The Last Crusaders: The Great Siege (35 page)

Nicholas scrambled into the tiny rowing boat below the rocks, Hodge close behind him. They looked over their passengers, taking up their oars, Hodge rowing with his right arm only. Smith, barely conscious, but still clutching his precious jezail. Two badly wounded soldiers, and two dead bodies sewn into rough shrouds, one of them Bridier. Though it wasn’t fighting, yet here was a job to be done.

‘We’ll get them there,’ said Nicholas, pushing off the rocks. ‘If that Sacred Infirmary cannot cure them, nothing can. Then I will come back.’

‘You will not,’ said Stanley. ‘The Turk must surely blockade us fully soon. But you will be under La Valette’s orders. Now row. With all your might.’

Their hands blistered, eyes stung with sweat, rising up from the rowing bench with the force of each pull, legs straining as much as their arms, they rowed. The weight of the boat was considerable, two rowers but seven men, dead and alive. From the half-delirious Smith and the wounded soldiers came dazed groans, and worse, the stench of sickness and the fetor of decay. Yet they crossed over the eerily silent half mile of harbour in minutes.

As they neared the Birgu shore, hands came down to help. Questions assailed them on every side, until a quiet but commanding voice took charge. It was Fra Reynaud, who had tended Nicholas before in the infirmary. He protected the boys from the jabbering questioners, had the three wounded lifted carefully onto the wagon, and ordered the shrouded bodies taken to the cool crypt beneath the Conventual Church.

‘The Chevalier Bridier,’ said Nicholas, still gasping from rowing, indicating the lighter body.

Fra Reynaud looked grave.

‘He fought and died like a … like a—’

‘Like a Knight Hospitaller?’ said Reynaud.

Nicholas nodded, eyes almost closed.

‘You come with me.’

‘No need.’

Reynaud was astonished. ‘You are quite unhurt?’

‘Yes.’

He reflected. ‘You were not meant to die there. Your story will go on. For those left at Elmo …’ He looked just once, swiftly, across the water. ‘Maybe their earthly pilgrimage will end there.’

Nicholas and Hodge could now see Elmo and the Ottoman camp as Birgu saw it. The camp so vast, proud, magnificent, its numberless cohorts spread out at ease across the mountainside, vast enclosures of horses and draught animals, its great field-hospital pavilions so tall and airy, its war banners gleaming in green and gold. And at the tip of the headland, a hundredth of its size, what looked like little more than a circle of smouldering rubble.

La Valette would see them that evening. They returned to the house of Franco Briffa. Franco was away with his brother Luqa, fishing down on the rocks below the town, while they still could. Maria wept when she saw them and bowed her head and showed them to their room. Hodge lay down and closed his eyes.

‘And the cake,’ mumbled Nicholas, his tiredness now breaking over him like a great grey wave, ‘the cake was very good.’

Maria smiled through her tears. ‘Maddalena will return this evening too.’

He lay back and slept almost immediately, woke some hours later, slept again. Dreamed of Elmo, of the horror. Woke and
thought of how he would never more see smiling Ned Stanley. Of how they were still fighting over there, at this very minute, while he slept in a bed in a comfortable cool white chamber. Numb with sorrow, guilt, exhaustion, he slept more.

When he woke it was dark, and Hodge was making a strange noise, breathing like an old man with congested lungs. He peered over to him and saw with a chill and sinking heart that he was sweating heavily. He placed his palm over his friend’s forehead and it was steam-hot and clammy.

In a whirl he ran into the street, seized a two-wheeled wooden barrow from a passing street seller and, jabbering, made him help carry Hodge out and wheel him to the Sacred Infirmary.

‘Is it grave?’ he asked desperately.

‘All fevers are grave,’ said Fra Reynaud. ‘Marsh sickness, sweating sickness, camp fever … but thank Christ he is here now, and not still at Elmo. He is young and strong. We will do all we can.’

Nicholas walked slowly back to the house, and thought that Death walked with him.

In the courtyard, the family were gathered for evening. Franco embraced him like a son, and talked ceaselessly of his heroism. He told them about Hodge, and Maria said quietly that their prayers would save him.

With Maddalena he exchanged secret looks. How he longed for her. He would be healed that way.

