The infidel garrison was thoroughly roused by this menacing prelude to an assault; the wall was thickly manned, and in spite of the crossbowmen behind the mantlets, arbalasts and catapults were continuously in action. The foot were suffering heavy casualties, but they seemed to be bearing them well; in any case, the loss of a number of grooms and camp-followers would make no difference to the efficiency of the army as a fighting machine, and the enemy must be losing some of their warriors who worked the engines. The Duke of Lotharingia again set an example, by carrying a basket up to the ditch. Really, thought Roger, he was pushing himself forward more than was fitting, in an expedition that also contained the Duke of Normandy. But what he had done the other knights were obliged to copy, and Roger himself made three trips to the wall, though he took care to carry a basket of clean earth each time, not stinking rubbish from the camp. When he actually reached the brink and looked down, after a swift glance at the nearest arbalast (which was safely being wound up) he realized what an enormous job they had undertaken. His own little basketful was lost in the immense chasm of the ditch, and all the efforts of the whole army had only resulted in a dirty, evil-smelling streak at the bottom; at this rate it would take them weeks, if not months, to make level ground up to the wall. He crouched where he was, until the arbalast was discharged over his head, then hastily scuttled back to the mantlets.
The leaders also realized that the enterprise was too big for their powers, for that evening it was proclaimed that in future they should concentrate on two causeways, one at the north-east angle, the other in the middle of the wall; this would let the enemy know in advance where the towers were to be brought up, but nobody could prevent that.
The camp slept soundly, for the foot were tired out by their exertions, but next day at dawn they were toiling to and fro again. The excitement of dodging the missiles of the infidel, and the emulation of their hurrying companions, put them all into a frenzy of activity, and even clerks and women carried earth for as long as their strength lasted; the grooms jostled one another in their eagerness, and carried their burdens at a run. Naturally, the ardour of the knights took fire from this example, and everyone, without distinction of rank, toiled all day between the mantlets and the ditch. Roger took his turn with the rest, and had several narrow escapes from the infidel engines, for of course the mailed knights were the target of most of the missiles. But on the whole the casualties were less than might have been expected, since the enemy had to expose their whole bodies above the waist to shoot down at men so close to the wall, and the Christian crossbows would not let them take careful aim. The next day, and the next, the same dangerous toil continued from sunrise to dusk, and by the evening of the 12th of July the causeways were nearly completed.
It was announced that the assault would begin on the morrow. The Duke of Lotharingia was to command the tower at the northeast comer, and the Count of Toulouse the other, at the middle of the wall. All knights of the other contingents, including the Normans, could give their help to whichever contingent they preferred; since the Count of Toulouse was still unpopular, as a friend of the Greeks and a suspected malingerer, Roger and most of his companions chose to follow Duke Godfrey. Meanwhile, the other modes of attack had not been abandoned; battering-rams and bores still plied against the wall, and catapults lobbed their bundles of sharp stones on to the ramparts and towers; but this was chiefly to keep the garrison busy, to wear them out, and to stop them being quite certain where the blow would fall; for dummy towers, too light for serious fighting, were often built by besieging armies as a bluff.
Roger confessed himself that night to Father Yves, and then waited behind for a talk with his only intimate friend after he had finished with the crowd of other penitents. He was not looking forward to the battle; he had settled down into the lazy though ascetic life between the camp and the hostile wall, and he did not like to think that to-morrow it might all be over, and himself looking for another form of livelihood. He realized, with something of a shock, that though he had been very close to the enemy, both in this siege and at Acre, he had not used his sword in hand-to-hand combat since the great battle outside Antioch just over a year ago; now, out of practice, and never very thoroughly trained in arms even before he left England, he would have to take this last chance of distinguishing himself before the eyes of some rich leader. To make matters worse, the bad water had at last affected even his strong young stomach, and he was weakened by a touch of dysentery. He spoke rather gloomily of their prospects, but Father Yves was tired himself after carrying earth all day, and his answer was unsympathetic.
“You have nothing at all to worry about now,” he said rather crossly. “It will be fair fighting against those loathsome infidels, in this holy place where God may be expected to give us His help. I don’t say that I haven’t sometimes been worried before, in some of the fights we had around Constantinople; I was not at all sure then that we were doing our duty as pilgrims. But now it’s all as plain as the noseguard on your helm. You can’t go wrong if you try to kill infidels in God’s holy city, and if they kill you, why, you have earned all the benefits of the pilgrimage. To-morrow is the day I have been looking forward to for more than three years, ever since I first heard this pilgrimage preached by the envoys from Clermont; it ought to be the happiest and most glorious day in all our lives. Just do your duty, and don’t fuss so much.”
Roger went back to his bed on the dusty ground, not at all cheered, and not in the mood for fighting.
