His head bobbed. ‘I’ll do what I can,’ he said, and began to issue crisp orders. The Casteleto had a pair of machines, both mangonels, mounted high.
‘They’re higher than we,’ Brother Robert said. ‘I don’t think I could strike them save by the will of God.’
Sabraham shook his head. ‘You don’t need to strike home,’ he said. ‘Those aren’t hardened men. They rush their shots and they miss. If you come close, they will turn their fire on us.’
Fiore had by this time found a half-pike. He fixed the admiral’s flag to it and looked at me.
I nodded. ‘As secure as we’ll ever be!’ I said.
Fiore dei Liberi planted the order’s flag on the walls of the Casteleto, the first lodgement the crusader army made in Alexandria.
Out on the water, there was no immediate change in the Order’s ships.
The great bows of our two mangonels began to bend back. I went to the winches with the sailors and my friends and two Gascons who’d ended in the tower.
We got the bows back, and the great cogs of the mechanisms clicked into place. With heavy pry bars, Brother Robert and two sailors began to move the engines, levering them a few inches at a time.
The far tower loosed its deadly hail at the crusader fleet.
I was panting from winding the great bows. But out to sea, the oars were out on the whole of the Order’s squadron, and they gave way all together, a magnificent sight. Caught by my attention, other men came to look.
The Order’s ships formed a line behind the galia grossa.
‘Here they come,’ whispered Juan. He fell to his knees and began to pray. Most of us who were not actively aiming the engines knelt and prayed.
‘Let’s try that,’ Brother Robert said. ‘With God’s grace,’ he muttered, and pulled the lever.
The bows stunned the air, and the great engine slammed back in recoil, jumping a hand’s breath and slamming back down to the stone roof so that dust rose up.
Brother Robert’s first missile was visible at the top of its arc. And then it fell too far and slammed into the Pharos castle, about halfway up its tower. Dust and stone fragments flew.
We all cheered.
Every man in the enemy tower ran to the wall facing us to look. Until then, despite the alarm sounded by one of theirs, I suppose they had assumed themselves safe. Truly, I have no notion what they thought.
We started winding the engine and Brother Robert moved the second one into firing position.
Nerio was grunting along with me on the torsion. ‘Think – that – whoever – designed – this tower—’ he grunted.
Brother Robert loosed his second dart. It went higher, and struck the enemy tower just a hand’s breadth below the top of the crenellation. There was a little dust, but there were screams. They carried, because it was a silent dawn, and we could not hear what was happening on the other side of the Pharos spit, where the crusaders and the king were landing. And dying.
It was just luck. In four more shots we didn’t come close to hitting the top: one went over, and two slammed into the flank of the tower and one vanished into the sea because we hadn’t tightened the torsion all the way.
Then the first rock came back at us. It was well-aimed and struck our tower close to the top, and men were cut with stone chips. The whole tower moved the way your breastplate moves when a heavy arrows strikes it true. I wished for my armour.
Brother Robert loosed another engine. His dart struck well up, and knocked in a merlon. I knew from what I’d just experienced that a hail of stone chips had just flayed an engine’s crew – nothing mortal, probably, but a healthy dose of fear.