Читать книгу The Siege of Malta (St. Elmo) - S. Fowler Wright - Страница 12

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Malta stirred like a threatened hive.

The Knights of St. John had been preparing for this hour by excavation of solid rock, by battery and barricade, ever since Charles V had given them the islands, forty years before. Every year, as Christian power had declined and that of Islam advanced in Eastern Europe by land and sea, it had become a darker and more imminent menace; and the same causes that had brought it near had decreased their power to hold it longer at bay. Christians had ceased to think of the tomb of Christ, or of the breaking of infidel power, being at issue among themselves. Those who had adventurous rather than pious minds turned their eyes to the west, to the wealth and empire of a new world which had the lure of the hardly-known.

When Charles V gave the Maltese islands to the homeless Knights of St. John he asked no more rent than a yearly falcon to be paid to the Sicilian power. The terms seemed easy enough. Being assured that the ancient laws of the islands would be sustained, the people of Malta had accepted the arrangement with short demur. It may have seemed that the Knights received a princely gift, at no price.

But Charles knew what he did, and the Knights of Malta were well aware. Should a wolf-hound give thanks that he is kennelled where he can get his fangs to the throat of the prowler around the flock?

The Knights of Malta were recruited from the most noble blood of every nation throughout the west. They drew revenues from all lands. And now that Palestine had been lost, and their Jerusalem hospitals gone, their sole object was to make war on the Turks. Charles did no more than make an eyrie for hawks, from which they would vex his foes. The form of the yearly rent may be taken as a symbol of what he did.

But meanwhile, as the years passed and the power of Islam increased, the number of the Knights became less and their revenues shrank. An English king, taking the lands of his own Church, was not likely to leave theirs.

It had been intended to build a rampart of stone such as would have made an outer wall of defence of an almost impregnable kind, but this had been abandoned after a calculation of its cost had shown that it could not have been completed without larger funds than the Order could hope to raise.

Of late years there had been few new knights from the nobles of the more Protestant lands. In five hundred names there is but one—that of the Grand Master’s secretary, Sir Oliver Starkey—which has an English sound. Yet the knights had been strongly established in England once, and a Grand Master had come from that land.

And of the knights who were now arriving from all parts of Europe at the call of this final need, many, like Don Manuel, were elderly men. The Grand Master himself, John la Valette (as he would shorten his name) was near the end of his life. He was a hard-faced, bearded man, with a long straight nose, upright and sturdy enough, and still able to use a sword, though becoming slightly corpulent under his belt. He ruled all in a just but merciless way, trusting more to fear than to love.

It was said by all that he was the right man for the crisis that now came. He was a hawk that would be hard to dislodge from the eyrie where he had chosen to dwell.

Now he toiled with servants and slaves that the fort of St. Elmo might be made strong before the Turks should arrive. He was not deterred by the stiffness that comes with years, nor by the dignity of the great office he held. He put his shoulder beneath a beam.

Seeing him do that, his knights could not refuse to toil in the same way. Every day that the Turks delayed to arrive, the defences grew. Every day brought fresh succour of knights who came at their Order’s call, and of volunteers who would strike a blow for the Christian cause, or sought the excitement of war. They came daily in fishing vessels, or half-decked boats that made the run from Messina when the seas were kind, and at times in larger galleys. The Sicilian vessels came in a watchful fear, ready to turn and bolt at the first horizon sight of the coming Turk. Having landed their cargoes, they were in a great haste to be gone.

The Grand Master had asked aid from Sicily, both of stores and men, as he had a right to do in return for that falcon he yearly paid, for to attack Malta was to affront Sicily, and Spain beyond that.

The Viceroy of Sicily replied with words of goodwill. He had asked instructions of his master, Philip of Spain, without which he was powerless to move. Doubtless these instructions would accord with the dignity of the Spanish crown, and the insolent unbelievers would be chastised.

Actually, the Viceroy was unsure what Philip would say, except that there would be no lack of fair and promising words, which he would seldom stint; and he was in even more doubt as to what he would wish him to do. For the time, he did nothing at all, beyond writing long reports to Madrid, which he knew that Philip would wish to have. He knew that they would be fully read and very carefully filed away.

So it was, when April changed into May, and the watchman upon St. Elmo’s wall saw that two great galleys came from the west. They came fast, with a fair wind in their sails, and their oars out, but as they drew near, and signalled that they would have a pilot to guide them in, it could be seen that they had been battered, either by storm or war. Their lower sails were tattered and holed, and the foremast of the one had been broken off within a few feet of the deck. Their masthead flags were the Maltese Cross and the haughty symbol of Spain.

