The Siege of Mother’s Day
I recently read a novel based on the historic facts of the Siege of Malta. In it a small group of knights and native Maltese people held at bay the might of the Turkish empire. Many chapters revolved around desperate peasants and slaves rebuilding walls which were blown up by the relentless cannon fire of the Turks. No sooner was a wall rebuilt (with a couple of slaves being blown up in the process) then it was demolished again by cannon fire, and rebuilt again, and so on. This continued for several months. It totally perplexed the Turks who assumed victory would be a done deal in a matter of days. Eventually those feisty knights managed to outfox the Turks and they turned their galleys around and headed back East. They were triumphant but they also had to fix a helleva lot of walls in the process. Many accounts of sieges are similar. We had our own in Ladysmith over a century ago. They don’t sound that kiff. It’s not easy manning the stations when there are no reinforcements. ...