Shadow of God (59 page)

There were none. The somber faces spoke to the fact that the knights were all well aware of the critical nature of their condition. The coming battle could be the last of the siege.

The knights rose at a signal of dismissal from Philippe and left the Palace of the Grand Master. They returned to their
langues
and briefed the men under their commands.

Philippe remained alone, staring at the plans and the disposition of his men. As night approached, everyone in the city could hear the movement of the Sultan’s troops and his machines of war. There was no doubt that the dawn would bring another day in hell.

September 24th, 1522. Nearly nine weeks of siege. The
muezzin’s
voice broke the still morning air before first light. Even as the soldiers of Islam spread their prayer mats on the grass and turned their bodies to face the southeast—to the holy city of Mecca—the Sultan’s artillery shattered the stillness. The sounds of the prayers mingled with voices of the cannon; the Faithful felt the earth shake beneath their knees as they asked Allah for his guidance and protection in the coming assault on the Infidel. There was the might of the cannons and the rumble of the earth as they spoke directly to God. Their song of faith and trust was backed by the accumulated might of their religion and their Sultan, Suleiman, the Shadow of God on Earth.

The Sultan sat upon his raised platform, flanked by Ibrahim and Hamon. Hamon had waited quietly while Suleiman and his friend concluded their prayers. All the Aghas were already in the field, commanding their men and ordering the sequence of the attack. The target for the artillery that morning was the entire southern perimeter. Just as the knights had guessed, the cannons were massed to strike simultaneously at the ramparts and bastions of Aragon, England, Provence, and Italy. The walls and towers at Italy were already a shambles. The rubble and debris were piled high, affording little protection.

In the first hours of the day, the smoke and the noise literally deafened and blinded both the attackers and the defenders at once. Smoke choked both sides of the conflict; dust and smoke obscured
any view of the battlefield. The knights behind their wall could scarcely determine from where the attack was coming. There were no intervals in the barrage of stone and iron missiles. A continuous stream of fire poured into the city and against the walls. The knights answered with their batteries. Their pre-aimed cannons still fired with maximum effect. But, powder and cannonballs were in short supply, so the artillerymen were very stingy in their response to the Turkish barrage.

In spite of the massive reinforcements of the fortress, the Sultan’s cannons were finally overpowering the defenses of the city. While the knights could make temporary repairs with existing materials from the walls, the Turks had an almost endless chain of ships bringing ever more cannons and powder and shot. There was no limit to the reserves of Suleiman’s batteries.

Suleiman watched with satisfaction as the walls of the city started to crumble under the combined effects of his mines and his artillery. Time had finally caught up with the defenders of Rhodes, and the neverending mining and artillery barrages overpowered the stone walls of the fortress. As the morning wind picked up and blew away some of the dust, Suleiman could see whole sections of the bastions and the walls come down. While the Post of Italy was already in ruins, the Sultan did not take his eyes off the Bastion of Aragon. For, there, he knew, was where the first wave of his Janissaries would mass. Led by their
Seraskier
, Bali Agha, his elite troops would pour into the city and decimate the small defending force of knights. That was the plan of the Sultan, and Allah would make it so.

“Keep your eye on the walls there,” Suleiman said, pointing to his left at the walls of Aragon. “Though you cannot tell yet, as I hope the knights cannot tell either, the heaviest cannonade is directed just there, and that will be the first breach. When the cannons stop and the smoke clears, you will see a wave of blue uniforms pour into that breach, and return only when they are red with the blood of the knights.”

Ibrahim and Hamon strained to see where Suleiman was pointing, but there was still too much smoke. Then, the wind increased and the cannons stopped, and the charging forces of Bali Agha
filled what had been emptiness. Even from so far away, the observers could see the Raging Lion at the head of his troops, waving his scimitar and shouting for the advance. To the accompaniment of the drums and cymbals and trumpets, a thousand cries of “
Allahu akbar
” drifted across the fields of fire to the ears of the Sultan sitting on his throne.

It took several minutes for the knights to respond. As the Janissaries scrambled over the rubble and the bodies of their brothers in the ditches, the knights sent word to their mobile troops. The few defenders were soon joined by hundreds more mercenaries and knights, who rallied at the Post of Aragon. The Rhodian men took up arms as well, grabbing at anything that could be used for a weapon. They, too, felt the rush of energy as the knights assembled in their battle capes. To the citizens of the city, the knights had begun to seem invincible as they drove back wave after wave of Turkish soldiers in the previous attacks. The stink of the rotting corpses in the ditches served only to verify their faith in the knights.

Women rushed along the battlements carrying powder and shot. They brought water to the knights and helped move the wounded. While the explosions of the Turkish artillery rained down into the city, the revitalized citizens ignored the danger and supported the defenders.

Opposite the walls of Aragon, Bali Agha surged forward at the head of his beloved Janissaries. As legend had decreed, his men did use the bodies of their brothers as stepping stones into the breach. Just before their advance, the Turkish artillery had finally opened a large hole in the Bastion of Aragon. “Forward!” screamed Bali Agha as the men slipped and scrambled up the sloping terrain. As they neared the walls, they encountered retrenchments that Tadini had constructed to slow their advance. A steep palisade confronted the Janissaries and further slowed them down.

