Monday, August 16, 1683
Xavier
Vienna
“I think it’s safe to say that the camels and wagons we saw yesterday were bringing more powder and shot.” Balth hunched next to Xavier as another cannonball whistled overhead. Turkish artillery had been busy all day.
“Ensign Schor. Ensign Laymann.” Both Xavier and Balth saluted at the approach of Captain Heisterman. “I’ve orders to help form a sally. Those works leading to the Löbl Bastion have to be destroyed.”
Xavier glanced at the ditch in front of the Löbl Bastion. Slowly but steadily, the Turks had been advancing, using timbers, fascines, and gabions along the sides and tops of their trenches to protect themselves from fire as they moved ever closer to the city walls. “We’re going into the ditch?” The defenders had made sallies before, but casualties would mount the moment the defenders left the safety of their palisades and blockhouses.
“Yes.” Heisterman glanced at the late afternoon sun. “In about an hour. I’d like both of you to come and each bring the fifteen men you think best at this type of thing.”
“We aren’t waiting until dark?” Balth asked.
“No. We’ll be better able to see what we’re destroying if we have sunlight.” Heisterman waited a few moments to see if they had any other questions.
“Muskets or swords, sir?” Xavier asked. It didn’t sound like the type of action that would allow for organized firing lines.
“Swords and spears, pikes and pistols. I’ll send someone to relieve you and your selected men before it’s time.”
“Yes, sir.”
Balth shook his head as Heisterman left. “A daylight sally. I’m not sure how I feel about that.”
Xavier was just as nervous, but he made his tone relaxed. “Maybe this way some of the sharpshooters on the bastion can pick off the men we expose when we rip the roofs from their trenches. At the very least, they can shrink the ranks of the janissaries when they rush forward and try to save their sappers by skewering us.”
Balth straightened his back. “Right. I’ll see about sorting my men.”
Xavier did the same. He’d started the siege with half a company, roughly fifty men, though it should have been more had they been at full strength. Deaths, wounds, and illness had whittled his group down to twenty-three. He could have chosen the eight he would leave behind based on if they were married, if they had children. Instead, he picked the brawniest of his men and left six who were short and slight and another two because they were his best marksmen. A musketeer company’s work was focused on volley fire—their muskets were too unreliable for individual sharpshooting, most of the time. But the gamekeepers had proven that there was a growing place for snipers, and Eder and Leitner seemed to have the makings for it.
As promised, Captain Heisterman sent up men to replace their company. Those selected for the sally followed Heisterman to the rendezvous while the rest stationed themselves where they could fire into the melee if the opportunity arose.
Count von Sereni and Count von Scherfenberg would lead. The instructions were simple: destroy the enemy and the works they’d erected to threaten Vienna.
“Are you ready?” Balth whispered.
“I suppose.” Xavier focused on his breathing, hoping his efforts would make his heartbeat march along like a disciplined infantryman instead of galloping along like a wild hussar.
“If anything happens to me, there’s no need to tell my father anything. I don’t care what he hears. But if anything happens to you, I’ll be happy to look after your sister.”
Xavier chuckled. “You could tell her what happened to me, and I’m sure she would be grateful for news, but I doubt she’d want you to look after her. She’s not the sort to be coddled.” Katja wanted to be respected, wanted to be listened to. And Xavier suspected she had a different man in mind for that.
The lines of Balth’s jaw hardened.
Xavier couldn’t tell if the emotion was frustration or hurt. “It’s not that there’s anything wrong with you, Balth. Half the girls who fled Vienna would be glad to have you for a suitor. But Katja’s not a typical lady of the court, and someone else has a head start on you.”
Balth grunted. “Don’t tell me you’re thinking of that counterminer? Surely the daughter of Herr Schor, the famous violinist, will marry better than that.”
Xavier didn’t say anything, but he pictured Wilhelm’s reaction to a match between Katja and Toby and had to hide his smirk so Balth wouldn’t think Xavier was laughing at him. “I don’t intend to tell Katja whom she should or shouldn’t marry. But I need to check on my men.”
Xavier mingled with his musketeers. None of them carried muskets at present. A few had pikes. Most had at least one pistol, and all had a sword or a spear. He glanced over each man and nodded his approval. Xavier carried a saber, a pistol, a pike, and a dagger.
Captain Heisterman drew nearer. “No matter how many of them we kill, they can be replaced within hours. But if we destroy what they’ve built, we buy ourselves a few days while they rebuild. Kill all you can, but destroying the works takes priority.”
Xavier nodded. They were fighting so they could last a few more days. Would a few extra days be enough, or was it all a lost cause anyway? If the emperor couldn’t get allies, there would be no relief of the city and all their efforts would come to naught. Unless they could hold out until winter drove the invaders away, but a quick glance at the ravelin, pocked with mine craters, confirmed that winter wouldn’t arrive soon enough to save them. It had to be Lorraine and the army or attrition so devastating for the Turks that they gave up. But how could fifteen thousand men—far fewer now—whittle away at three hundred thousand?
