Napoleon’s telescope picked out a group of men who had appeared on top of the main bastion. Most were in flowing robes and turbans, and there were a few Europeans amongst them in blue coats with gold epaulettes.Two of the figures stepped on to a platform just behind the ramparts and gazed out towards the French lines. With a thrill of excitement Napoleon realised he must be looking at Ahmad Pasha himself, the man the Turks called Djezzar - the Butcher - a sobriquet awarded in recognition of the man’s legendary ferocity and the abject cruelty he visited on his enemies. That Ahmad Pasha had survived into his seventies in the brutal world of Turkish politics was tribute to his ruthlessness.

Two can play at that, Napoleon reflected coldly. News of the massacre of Turkish prisoners at Jaffa must have reached Acre by now.Ahmad Pasha and his forces would be in no doubt about the merciless nature of their opponent. Although he took little pleasure in the deed, Napoleon knew that it would unsettle many of the enemy soldiers and he needed every advantage he could wring out of the situation. The French army might well be a match for any soldiers the Sultan and his allies could field, but it was terribly outnumbered and right at the end of a slender line of communications stretching all the way down the coast towards Egypt. Just one setback might shatter Napoleon’s army.The men’s morale was low enough as things stood.The climate, the hostility of the native peoples, and the exhaustion and discomfort of the desert marches together with the bloody assaults on El Arish and Jaffa, had all taken their toll on the French soldiers.

And now the plague had broken out in their ranks. Napoleon had forbidden Dr Desgenettes and his staff to breathe a word about the plague victims they had encountered at Jaffa. The plague house had been sealed off and placed under guard so that its unhappy occupants would die in secret. But, somehow, somewhere in Jaffa, the plague had found its way into the blood of the French soldiers as they looted the city. Already nearly fifty men had been diagnosed with the terrible disease and the first of them had died that morning. Desgenettes had taken over a Greek Orthodox monastery off the road between Jaffa and Acre, and new cases were hurriedly taken out of the sick tents and moved to the makeshift hospital. It was only a matter of time before the secret was out and the men would have one more dread to add to their burden.