I remember seeing colourless desert, a bloody field of sand.  It dawned on me that I was one of the lucky ones.  We had travelled 1500 miles to reach this place, my feet are in agony but there will be no turning back until Jersualem is in our hands.

The fighting is even more painful - fire burns in the Saracens' eyes, their scimitars (curved swords) flash gold in the hot midday sun.  Frederic, Paul and George Vrtchanps have died and I have written a letter to each of their wives.  It's painful to see your friends die at your side.  We marched on Nimea from Anatolia and won a great victory on that day.  Perhaps the Lord is on our side.  God wills it.  At the siege of Antioch we conquered again.  Their Lord does not smile kindly upon them.  One of their men betrayed their secrets to Boemond of Tarranto (who commanded the Norman-Italian army) and we were able with just 14 men at daybreak to open the gate from the inside.

Then at Jerusalem at last we conquered the city.  One of our knights scaled the city walls and when the Turks saw his gleaming armour, they fled.  And when he fled there was so much slaughter that we were up to our ankles in the infidels' blood.  The Holy Land is ours!

Sofia, Year Six

The scarlet sun rose, it looked like it had plunged into a rift, and now it could get out.  I unsheathed my sword as Bohemond inspected me. Bohemond stepped back onto a rock and shouted, "Today may well be the end of your life, but remember this is God's will, I trust all of you know the plan." I had no-one to talk to; after the fight with Bartholemew, he struck me down but I survived with one minor injury on my left arm.  "No-one wants to know about little Thomas, everyone hates him, everyone," I mutter to myself at night.  The previous day Bohemond had given the army the statistics: Antioch was 25 miles long and was fortified by 400 towers.  Bohemond also told us that he had a spy inside Antioch.  Apparently a window was going to be opened so we could climb in.

Many hours later I was being thrown up to pull down the rope tied to the tower; eventually I managed to pull myself up into the tower.  Suddenly two guards drew their scimitars and lunged at me; suddenly I was pushed forward, I swung my sword violently and it severed one of the guards' right arm.  The guard with the severed arm collapsed and the other ran.  A lance flew through the air and slammed into the cowardly guard's back.  A large crowd of Crusaders swarmed around me.  The guard who lay on the ground was grovelling for mercy.  I was pushed aside, then a Crusader kicked the guard in the face and picked him up by the scruff of his shirt and threw him off the wall.  There was a battering ram underneath us, the wall trembled; some of the nimbler Crusaders leaped off the wall and landed with the wind knocked out of them.  I hooked my feet onto the slight five inches of wall that did not have any stone covering it, I then dropped my upper body and dug my dagger into the now crumblng wall.  I flipped my legs over and the weight began pulling me down towards the ground.  While I was sliding towards the ground I thought about if I live, until the end of the Crusades or die in the bloody fight in October 1097.  The guards and Antioch's army charged towards the Crusaders breaching the city.  A large rumbling noise began and I ran to the cover of a cart.  I watched over the side of the cart as the battering ram shattered the wall; the debris fell upon the Crusaders and the Antioch army, minutes later a large wave of Crusaders seeped through the broken wall.

After the worst of the bloodshed only families and deserters were left.  I walked through the streets for days looking for more people and nourishment.  On 3rd July almost every Turk in Antioch was dead.  The only thing left in the city that we did not possess was the Citadel.  Then more trouble came our way: Kerbogha, the king of Mosul gathered troops to try and regain Antioch.  Kerbogha and his troops camped outside Antioch.  Then I heard some news, Bartholemew had found the holy lance, all this did was annoy me.  A wave of Crusaders came to aid Antioch kill Kerbogha and his troops, Kerbogha and his troops retreated and all the Crusaders from the back-up wave and Antioch charged forward and massacred Kerbogha's troops but Kerbogha survived.

By 1100 we had successfully captured the whole of Antioch. 

Gavin, Year Six