The men assembled just outside the Löbl Bastion, near the revetments and behind some of the retrenchments. When all two hundred were gathered, a trumpet signaled their charge.
Xavier and his men followed Captain Heisterman. They moved quickly, but at a steady pace rather than a reckless rush. The first of the Turkish works came into view, and the men tugged apart a barricade of gabions and sandbags. A musketeer with a torch lit anything that would burn. Turkish troops rushed from beneath their shelters and attacked. They outnumbered the sortie, but these weren’t the crack janissaries the Ottomans usually sent on the assault. These men charged with shovels and picks.
Xavier started with his pike—it allowed him to impale the enemy before they were within range to use their mining tools. He ignored the cries of pain and terror. These were men who would ravage his sister and destroy his city if given the chance. They were fiends, and the more he killed, the safer Vienna would be.
When his pike stuck in a miner, Xavier switched to his sword. He coordinated with Balth and their men, pushing closer to the Turkish works and farther from the bastion, slashing at the oncoming enemy and keeping the men behind them free to pull down palisades, tip over gabions, and burn the wreckage.
A glance back showed ruin replacing the carefully roofed trenches. The sandbags and timbers that had protected the trenches were now gone or burning, leaving anyone who came into the siege works vulnerable to musket fire and grenades from the defenders garrisoning the bastions and ravelin. Thus far, Xavier and his men had suffered no losses against the Turkish pioneers. They pushed forward and fought and demolished. Xavier’s saber dripped with blood, but he and his men kept up the pressure and the destruction.
Eventually, the Turks sent forward their shock troops, men whose first task was killing, not digging. Xavier and Balth exchanged a glance and set their faces. They consolidated their stretched-out lines and moved forward together. The Turks raised a horse-tail tuğ and ran at them, yelling their battle cry. Grenadiers from the city guard hurled their little bombs into the thickest group of attackers. Men cried and fell and tumbled. Smoke stung Xavier’s eyes and obscured his vision but not so much that he couldn’t see to block the swing of a Turkish yataghan curving toward him. He grabbed his dagger with his left hand so both arms contained a blade. Slice, jab, thrust. The reinforcing Turks were far more skilled than the men digging the trenches had been, but Xavier and his soldiers held.
Captain Heisterman dueled with a particularly large janissary. Their swords crossed and withdrew, struck and counterstruck. Power and desperation mixed to form each quick movement.
“He’s huge.” Balth glanced at the captain, then lunged at his own quarry.
Not only was the Turk enormous, but he was also skilled. Another janissary went to help the first. Xavier fired his pistol and brought the man down, leaving Captain Heisterman with only one adversary.
A mustached Turk with a long scar across his face lunged at Xavier with a yataghan. He blocked and returned a strike of his own. The man parried Xavier’s saber aside but wasn’t quick enough to stop the dagger that followed. The man fell. A glance at Heisterman and the janissary showed them on the ground, grappling. Xavier tried to reinforce his captain, but another man stood in his way. Xavier stepped back to avoid one swing, then stepped forward again, blocked, and stabbed the man.
By then, Heisterman was victorious. He used the janissary’s yataghan and lobbed off the man’s head, then lifted it high with a shout so the rest of the Turks could see. The battle didn’t end, but something changed in the onrushing Turks. Heisterman had killed their leader and, with him, the Turks’ confidence. Slowly, the defenders pushed the enemy back to the counterscarp. Reinforcements came to hold what they had taken, and Xavier’s group relaxed and consolidated.
Captain Heisterman plucked the janissary’s head from the ground and handed it to Xavier. “You know what to do with this?” He pointed to the palisades facing the enemy.
Xavier took the head and mounted it where the enemy could see. Part of him didn’t want to stick any more heads on pikes, but he’d seen how Heisterman’s victory had affected the enemy. Desecrating the bodies of the dead might be brutal. It might draw criticism from Balth—from Katja too, if she knew. Xavier might have complained to Wilhelm about it a time or two as evidence of gross imperfections in the emperor’s armies. But it was a weapon, and they were outnumbered. The consequence of failure was destruction, so they would use every weapon they could.
Heisterman nodded his approval and cleaned the enemy blade. “I heard Count von Starhemberg is sick again.” He held up the weapon. “Maybe a gift of this sword will cheer him.”
Xavier checked that all his men were accounted for. One was injured—he’d been cut across the arm by a Turkish pick. Another had caught a bit of a grenade blast and needed to be bandaged and given rest. But none were worse off than that. Of the two hundred men who had gone out, nine had perished. Losses had not been so light for the Turks.
