirelessly. The soldiers with their halberds came forward and climbed down in their hundreds and fought the Janissaries hand to hand in the breach. Bodies tumbled down into the gulf between the walls. The white mounds of rubble turned pink with blood even with the rain turning it to rivers and washing it down. It was brutal, bloody work. Bodies piled up. Guns were fired from both sides and the air stank of filthy smoke and blood and entrails.
We threw them back. The Janissaries cowered below the outer wall, afraid of attempting the breach again and they began falling back in pairs and then in dozens, trudging back toward their trenches beyond the moat.
The day was almost over and the enemy were in retreat. Some of the men indulged once more in congratulatory cheering.
“They did it,” Walt said, chuckling. “God love them, the mad bastards, they did it.”
“They will have to do it all over in a few days,” I said. “And again a few days after that. Assuming the Turks did not break through today along the Marmara wall in the south.”
Walt laughed and slapped me on the shoulder, splashing droplets of rain. “You know your problem, Richard, is you’re never—”
“Wait,” Rob said, grasping Walt with one hand and jabbing his stump out at the field, “there!”
From the smoke and the rain advanced a new formation of Janissaries.
These were clothed in red.
“William’s immortals,” I said.
“By God,” Eva said. “How can we stop them?”
I cried for all guns to be turned on the advancing Janissaries, and all cannons too. Bring back the crossbowmen, I shouted. Return to the walls.
But this next wave of attackers had caught us by surprise. Only two cannons fired, and one missed. The other ball cut a small swathe through the corner of the formation, felling no more than half a dozen, and the rest missed not a step. Crossbowman shot their bolts but they were running low and replacements had not reached us. A few hand-gunners fired but again their ammunition or gunpowder was wet or had been expended and more was not yet in place.
“They are coming on fast,” Rob said and he was right. William’s red Janissaries crossed the moat and swarmed up the outer wall and spread out along it like a drop of blood falling into a bowl of water.
“We will have to hold them at the inner breach,” I said to my men. “We cannot let them inside. You know who they are and what they can do. We cannot let them inside. Come, back to the company. Come, now.”
Before I followed my men down the stairs, I turned for one last look at the immortal Janissaries. They breached the outer barricades and rushed forward in a surge, swarming up and over them. Our soldiers came on to meet them and raised their spears and swords and axes but were cut down in moments by the Janissaries’ inhuman speed and strength. Our defenders were exhausted and their enemies were faster than they could imagine and they stood no hope.
Even so, they did not break. They knew that if the enemy broke into the city, all was lost. And so they stayed and they died in their hundreds.
“Richard!” Rob shouted from below. “Come on!”
“What is this?” a captain on the wall shouted to his men. “What are they?”
“Whatever they are,” I said, “they will not break. Will not flee. They must be killed.”
“How?”
“One by one,” I said. “A score of ours for one of theirs. It is the only way.” I rushed down the steps as quickly as I could and ran across the open space by the breach. I saw Longo approaching the wall with his men around him and hoped that they would stand and fight with us. “This is it, men! Now, we do our duty. For Constantine! For the city! For Christ! Deus vult!”
My men lifted their weapons and roared in response.
“Deus vult!”
The red robed immortals appeared at the top of the breach and began to descend the rubble pile into the city. Above on the wall, the Greeks shot down into the advancing men, no doubt stunned by the speed of this new enemy, and their resistance to arrow and lead. I led my company forward up the loose rubble to meet the enemy, pushing through the ranks of Greek soldiers who held back, no doubt in shock at the ferocity of the approaching red tide.
Suddenly, they were there. With their long red, felt hats and red robes, they were big and powerful men with polearms and swords whipping up and down and thrusting forward. I caught the first one unawares as he descended, spearing my sword point into his face. Still, he fought even as he died and the axe blade of his polearm banged against my breastplate. More came behind him, cutting down the mortal Greeks with ease and stepping forward.
But my men had arrived and spread out along the rubble to stem the rising tide. A part of me wondered if they were surprised to find enemies who fought as well as they did. Better, in fact, for my closest companions had fought more than a hundred battles and lived more than a hundred years and our armour was the best that could be bought and the Janissaries’ weapons glanced off when they struck. The rest of my company were as good as could be found anywhere, with decades of experience between them and now they fought with the strength and speed of immortals.
