The Long Sword

by Christian Cameron

  But the screen covered more than movement. Because the men in the screen had bows and crossbows, they could deter enemy light cavalry. They could also see and scout obstacles and could react far more quickly than we armoured knights to changes in the field or sudden sallies. Best of all, they were themselves very difficult to hit; at twenty yards apart, each horseman was an individual target. A single horseman can slow or speed, angle left or right, and if he knows his business, he can tie down a good amount of archery. You might argue that the archers could simply shoot over him or past him at the serried ranks of knights behind, but that is not the way of men in war. Men in war shoot at the target closest to them and most immediately dangerous.

  At any rate, the confidence and calm of the Order was so great, and I think that Father Pierre’s presence had something to do with it, that I had time to admire the precision of our formations, and the advance of the line of light horse was splendid.

  As we moved west along the beach, the sounds of fighting grew louder. When we came to the spit of land on which the Pharos castle stood, well out in the bay, the line of rocks that supported the spit made a wall. In fact, I have learned since that it is a wall, built in ancient times by Great Alexander and has since silted over to form dry land.

  But along this wall came part of the garrison of Pharos.

  Our turcopoles changed direction like a flock of starlings in the air. One moment they were a line across the beach, and then they changed front to the north, and formed to our right flank, facing the new threat from the garrison.

  It was one of the day’s most important fights, and I missed it. I saw a little of it and it gave me a taste of how warfare in the Levant must be conducted – utterly different from the protracted armoured mêlées of Italy and France. The garrison of the Pharos Castle was part mounted Mamluks and part infantry archers. They moved very quickly along the top of the rock wall, seeming to walk on the sea. Our turcopoles changed front to meet them, as I have said, and both sides ended up on the sand at the sea’s edge, loosing a cloud of arrows as they closed.

  The end of the Saracen line was only a hundred paces from me, and I gathered my reins and looked at Fra Peter.

  He rode to me from his wedge. ‘Absolutely not,’ he said. ‘You will not charge until I command you. Do not betray my trust in you, William.’

  Well.

  I saw Marc-Antonio go down under his horse, and I saw John’s horse leap my downed squire even as John loosed his bow with perfect control, leaning well back, head thrown back. He feathered a Mamluk at a range of perhaps one pace, and his horse reared, at his command, I think, and he had another arrow on his bow and loosed it down into a man close enough to have been struck by his sword. He shot and shot and I couldn’t take my eyes off him.

  And the whole time, we were moving. We passed behind the mêlée, or shot-stour, or call it what you will. We left our turcopoles to hold the garrison, and we rode west.

  And now we could see the battle.

  In the centre, King Peter’s galia grossa had made it close in to shore. I was told later that there was a single channel, the width of a ship, that came within half a bowshot of the beach, and the king’s ship was piloted to the end of the channel, bow first, and not stern first. So the king and his knights had to go into the water over the bow, and they leaped into the waves in three feet of dirty seawater.

  The army of the city loosed thousands of bolts, shafts, arrows, and stone at them. This I saw with my own eyes and the gentle surf carried shafts ashore for days, but even more wondrous was the forest of fletchings that rose out of the flat waters where arrows had buried themselves in the shallow bottom.

  When the arrows had minimal effect, when, in fact, the king’s galley disgorged most of his retinue, the king and his knights began to wade ashore. Guillaume of Turenne, Sieur Percival, Simon de Thinoli, Brémond de la Voulte, Guy la Beveux and Sir John de Morphou all formed close by the king and followed him as he waded, heavily armoured, through the sea.

  They began to fight their way ashore – surely, messieurs, one of the greatest feet of arms ever by Christian knights, as there were fewer than seventy of them, and they fought their way to the water’s edge against ten thousand men.