But he was not a hero, and he was not healed. He had left too many of his friends and comrades over at Elmo, and Hodge was sick, and maybe his whole left arm would have to be cut off. And though Elmo was hell, and would only get worse, he longed for it too, and felt he could hardly talk to this loving new family of his. For he spoke a different language now, and had seen a different world.

It was late when La Valette saw him.

‘Again, an audience with the English boy,’ he said. A possible smile. ‘You give a good report of a battle. Now tell me of Elmo.’

So Nicholas told him, of Broglia, and Bridier, and Lanfreducci,
and Smith, the counter-attack on the trench, and the many deaths. He did not tell him about Hodge. The Grand Master was little interested in peasants.

Yet at the account of Elmo, La Valette, impassive as he was, could not hide his sorrow and pride.

‘And their spirit?’

‘The same as ever, I think. They were much gladdened and strengthened by the reinforcement of Spanish infantry. They will fight on to the end.’

La Valette stroked his beard. ‘I am glad you have come back, boy. I did not see that Elmo would become such a battleground. I would not have allowed you over there.’

‘I – I want to go back.’

‘No.’

‘I cannot sleep. I have bad dreams.’

‘You are not alone in that.’

Without further conversation he led him up onto the roof of San Angelo. Even as they were ascending the steps, a servant carrying a rushlight behind La Valette, Nicholas heard the sound of cannon fire across the water and impulsively ran ahead. Out on the flat roof he looked north and gasped and leaned on the battlements, almost crumpling. La Valette was at his side immediately.

‘Bear up, my son.’ For once there was real tenderness in his voice.

In the night, Elmo looked like a little volcano, huge gouts of smoke roiling ceaselessly into the dark heavens above, lit from below by leaping hellish flames. It was under attack tonight as never before. This must be the end. Nicholas’s tears fell on the stone.

‘Bear up,’ La Valette said gently again. ‘Every night I have stood and watched this scene. Soon the same inferno will be visited on Birgu, and then it will not only be my beloved brother knights dying, but the people of Malta, old men and women, children, infants in arms …’

Nicholas cried angrily, ‘How can you bear it?’

La Valette said, ‘With God’s grace alone.’

Another day and a night, Nicholas still slept. Every time he awoke he asked after Elmo, and then ran out onto the walls. The banner
of St John still flew. Every morning, every evening, people said it was a miracle. Then he worked hard on the walls, bringing up the materials for the coming storm, shaping stone missiles, cutting staves. Yet he felt as miserable as he ever had in his life. Whether Elmo stood or fell, he was wretched.

Maddalena found him when her mother and grandmother were not near.

‘If you go back you will die.’

He looked startled. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I see it in your eyes now. Now that you are no longer so tired and withdrawn from us. You want to go back to Elmo.’

How could she read him so close? ‘I—’

‘You want to go back. And if you die I cannot live.’

Her eyes blazed from such depths. Then she held him and kissed him and the kiss lasted long, and neither of them saw her grandmother appear from the kitchen, and stare a moment, and then retreat inside again without saying a word. There were kisses and kisses. And this was a kiss not to be interrupted, and a love not to be stayed. Only let them be married, before …

She pulled away. ‘You think you cannot die.’

He floundered hopelessly. ‘No, I …’ He tried to kiss her again as if that would be answer enough but she would not let him.

‘You think I cannot imagine what a hell it is over there at Elmo,’ she said. ‘What a hell on earth you have walked through, eyes wide open. But I have a heart, and I can imagine. And men can fall in love with war as with women. I have seen this. My love, my life, you are falling in love with war.’ Her eyes were full of light and tears but her voice was steady. ‘Even Christ passed through hell only once. You do not escape from such a hell as Elmo twice. If you go back, I do not think we will ever see each other again.’

In the afternoon he went to the infirmary, and Fra Reynaud admitted him.

Hodge was sitting up, his colour returned.

‘His fever is broken,’ said Reynaud. ‘Opium stilled his bowels, and then he needed to drink water, and salt bread. And he drank like a thirsty elephant.’

The boys hugged and then looked awkward.

‘His arm is without infection,’ said Reynaud, ‘and the bones knitting fast.’

‘Take more than a funny foreign fever to see off Hodge,’ said Hodge. ‘I’ll be out again in a day or two. I’m as thin as a straw though, straight up and down.’