In mere moments, a dozen immortal Janissaries soon lay dead before us, and then a score more. My company cut into them like a scythe, cutting down a field of red wheat.
But we were outnumbered ten to one and my company was swarmed on all sides. They got around our flank and there was nothing we could do to stop them.
“Stay together!” I shouted and cut down the Janissaries in front of me. “Stay together!”
Suddenly, the imm
ortal Janissaries simply pulled back from us. They retreated and avoided our position, like water moving around a rock in a stream, and they pressed on around us into the city.
“With me!” I shouted, and pushed on up the rubble slope to where more came up over the top of the breach. If we could stem the gap, we could cut them off and stop any more mortal Turks from coming in behind them. As I pushed deeper into their ranks they could not so easily get away from me and I cut down all those who stood before me, slicing through their necks and chopping through their faces.
Walt grabbed my shoulder, leaned in and banged his helm against mine and held it there while he shouted. “They have gained the wall!”
I followed the line of his axe and saw dozens of red Janissaries swarming up the breach to the shattered tops of the wall on either side of it where they cut down the men at the top.
“We must throw them down,” I shouted.
But now we were close to the top of the breach, we were surrounded by immortals trying to kill us and for a time all I could do was defend from the men all around. Men in my company fell, overwhelmed by the numbers. Still, we held them close to the top until the pressure was relieved. Once again, the Janissaries pulled back and left us alone, refusing to engage with us.
“William must have taught them this,” I said, cursing his cunning. “We make for the wall!” I called to my men, turning to see who was still alive.
With shock, I saw that most of my company were gone. Many had been cut down behind me and lay dead on the rubble and others had been carried off down to the base of the rubble hill by the waves of immortals pushing forward. The ones who yet lived, half my company, perhaps, fought the enemy on both sides and behind us. I swore and cursed but nothing could be done. If the Janissaries took the wall then they would take the gate and if they opened it and held it, then all the Turks in Europe would pour through and end the city forever.
“On!” I shouted to my remaining men. “On, on! To the walls!”
I pressed through into the immortals that still came on, cutting down one man and then another. Hands grasped me and I cut off a hand and then sliced through a throat, spilling hot blood. I longed to drink mortal blood, longed for the strength it would bring. We slowed, as the press of men grew dense at the breach itself. Mortal Janissaries had joined the fray and they poured over the breach in their hundreds, mingling with their red brothers who yet fought. The mighty wall was right above me. How I would climb it with so many enemies around, I had no idea. I knew only that it must be done.
A great cry went up and I glanced up, seeing through my helm a quick glance in the smoky, wet gloom. It was Longo’s personal banner, up on the top of the wall above the gate, advancing toward the Janissaries there.
Praise God, I thought. Well done, Longo.
He had seen the danger and thrown himself into it, to inspire his men by his personal leadership.
It was a view gone in a moment, as the enemy crashed into me again with such force that I was lifted from my feet and thrown down onto my back, tumbling down the pile of masonry. Blades whipped down even as I fell, seeking to end me. I slashed at them and rolled to get up, grabbing at a Janissary and pulling him down. Together we slipped in the loose, wet scree. My sword was pulled from my grasp and I raised my armoured arms over my head as I got to one knee, feeling my armour bend and break from the blows that crashed down on me. Standing, I grabbed a spear and ripped it from my attacker’s hands and used it to fend them off, whirling it around until I broke the shaft across a Janissary’s face.
There was a great commotion all around but I did not know what was causing it, whether it was to do with me and my men or with the battle elsewhere.
And then suddenly the enemies rushed beyond me. I saw that I was close to the ground once more, having fallen down forty feet of the slope. My men rushed toward me, sliding and falling down.
I wheeled about, peering through the dented eye slits of my skewed helm to see what was happening.
A mighty hand clapped me on the back, in a familiar way, and then Walt was before me, his helm gone and blood streaming down both sides of his head. Eva, Stephen, and Rob were there also and a mere dozen of my company. All around us were bodies, Greek soldiers and Janissaries in red and in white, many writhing and crying out.
Beyond them, our army fled from the wall.
Thousands of soldiers and militia walked or ran or rode away from the wall toward the distant city.
“What in the name of God has happened?” I shouted.