They came from a running, day-long fight with the swifter vessels of the Algiers fleet, which had been smaller than they, but had vexed them much, as dogs may trouble a bear. They were glad to be nearing port, for they had taken many shots where the water washes the hull, such as were not easy to plug, and the pumps of the Santa Martha were clanking upon the deck.

Angelica stood on the Santa Anna’s poop in her boy’s clothes, and her name was Garcio still; for Ramegas said: “You have done that in which I will have no part, either to hinder or aid. You go now where no women are, and where none should be. And you do this, being pledged, as you know, to the Convent of Holy Cross. It is for Don Manuel to resolve, and I must leave it to him. You have saved his ships at a great peril of life, and he must be grateful for that. But I cannot even guess what he will say.

“I must tell the Grand Master of whom you are, and the whole tale, for I owe my duty to him. Also, if I were silent, and it should be otherwise probed, it might be read in a worse way. But, beyond that, you will be Don Garcio still, having chosen your name, and there being no clothes here of a woman’s kind that you could wear if you would.

“Even Francisco I shall not tell. You can do that or not, when you will meet him after you land, but he will hear nothing from me.”

Angelica heard this and was well-content. She could speak to whom she chose, and at her own time. Ramegas could not prevent this, if he would. While he would know who she was (and the Grand Master as well) she did not doubt she would walk secure. And, so far, she had had her will, for the Convent of Holy Cross was distant a thousand miles, and she was coming to Malta now.

The harbour which they approached, which was to be called Valletta in later years, was one of the best in the world as far as it was then known. It was deep and large and sheltered from every wind, and it was divided internally in a very curious way. There were, indeed, two harbours, divided by a tongue of land, having the entrances on either side of its point. The entrances were narrow and the harbours widened within. The eastern harbour was in some ways the better, and it was that which the Knights used. But they had built a star-shaped fort, which they had named St. Elmo, on the point of land which separated the two, and while that was held, the western harbour would be useless to any foe. Behind it, the tongue of land rose in a hill of rock that was solid and bare.

It was at the construction of a ravelin to this fort on its western side that the defenders toiled against time, and the Grand Master was overseeing the work. So the pilot said when Ramegas asked where he could be most quickly found.

Learning that, Ramegas decided that he would take a boat, and go straight to the Grand Master to make report, not waiting until the galleys were docked, to which others could give atttention as well as he.

He hailed Francisco to tell him what he intended to do, and saying that he and Captain Antonio would be left in charge of the ships.

He decided to take Angelica with him, for he thought it best that she should be near himself till her status should be agreed, and it was partly of her that he had to make his report.

So the Santa Anna lay-to as they came to the harbour mouth, and dropped a boat which pulled for St. Elmo’s beach, and the two galleys went on, the Santa Anna following in the wake of Francisco’s ship.

They passed St. Elmo on their right, with a shore beyond the fort that was straight and steep; but the harbour widened upon the left, where two spurs of land ran out, long and wide, with a deep basin of water between.

At the end of the first of these spurs the castle of St. Angelo stood, where the Order of the Knights of Malta had centred its power. If that should fall, there would be nothing left it would be worth while to save; and while it stood, the Turks could not say that their purpose was won. Behind the castle at the broadening bend of the spur, was the old town known as the Bourg.

The further spur of land on the other side of the basin had been fortified also and had been named the Sanglea, its ridge being crowned by St. Michael’s fort, and behind it a new town called Bermola had grown.

All the shipping was now docked or anchored within the basin between these spurs, and since there had been rumour that the Turks would come, the entrance had been secured with an iron chain of a monstrous size. The two ends, at St. Angelo and Sanglea, were secured on platforms of rock, and the chain could be lowered at will for the ships to go out or in.

It was easy to see that, while St. Elmo was held, both harbours would be closed to the attacking fleet; but if it should fall, though they would have gained access to both, and would have made the western one entirely their own, yet the Knights might do well enough, providing that they could hold the two tongues of land, St. Angelo and Sanglea, with the harbour-basin that lay between, and the two little towns behind.

So in the last days, besides setting up the great chain at the harbour-mouth, they had cut deeper the trenches around the Bourg on the landward side, which had not been easy to do, for the whole island was solid rock, and they had added a terreplein to the ramparts on the further side of Sanglea, and had established a three-gun battery outside St. Angelo, down at the water’s edge, the use of which would be seen at a later date.

La Valette had not been sparing of toil, and he would not be sparing of blood when the time came. He meant that, while its Knights lived, the flag of Malta should fly, and that, if they must go to God with a tale of failure to tell, they should not fear the condemnation of those who fight the battle of life and faith in a lukewarm way.

And so, having made St. Angelo as safe as he could, he turned to St. Elmo next, seeking to build it so strong that the Turks would break their teeth on that at which they might make the first bite.