Roger was one of the fully-armed knights who carried the poles nearest to the enemy. They reached the ditch without casualties, and managed to scramble down the steep slope without breaking the roof they were carrying; it was safely set up against the chosen part of the wall, and the stones and tiles that the infidels threw down on it only drove the supports more firmly into the soft ground at the bottom of the ditch. The carrying party then scuttled away, having suffered no more loss than one unarmed footman with an arrow in his buttocks.
The next job was to erect the gallows from which the ram was to swing. Roger did his share of carrying the timbers, though it was left to Italian carpenters to peg the framework together. The infidels had fully realized what was going on; they clustered thickly on the wall, and made a horrible noise with their kettle-drums. But they had no really big stones handy, and they could do no serious harm. Snug under the sheltering roof the sailors worked quickly, and by midday, when everyone went back to the camp for dinner, the framework was ready for the hanging of the battering-ram.
In the hottest part of the afternoon they began to bring this up to the wall; it was a mighty pine-tree from the shores of the Adriatic, a spare mainmast for a Genoese merchant-ship, and the shipwrights, working all night, had frapped the butt with rope, bound it in canvas, and covered it with wrought iron. It was already tied round with strong rope girdles, to which leather loops were attached, and on each side twenty men caught hold of it, and were just able to stagger forward under the weight. Roger was one of these; he had thrown down his shield and taken off his sword, for this dangerous part of the work must be finished as quickly as possible, and if one man stumbled the whole party might have to drop their burden. Nearly all the carriers were knights in mail shirts, for the enemy were certain to shoot hard and expose themselves freely to prevent the emplacement of the machine. A few footmen with very large light mantlets went on in front, to mask the carrying party, but these very large shields were too flimsy to stop a well-shot arrow, and served only to hide the men and prevent the infidels from taking good aim. A Genoese shipmaster hovered behind the ram, and with blasts on his whistle, and many shouted curses, tried to get the knights to heave all together.
With the leather thongs cutting into their hands they struggled sideways, the pine-tree between them, towards the pent-house in the ditch. Fewer arrows came at them than they had expected, for their own crossbowmen kept up a steady discharge over their heads, but the enemy had used the dinner-hour to bring up two moveable wall-balistas, and Roger heard the new double sounds of the twang of the string and the crack when the bolt-guide met the how-arms, as both machines were released together. One bolt went wide, close behind his shoulder-blades (he was on the left of the pine-tree, and facing towards it), the other was badly ranged, and whirred over their heads; but these small wall-pieces were quick to reload when there were plenty of men on the winches, and as they checked on the brink of the ditch they were shot at again. This time the range was too close to miss, and though one bolt again went overhead, the other landed fairly in the short ribs of the foremost knight on the left-hand side. With all the force of the steel and horn springs that had impelled it, it penetrated its victim’s mail shirt as though it had been wool. He fell dead at once, and the knight behind him let go with both hands, as he ducked instinctively away from the missile. Roger was third on that side, and the sudden increase in the weight of his burden was too much for him; the thong was wrenched from his hands, and all the men behind him were compelled to let go in their turn. He sprang backwards in time to save himself from a crushed foot, and there was the battering-ram lying on the edge of the ditch, with its left-hand carrying-loops buried in the ground, and the right-hand file of bearers leaning over it to catch their breath.
They were all in deadly danger, for all had discarded their shields, and the bolts had shown that they could pierce mail; but they were heartened by the memory of how God had sent this fleet to help them when they were at the end of their tether, and no one thought of running forward to the protection of the pent-house, or back to the crossbowmen’s defences. Doggedly the eighteen who remained on the left, for one had broken his leg under the fallen tree, scrabbled at the cords that went round the trunk, while the right-hand file heaved to turn it over. As they swung the tree clear of the ground the balistas shot again; but now every crossbow within range was playing as fast as it could be wound on the infidel engineers who stood in plain view on the wall, and the latter dared not dwell on their aim. One bolt buried itself in the side of the ditch, and the other killed the rearmost man on the right; before the machines could be loaded again, the tree trunk had been hauled under cover of its roof, and the knights were congratulating one another that they had been successful with such a small number of casualties, only two dead and one injured out of forty who had taken part.
At once the carpenters got busy, attaching the battering-ram to the two chains which suspended from the framework they had built; when properly hung it would be suspended about two feet from the ground; then a working-party would catch hold of the handles and haul it as far back as possible, and when they released it all together it would dash its ironshod butt against the wall. But sweating at machinery under the safe cover of a pent-house was not work worthy of the dignity of knights; plenty of the unarmed foot were eager to manipulate the ram, and others were even now making a zigzag corridor of mantlets so that the workers could get into the pent-house in safety. Another sharp volley from the crossbows drove the infidels round the balistas to take cover, and the knights scuttled safely out of range. Shortly before sunset, a muffled thud from the ditch told them that the engine had begun to beat against the wall, and relays of foot kept it at work all night long.
