Shadow of God (33 page)

Philippe paused at the top of the hill and brought the procession to a halt. “Well, Thomas,” he said to Docwra who was riding at his right, “they are here at last. I wonder when we will again stand upon this promontory.”

“Soon, I hope, my Lord; to watch their sails retreating whence they came.”

“A brave thought, Thomas. Let us hope God has that plan in mind as well.”

With that, he wheeled his horse and led the band of warriors back into their walled city. Nobody in the crowd could help but wonder when they would emerge again.

The Island of Rhodes
July, 1522

By mid-July, after weeks of shuttling supplies from the Turkish mainland, the entire army and navy of the Sultan had landed at Rhodes. It was decided that the mass of the Ottoman Army would land on Rhodes together in as great a show of strength as possible. Suleiman would wait in his camp at Marmarice, on the shores of Asia Minor, twenty-four miles away, until his army was fully deployed. Only then would the Sultan proceed to Rhodes for the beginning of the siege.

Their spies had told the Turks that the knights were preparing to defend the island completely from within the fortress. But, Mustapha Pasha wanted no surprises. Though he planned to land his men and equipment fully six miles from the city, at Kallitheas Bay, he did not want to be ambushed while his ships were being unloaded and vulnerable to fire from a shore party. Mustapha’s fears turned out to be well founded, for though the knights had committed to defending their island from the fortress, they sent out small parties of knights to harass the Turks.

In groups of ten or twelve, the knights would exit the city secretly after dark. They made their way along the walled gardens and behind the destroyed dwellings of the outer city. The knights knew the terrain intimately, while the Turks were still learning their way.

Jean de Morelle commanded the first such raiding party. Five knights from the
langue de France
and six more from Provence slipped through the St. John’s Gate between the Posts of England and Provence. They followed the shadows of the walls through the ditches, and emerged to the far northwest side. There, they mounted their horses and made a wide counterclockwise arc, bringing them to the road between Kallitheas Bay and the main storage depot of the Turks.

When they reached the small wooded section they had chosen for their cover, they split up. Jean said, “Pierre, take your six men around to the rocks over there, and wait for the next party of Turks to arrive. If there are more than thirty of them, do nothing. But, if they are mostly load-bearing slaves and a moderate guard, wait until they have completely passed your position. Then charge down upon them from behind. They should flee directly ahead on the road. The rocks will prevent them from scattering to the sides. We’ll wait to take them from the front, in their panic. Christ be with thee.”

“And thee.” Without another word, Pierre signaled his men, and rode off in the direction of Kallitheas Bay. After riding less than twenty yards, they disappeared into the darkness of the night. Only the soft patting of the horses’ hooves remained hanging in the night air, and the occasional metallic sound of sword and scabbard. In another minute, there was only the sounds of the night; the rhythm of the crickets and the rustle of the leaves moving in the negligible breeze. Jean and his four men split into two groups, flanking the road. They hid in the cover of the sparse woods, invisible.

And they waited.

The horses barely moved, but stood facing the road under light rein and a reassuring hand upon their necks. The knights whispered words of comfort to the animals. “
Doucement, mon brave. Doucement.”
The horses, lulled by their masters’ voices, settled in to wait as well.

Thirty minutes passed, a long gap in what had been a steady flow of traffic along the road by daylight. Jean whispered to the knights at his side. “I hope this doesn’t mean that the Turks are waiting to send a large, heavily guarded force.”

The other knight had only just murmured, “
Oui
,” when a noise was heard in the distance.

At first Jean could hear the loud voices of his men shouting and cursing in French. He could hear the screaming and panic in the darkness; strange voices and a language he did not understand. Then, the lower-pitched sounds of horses’ hooves came to him just as the first of the fleeing porters appeared out of the darkness, racing down the road toward the knights. Most had dropped the heavy bundles and were running as only the terrified can run. Others held onto their loads, reflexively clinging with both hands to the tump lines around their foreheads.

Every man in the road was running straight ahead of the galloping horses. Before the porters were within sight of Jean, the slowest of the porters was cut down by the knights. Bodies covered the roadway, headless, dying before hitting the ground. The wounded staggered on, driven by fear and the faint hope of escape, bleeding to death as they stumbled along. One by one, the knights rode them down, slashing and stabbing with sword and lance.

Within minutes, the pursuing knights had to slow their pace so that horses would not trip over the bodies of the dead and the wounded, or the scattered bundles of supplies lying in their path. It was too dark to risk injury by jumping the horses over the obstructions.

Pierre’s assault began to lose its momentum, the fleeing porters gathering strength from the sense they were, at last, outdistancing the pursuing enemy.

Just as the survivors were regaining their hope, they heard a cry in the night.