Later, at the barracks, Xavier ate with Balth. He gave his friend a sheepish look. “I know I told you I was finished putting Turkish heads on pikes, but you saw what happened.”
Balth nodded over his soup. “Yes. The captain is almost as bloodthirsty as you are. Bloodthirsty and effective.”
“It’s not that I want to be like that, but if it works, if it helps us keep them from taking the city . . .”
Balth frowned. “Saving the city is vital, Xavier. But so is saving your soul.”
Xavier didn’t reply. Was it a sin to desecrate the body of an enemy? This was war. Surely, chopping off a dead man’s head wasn’t any more sinful than thrusting a blade into his heart. And he hadn’t done any of the chopping today. He’d just posted Captain Heisterman’s grisly trophy in an appropriate place.
A slight rumble, more sound than shake, brought Xavier to his feet. A mine, but either not very strong or not very large.
Balth had felt it too. “Let’s see what happened.”
They rushed onto the Löbl Bastion and looked for damage. Captain Heisterman wouldn’t be back from giving Count von Starhemberg the captured sword yet, but they and their men might be needed to reinforce a new breach. Often the Turks would set off two mines in succession, so Xavier braced himself for another quake.
But the view from the bastion showed that the damage hadn’t been to their lines. It had been to the Turkish lines. The Ottomans had advanced along the ravelin since they’d taken the point, but now, most of their advances lay at the bottom of a crater. The mine had been the garrison’s, and it had wiped out four days of Turkish efforts.
Xavier joined the other men on the bastion in cheering. They’d had a successful sally, and they’d retaken part of the ravelin—or at least pushed the Turks off it. Pushed? No, swallowed was the better term.
Two men covered in dirt made their way to the face of the bastion between the cannon. They wore no waistcoats or jackets, just shirts, breeches, and boots. Something about one of them seemed familiar, so Xavier went closer.
“Aha!” The slighter of the two grabbed the other one. “Right on target!”
The other, Toby—Xavier was sure now—grinned. “But next time, we need a longer fuse.” He ran a hand through his thick hair, and dirt came out. “We cut it a bit too close.” Toby noticed Xavier, and his expression grew even more animated. “Xavier! It’s good to see you. You look well.”
“I’ve a lot to be glad for. A successful sally and a successful countermine. Did the tunnel collapse on you?”
The other counterminer groaned. “The fuse burned quicker than we expected it to. The main gallery didn’t collapse, but one of the branches did, and we were a little too close to it.”
“I’m glad you’re all right.” Xavier glanced at the result of the countermine. What a mess—it was something he wanted the enemy buried under, not his childhood friend. “Katja will be glad too.”
At the mention of Katja’s name, Balth, who was standing on the edge of the conversation, scowled. Toby’s expression was the opposite—a look of joy crossed his face. Interesting.
The artillerymen had let the others into their space to see the new crater, but now one of them cleared his throat and the men moved back, out of their way.
“I’ll catch up to you, Ferdinand.” Toby hung back with Xavier. Ferdinand and Balth left the bastion.
“Congratulations on the sally,” Toby said.
“Congratulations on the countermine.”
Toby hesitated, his fingers drumming along his thigh.
“Out with it, Toby. We’ve known each other long enough that you can say whatever it is you want to say.”
“Have you seen Katja recently? She’s worried about you and not just about the risk you face as a soldier. I think it would ease her mind to see you in good spirits. Are you off duty soon?”
Xavier shook his head. “No. We’re to stay in reserve in case reinforcements are needed.” He sighed. “It’s a bit of a double-edged sword, having a twin. Katja can read me a little too well.” Xavier glanced out at the ravelin, where he’d planted the heads of several enemies. “Some days are better than others—easier to feel hope that we’ll hold out and that help will come, easier to live with the things I’ve done. And some days are harder.”
Toby nodded. “For me too. And for your sister.”
Katja hadn’t desecrated dead enemy bodies, but hospitals had other hardships. “I’ll try to visit her soon. Hopefully the Turks won’t do anything to ruin my spirits between now and when I can see her.”
Toby went back to the countermines, and Xavier went back to his men. Soon after, the Turks did their best to erase the brief upswing in the garrison’s morale. Xavier and his musketeers were called into action again when the Turks attempted to retake their recent losses. The fighting was fierce, but within a half hour, the defenders had driven the Turks back into their tunnels and trenches.
Then it rained, something that hadn’t happened much since the beginning of the siege. Powder wasn’t dependable when wet, so artillery quieted and the pop of small arms disappeared. Xavier stood on the ravelin, letting the raindrops fall on him, hoping they would wash away his sins and his doubts and his fears.
It had been a brutal day, but it had also been effective. If they were to survive, they had to be effective, and if brutal was part of that, Xavier would have to continue the struggle, trying to balance the good of his soul with his duties as a soldier.