That evening the Normans were cheerful at their well-filled supper-table, and the veterans among them tried to calculate how long the wall could stand up to this new attack. Of course, this one battering-ram, though it was mightier than any other that the oldest of them had seen, did not represent the total effort of the attack, now well supplied with material. Elsewhere there were other rams, and also boring-picks; these last were slighter engines, thin strong spars with a pointed metal hook at the end, also slung from sheer-legs like a battering-ram, whose task was to pick out one stone at a time from the mortar of a rubble wall; the rams splintered by brute force large blocks of freestone where the defences were of shaped masonry. There was much argument which would penetrate the defences quickest, but with these unknown Eastern buildings it was all guesswork, though many knights and clerks could tell by a look at the outside how strong was a European castle.
The leaders had also decided to order the construction of three moveable towers, which could be pushed forward on rollers right up to the wall, after the ditch was properly filled in; this would be a lengthy and intricate business, needing perhaps more architectural skill than even the Genoese sailors possessed, and some of the bolder knights criticized it as faint-hearted, now that the rams were in position. The worst of it was that towers were always a chancy hit-or-miss sort of affair, for no one could calculate in his head how strong the bottom stage ought to be, and they often collapsed just as they were being finished. Still, a tower overtopping the wall, with its bridge in position leading to the rampart-walk, would be fatal to the defence, and the fact that the leaders were willing to incur the heavy expense of buying all this timber from the Genoese showed how much they were in earnest in the siege.
The 21st was an idle day for the knights. The rams and bores were busily at work, manned by the foot, but they could not be expected to produce a breach for several days yet; meanwhile they were adequately protected by the crossbowmen in the forward line of mantlets, and the infidels were unlikely to try a sortie until the damage was much worse. But although there was nothing for them to do, naturally they could not keep away from the siege-works; Roger had his armour put on, for it was stupid to take unnecessary risks, and joined the crowd of sightseers, just out of arrow-range behind th
e battering-ram of the Normans. Once a minute they could hear the bang as its head was dashed against the wall, but no results could be seen as yet. This was not particularly disappointing, for the ram had not yet been at work for twenty-four hours, and in any case it was not supposed to work by degrees, like a bore. A properly battered wall would stand intact for a long time, until the final blow knocked out some vital block of stone on which the upper courses depended, and the whole thing came down with a run, leaving an easy sloping breach; when that happened, the storming-party must be armed and ready, to dash in before the enemy could put up palisades on the mound of rubble, and that would probably mean many hours of waiting in column with shield on arm; but it could not come for several days yet. He waited until a shift of workmen were relieved, and dodged their way back along the zigzag line of mantlets; when he questioned one of them, all that he could leam was that the ram was standing up to its work splendidly, with no sign of split or fracture, but that the wall was doing just as well; not a stone had budged so far.
The pilgrims had other machines in action, at various places all round the city, wherever the defences did not look too solid, and the ground allowed them to approach. A number of catapults were nearly ready, though they were more difficult to make than rams or bores. But no one could hope to take this city by shooting at it with catapults; they could damage lightly-built houses inside, and a lucky shot might kill some defenders on the ramparts, but the wall was obviously too strong to be broken down by throwing stones at it. The truth was, no one had ever found out a safe way of breaching well-made fortifications with any of the siege-appliances then known, or any combination of them. Starvation was the only certain way of compelling a city to surrender, and that was no good in this case, for the food supplies from the Genoese fleet would not last much longer, and the Egyptian army of relief was expected in the autumn. The pilgrims’ best chance was still the battering-rams, but even they might take longer to breach the wall than the army could afford to lie in that ill-provided camp.
Next day the infidels let down mattresses in front of the damaged portions of their wall; these were either big sacks filled with straw, or the queer eastern tree-wool called cotton, or else hoardings of thick springy beams, criss-crossed and woven into a square. These cushioned the shock from the rams, which had made little impression as yet, though it was encouraging to see the enemy taking them so seriously. The obvious way to deal with these new devices was to set fire to them, but it was not an easy plan to carry out; oil and firewood were needed for cooking, and very little of either could be spared, while the enemy had plenty of waterpots ranged behind the merlons of the battlements, and continuously kept the mattresses dripping wet. Of course, if they ever did get properly ablaze, the heat of the fire would crack the stones behind them, and make the work of the attackers all the easier. Roger brightly asked a sailor why they didn’t move the rams to an unprotected place, but the Genoese told him rather rudely that the mattresses could be moved much more quickly than the engines. Eventually it was found that the best way to deal with them was to attach grapnels and pull them down, but the defenders always seemed to have a new one ready when the old had been destroyed, and the battering-rams could only play on the walls for a very few minutes at a time.
On the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, the 29th of June, all the engines had been at work for more than a week, and the wall was still completely undamaged. A week was not a long time, compared to the eight months siege of Antioch, but already food was running short again, the water supply caused perpetual trouble and anxiety, and no one had the heart to face staying where they were until the winter. The army was beginning to get discouraged; many of the barons had stood long sieges in their own castles in the wars of Europe, and they could appreciate what an extremely difficult task they had undertaken. They had all interpreted the timely arrival of the Genoese fleet as an example of direct Heavenly aid, but the sanguine hopes of ten days ago had already faded. They remembered the withdrawal from Acre, and some began to discuss the best way of destroying the engines if they finally decided to go home. Armies are creatures of habit; they always assume this battle will be like the last, and a remembered failure makes them ready to fail again.