“
Allons-y!
Jean shouted to his tiny band. He spurred his horse forward. The four knights dashed into the middle of the road and wheeled to their left to form a solid wall. The porters stopped short, standing in the middle of the road like frightened deer.

Without a second’s pause, the knights rode into the remaining Turks and cut them down with their swords. Not a porter or guard survived the attack. Not a single knight was injured.

Both groups of knights quickly surveyed the scene, killing off the wounded as they begged for their lives in Turkish, or prayed for salvation from Allah in Arabic. When the slaughter was finished, Jean signaled for the knights to retrieve the enemy’s weapons. This done, the knights disappeared into the bush, leaving the road empty and quiet once again.

Jean led his men back the way they had come, entering the fortress through the same hidden passage. They tended to their horses and gathered at the Inn of France. Philippe had joined the other French knights for a late meal, and was awaiting Jean’s return.

“So, my Lord!” Jean said to Philippe. “There are several less porters and Turks on our island tonight. They have gone to their God. Not a survivor to tell the tale.”

“Well done, Jean,” Philippe said. “Any of our men hurt?”

“Not a scratch, my Lord. Not one.”

“Thank God for that. If only the rest of our battles will be so easy. Somehow I doubt it.”

The men grew curiously quiet at the Grand Master’s words. Each realized that the porters’ fate could easily be theirs in due course. They finished their meals in silence rather than celebration, and returned to their posts.

For Suleiman’s army, the process of landing troops and equipment was immense. Day and night, without let-up, ships crossed the few miles of open water between Rhodes and the mainland. Men unloaded uncountable tons of food, shot, powder, and cannon. Mortars were brought ashore; picks and shovels; timber and draught animals; cooking utensils; and, of course, the Janissaries’ huge copper cooking pots. Tents were stacked for later use; dried meats and grains unloaded and stored. Extra guns, swords, pikes, and bows and arrows were set aside to replace those that would inevitably be lost in the battles ahead.

Almost immediately the heaviest cannons were set up in preparation for the bombardment of the city. The biggest were placed on a hillside opposite the Post of England. Another was aimed at the Tower of Aragon, and still another at Provence. It was Mustapha
Pasha’s plan to begin the bombardment immediately, to cover the unloading of his men and equipment. He wanted the Sultan to arrive and see what wonderful destruction his new artillery could produce. Before Selim died he had built a massive new foundry across the Bosphorus at Tophane. The newest technology and metallurgy was employed to build cannons more powerful than had ever been seen before. Some of the biggest guns became so hot they could fire only once per hour. But most could hurl a stone ball with a circumference of over nine feet more than a mile with great accuracy.

But as the first of Mustapha’s massive cannons opened fire, the Commander-in-Chief tasted the metallic bitterness of things to come. For, no sooner had his elite batteries opened fire, and almost before Mustapha breathed the first fumes of spent gunpowder, the batteries of the knights replied in kind.

In the months before the siege, many of the knights and the citizens of Rhodes wondered why so much powder and shot was fired for practice. It seemed to them a terrible waste of their limited supplies. But not one of those shots was wasted. The best artillerymen had been dispatched to locate every possible firing point that the Muslims might use to besiege the fortress. They marked every point on every hill that seemed a suitable firing place. They then set out stone targets and marked each of those spots. At that point they began to systematically fire at each target until they could consistently, with a single ball, strike a direct hit. Each and every possible Turkish cannon mount could be destroyed by a single shot from the knights’ batteries. They had recorded the amount of powder, the weight of the ball, and the angle of elevation of the cannon. They would correct for windage at the time of firing. They would waste nothing. The Turks would have almost endless supplies of shot and powder, and the knights would make do with what they had stored already. But every time one of the knights’ batteries fired, the Sultan would have one less cannon and several fewer artillerymen with whom to fire back.

The first of the Turkish cannons struck the walls with little effect. The forty-foot-thick reinforced bastions swallowed the
cannonballs with barely any noticeable effect. With Gabriele Tadini in command at the battlements, the knights’ cannons immediately roared back, and destroyed each of the three of Mustapha’s heavy guns in a single volley, killing most of the men in the artillery crews. Those who survived the blasts fled, and did not stop running until they were well out of range of the knights’ batteries.

Mustapha met with his officers on the first night of the disembarkation. They sat in his tent, alone except for the usual Janissary guard at the door.

“I’m grateful that the Sultan was not here to witness this day. We have lost three of our finest cannons. Those were cast at the great arsenal at Tophane, in the very presence of the Sultan, himself. Lost to a single volley! It is clear that they have sighted in on the best of our firing positions. The Grand Master is no fool, Infidel though he may be. We must take every precaution from here on. And the Sultan must be protected from harm.”