here.’
Richard nodded, and lifting Thomas under the arms he dragged him to the drain and eased him down before letting him drop the remaining distance. He sat on the rim and looked back at Stokely. ‘You’re not coming?’
‘No.’ Stokely indicated the blood oozing beneath the bottom of his breastplate. ‘The wound is mortal. I’ll stay here, with the others.’ Richard shook his head sadly. ‘God save you, sir.’
‘Go!’ Stokely waved him away.
As soon as Richard had disappeared from sight, Stokely hobbled over to the grille and heaved it back into place before taking up position in front of the altar, leaning on his sword for support as he gasped for breath. The pounding on the door had increased and despite the weight of the bench and the desperate efforts of the two soldiers, the door began to edge inwards. The tolling of the bell died away and Stokely saw Robert of Eboli emerge from the door leading into the chapel’s small bell tower. The friar carried a silver cross before him and raised it high as he strode into the middle of the chapel and turned to face the entrance before kneeling down. The Turks outside the door pressed forward, steadily forcing it open. As the gap widened, a shaft of light pierced the gloom and fell upon the symbol in the friar’s hands and reflected a giant ghostly cross on the wall above the entrance.
‘See?’ Robert cried out. ‘The Lord is with us! We are saved!’ The door lurched inwards and the two sergeants leaped back and readied their weapons as the Turks burst into the chapel. With a wild shout one of the sergeants swung his sword and struck down a robed warrior, splitting his skull open. Before he could recover his weapon, the enemy swarmed round him and the other sergeant, hacking and stabbing with their weapons until the two men were cut to pieces on the floor. More Turks spilled into the chapel. Stokely shook his head to try and dispel his giddiness.
‘Stop, infidels!’ Robert bellowed, in the same rich voice that had captivated his congregation. He thrust the cross towards the oncoming Turks. ‘The Lord God commands you to stop. In his name I order you to leave his house and quit this island, never to return.’
A Janissary officer approached the friar and sneered in French, ‘Where is your god, Christian?’ He glanced round, as if looking, and some of his men laughed. Then he raised his sword high and swept it round in an arc with all his strength. Robert had time to utter a shriek of terror before his head toppled to the floor at his side. His body collapsed and the cross clattered beside his head. The officer turned to his men and shouted an order. With a cheer they spread out across the chapel and fell on the wounded men lying on the ground, butchering them even as they begged for mercy.
Several approached Stokely. He gathered what was left of his strength, raised his sword and swung it round above his head to build up its lethal momentum. ‘For God and St John!’ The bloodied tip hissed through the air as the first of the Turks approached, a heavily built man with a broad-bladed scimitar and large round shield. As the blade swept round behind Stokely, the Turk rushed forward. Stokely had anticipated the move and stepped back with him so that his sword cut below the rim of the Turk’s shield and smashed through his knee, shattering the bone. As the Turk collapsed he swung his own blade and caught Stokely on the side of his helmet.
The force of the impact caused an explosion of light in his head and before his vision could clear the other Turks were upon him. They snatched the sword from his hands and knocked him down. Daggers pierced his flesh through the gaps in his armour before the officer bellowed at his men to stop.
‘This is one of the accursed knights, you fools! Why kill him like this when you could slaughter him like a pig? Take off his armour and put him on the altar!’
Stokely, still dazed, felt his limbs pulled about as the Turks stripped him of the plates that had protected him, then his clothes, until he lay naked. Then he was hoisted up from the floor and placed on the cold stone of the altar, his ears ringing with the screams and cries of the last of the wounded to be killed. He tried to move but strong hands held him down. As his vision began to clear he saw the officer leering down at him, a dagger held up for the knight to see.
‘This is what we do to the pigs who dare to defy Suleiman and Allah.’
He raised the dagger above Stokely’s chest. Summoning the last of his strength, Stokely opened his mouth and screamed out, ‘God save the Holy Religion!’
Then the blade slammed down, cutting into his breast. The impact drove the breath from his lungs and Stokely rolled his head to one side as he felt the blade rip down through his breastbone to expose his heart. Blackness rushed over him as he felt the Turk’s fingers close round his living heart. Sir Oliver Stokely’s lips moved one final time as they framed the words, ‘Dear God, protect Maria . . .’
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Down in the drain Richard heard Stokely’s last cry of defiance and glanced back in the direction of the grille. At any moment some Turk was bound to become curious and search the drain. His only hope was that the overpowering stench of human waste would put the enemy off long enough for him to drag his father out of the tunnel and into the cover of the rocks beside the path leading down to the jetty. He reached under Thomas’s shoulders, took firm hold of the gambison and pulled. The material caught on the burned flesh of his arms and Thomas let out a groan.
‘Quiet!’ Richard hissed. ‘Do you want to get us killed?’
Thomas clamped his jaws tightly shut to bite off the urge to cry out. He began to tremble as the shock hit home and his strangled moans echoed faintly along the drain. Richard bent down close to his ear.
‘Father, for pity’s sake, please be quiet.’
He pulled on the dead weight of Thomas’s body, dragging him through the trickle of fluids that ran amid the stinking slurry along the bottom of the drain. It was only a short distance to the screen that concealed the opening where the drain passed under the wall. Easing his father down, Richard gently moved the screen to one side and peered out into the daylight. The sounds of cheering came from above, carrying over the walls of the fort. Occasional shots added to the enemy’s celebrations, but there was no one to be seen on this side of the fort which faced across the harbour towards Birgu and Senglea. Richard pushed the screen aside and crawled from the drain. He glanced quickly to both sides and saw only a handful of men some distance away, too far for them to make out any detail of Richard’s attire. He stood up and waved his arm casually. A moment later one of the enemy waved back and then turned his attention back towards St Elmo.
Richard pulled Thomas out, eased him on to his feet and raised his unburned arm across his shoulder.
‘Not far to go. Hold on to me.’
They picked their way across the rocks and stepped on to the path. At any moment Richard expected to be seen from the walls above and hear the alarm raised. But they continued their slow progress without being discovered and Richard guessed that the Turks were busy hunting down the last of the defenders inside the fort and looking for the loot that many of them had been promised in return for joining the campaign. There would be scant pickings, he reflected. Almost everything of value had been thrown into the fort’s well the night before when the defenders had accepted that all was lost.
Richard was steering Thomas towards the steps that led down to the jetty when he heard the scrape of boots on rocks. A figure stepped out immediately in front of them and Richard’s hand flew to his sword handle. Then he let out an explosive sigh of relief as he saw it was one of the Maltese militiamen. The man stared wildly at the two Englishmen and then turned towards the sea.
‘Wait!’ Thomas called after him in Maltese. ‘I need help.’
‘Too late,’ the man replied. ‘It’s every man for himself now.’
‘Help me,’ Richard pleaded. ‘For pity’s sake, help me.’
The man hesitated and then stepped to the other side of Thomas and lifted his arm before Richard could stop him. At once Thomas threw his head back and let out a cry. Before they reached the top of the steps a voice called down to them from the wall. ‘Don’t look back!’ Richard hissed. ‘Keep moving.’
The voice called out again, louder this time. Then there was a short pause before a challenge was shouted down to them. They kept going, Thomas’s feet bumping down the steps between the rocks until they reached the jetty.
‘Oh no . . .’ Richard muttered in despair. There were no boats moored alongside the jetty. Only the bows of a sunken craft bobbed low in the water, all that remained of a boat pounded to pieces by the enemy guns that had been sited to sweep the sea between the Christian forts. There were more shouts from the direction of the wall and Richard glanced over his shoulder, but there was no sign of a pursuit yet. They continued to the end of the jetty and