Naturally, in these circumstances, the different contingents began to accuse their allies of not doing a fair share of the work. The Provençals had been unpopular for a long time, as too friendly with those heretical and cowardly Greeks, and what was much more galling, better fed and equipped than their neighbours; the Duke of Normandy and Count Tancred were not on speaking terms with the Count of Toulouse, and if the Duke of Lotharingia had not been there to act as a mediator the council of leaders would have broken up altogether. Even religious enthusiasm was at a low ebb, in spite of the holiness of the ground they were encamped on, and attendance at Mass grew thinner every day, while the bored and listless men lay in their beds long after dawn.
There was only one cheering development in the siege. Although the other engines were making no progress at the wall, the building of the moveable towers was proceeding quite satisfactorily. To dominate the infidel defences they would have to be three storeys high, with a fighting-platform and drawbridge on the roof. Already the carpenters were working on the second storey, and so far none of them had shown any sign of collapse. They were being constructed behind a spur of rocky ground, so as to be hidden from the defenders; every day a curious crowd watched the hammering and sawing, and came back to the camp more hopeful of victory.
But there was no doubt that the spirits of the pilgrims were getting very low, and the leaders cast about for something to bring them into a better frame of mind. On the 8th of July they held a religious procession round the walls, to mark the end of the first month of the siege. The Blessed Sacrament was borne under a canopy, with massed choirs and plenty of incense, and various relics and holy images came behind. All round the sacred walls they walked in due order, keeping carefully out of range of the enemy’s arbalasts and catapults. They were not exactly asking God for a miracle (though that was a thing that was done often enough, whenever anyone was tried by battle or ordeal), but they were reminding Him that they were pilgrims in the Holy Land, fighting for His cause, and surely entitled to His help. The infidels on the wall made a great deal of noise, and thought up some quite ingenious insults, but probably their nerves were a little shaken, for everyone believes that the other side controls more magic than we do. When the procession was over, without any serious casualties or other untoward incidents, all the pilgrims felt more at ease in their hearts. So many of them were looking for good fiefs, so many others hoped for valuable plunder to take home, the Italians were so anxious to settle in good and profitable trading factories, that it was terribly easy for them all to forget that they were engaged in a Holy War. Three years’ campaigning, much of it a sort of armed neutrality against hostile or indifferent fellow-Christians, bad dulled the ardour with which they had first set out.
On the 9th, Roger was aware that the great procession had altered the mood of the whole army. They had all got used to picturing the pilgrimage as an unending road that stretched before them for some indefinite, but lengthy, period of their lives, and the feelings of urgency that had first possessed them had never recovered from the long halt at Antioch. Now they were all impatient for the end, and those in particular who had homes to go back to were ready to run any risk, however reckless, to capture the city and wind up the whole adventure. Instead of watching the progress of the battering-rams with a keen technical interest in the damage done to the wall, the knights were now hanging round the craftsmen building the moveable towers, or sharpening their weapons in their own quarters. He himself was not so eager for an assault; his future, if the city fell, held no promise of a secure life as a landholder, either in Syria or Europe, and for the present he clung to his oath of allegiance and dreaded the time when he would no longer be entitled to food and support from the Duke of Normandy. But the pilgrimage would not wait for him, a
nd he knew that his only chance of a prosperous old age was to do a brave deed in the assault, so that some lord would be eager to have him as a follower.
In the afternoon the criers went through the camp, to announce that all footmen and camp-followers must try to provide themselves with baskets and shovels by next morning, the 10th; then they would begin to fill in the town ditch, so that the towers could approach the walls. That same afternoon the largest and most ambitious of the towers toppled over on to its side, and disintegrated into a pile of splintered beams; the workmen had been racing to finish it, and had put too much weight on the untested and insecure bottom storey. It was a disappointing set-back, but the other two towers were nearly finished, and only lacked the coating of green hides that would protect them from being set on fire, which was better added at the last minute. The plan was to fill in the ditch on the whole north-western face of the town, a distance of some nine hundred yards, so that the enemy would not be able to guess exactly where the attack was coming; it had to be that face of the walls, for the ground was too steep and uneven on the other sides of the fortress.
Tom called him as usual a little before dawn, and he went up the hill to the line of mantlets that faced the city wall. The ditch was wide and deep and long; but the foot were working with a will, and said they had already raised the level appreciably. To begin with, they had taken all the rubbish and litter of the camp, which was a great improvement in living conditions, whatever effect it might have on the defences. Later they would put earth on top, and trample it down until it was firm; already a few cowards and weaklings were scratching with shovels at a safe distance from the enemy. But on that rocky ground even earth to fill the baskets was hard to come by, Roger reflected that Jerusalem had more subtle and ingenious defences than its walls; with no timber, little water, and now not even enough earth, the besiegers had met with one unexpected difficulty after another.
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