At dawn the chiefs walked out, protected by mantlet-bearers, to inspect the ditch. The two causeways had been built up level with the surrounding plain, but they were made of all sorts of light and flimsy rubbish, and had not had time to settle; a heavy weight would probably make them sink, and if they gave way even a foot when the front rollers of the towers reached them, that would be enough to capsize the clumsy contraptions. The camp-followers were directed to bring more earth, and build up the causeways until they showed above the edge of the ditch. Meanwhile the finishing touches were being put to the towers themselves; a herd of oxen and baggage-mules had been collected, and were now being slaughtered and flayed, and the dripping hides draped over the front and sides of the machines. This meant that if the army was unsuccessful, they would be unable to take their baggage with them on their retreat; but the enemy would certainly do his best to burn the towers, and it was well known that this was the safest protection against fire. The carpenters produced various convincing reasons for delay, and as so often happens, the army was not ready when the leaders had expected it to be. The assault was postponed until the afternoon, and they were all promised a specially good dinner, to encourage them to fight.
Roger spent an unhappy morning watching the preparations, for knights were not supposed to risk themselves carrying earth to the ditch just before the attack. The whole camp was in such a turmoil that the infidels must know exactly what was coming, and they had no chance of being helped by surprise; Egyptians and Saracens were crowded on the wall, shouting challenges to the besiegers to come on, and the infidels had brought up as many machines as they could move, to the towers and other emplacements where they could shoot at the causeways. Roger’s dysentery was becoming troublesome, and he continually had to withdraw behind a rock, until he felt sore and empty. There was plenty of beef for dinner, thanks to the slaughter of the oxen, and every knight was given a cup of unmixed wine; this at least closed up his bowels, and he felt a little stronger as he moved off to the spot where the assaulting column was to form up.
Picked volunteers from among the Lotharingian foot were to propel Duke Godfrey’s tower, and its complement of knights and crossbowmen were ordered not to climb inside it until the last moment, to make it as light as possible to transport. Unfortunately there had been no rehearsals, and the volunteers, though enthusiastic, were not united in their efforts. The great moveable building, sixty feet high, was mounted on four solid rollers, attached by iron brackets to the bottom floor, and turning in o
ne piece like the axle and wheels of a country bullock-cart; this made the steering of the thing very difficult indeed, and the only way to get it round comers was to lift one side bodily off the ground. A great deal of time was wasted getting it pointed directly at the causeway.
At last, when the afternoon was well advanced, the tower reached the line of mantlets, and the storming party fell in at their appointed places. Some of the crossbowmen immediately ran up to the flat roof, to shoot down at the infidel engineers and drive them from their machines, but it was not thought advisable to add the great weight of the armoured knights just yet. Roger was ordered to walk on the right-hand side, with one of the parties that were trying to keep it straight; the unarmed foot were pushing with long poles from the rear, while others manhandled the rear-most roller. Roger was sorry he had been sent to the right-hand side, always considered more dangerous than the left, but he unashamedly slung his shield over his left shoulder, and put his right arm through the grips; he could not fight left-handed, but perhaps the Lotharingians round him would not know that. As a matter of fact, several of them quickly followed his example.
They were advancing south-east, towards the north-east corner of the wall, so that the enemy’s stones and arbalast-bolts mostly came in from the right; as soon as the great machine had cleared the line of mantlets, and the men at its base were in full view from the wall, the infidels opened on it with every missile within range; long barbed javelins from the arbalasts, so fiercely propelled that they, would pierce a mail shirt, whizzed among the guiding crew at the base of the tower, and mighty stones, cast in a high arc by catapults hidden in the streets behind the wall, dashed against the timbers of the upper storeys, while a cloud of arrows from the short stiff horsemen’s bows flickered round their heads, too numerous to be dodged; luckily these arrows could not penetrate mail, which was why only knights were in that exposed station. But the arbalast-bolts were more than flesh and blood could stand; before the tower had advanced ten feet half a dozen knights were lying disabled on the ground, and the rest of the party on the right-hand side abandoned their task and crouched behind their shields. Luckily, Duke Godfrey at once noticed the trouble; he had been standing in the gap of the mantlet-line, conning the advance of the machine, and seeing that it kept straight for the causeway; now he called all the crew to come back, and for a moment the tower stood deserted. The infidels banged on their drums in high delight, but the attack had not been so easily repulsed; soon a waggonload of tall mantlets had been brought up from the camp, and workmen were sticking them in the ground in a line to the right of the path of the tower; canvas pavilions and sails from the Genoese ships were rolled up and placed behind them, and at the cost of a few unarmed men killed the pilgrims had a sheltered way right up to the wall. Roger had been badly shaken, seeing the knight next to him pierced by a bolt which spilled his intestines out of the back of his mail shirt, but he walked slowly back to his post when the order came to resume the advance. This whole method of fighting was quite new to him, and he found it hard to understand what was dangerous and what was safe.
