In a whirl he ran into the street, seized a two-wheeled wooden barrow from a passing street seller and, jabbering, made him help carry Hodge out and wheel him to the Sacred Infirmary.
‘Is it grave?’ he asked desperately.
‘All fevers are grave,’ said Fra Reynaud. ‘Marsh sickness, sweating sickness, camp fever … but thank Christ he is here now, and not still at Elmo. He is young and strong. We will do all we can.’
Nicholas walked slowly back to the house, and thought that Death walked with him.
In the courtyard, the family were gathered for evening. Franco embraced him like a son, and talked ceaselessly of his heroism. He told them about Hodge, and Maria said quietly that their prayers would save him.
With Maddalena he exchanged secret looks. How he longed for her. He would be healed that way.
But he was not a hero, and he was not healed. He had left too many of his friends and comrades over at Elmo, and Hodge was sick, and maybe his whole left arm would have to be cut off. And though Elmo was hell, and would only get worse, he longed for it too, and felt he could hardly talk to this loving new family of his. For he spoke a different language now, and had seen a different world.
It was late when La Valette saw him.
‘Again, an audience with the English boy,’ he said. A possible smile. ‘You give a good report of a battle. Now tell me of Elmo.’
So Nicholas told him, of Broglia, and Bridier, and Lanfreducci, and Smith, the counter-attack on the trench, and the many deaths. He did not tell him about Hodge. The Grand Master was little interested in peasants.
Yet at the account of Elmo, La Valette, impassive as he was, could not hide his sorrow and pride.
‘And their spirit?’
‘The same as ever, I think. They were much gladdened and strengthened by the reinforcement of Spanish infantry. They will fight on to the end.’
La Valette stroked his beard. ‘I am glad you have come back, boy. I did not see that Elmo would become such a battleground. I would not have allowed you over there.’
‘I–I want to go back.’
‘No.’
‘I cannot sleep. I have bad dreams.’
‘You are not alone in that.’
Without further conversation he led him up onto the roof of San Angelo. Even as they were ascending the steps, a servant carrying a rushlight behind La Valette, Nicholas heard the sound of cannon fire across the water and impulsively ran ahead. Out on the flat roof he looked north and gasped and leaned on the battlements, almost crumpling. La Valette was at his side immediately.
‘Bear up, my son.’ For once there was real tenderness in his voice.
In the night, Elmo looked like a little volcano, huge gouts of smoke roiling ceaselessly into the dark heavens above, lit from below by leaping hellish flames. It was under attack tonight as never before. This must be the end. Nicholas’s tears fell on the stone.
‘Bear up,’ La Valette said gently again. ‘Every night I have stood and watched this scene. Soon the same inferno will be visited on Birgu, and then it will not only be my beloved brother knights dying, but the people of Malta, old men and women, children, infants in arms …’
Nicholas cried angrily, ‘How can you bear it?’
La Valette said, ‘With God’s grace alone.’
Another day and a night, Nicholas still slept. Every time he awoke he asked after Elmo, and then ran out onto the walls. The banner of St John still flew. Every morning, every evening, people said it was a miracle. Then he worked hard on the walls, bringing up the materials for the coming storm, shaping stone missiles, cutting staves. Yet he felt as miserable as he ever had in his life. Whether Elmo stood or fell, he was wretched.
Maddalena found him when her mother and grandmother were not near.
‘If you go back you will die.’
He looked startled. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I see it in your eyes now. Now that you are no longer so tired and withdrawn from us. You want to go back to Elmo.’
How could she read him so close? ‘I-’
‘You want to go back. And if you die I cannot live.’
Her eyes blazed from such depths. Then she held him and kissed him and the kiss lasted long, and neither of them saw her grandmother appear from the kitchen, and stare a moment, and then retreat inside again without saying a word. There were kisses and kisses. And this was a kiss not to be interrupted, and a love not to be stayed. Only let them be married, before …
She pulled away. ‘You think you cannot die.’
He floundered hopelessly. ‘No, I …’ He tried to kiss her again as if that would be answer enough but she would not let him.
‘You think I cannot imagine what a hell it is over there at Elmo,’ she said. ‘What a hell on earth you have walked through, eyes wide open. But I have a heart, and I can imagine. And men can fall in love with war as with women. I have seen this. My love, my life, you are falling in love with war.’ Her eyes were full of light and tears but her voice was steady. ‘Even Christ passed through hell only once. You do not escape from such a hell as Elmo twice. If you go back, I do not think we will ever see each other again.’
In the afternoon he went to the infirmary, and Fra Reynaud admitted him.
Hodge was sitting up, his colour returned.
‘His fever is broken,’ said Reynaud. ‘Opium stilled his bowels, and then he needed to drink water, and salt bread. And he drank like a thirsty elephant.’
The boys hugged and then looked awkward.
‘His arm is without infection,’ said Reynaud, ‘and the bones knitting fast.’
‘Take more than a funny foreign fever to see off Hodge,’ said Hodge. ‘I’ll be out again in a day or two. I’m as thin as a straw though, straight up and down.’
‘Where’s Smith?’
‘You cannot see him,’ said Reynaud. ‘And he would not know you.’
‘He’s still alive?’
‘Yes. But very sick. He has had Last Rites. Pray for him.’
The dizzying joys and sorrows Nicholas felt were soon shared by the whole town.
The following morning, two knights from Sicily somehow managed to run any Turkish patrols, and came with dramatic news. The relief force would be arriving very soon, perhaps only three or four days now. Those mighty Spanish galleons with their great guns, supported by more gilt and stately galleons from Genoa and Venice, also heavily gunned, would sail in and attack the Turkish fleet at anchor with all force. They would also land an army of at least fifteen thousand of the finest Spanish infantrymen. With their naval support under threat, and fighting on two fronts, the Ottoman land forces would feel dangerously isolated, and surely have to abandon the siege.
The town erupted in frenzied celebration.
La Valette gave orders that the news be carried over to Elmo with all speed. If the defenders there heard it, it would be wonderful for their morale. They might yet hold out, and Birgu itself, with its vulnerable population of women and children, be saved from the Ottoman flames entire, not an innocent life lost.
Yet even before La Valette’s order could be followed, another piece of news came through, and reduced their brief joy to ashes of sorrow, and far greater fear.
An armada of thirty more galleys had been sighted, and a force had indeed landed, at St Paul’s Bay, and was already marching south towards the main Ottoman camp. Yet it was not the relief sent by Christendom. These galleys had come from the south-east and they carried another army of Mohammedan warriors. The news spread like a bitter plague. Hassan Ali was come, the Viceroy of Algiers, with an army of five thousand Algerian cut-throats, bent on holy war, rapine and loot. Women wept and shook their heads and said the North Africans were worse, far worse even than the Turks. Fears grew hysterical and evil rumours abounded.
There also came Candelissa, the vicious Greek renegade, Christian-born but now one of the most savage of Islam’s generals — if you could attribute any religion, even Islam, to that monster of cruelty. With him came two or three thousand more corsairs and cut-throats, not ashamed to march in the army of such a villain, but proud.