Thursday, August 26, 1683
Toby
Vienna
Toby was nearly done for the day, but he took his time with the beam he was erecting to help support a new gallery. It had to be able to withstand whatever the Turks were going to throw at them, so he wouldn’t skimp on his craftsmanship.
The countermines hadn’t seemed the same without Ferdinand. All the men had more experience now than they’d had when the siege began, so Toby’s work that day had continued just as efficiently as it had the day before, but Toby had stopped to listen for Turkish miners more often than normal. He’d watched the peas on the drum, trying to detect movement, or the surface of the water bowl, looking for telltale ripples that might indicate the enemy was near.
No matter how hard they worked, there were always more Turkish mines to be found. Toby wanted to thwart them all, but the Turks were springing their explosives nearly every day. The enemy was like a flood, and no matter how hard Toby tried, the best he could do was divert the rush just a bit in just one place. But the flood continued, unending, and yesterday, it had swallowed up his friend.
Strange how one of the worst moments in his life had been followed by one of the best. That grappling in the tunnels, Ferdinand’s death. Then Toby’s time with Katja, his bride-to-be. Katja was going to be his. It was like a dream, one he’d imagined but had never supposed would really come true. And under these circumstances, their union might last only hours, so he would cherish every precious moment they had together.
When his shift finished, Toby left the tunnel. He checked with the man at the gallery’s entrance so his name could be marked off, then pulled on his waistcoat and jacket—the one with a note from Katja in the pocket, telling him the time and place of their wedding. He’d have to hurry if he wanted to bathe and still make it to the church on time.
Captain Hafner rushed over to him. “Come on, the Turks just exploded another mine on the ravelin. They need all available men. Help me grab a cheval-de-frise to plug up the gap.”
“A mine?” Toby had felt an explosion in the countermine at around midday. “They still haven’t stopped the assault?” If the attack was that massive, why hadn’t men from other parts of the city been called in as reinforcements?
“This is the second mine they’ve sprung on the ravelin today. The second assault. Come on.”
Two mines on the ravelin in one afternoon, even after they’d discovered and countered two in as many days? The Ottoman flood was even worse than he’d just imagined it to be.
Toby, Captain Hafner, and two others dragged the heavy timber with its deadly protrusions forward, past a company of musketeers and a group of grenadiers.
“Here!” Toby recognized Xavier and followed his directions on where to place the cheval-de-frise to bar the enemy’s advance.
Toby returned with bales of wool to help make more of a shelter for the musketeers who stood in their lines, carefully firing, stepping back, and reloading according to Xavier’s commands. It was like clockwork, how they moved in alternating lines to keep a steady volley of fire at the charging janissaries.
Toby took a bag of grenades from a grenadier who had fallen to the ground with an arrow through his stomach. Then he borrowed a slow-burning match from a grenadier who still stood and lit his first fuse. He threw it into the mass of advancing janissaries, and the grenade exploded, felling several.
Anger kept Toby at work through the entire bag of grenades, each little bomb hurled with a defiant thought. How dare they threaten his city! How dare they attack Xavier’s musketeers! How dare they make him late to his own wedding! He was tired after a full day in the countermines, but he found the strength to fight the Turks. If the ravelin fell, the bastions would fall. If the bastions fell, the wall would be breached.
And if the wall was breached, the threat to Katja was unthinkable, so he would do everything he could to stop the Turks here, now, before it was too late.