The footmen at the back threw their weight on the poles and the great contraption crashed into movement once more. The ground was not quite level, and more rutted in some places than others, and as the rollers were all in one piece it was desperately difficult to turn the machine when it wandered off the true line; but after ages of hard work, when every man had lost his breath and his temper, at last they reached the brink of the ditch. Here the causeway was a little higher than the surrounding ground, to allow for the loosely packed earth to sink when the weight of the tower passed over it, and they all had to heave with redoubled efforts to get the rollers up the slight incline; the crossbowmen on the roof had driven the infidels from the only arbalast that could shoot straight at them, and they were so close under the walls that archers dared not lean out to take aim; but the great stones still arched up from inside the city, and bounced off the hides stretched over the upper stages; no wooden construction could stand such battering for long. The machine gave a great lurch to the right, as the rubbish of the causeway shifted under its weight; Roger and all his party obediently put their backs to it, to hold it upright, though they longed in their hearts to scamper from underneath that huge impending bulk. Then it came to a dead stop, where the front roller had ploughed up a moraine in the loose earth that supported it; the footmen at the back heaved and strained, but the whole thing threateded to topple over forwards, and they dared not use too much force. The sun was getting low, and if they left the tower where it was now the enemy would destroy it before morning; Duke Godfrey gave the order to haul it back out of range, and the survivors turned their backs on the infidel defences. They had lost more than a dozen good knights, besides crossbowmen and unarmed foot, and no one had delivered a single swordstroke at the enemy.
Roger was quite exhausted by heavy manual labour under the weight of all his mail; with a few other disconsolate Normans, he staggered stiffly to the Duke’s kitchen, where the scullions sullenly gave out supper to the defeated champions. The tower of the Count of Toulouse had also failed to get into action, and the whole camp was murmuring that they had wasted their time on an impracticable stratagem. But nobody could think of a better scheme for taking the city, and it was given out by the criers that they would try again in the morning, and that relays of foot would work on the causeway all night.
Before going to bed, Roger sought out Father Yves, but the priest had a bad attack of dysentery and was lying in his blankets, quite unfit for conversation. Even Tom was not as cheerful as usual, when he came to disarm his master; he had been behind the mantlets all day, but he had been chosen to replace a casualty on the Lotharingian tower on the morrow, and he was full of forebodings about the dangers of the task.
Roger slept badly; his stomach had behaved itself all afternoon, when he had been working too hard to notice its complaints, but now the flux got him out of bed half a dozen times in the night. Many of the foot were kept at work all night, so that the army that mustered for the second day’s assault looked much smaller, with workmen resting in the camp; but every knight who was well enough to wear armour was there, and they were what counted if only they could get to handstrokes. Roger heard Mass fasting, but he did not dare to take Communion, for he feared that he would be sick at any minute. Breakfast was the usual lump of biscuit, which he could hardly keep down, and he knew that he would be unable to take his place in the ranks unless he had a stiff drink to quieten his inside. Wine was scarce and expensive, and he had no money left, but a Greek sutler gave him a big cupful in exchange for his best blanket; it was thick sweet stuff from the islands, and he walked to his place with a comfortable glow under his ribs, feeling brave but a little clumsy in his movements.
The causeway had been levelled and strengthened in the night, and the tower had been repaired where the enemy’s missiles had damaged the timbers. After the disappointment of the previous day everyone was in a state of frantic exasperation, but it was still exasperation against the infidel; it would only be when their rage was directed against their own leaders that the expedition would have been defeated.
When the time came to advance the tower, they had the usual maddening difficulty in keeping it straight; any experience that had been gained yesterday was wasted, for the working party of foot was composed of different men; but after several false starts they got it fairly heading towards the causeway. This time Roger managed to join the group of knights on the left-hand side, where the town wall curved away to the south-east and there were not so many infidel machines to shoot at them; also he could protect himself behind his shield worn naturally on the left arm. He left his place for a moment to embrace Tom, who was waiting nervously for his turn to climb the ladders to the roof, sixty feet up in the air; then they were all moving towards the gap in the line of mantlets, and he was leaning with his right hand against the side of the lurching bouncing pile of wood and hides. The enemy was ready for them, and t
he usual high-pitched quavering yells broke out from the wall; they rasped on Christian nerves, used to the deep booming warcries of Europe, and everyone knew that the noise would continue all day long. Arrows and stones twinkled in the sunlight as the tower came into full view of the defenders, but the enemy seemed to be running short of the specially-made javelins for their arbalasts, and the knights on the ground were not shot at as they had been yesterday. Things were going well; with a creak of working timbers the tower surmounted the slight rise on to the made earth of the causeway, and then a chain of men began to pass planks from the rear for the knights to lay down under the rollers. The strengthened causeway stood up well to the weight, and the tower boomed and rattled over its improvised road at a speed of quite two miles an hour.
There was a great cheer from behind them, and the tower ceased to move; it had been manoeuvred into position without a hitch, and now was the time for the knights to play their part. Everyone scurried round to shelter behind it, and Duke Godfrey, who had been directing operations on foot from a few yards in the rear, ran through the open back and began to climb the first ladder (for the sake of extra lightness, the rear face of the tower had not been planked over). This was the great moment, the culmination of their three years’ pilgrimage, the goal of all those hundreds of weary miles of marching; Roger was as excited as the rest, and scrambled for his turn at the foot of the ladder.
Knight with Armour Page 35
