Behind them, Baldwin saw the long arms of the catapults rise lazily, and their missiles rose yet again as the enemy broke into a run.
‘Archers! Loose!’
From behind Baldwin, the ranks of archers on the walls let fly their arrows. Over the cacophony of stamping feet, shouting, rocks crashing into the walls, Baldwin could hear them hissing through the sky, two thousand at a time. As soon as the first flight was gone, the second was off, and he could see the Muslims falling before their terrible impact, but there were not enough arrows in the city to stop this army.
A crunch.
Baldwin felt his teeth slam together. There was an emptiness in his belly, and he looked about him, dazed. He was on his back, and Hob was beside him, shaking his head, a great rivulet of blood running from a gash in his brow, while Nicholas Hunfrey sat back at the wall, staring at his stomach. His trunk had been opened from his groin to his breast, and he had his hands clamped there, trying to hold himself together.
There was a vast gap in the battlements a yard away. A rock had exploded into it, tearing it apart and flinging slabs and splinters of masonry into the men behind. Baldwin could see broken and bloody bodies lying scattered. His eye took in their faces, and he recognised many as the men from his vintaine. Only he, Hob, and Thomas remained whole. The rest were dying — or dead. The remains of another vintaine was nearby, their sergeant dead.
Baldwin gradually became aware of sounds once more, but his legs were like jelly.
Men came to help them, but Nicholas refused to be moved. He whimpered and moaned, but wouldn’t rise. There were drums, booming away in the distance, screams and roars, and then Baldwin saw a ladder at the wall where the hole had formed. Enemy soldiers began to appear. An arrow took the first, and then Hob was up, his sword snapped a foot from the hilt, and hacking at the men trying to force their way up. Another man joined him, and then Baldwin saw Nicholas, with an axe, hack at the foot of another Muslim. More men, and Baldwin climbed to his feet, and picked up his sword. It was bent, and he stared at it uncomprehendingly for a moment, before joining Hob.
Below the wall, the ground was black with Muslims. It was almost impossible to see the sand between them, there were so many. Ladders kept being slammed against the wall, and now and again a grapnel hook was thrown. One caught a defender, and as the rope was pulled, the barb pinned him against the wall, his flesh ripped apart by that cruel hook while he shrieked.
The Muslims were on the wall further to the right, near the German Order, but even as Baldwin glanced that way, they were hurled back by a rush from the knights. To the left of the ruined tower, he saw more running up ladders, and there was the sound of axes on the door holding them in. He wanted to reinforce it, but even as he had the idea, the first blows to penetrate the timbers began to show. They couldn’t hold this section any more. He bellowed at Hob and the others, and even as he rammed his sword into the face of a man appearing up the ladder again, he saw an axe flash at Thomas, and Thomas’s eyes widened as he slumped back, his breast gaping.
‘Back!’ Baldwin bellowed at the other troops, pulling Hob towards the Tower of St Nicholas. ‘Back, all of you!’
It was stamp and slash the whole way. As they relinquished their section of wall, more and more Muslims appeared on the walkway, screaming in delight at their success, while Baldwin and Hob hacked and dodged, parried and stabbed, all the way to the Tower. There, at last, they managed to dart in and slam the door shut, a pair of bars dropped into place to hold it.
Hob was panting, his face a reddened mask. The gash had opened his brow to the bone. Inside the tower, there were few who were unharmed. A sudden crash announced the arrival of Muslims with a ram.
‘Supports!’ Baldwin yelled, and baulks of timber were brought up and jammed against the door.
The men leaned against them, and with each splintering thrust of the ram, felt themselves jerked in sympathy with the door, but somehow it was holding.
Baldwin prayed it would continue to do so.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR
Edgar and Ivo were at the ruins of the English Tower when they saw King Henry’s taken. Suddenly the enemy were everywhere on the walls, and Ivo took a bow from a man nearby and began to loose his own arrows, taking careful aim and wasting not a shot. More bowmen from the inner walls were plying their trade, too, and the Muslims who reached the walls paid for it.
Alas! It was not only that section of wall that was in danger. When Ivo felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to look the other way, he saw that an all-out assault was being launched on the gate. Where the Tower of the Countess de Blois had stood, now the Muslims were clambering up the rubble and beginning to attack the gatehouse itself. More and more men were scaling the walls, helped by their towers and more ladders, and the defenders were hard-pressed.
So this, Ivo thought, was how Tripoli fell at last.
‘We should leave,’ Edgar said calmly.
Ivo shot him a look. ‘Get a move on!’ he bellowed, wondering whether this Edgar could ever show alarm. He always seemed so collected.
They reached the inner walls just in time to escape being trapped by a second party of Muslims who had managed to come around behind them. That was when Edgar and Ivo realised that Baldwin and his men were still in the tower.
Baldwin and Hob went together to the roof. There had been a catapult here, and its ravaged timbers lay broken beneath the rock that had demolished it. Peering over the wall, they saw a group of eight Muslims with a heavy timber, running along the walkway and ramming it into the door. They could feel the collision through their feet.
‘Help me,’ Baldwin snarled, turning to the catapult. In amongst its remains were the pieces of masonry which it had used as missiles. Now, the two began to roll one of the heavy lumps of stone towards the edge of the tower. With a heave, they managed to lift it to the battlement, and rested it there. The Muslims had retreated, and now they came on again, pelting over the walkway and onto the timbers of the entranceway to the tower. As they did so, Baldwin and Hob thrust at their rock. It fell, and Baldwin heard the screams and cries as it struck the men below, but then there was a terrible cracking sound, and when they peered over, they saw that the rock had crashed through the timbers of the drawbridge to the tower. There was little chance now that the enemy would break into their tower.
Baldwin flinched as an arrow pinged off the stone near his head, and stared down into the gap between the two lines of wall. ‘Hob, we have to retreat. They’re in behind us.’
Hob scratched his ear. ‘I think we’re too late.’
‘Perhaps so,’ Baldwin agreed. He cast an eye about him. Thousands of their enemy stood bunched up before them on the plains, and there was a thin sprinkling behind them. He looked up at the inner walls, and saw Sir Otto high on his tower, but then there was a bellow from the Tower of the Legate, and he saw a party of Christians making a sortie from the Tower’s gates.
‘Quickly!’ he shouted, running down the ladder to the main chamber in the tower. ‘We can make it to the inner line.’
Hob scowled. ‘If we do, we lose all the outer walls. Shouldn’t we remain here and contest every section?’
‘If we do, we’ll die. We can’t hold them off. All they need do is keep battering us with their catapults, and we’ll be buried in the towers. Better that we go now, and can join in the last fights.’
‘Aye. Very well, Vintenary.’
There was shouting outside now. Baldwin went to the door that led out towards the Legate’s Tower. Sliding open the bar, and drawing the bolts, he peered out cautiously. There were only Christians here. He pushed the door wide and bellowed at the men to evacuate the tower. There were steps further along, and he pushed and cajoled his men along the wall towards them. As he went, a ladder appeared at the parapet, and he thrust with his sword at the man who appeared. It was satisfying to hear his howl of pain as he slid down again.