  Other ships tried to emulate the king’s feat. But, as we had seen from our tower, they ran aground too far from the king’s ship to succour it, and their men-at-arms had to wade neck deep towards the shore, exhausting in armour – and a misstep could mean death. Then the king’s brother, the Prince of Antioch, hit on the notion of running the stern of his galley against the stern of the king’s galley, and making a bridge.

  By this time, the king was surrounded by Bedouin and Berber auxiliaries. Jean de Rheims told me that the king killed fifty men before he fell, and I can well believe it, having seen the dead. Percival de Coulanges, who is, believe me, no friend of mine, was yet a very pillar of valour, and his sword was like that of an avenging angel. Brémonde de la Voulte had a poleaxe, and with it he cut a tunnel through the infidels.

  For an hour, the sixty or seventy knights held a section of beach against ten thousand men. Finally, the Prince of Antioch’s retainers boarded the king’s galley and ran the length of it, using it as a sort of pier, and other ships began to follow suit. Ships full of crusaders laid alongside the king’s galley, or crossed her stern, or grappled themselves to the Prince of Antioch’s galley.

  Imagine, then, as the whole of the crusader fleet roped itself into a great floating dock from which to land men, how it would have fared had the machines on the Pharos Castle still been able to engage them!

  Truly, it was all God’s will. It certainly was not good planning or brilliant tactics.

  By noon, Prince Hugh was ashore with six hundred more men. The king was still fighting, and would not retreat. Nor were six hundred knights, however brave, enough to defeat the whole number of Alexandrines.

  The rest of the army, the crusaders, either hung back or could not get ashore. I mean no dishonour to those who tried – men drowned leaping over the sides of ships in frustration, into water just over their heads. But many ships hung back, the Genoese, and, I confess it, the Venetians, much as I love them. I was not aboard Contarini’s flagship when he was finally informed that the target of the fleet was Alexandria, but I have been told he swore to sink the King of Cyprus’s ship himself.

  He did not. But neither did he land.

  The city garrison began to close in on the knights on the beach. Now, the annals of chivalry are full of tales of one man defeating ten, or a hundred, and that with God’s help. But any man trained to arms knows that if ten untrained peasants are brave and have sharp sticks and do not fear death, they can bring down an armoured knight, aye, and kill or take him. Perhaps it would take twenty to bring down a de Charny or the Black Prince. But the odds of ten thousand against six hundred could only be held so long.

  The circle of Cypriote knights was wavering when de Mézzières got his round ship in close and leaped into the surf. The water came up to his neck – I have heard this from a hundred witnesses – and he had the banner of the King of Jerusalem in his fist, which had not flown in Outremer in a hundred years. And he walked slowly out of the waves, the white banner of Jerusalem trailing on the dirty water behind him, and twenty knights followed him. De Mézzières raised the banner of Jerusalem, and the knights of Cyprus and the handful of crusaders ashore shouted.

  And the admirals of Genoa and of Venice, cursing, no doubt, began to manoeuvre to land their knights.

  They were half an hour behind the action.

  The king was doomed.

  When we passed the sea wall, it was, as I have said, noon. The Egyptian sun, even in autumn, was impossibly brilliant, and the air was as warm as an English day in high summer. The dazzle of the noontide sun on the water of the bay was like a thousand-thousand points of light, so bright they burned the air like daggers.

 
The army of Alexandria lay before us on the dirty white sand. Now, I have heard men say that Alexandria was undefended, and they lie. This is the foolish jealousy of men who, having missed a great battle, seek to deride all those who were there.

  They had a great army, and the governor’s lieutenant had the whole garrison of the Pharos Castle, and there was another lord under the walls with a strong force of cavalry.

  But the very impetus that was about to win the battle for Islam, the sheer force of ten thousand against six hundred, had drawn them out of all formation into a great clump, a heaving, desperate mass at the centre of the bay of the old harbour’s arc. They had no formation, and the Mamluk bowmen, the Al-Halqua, non-Mamluk, troops of the garrison (as Sabraham later identified them) and the Sudanese spearmen – good troops, as I would have reason to know – were packed in like glasses in woodchips.

