Sword and Scimitar

‘What’s the matter?’ asked Thomas.

‘It’s not there.’ Richard looked round with a shocked expression. ‘It’s gone.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Ten days later, 22 June, Fort St Elmo

The enemy guns fell silent and for a moment there was silence across the scarred ground .at the end of the Sciberras peninsula. The dust billowed slowly about the fort and settled on the bodies sprawled on the ground, making them look like stone sculptures. Some had lain in the open for many days and were bloated and corrupt with decay, the sickly sweet stench filling the air. It was mid-June and the heat of the day would soon begin to add to the discomfort, and bring the swarms of insects that settled to gorge themselves on the wounds and viscera of the dead and dying.

For the defenders, each day was torment as the sun beat down on them while they squatted behind the parapet, enclosed in padded jackets and armour that quickly became too hot to touch and as much a source of torture as protection from harm. Sweat streamed freely down their cheeks and dripped from their brows as they awaited the enemy. For some men, older or weaker than their comrades, the heat was too much and they collapsed, gasping for air as they tore at the buckles of their breastplates in an effort to remove their armour. Some died as their hearts gave out, gurgling incoherently while their swollen tongues writhed against cracked lips.

There was a sudden movement from the Turkish trenches and then a green ba

‘Here they come!’ Captain Miranda yelled from the keep. He turned to the drummer standing ready beside him. ‘Sound the alarm!’

The shrill rattle of the drum rang out across the crumbling walls of the fort. The men who had been sheltering inside the fort spilled out into the courtyard and raced up the steps to their stations on the walls to join their comrades on sentry duty. At once the two ca

Thomas was behind the barricade erected beyond the rubble slope that was all that remained of the north-west comer of the fort. And Richard was with him, for nothing would persuade him to stay in Birgu after he discovered that the document was missing. They had been called to the wall an hour before dawn when the first prayers of the imams had been heard by the sentries — a sure sign of a pending attack. Thomas looked round as the Spanish soldiers assigned to his position crouched down below the level of the parapet and bent double as they ran to their places. Along the barricade stood tubs of water big enough for a man to leap in and extinguish the fire of enemy incendiary weapons. There were also small piles of arquebuses, loaded and ready to fire, and the defenders’ own stock of incendiary weapons — small clay pots filled with clinging naphtha, from which fuses protruded, ready to be lit before the pots were hurled amid the enemy. To each side of the barricade, where the parapet still stood and overlooked the ditches, other men readied the first of the fire hoops, and fa

‘Careful with that,’ said Richard. ‘Unless you want us to go up like a torch.’

‘I know what I’m doing, sir,’ the Spaniard replied with a grim smile. ‘Just keep out of my path, eh?’

The cheers of the enemy grew louder as they reached the edge of the ditch and started to scramble over the rubble that now filled it.

‘Stay down!’ Thomas shouted, waving back the handful of his men who had started to nervously glance over the edge of the barricade. The Turkish snipers kept up their fire until the last possible moment and, as if to justify Thomas’s warning, a ball ricocheted off a block of stone and clanged off the fan crest of a morion helmet a short distance to Thomas’s left. The man dropped back, dazed and blinking.

‘Stay down until I give the order!’ Thomas bellowed. He glanced quickly to each side; his men were watching him anxiously, clutching their arquebuses or pikes as they waited on his command. The clink of loose stones was clearly audible now amid the cheers and incoherent battle cries of the more fanatical of the enemy. Thomas controlled the impulse to rise up and peer over the barricade a moment longer, and then drew a deep breath, snapped the visor of his helmet shut and straightened up. For an instant he saw only the top of the rubble slope, then a pointed helmet and a turban to the side before suddenly a sea of faces as the Turks struggled to the top of the ruined wall, cutting off the line of sight of their snipers.

‘Now!’ Thomas thrust his pike into the air and with a roar his men stood up along the fifty-foot line of the barricade. There was a crash as the first of the arquebuses fired. The range was point blank and the swarm of targets impossible to miss. Thomas saw one figure in white robes and round shield lurch back amid his comrades, his scimitar spiralling backwards and out of sight as he fell. More shots blasted out on each side and several of the Turks fell as they clambered over the difficult ground towards the barricade.

‘Ready incendiaries!’ Thomas shouted and the men assigned to the task lit the fuses. ‘Release!’

With a grunt the men hurled the pots out over the barricade and the fuses flared and trailed a thin line of smoke in the morning air as they arced up over the heads of the nearest of the enemy and disappeared amongst them before shattering on the rubble with a bright flash, engulfing the Turks closest to the impact in flame and smoke. Their loose robes caught fire and the men screamed in terror and then agony as they threw down their weapons and beat at the flames while their comrades leaped aside, fearful of also catching fire. To the right Thomas saw the first of the hoops set alight. The men on either side holding the blazing hoop in iron tongs heaved it up on to the parapet and over the side of the wall. The roar of the flames briefly filled the air before cries of panic rose from the ditch.

Then the first of the enemy incendiaries flew up and over the wall, falling a short distance behind the parapet. There was a loud crash and Thomas turned to see a pool of fire licking up from the stone slabs on the walkway. He thrust his hand out, pointing towards the nearby stock of incendiaries in a wicker basket. ‘Move them! Quickly!’

The closest men were too preoccupied with firing their arquebuses to heed the warning. Seeing the danger, Richard dropped his pike and sprinted towards the basket, leaping over the flames. He grasped the handle just as some of the burning liquid reached it and small flames licked at the side. Thomas took a half step away from the barricade as his chest seized with fear. Richard gritted his teeth as he pulled the basket a safe distance away from the fire before stopping to beat out the flames on the wicker side. Thomas breathed out in relief and turned back to face the enemy.

The Turks, knowing that the only way to escape the fire and bullets of the defenders was to close on them as swiftly as possible, charged towards the barricade. But there was one final weapon standing between them and the Christians. Thomas waved the man with the naphtha bellows forward. He nodded and raised the long iron nozzle towards the enemy and pumped the bellows. A jet of naphtha liquid spurted out, and was instantly lit by the taper burning a short distance in front of the nozzle. A thin tongue of brilliant flame arced out across the attackers and rained down on them, searing heads, bodies and limbs. The defenders let out savage shouts of glee and triumph as their enemies roasted before their eyes. And still the Turks surged forward over the rubble, over their stricken comrades, and on towards the barricade.