Walt spat a mouthful of blood before he answered. “Longo fell. His damned fool men lowered his banner and carried him off.”
I looked at the wall and the Turk’s banners were held aloft by Janissaries atop the gate towers. The enormous gates themselves were being prised open.
“Pull back to the city?” Rob said. “Fight them in the streets?”
“We must flee from here!” Eva shouted at me. “Now!”
Beyond the breach and through the rain and by the last of the daylight, I saw thousands of infantry and horsemen approaching.
“The city is lost,” I said, turning to the survivors of my company. “We must escape.”
6. Escape
1453
The protostrator Giovanni Giustiniani Longo had not been killed outright, merely wounded by a gunner’s shot. If his men had only withdrawn him a little way and held the line, perhaps we would have thrown them back. Perhaps we would have held the wall, and so held the gate, and so held the city. Perhaps Constantinople would be Byzantine to this day, if only the handful of men around him had chosen differently. If only they had loved their captain a little less.
Such is the way of battle and of the world. The smallest decisions can have enormous and irreversible consequences.
In the chaos of the break through, Emperor Constantine disappeared also and every man, woman, and child in the city knew by the spreading panic that it was lost. Darkness enveloped the city, illuminated by distant fires and flashes of cannons and guns, and lamps and torches held aloft by soldiers and citizens fleeing one way or another.
We made for the ships yet moored in the Golden Horn, knowing that even if it was unlikely to be successful, it was our only chance of escape.
And so did thousands of others.
We walked and ran in turn toward the docks, many of our company limping and breathing heavily. Some of my men removed and dropped dented pieces of their armour. Others begged a servant for a cup of blood
“The servants slow us down,” Stephen said. “Perhaps we might consider going on ahead and meeting them at the dock?”
“You mean abandon them?” I said.
“No, no,” he said. “We shall hold a boat for them.”
He knew that in such chaos, once separated, we would never meet up again.
“At least have the courage to make your true argument,” I said.
He sighed and shook his head. “Do I really have to make it? If we move at their pace, all of us may be killed. What of the Order, then? What of William?”
I grabbed his shoulder, stopping him. “It is their duty to follow their masters and it is ours to not abandon them. And what will you and the others do for blood if we leave them?”
“There are always mortals around,” he muttered but would not meet my eye.
I shoved him so that he would continue on. I went back to help and to hurry them on. Despite what I had said to Stephen, he was not wrong about the danger their weakness meant for us.
Turkish horsemen were through the gate and into the farmlands behind us.
“Might have to fight soon, Richard,” Walt said, loping along with his axe in hand.
“Should we not head north?” Rob called. “Or south? Protection there? The Catalans guard the palace, no?”
Along the southern and northern edges of the peninsula, the confined streets between dense housing and churches and public buildings seemed to offer a way to fend off the cavalry.
“We cannot st
op. The Catalans are finished, Rob. They will soon be surrounded with no way to escape. And if we do not reach a ship tonight, we shall never escape. We push on. Come on lads, you can do it, we’ll find a ship home, shall we? Come on. On, on!”
We hobbled further toward the city proper while shouts and cries sounded behind us.
Eventually, we made it to a street lined with houses and from there I led my men north, towards the gates that led out to the harbours of the Golden Horn.
“Richard,” Eva said, jogging up beside me, “you hope to find a ship to take us from the city, yes?”
“That is where the fleets are,” I said.
“But the great chain has closed the way,” she pointed out. “And already the Turks have their ships behind, in the Horn.”
“The chain must be drawn in,” I said. “Or broken.”
She stared at me in disbelief. “How? Are we to do this ourselves?” She indicated our shattered, limping company.
“If we have to.”
Eva coughed and wiped blood from her eye. “Even if that were possible, the other half of the Turkish fleet is beyond the chain. Any ships attempting to flee will be boarded or sunk before they can get beyond the Acropolis Point and then we—”
I turned to her, stopping her with a hand on her shoulder. “Listen, Eva. I do not know what will happen. I do not have all the answers to your questions. All I know is that we must take a ship, tonight, to be free of this place. And I know that we shall not be the only ones who know this. We go to the docks. We find a ship. We do what we must to escape. Agreed?”
She took a deep breath, nodding at me as she let it out.
“Good,” I said. “Let us do it.”