‘Where’s Smith?’

‘You cannot see him,’ said Reynaud. ‘And he would not know you.’

‘He’s still alive?’

‘Yes. But very sick. He has had Last Rites. Pray for him.’

The dizzying joys and sorrows Nicholas felt were soon shared by the whole town.

The following morning, two knights from Sicily somehow managed to run any Turkish patrols, and came with dramatic news. The relief force would be arriving very soon, perhaps only three or four days now. Those mighty Spanish galleons with their great guns, supported by more gilt and stately galleons from Genoa and Venice, also heavily gunned, would sail in and attack the Turkish fleet at anchor with all force. They would also land an army of at least fifteen thousand of the finest Spanish infantrymen. With their naval support under threat, and fighting on two fronts, the Ottoman land forces would feel dangerously isolated, and surely have to abandon the siege.

The town erupted in frenzied celebration.

La Valette gave orders that the news be carried over to Elmo with all speed. If the defenders there heard it, it would be wonderful for their morale. They might yet hold out, and Birgu itself, with its vulnerable population of women and children, be saved from the Ottoman flames entire, not an innocent life lost.

Yet even before La Valette’s order could be followed, another piece of news came through, and reduced their brief joy to ashes of sorrow, and far greater fear.

An armada of thirty more galleys had been sighted, and a force had indeed landed, at St Paul’s Bay, and was already marching south towards the main Ottoman camp. Yet it was not the relief sent by Christendom. These galleys had come from the south-east and they carried another army of Mohammedan warriors. The
news spread like a bitter plague. Hassan Ali was come, the Viceroy of Algiers, with an army of five thousand Algerian cut-throats, bent on holy war, rapine and loot. Women wept and shook their heads and said the North Africans were worse, far worse even than the Turks. Fears grew hysterical and evil rumours abounded.

There also came Candelissa, the vicious Greek renegade, Christian-born but now one of the most savage of Islam’s generals – if you could attribute any religion, even Islam, to that monster of cruelty. With him came two or three thousand more corsairs and cut-throats, not ashamed to march in the army of such a villain, but proud.

But worst of all was the name of the man who headed this vast new force. Dragut.

Dragut was come.

To call Dragut a mere corsair, a pirate captain, was gravely to underestimate him. He was an engineer, cartographer, strategist, and the greatest naval commander of the age – as well as the most savage. Even Mustafa Pasha would never cross him, would bow before him. They said he had once ripped the tongue out of the throat of a Christian captive with his own hands, and eaten it before his eyes. An apocryphal tale, no doubt, but people believed it.

Fourteen years ago his brother had died on the neighbouring island of Gozo in a clumsy slave raid. In revenge, Dragut came and carried away the entire population of the island into slavery.

‘Not a man nor woman on this island but lost some cousin in that enslavement of Gozo,’ Franco Briffa told Nicholas. ‘We were the same people. What Dragut did in that island is beyond words. Those he did not enslave, whom he judged worthless to be sold as slaves – the sick, the very old or the very young, the suckling infant – what he did to them is beyond words. How he …
disposed
of them.

‘Knowing this, Inglis, we Maltese will only fight the harder.’ Franco looked dark indeed. ‘When Dragut comes to Birgu, he will know our anger.’

Yet Dragut came with his own fifteen hundred fresh fighting men, veterans of bloody battles and encounters numberless, and in overall command of close on ten thousand. They brought cargo ships of fresh water, barrels of balls and powder, gleaming new weapons and guns from the armouries of Tripoli and Algiers, flocks of fat-tailed Barbary sheep for fresh meat, and fresh fruit from the
African shore. Luxuries indeed. His men joked that they would eat ripe figs, suck sweet oranges below the very walls of Birgu, so that the infidel wretches within could see how they were cursed and abandoned by their false god.

La Valette responded to the dreadful news as curtly as ever.

‘Send out messengers by night. Let all Malta know that it is against Dragut we now fight – as well as the most powerful Empire on earth. Make sure the nobility of Mdina know. And ask of them about cavalry. Have Don Mezquita ride out with his cavalry and demand of them, when will they begin to harry the Turk in chevauchées from Mdina? Tell them that we would be happy to hear that such operations had begun.’

‘And what of the message to Elmo?’