And then the wind died. Longo stood at the wheel of la Fortuna, anxiously watching the sails as they shuddered and then fell limp. The wheel died beneath his hand as the ship lost its way and the current gripped it, pulling them back towards the Turkish fleet. He looked behind him. Their oars out again, the Turkish galleys were advancing quickly, cutting through the water. There was no way that the bulkier Christian ships would be able to outrow them. Already the foremost Turkish ship, a low trireme flying the flag of Baltoghlu, the admiral of the Turkish fleet, had reached the grain transport. La Fortuna and the other ships would be surrounded soon enough. The safety of the Golden Horn was within sight, but with the wind gone it might as well have been miles away. They would have to fight.
'Axes out, men!' Longo called, as he left the wheel and took up an axe. 'We're going to have to hold our own until the wind returns. Let's give them hell!' The men cheered. Longo had more than six hundred soldiers with him: two hundred and fifty here aboard la Fortuna and an additional two hundred each aboard la Speranza and l'Aquila, a ship that he had picked up in Chios. The fourth ship, a grain transport sent by the pope, was the weakest part of the convoy. The captain, Phlatanelas, was a brave man, but his ship held more grain than men.
The Turkish flagship reached the transport, ramming it across the bow, and a horde of screaming Turks swarmed up the sides, only to be met with a shower of burning Greek fire that swept them into the sea. Longo turned away from the spectacle to shout orders to his crew. 'Tristo, take two companies and man the starboard side. William, take the same and command the port,' Longo ordered. 'Archers, get aloft and begin firing as soon as the Turks are alongside. Firemen, be ready with those buckets.'
'And what about me?' Nicolo asked. Longo's portly chamberlain stood awkwardly in a bulky suit of armour, wringing his hands as he stared at the approaching Turkish ships.
'First of all, take off that armour. You can hardly move in it,' Longo told him. 'Then go below and help the men bring up ballast stones from the hold.'
'But why? Are they not needed for… for ballasting?'
'Take them to the rail and drop them on any Turkish ship that comes alongside. Their ships have thin hulls. God willing, the stones will go right through them.'
'How clever,' Nicolo murmured, but Longo was no longer paying attention to him. The first Turkish ships were closing in and had begun firing flaming arrows at the ship. Most of those that hit sputtered out, but a few caught. The firemen hurried about the deck, dousing the flames with buckets of water. Shortly after the arrows hit, the first Turkish boat reached them. It rammed the side of the ship with a solid thump that knocked several of Longo's crew off their feet. The thick sides of la Fortuna absorbed the blow with no damage, but the bow of the ramming ship was splintered and crushed on impact. The Turkish soldiers aboard could not swim in their heavy armour. Their panicked cries were drowned out one by one as the ship sank quickly beneath the waves.
Three more Turkish ships came alongside, followed by dozens more. Within seconds la Fortuna was surrounded and engulfed in chaos. Turks swarmed the ship from all sides, yelling like demons and fighting desperately to board. Longo's men fought them back, their heavy axes severing the hands and heads of would-be boarders. Tristo wielded a massive axe, protecting a full five feet of railing by himself as he took off head after head. On the opposite side of the ship, William had eschewed an axe for his sword. He slipped in and out of his men, striking where needed and dispatching Turks with ruthless efficiency. Above, the twang of bowstrings could be heard from high in la Fortuna's rigging, and arrows filled the air, whizzing into the Turks below. Nicolo stumbled past Longo carrying a huge ballast stone. The chamberlain dropped it over the side and then clapped his hands with glee as the stone crashed through the deck of a Turkish ship below. Water bubbled through the ragged hole, flooding the deck, and the Turkish soldiers began to strip off their armour and abandon the sinking ship. And all this time, flaming arrows continued to rain down on the deck of la Fortuna.
Longo was kept busy, rushing to help wherever one of his men fell or gave ground. He was at the stern, pushing back a fresh wave of attackers when the Turks managed to force their way on deck at la Fortuna's bow. 'To the bow!' Longo yelled to his men as he rushed across the deck to where more than a dozen Turks had already gathered. Moving at a full sprint, Longo hurled his axe at the nearest Turk, catching him square in the chest and knocking him off his feet. Longo drew his sword on the run and slammed into the rest of the Turks. He fought with a savage abandon, spinning, twisting and slashing his way through the boarders, forcing his way to the railing at the bow, where he confronted a final Turk. He parried the attacker's thrust, lowered his shoulder, and slammed into him, knocking him over the rail and into the sea below. More Turks were clambering up the side, and Longo cut the ropes that they were using to climb aboard. As they fell into the sea below, Longo looked around him.
The bow of the ship was clear. His men had followed his charge and had swept the Turks aside. Around them, the sides of the ship were holding, and the initial ferocity of the Turkish attack had abated. Longo looked to the other Christian ships. La Speranza was closest and seemed to be holding its own. L'Aquila also appeared to have weathered the storm, but the transport, furthest away from Longo, was in trouble. Their small crew was under heavy pressure from more than a dozen Turkish ships. The Turkish flagship was still alongside, and men continued to pour out of it and up the sides of the transport. Without help, the transport would be lost, and with it enough grain to feed all of Constantinople for several days.
Longo looked again at the other Christian ships. The current had brought them closer together, so that there was no more than thirty feet between each of them. Longo realized that with some rope and a little luck, there was still a chance that they could save the transport.
'Rope!' he yelled to his men. 'Bring me four lengths of rope, and grappling hooks. Tristo and William, get over here!' While his men prepared the rope, Longo explained his plan. 'Tristo, do you think that you can reach la Speranza with a rope?' Tristo nodded. 'Good. Then I want you to throw three ropes between our two ships. Once they have tied off the ropes on la Speranza, the men can pull the two ships together. We'll board la Speranza, then pull l'Aquila to us, then the transport. William, you'll stay in charge of the ship here. If we act fast, we can still reach the transport in time.'
Longo went to shout his plan to the captain of la Speranza, while Tristo took a coil of rope with a hook tied to the end and moved to the rail of the ship. While the other men kept the Turks at bay, Tristo stood on the rail and began to swing the hook, letting out rope until it was swinging in a large circle. Finally, he let it fly. The hook arced through the air as the rope uncoiled by Tristo's side, but it came up short, bouncing off the side of la Speranza and sinking into the sea. There was a disappointed silence on the ship, interrupted by Tristo roaring, 'Give me another!' He took another hook, and this time let it go with a slightly higher arc. The hook soared through the air and landed with a thud in the middle of la Speranza's deck. The men on both ships cheered. Tristo threw two more ropes over, and the crews began pulling the ships together. Within a few minutes, they were close enough for Longo and Tristo to leap from la Fortuna to the deck of la Speranza, and the whole process was started over again, this time with l'Aquila.
By the time they latched on to the transport and began to pull it close, the fighting there had become truly desperate. Pockets of Turks had forced themselves on to the transport's deck at various points, and the Christian crew was beginning to give ground. The heavy transport was proving very difficult to pull close, and if help did not come soon, Longo feared that the lines between l'Aquila and the transport would be cut and the ship lost. 'There is no time to wait,' Longo told Tristo. 'We must go now.'