The knights rallied to Aragon, gunners and archers on the nearby rooftops and battlements opening fire on the Janissaries who were now entering their range. Again, as before, a murderous crossfire tore into Bali Agha’s men, and the Janissaries started to suffer terrible losses. But, none could stop to help their fallen comrades.
Bali Agha had made it clear that every man’s sole duty was to reach the city and slay as many Christians as possible.

Four Janissaries in the vanguard reached the walls and planted their standards. Among them was the four-tailed standard of Bali Agha. But, the
Bunchuks
with their black horses’ tails flew only briefly in the wind, and were soon cut down and trampled by the advancing knights.

Hand-to-hand battle began along the walls of Aragon as the knights assembled. Quickly, they formed their wall of iron men: as always, immovable. Implacable. Their reputation was not lost on the Janissaries, who, brave as they were, had never before encountered a foe so determined, so skillful at close-in fighting. The Janissaries’ battle experience had often been against troops who broke and ran at the very sight of the Sultan’s army. They were not used to such an unflappable foe.

The advance slowed, and Bali Agha began to rage at his men. He called them names. He swore, he sweated. He swung his scimitar wildly in the air to drive them forward. But, it was to little avail, for the fire pouring down upon them from the city was killing more soldiers than were reaching the walls.

Once there, the Janissaries could not get or maintain a foothold. The knights formed their phalanx and beat back every advance with broadsword, ax and pike. Then, to add to the slaughter, from the left, the guns on the walls of Auvergne opened up upon Bali Agha’s forces.

Suleiman watched the massive movement. From his perspective, when the conditions allowed, he could view whole sections of his army move forward, and then retreat before the withering fire and the hand-to-hand fighting with the knights. After two hours of back-and-forth movement, Suleiman could see his Janissaries make one last determined effort, surging forward onto the battlements of Aragon. The fighting was wild, and the knights rushed more reinforcements to the scene.

The Grand Master was in every breach, in every parapet. To the Turks, it seemed that there must be a dozen gray-haired men upon the battlements that day, and a dozen banners of the Crucifixion.
But, all were Philippe, rushing to where the battle raged against the knights, supporting his brave men with his presence and his sword. Toward the end of the morning, with no chance to rest, he arrived on the ramparts of Aragon, where the massive assault by Bali Agha was still contested.

He called to Jean de Morelle, who was fighting fiercely to protect the Bastion. “Jean?” he called as the battle went on around them.

“We have gained and lost this post today more times than I can count,” Jean shouted over the din. “They plant their standards, and we push them back. But, they’re moving more men into the breach, and I don’t know if we can hold them much longer.”

“Hold them, Jean. Whatever the cost, hold them! I’ll help you all I can. I’ll send for Jacques de Bourbon, and have him make a surprise attack from the Turkish rear. He’ll split their forces.”

“But, how….?” Jean never finished his question. He was suddenly attacked by two Janissaries at once. He turned back to his battle and lashed out with his heavy weapon. His sword slashed through the sword-arm of the man to his right, and in the follow-through, he backslashed the haft into the face of the other young man who had entered the space. As the man fell, Jean stabbed him in the neck, killing him on the spot. Then, he turned to where the Grand Master had been, but Philippe was gone. Jean took two deep breaths and rushed into the growing mass of Janissaries, slashing his way forward to wedge his shoulders against those of his brother knights.

Jacques de Bourbon crawled through the tunnel directly beneath the Tower of Aragon, at the edge of the Post of Auvergne. The tower had fallen to the Turks less than an hour ago, and the Grand Master had ordered Jacques to retake it. “Take a small band of your best men, whomever you need, and slip out of the city through one of Tadini’s tunnels. Attack them from the rear and fight your way back in.”

For an hour, Jacques and his band of ten men crawled and choked and coughed in the darkness and the dust. They could feel the walls rumble as the Turkish cannon fire continued, trying to open still more breaches in the walls. The returning fire from the
knights had silenced many of the Turkish positions, but now Jacques wished that they would stop, just for a while, before the damned tunnel collapsed in upon him. About halfway down the tunnel, Jacques felt a tremendous shudder beneath his feet as a Turkish cannon sent its massive stone ball into the walls. The earth shook harder than ever, and the walls began to collapse around his band of knights. “Forward!” he shouted to the men behind him. “
Vite!Vite!”

The earth and rocks began to rain down upon their backs as they rushed in a crouch from the blackness of the tunnel. Several of his men stumbled to their knees as they tripped over fallen rocks. They felt their way through the blackness, their torches extinguished by the debris. One hand on the sword hilt, the other in front of their heads, they moved like blind subterranean dwellers through the unstable hell of the tunnel. After another thirty minutes of choking and stumbling, they saw ahead of them the gray, smoke-filled battlefield outlined in the concealed opening to the tunnel. Jacques and his men emerged into the air to fight their way back up onto the ramparts.