  When the lord under the walls saw the Order, he led his cavalry at us. He had more horse than we, but not many more, and their horses, while beautiful, were small. Nor were they in wedges. He led his Mamluks forward, and again I gathered my reins short, and Fra Peter turned; his visor was still up.

  ‘Abide!’ he called.

  I was too eager.

  We walked along the sands. In my memory, our formation was perfect.

  To my right front, where the king was, the banner of Jerusalem wavered. And fell.

  The hosts of Alexandria let out a great roar that rang from the walls, and the people of the city echoed their cheer.

  Fra Peter leaned back. He was speaking to the legate.

  Chretien d’Albret cursed. ‘The fucking serf! He’s going to let the king die. Charge, Gold! Lead us!’

  He began to push his mount forward.

  We were formed very close. I turned and thumped the butt of my lance against his chest. ‘Abide!’ I shouted.

  Fra Peter made a set of hand signals with his bridle hand – to the southernmost wedge. To me, he held up his hand – flat.

  Halt.

  I could not imagine why we should halt.

  But Fra Peter and Fra William had been very clear about obedience, and despite d’Albret shouting that I was a coward, I raised my lance and reined in. My whole command halted. Horse shuffled – somewhere close at hand, a horse let out a long fart.

  The southernmost wedge plodded along the sand.

  The Mamluks let their horses have their heads, took up their bows, and loosed their first arrows. They were at long bowshot, perhaps three hundred yards. A light cane arrow fell from the sky and hit me in the helmet.

  Oh, armour!

  There was a sharp ping.

  Fra Peter’s gauntleted hand closed on air and pumped, once.

  ‘Walk!’ I called. I put my weight forward.

  ‘Now what? Gold, for the love of the Virgin! The king is down!’ D’Albret’s voice had an odd ring. He’d been an excitable boy and he’d spent too long with Camus, who imagined himself Hell’s emissary on earth.

  As if Hell needs an emissary.

  I looked, and the circle of the crusaders on the beach had been broken.

  The three bodies of the Order were now in echelon, the southernmost slightly ahead, then the centre body with the legate, and then mine. Our angled line of three wedges was like a barbed scythe.

  And Fra Peter’s fist pumped, once.

  I heard the change in the hoofbeats as the arrows screamed in. I touched Gawain with my spurs – and he leapt forward.

  The Knights of St John have been fighting in the Holy Land for two hundred years. One of their many tricks is this change of speed as the first serious arrow volley is launched. In three strides, Gawain and I were at a gallop, still with Nerio and Fiore leaning into me, their armoured knees behind mine. We were an arrowhead, a battering ram of horses and steel.

  The Mamluks rode in close, trying to break our formation. By Christ, gentles, they were brave! They came right in, almost to our lance tips, to loose their arrows, and it seemed to me that in one beat of my heart they were impossibly far away and the next they were right atop us.

  Deus Veult!

  One shout, like a crack of thunder. This, too, we had practiced since Venice.

  Our lances came down.

  And they turned away. They had neither the formation nor the horseflesh for mêlée and they turned and shot over the backs of their saddles.

  One man down – one at the front of the wedge – and the whole force would be dissipated into a wreck of falling horses and broken men.

  God did not will that.

  I do not remember closing my visor. But my whole world was limited to a single man, his beard dyed red, his armour gold and silver in the brilliant sun, his horse’s rump shining with sweat and the back of his saddle just two horse-lengths from me.

  His arrows struck me. The first slammed into my breastplate like an axe blow, thrusting me back in my saddle like a good hit in a joust, and the second hit my visor – and penetrated it. I felt my death slide across my cheek.

  But as I was not dead, I rode on.

  Then everything changed.

  The Saracen’s Mamluks charged us from under the walls, and moved diagonally to cross our front. But when they failed to break our formations, they evaded straight away instead of galloping lightly away from our impotent lances – and slammed into the rear of their own infantry.

