Sword and Scimitar

‘It is better that you slept.’

Richard was still for a moment before he rolled his neck stiffly. ‘I dreamed I was back in England, as a child, hunting rabbits on a clear autumn morning . . .’

‘Ah, rabbit,’ Thomas mused. ‘Now there’s something I could willingly eat.’ He paused and raised an eyebrow. ‘It’s the eve of the Feast of St John. ’Tis a shame that we will not be free to take a seat at the banquet.’ Thomas smiled at the image, then his expression hardened. ‘Get down to the chapel. Tell Mas and Miranda that the enemy are coming.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Then come back here directly.’ Thomas felt a pang of anxiety. ‘Hurry. I want you here at my side, whatever happens.’

Richard nodded. ‘Yes, Father.’

He eased himself into a crouch and edged away from the shelter of the parapet, keeping close to the piles of debris and the bodies that had been dragged together to remove the risk of the survivors tripping over them once the fighting began. At the edge of the wall Richard slipped over the rim and dropped out of sight on to the stairs below. Thomas turned his attention back to the enemy. From the sounds on all sides their intention was clear enough. When the signal was given they would charge the fort, scaling what was left of the walls by ladder, and at the same time launching an assault through the breach. This time there would be little to hold them back. There was only enough powder left for a few more shots and only a handful of incendiary weapons remained. All of the naphtha had been used up. Once the defenders had expended the last of their firepower they would take up their hand weapons and fight to the end.

Along the wall the defenders stirred and here and there a bright glow showed where the arquebusiers were readying their fuses. Others pulled on their helmets and fastened the buckles securely beneath their chins; those with armour checked the straps and made minor adjustments. Some held pikes while others readied swords, daggers, hatchets and maces. Thomas glanced across the breach and saw Stokely take up the heavy two-handed sword he had chosen from the fort’s armoury - a cumbersome weapon but deadly in the right hands.

There was a pause in the gloom before dawn, a silence, a stillness, as if the defenders were part of a tableau composed of shadows. The sky to the east was smeared with the faint pearly hue of dawn and as the veil of darkness began to fade, Thomas made out details on the scarred landscape in front of the wall. The flags planted by the enemy to mark the ground they had taken hung limp in the still air. Discarded weapons and buckled and shattered shields and armour were strewn across the rubble before the walls amid bodies that had not yet been recovered for burial. Some were hideously swollen by c orruption, made worse by the heat of the sun, and limbs stuck out at an angle, grotesquely. And then there was the stench of the month-old battlefield, a cloying stink of blood and decaying flesh, overlaid with the acrid odour of burning and the gritty tang of masonry dust. For some reason it seemed to Thomas more pungent and revolting than ever this morning. Or was it that his senses were heightened now that he knew he was living through his final hours, he wondered.

He looked towards the stairs, willing Richard to return before the enemy launched their attack. Briefly he considered leaving his position to go and find him, and then chided himself. What example would that set to the men under his command? He hardened his resolve and stared in the direction of the enemy.

The first of the Turkish drums began to beat, quickly swelling out of the shadows as more joined. A crash of cymbals and the wailing of pipes added to the din and then, as the first rays of the sun pierced the eastern horizon, the imams led their worshippers in the shahada — the Muslim testament that there is no god but God, Mohammed is the messenger of God. A soft murmuring surrounded the fort as the men within braced themselves, knowing that the assault was imminent.

A faint scraping drew Thomas’s attention away from the enemy and he was relieved to see Richard returning from the top of the stairs, dragging a chair in either hand. A moment later more men appeared: four soldiers, half carrying and half dragging Colonel Mas and Captain Miranda. Richard set their chairs up a short distance to one side of the breach, close to Thomas’s position, and then helped to ease the two officers on to the chairs.

‘My sword,’ Mas ordered, holding out his hand.

A soldier unslung the scabbard from over his shoulder and passed it up. Another weapon was passed to Miranda.

‘I am ready.’ Mas gestured to the men who had carried them up on to the wall. ‘Get to your positions, and may God be with you.’

The soldiers bowed their heads in a final salute and crept away along the wall. Richard crouched beside his father.

‘What are they doing?’ asked Thomas, gesturing towards the two officers. ‘Why are they up here?’

‘It was the colonel’s idea. When I gave them your message he said he’d rather die where the men could see him than down in the chapel. Miranda agreed.’

Thomas shook his head as he regarded the two men sitting erect, their wounded legs sticking out in front of them, swathed in soiled and bloody bandages. ‘Madness . . .’

The murmuring from the Turkish trenches died away and the din from their instruments rose up with renewed fervour. Thomas turned his attention to his son, taking a last opportunity to regard him closely, with affection.

‘I wish . . .’ He tried to continue but there were no words adequate to the moment.

Richard smiled and briefly squeezed his hand. ‘I understand, Father. There is much I would have wished for if we had been granted the time.’

A single gun roared from the top of the ridge, the signal to begin the attack. The deep boom rolled round the harbour and then was drowned out by a frenzied roar as the Turks burst from concealment and rushed the short distance towards the battered mass of St Elmo. The defenders replied at once, without waiting for an order, and spurts of fire darted from the barrels of their arquebuses. The mass of enemy soldiers surged across the broken ground and up the mound of rubble lying in the breach. Thomas fixed his attention on them. The first died, shot through the head, and he crashed forward and was immediately trampled by those behind him. More men fell, shot in the head or chest, easy targets at such close range.

Thomas cupped a hand to his mouth and bellowed, ‘Incendiaries!’ The fuses smeared low arcs in the air before the pots shattered amongst the enemy in savage sheets of flame that set men ablaze as they screamed in terror and agony.

‘Give it to ’em, lads!’ Colonel Mas shouted, punching his sword into the air. ‘For the Holy Religion!’

Miranda echoed the cry and then his lips drew back in a fierce grin. ‘Kill them!’

Thomas raised the tip of his sword and held it ready. Beside him Richard hunched over his pike. The Turks came on, heedless of their comrades struck down by bullets, incendiaries or the rocks hurled at them from either side of the breach. The steep gradient of the rubble began to slow them down and they took several more casualties as they struggled forward to close with the defenders.

Thomas stepped forward, sword held ready, keenly aware of Richard close at his side, lowering his pike, ready to thrust. A Spahi, a few paces in advance of his comrades, rushed up towards the parapet, mouth open wide as he screamed his battle cry. He carried a spear in an overhand grip and thrust it towards Richard. The young man deftly parried the spear aside with a sharp clack as wood struck wood. Then he thrust home with all his weight and the steel point tore through the Spahi’s robes and punched deep into his chest.

More men surged up the rubble slope and Thomas hacked at a man’s turbaned head, stu