But worst of all was the name of the man who headed this vast new force. Dragut.
Dragut was come.
10
To call Dragut a mere corsair, a pirate captain, was gravely to underestimate him. He was an engineer, cartographer, strategist, and the greatest naval commander of the age — as well as the most savage. Even Mustafa Pasha would never cross him, would bow before him. They said he had once ripped the tongue out of the throat of a Christian captive with his own hands, and eaten it before his eyes. An apocryphal tale, no doubt, but people believed it.
Fourteen years ago his brother had died on the neighbouring island of Gozo in a clumsy slave raid. In revenge, Dragut came and carried away the entire population of the island into slavery.
‘Not a man nor woman on this island but lost some cousin in that enslavement of Gozo,’ Franco Briffa told Nicholas. ‘We were the same people. What Dragut did in that island is beyond words. Those he did not enslave, whom he judged worthless to be sold as slaves — the sick, the very old or the very young, the suckling infant — what he did to them is beyond words. How he … disposed of them.
‘Knowing this, Inglis, we Maltese will only fight the harder.’ Franco looked dark indeed. ‘When Dragut comes to Birgu, he will know our anger.’
Yet Dragut came with his own fifteen hundred fresh fighting men, veterans of bloody battles and encounters numberless, and in overall command of close on ten thousand. They brought cargo ships of fresh water, barrels of balls and powder, gleaming new weapons and guns from the armouries of Tripoli and Algiers, flocks of fat-tailed Barbary sheep for fresh meat, and fresh fruit from the African shore. Luxuries indeed. His men joked that they would eat ripe figs, suck sweet oranges below the very walls of Birgu, so that the infidel wretches within could see how they were cursed and abandoned by their false god.
La Valette responded to the dreadful news as curtly as ever.
‘Send out messengers by night. Let all Malta know that it is against Dragut we now fight — as well as the most powerful Empire on earth. Make sure the nobility of Mdina know. And ask of them about cavalry. Have Don Mezquita ride out with his cavalry and demand of them, when will they begin to harry the Turk in chevauchées from Mdina? Tell them that we would be happy to hear that such operations had begun.’
‘And what of the message to Elmo?’
La Valette considered hard and long, in inward agony that all could see. ‘Tell them nothing for now.’ His brow was deep furrowed with anxiety and grief. ‘Perhaps tonight, tomorrow.’
In the Ottoman camp, Dragut immediately assumed overall command. He was especially contemptuous of Piyale, the palace-born Admiral Piyale. He heard a full report from Mustafa.
‘So,’ he summarised when he had heard. ‘The knights are still sending out and receiving intelligence. The Maltese cavalry at Mdina, few though they are, may still strike at our flank or rear at any time. You have not taken any harbour near to Birgu. You have not rolled up the island with any consistency, but attacked one small target at a time. St Elmo you could have ignored. But not now. Now you have attacked it, you must finish it, or it would look like weakness. This wretched fort must be taken, and quickly.’
He squinted through an eyeglass at the smoking ruin. ‘A hundred and fifty men or so defending it, maybe fewer. And this has gone on for ten days now?’
‘Thirteen or fourteen.’
‘Which? Thirteen or fourteen?’
‘Fourteen,’ said Mustafa through gritted teeth.
‘Hm. And this is the sacred army of the Lord Suleiman, son of Selim Khan, son of Bayezid Khan, son of Mehmet Khan who conquered the City of Konstantiniyye and the Eastern Empire of Rum. And you cannot capture this — witch’s tit of a fort!’
He slammed the eyeglass down so hard the lens dislodged.
‘Get that mended,’ he said, striding from the tent.
‘Sire,’ Sir Oliver Starkey reported to La Valette, ‘there’s a new Turkish gun emplacement being built. With all haste.’
‘Where?’
‘Across the harbour, below Sciberras. At Is-Salvatur.’
La Valette ran up to the lookout. Had he been a man who cursed, he would have cursed.
‘And what of eastward?’ he said.
Starkey squinted. ‘I cannot see, Sire. Years of study … Is there movement on Gallows Point?’
‘There is. That too will soon be a gun emplacement. A second upon Is-Salvatur. And I would guess another beyond Sciberras, across Marsamuscetto, at Tigné perhaps. The guns will be ready to fire by tomorrow. Elmo will be completely surrounded by a ring of fire, and with the battery at Is-Salvatur, cut off from us for good. There will be no more crossing the Grand Harbour then. Any here can no longer go over. And any who have gone over cannot return.’
Starkey crossed himself. ‘Our poor Brothers.’
‘Ay,’ said La Valette. ‘Dragut has most certainly taken command.’
A moment later he said, ‘A last message must go over to Elmo, to steel them unto the last. Write to them that King Philip’s relief force is now very close.’
Two Maltese volunteers came. Sturdy brothers, fine rowers and swimmers both.
‘It is late afternoon,’ said La Valette. ‘You may either row out now in daylight, under the noses of the Turks at Is-Salvatur — but knowing their guns are not yet ready. Or go over tonight — but it is a clear night, there is more than a half-moon coming up already in the tracks of the sun. The harbour will be bright till near dawn, and by then the enemy guns may be ready.’
‘We go now,’ said one, Paolo.
La Valette handed them the brief, vital message, carefully sealed with wax in a brass case. ‘This will work wonders for the morale of Elmo,’ he said. ‘Much depends on it. Do not fail us.’
‘We will not.’
People watched from the walls in speechless anguish as the little blue-painted boat moved out across the still, empty harbour. It was like a crowd watching over an arena. Many could hardly breathe. Over on the spit of Is-Salvatur near the water’s edge, it seemed the Turks at work paused momentarily, observing this crossing. Then they resumed.
They had two breastworks in place already.
From Elmo itself, as usual, came the continual sound of cannon fire and gunfire and muffled explosions.
The little boat moved fast, the two men side by side on the narrow mid-bench. It was already half-way there. Three-quarters.
People held their breath.
Behind the nearest Turkish breastwork, not two hundred yards off now, something was stirring.
The two rowers gasped and pulled as never before, not even when trying to outrun a summer storm back into harbour.
Suddenly the air erupted with a deafening explosion away to their right, and a ball struck the surface of the water just yards ahead of the little boat, sending a huge white geyser spouting high, showering down over them. They glanced over their shoulders and saw the ball itself pass on behind them and then sink below the surface.
At least one gun was already in place, and ready served. Dragut meant there to be no more crossings.
‘Row! Row!’ cried Paolo frantically, drenched, wild-eyed, shaking the saltwater from his eyes.
With his usual cunning and foresight, even while his men were still building up the earth ramp for the main guns to cover the harbour from mouth to Marsa, from Birgu to Elmo — the work of several more hours — Dragut had covertly taken down to the water’s edge a single, elegant long-barrelled culverin, firing through the crevice between two boulders. For as he well understood, when they saw the emplacement being built, the Christians would want to send along their last message of hope, perhaps some last reinforcements to their comrades in Elmo. Sidelong fire from Is-Salvatur would soon bring to ruin that little ruse.