Templar's Acre

CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

After a day of bombardment, Baldwin found that his fear of the artillery weapons had reduced to a manageable anxiety. Despite the constant reverberations, it soon became clear that the weapons themselves were entirely random. The mood of the men of Acre was already changing: the haphazard nature of the enemy’s weapons had made them less intimidating. Instead of inspiring terror, the catapults had become a focus for hatred — symbols of the enemy’s cowardice, hurling rocks from the safety of their lines at the women and children of the city. It left the men determined to exercise an unrelenting ferocity when they closed with their foe at last.

Baldwin found that his fear increased greatly at night. When, in the darkness, that low thrumming sound came, he was convinced that the rocks were heading directly towards him. When he did hear the reports as they crashed into buildings, it was still some moments before he could bestir himself, the terrror was so intense.

He was with Hob and the men when the new panic began.

They had endured a day of the rocks, and were having a pot of wine and some bread with cheese in a tavern when Baldwin heard a new sound — a whistling, screaming sound — and he stared up at the awning overhead in alarm. They had all been lounging on the floor, but now he rose and hurried to the open window, eyes fixed skywards, still chewing.

‘What was that?’ he demanded. Even as he spoke, there was a sudden whoosh, and a burst of black smoke told of a fresh disaster. ‘Some new machine they have worked on?’

Hob was at his side, and he shook his head, muttering to himself.

‘What is it, Hob?’

‘Greek fire. They’ll use it to burn us to death, if they may.’

Baldwin frowned at him. ‘Greek fire? What’s that?’

‘They throw it in big clay pots, like the rocks, and when the pots land, the clay shatters and the fire is released over everything in its path.’

It sounded to Baldwin like a new work of the Devil, but later that same day he saw the missiles in the sky. Enormous pots, they were, with a trail of grey smoke flying from them. One burst in mid-air, and a gout of flame was vomited at the city, scorching the wall, but missing its target. Another, later in the day, detonated as the catapult arm was released. Baldwin saw it distinctly, the arm springing up, while a flash of fire was sprayed over the machine and the men standing about it. There was a thick, roiling black smoke that rose heavenwards, and strange figures could be seen, cavorting and whirling in the midst of the flames. It was only when one ran out, burning like a torch, that Baldwin realised it was a man. Men from the next catapult raced over to him, smothering him, trying to put out the flames, but it could have served no useful purpose.

Baldwin felt the horror of that man’s death, but he was alone. The men on the wall cheered at the sight. To Baldwin, their satisfaction was misplaced. Such a death could only motivate the Muslims to greater efforts. Still, it meant there were some fewer enemies, and one less artillery piece to stand against them.

After their period of duty on the walls, Baldwin told the men to stand down, and made his way to the house.

The roads were almost unrecognisable from the previous week. Clean roadways had thick heaps of rubble sprawled over them. The wagons and carts, which had always been so prominent in this trading city, were no more. Instead, there were only scowling, anxious men, hurrying from one place to another on foot.

Baldwin strode swiftly, glancing around at the damage to the buildings as he went. The castle’s south-west tower had taken a hit, and the top of the tower had been wrenched asunder. Now a pile of stones lay beneath. Next to it, there had been a little house. The falling rocks had pulverised it and the family which had lived inside, and now only a few spars and shattered tiles showed where six people had lived.

‘This is a battle between God and the Devil,’ Hob grunted.

Baldwin agreed.

Today the assaults from the catapults had been varied by the arrival of pioneers. Groups of Muslims dressed all in black had hurried forward.

‘To the walls! To the walls!’

Baldwin heard the shouts from the men on the towers, and ran forward with Hob and the vintaine. They made their way to the outer wall, and clambered up the stairs to the hoardings, puffing and blowing when they reached the top, staring around.

‘Get your men forward, quickly,’ a guard roared, clapping them on the back as they swarmed up the battlements and into the roofed hoardings.

It was strange in here. The crash of rocks was lessened, this far from the city itself. They were shielded by the inner walls from the rumble and crash. Instead there was the suffocating smell of fresh timber. It was hot, for the wood absorbed the sun’s heat and made the interior as fiery as an oven. Instantly Baldwin felt the sweat squeezing out under his thick padded jack and shirt of mail. A pair of sentries with their faces blackened and grimy stood at a trap in the hoarding’s floor, shouting for rocks and other missiles. About each gap in the boards were other men, and as Baldwin stared, he saw the reason why.

Beneath them were Muslims. Already bowmen were aiming at other pioneers scurrying forward, protected by shields of wet calfskin. The enemy were bringing planks of timber, darting up to place them against the walls, some placing theirs carefully, others hurling them like spears in the hope that they might fall as required. Some, sheltering behind mantelets, were digging furiously a few yards away. Baldwin saw one fall, an arrow piercing his head through his helmet.

‘What are they doing?’ he said, confused.

‘Undermining the walls,’ Hob said, swearing under his breath. Cupping a hand about his mouth, he bawled back, ‘More rocks! And oil! They’ll make a trench from there, which they can cover,’ he added. ‘Then they’ll have access to our wall, and can dig underneath.’

A chain of men was bringing the rocks now, one at a time, and Hob passed them through the battlements to the two sentries waiting. He continued, ‘They’ll go down, deep as they can, shoring up the walls with timbers as they go, and when they’re ready, they’ll soak the timbers in oil and burn the lot. The walls’ll be left standing on nothing, and they’ll collapse. And then we’ll have a breach, and they’ll flood in.’

Baldwin was passing rocks from Hob to the sentries as he panted, and the two sentries stood, holding the massy weights in their hands, legs braced either side of the hole, until they saw a man approaching the base and released them. Once, Baldwin was peering down and saw their stone hit a man. It fell straight, and he gave a strange keening sound as it crashed into his shoulder, tearing off his arm and ripping a huge gash in his flank. He fell, and Baldwin watched with horrified fascination how the man’s blood pulsed in the gaping wound.

That was their work for the day. As the Muslims dug and tried to erect roofs of timber, Baldwin and his vintaine brought up rock after rock and sent them tumbling onto the unhappy wretches beneath. And then the order came for them to leave the hoardings.

Nothing loath, Baldwin clambered over the battlements again, and inside, on the stone walkway of the wall, he found two men holding a great cauldron. As he watched, they slowly tilted it towards the nearest loophole, and began to pour a thick, black oil through. Peering down, he saw the viscous liquid splashing and soaking the mass of timbers where the pioneers had been. There were cries now, and the men digging seemed to hesitate. An arrow caught one man who peered incautiously around his mantelet, and then the sentries were given a lighted torch, and dropped it through the nearest hole.

A gust like the breath of the Devil rose. A thick, roiling smoke engulfed the whole of their section of wall, and Baldwin recoiled, coughing and choking, but even over the sensation of suffocation, he could hear the inhuman screams of the men beneath, and in his mind’s eye he saw them burning to death in their little chamber, beneath the flimsy protection of their planks of wood, as the ignited oil ran through and smothered them.

Mercifully, their screams did not last long. As each flaming figure emerged from the trench and pit, they were shot by the archers who stood laughing at the arrowslits.