  In my memory, I pursued my hennaed Mamluk for hours across an infinite plain of sand. But then, in one beat of my heart, I caught him, and my lance struck him in the back. I imagine I killed him instantly – his coat of plates and mail failed against the force of my charge. My point went in, and the whole of my lance penetrated him: his horse had balked.

  I lost my lance.

  In two more heart beats I was deep in the Saracen army. Gawain was killing more effectively than I; he danced, his iron-shod feet like four iron maces. Weapons struck me – and it is in moments like this that you discover your training. I drew the Emperor’s sword without a conscious thought; it flowed into my hand, and I cut. I do not remember fighting men, only cutting at a mob. Gawain was still moving forward.

  I had one thought, then, to cut my way to the king. If I raised my head at all, I could see the last of the crusaders on the beach, perhaps three hundred, now, the brilliance of their armour showing where they stood through the press of foes.

  And next to me was Fiore, his arm rising and falling like an executioner’s axe, and on the other side of me, Nerio and his superb horse left a wake of red ruin. Miles was at Fiore’s left knee and Juan at Nerio’s right, and the five of us were the point of the Christian spear thrusting for the king.

  And yet, as we slowed, I had time to be afraid.

  Usually, in combat, there is no time to be afraid. Fear comes earlier, when you prepare, and wait, and later, when you consider, and shake. But on the beach at Alexandria, we took their foot so completely by surprise that we were at their backs, and I saw bearded, shouting faces suddenly turning to me. I had time to consider whether my four friends and I could, by ourselves, best the greatest city in the world.

  I had no idea what was happening elsewhere. I spared no thoughts for the legate, unarmoured, in the midst of the press, or for Fra Peter or Fra William or any of the other knights. They were off to my left and they might have been in other spheres.

  Ahead, I saw the flash of armour.

  Now I was using my sword two-handed in fatigue, and desperation. The danger is hitting your own horse. As the horse moves its head – and horses move their heads often – you can catch the back of the neck above the mane, killing your own mount.

  Fiore had no wasted his time.

  At some point – hours? Days? We struck the Naffatun. They were veteran Mamluks armed with grenadoes of naphtha, a sticky stuff like tar that ignited on contact and burned armour and human skin, the very stuff of hell brought to ear
th. They had pressed far down the beach and burned two galleys that they’d caught aground, and now they hurled their bombs at us and charged with their swords.

  Imagine that you see this through the narrow slits of your visor while your lungs struggle to pull in enough air through the tiny holes in your helmet. Imagine the stink of your own sweat on a sweltering day, wearing eighty pounds of armour, fighting for your life.

  Something caught me from behind. I was taken by surprise, and in a moment, I was unhorsed. You always imagine that this will take time – but by Saint George, one moment I was horrified by the Naffatun and the next I was off my near side, down in the sand.

  Men caught fire, and died horribly. Horses panicked close by me – hooves were everywhere as our dense formation exploded in a rout of burning men and terrified horses.

  But as we were surrounded by the Army of Egypt, our own near destruction only served to thrust us again at our foes. Panicked horses exploded into the serried ranks of the foe.

  Truly, God willed it.

  Not that I was aware, particularly. I was more aware of the hooves, everywhere, and the ranks of enemy infantry.

  The Naffatun were well armoured and had shields of some horrible beast with a knobby hide. I got to one knee and hammered one with my sword one-handed and failed to penetrate it, and my adversary slashed at me with a heavy sabre from the shelter of his buckler and his sabre had no more effect on my harness than the Emperor’s sword on his shield.

  On the third or fourth exchange I remembered a play of Fiore’s and, as my weapons struck the face of his hide buckler, I rotated my hand up and leaned forward. My point slipped past his shield and down into his face, and he fell backwards, my sword deep in his guts.

  And I went with it. By luck or practice, I used the collapse of his body to drag me off my knee and to my feet.