by Griff Hosker
“When the French come to see us off, we shall run. I want you to hide yourself and follow the main army. I think that they are heading down this road to Bergerac. If the main body leaves this road then find us and tell us. If not, then just keep following! Be careful!”
Grinning he said, “Aye, captain!” He turned his horse and headed down a shallow tree-lined valley and within a few moments had disappeared. His real name was Robin of Wakefield, but he was so adept at hiding that he had been given the nickname of Puck, Robin Goodfellow. He lived up to that name as he vanished from sight within thirty paces of our position. I could trust him to stay hidden.
I turned my attention to the French. They would not want a large body of archers so close to them as they appeared to have few crossbowmen to keep us at distance. After a short discussion, I saw a hundred light horsemen detach themselves from the main column and head towards us. I let them get to within four hundred paces and then gave the order to fall back to the main body of our army. As we rode north, I noticed side roads and tracks leaving the main one. A good scout missed nothing! After a mile or so the light horsemen gave up their chase and we rode to meet with the Earl of Derby. He and the Earl of Stafford were galloping to meet us with their household knights. They reined in, “Your archer said it was the French army?”
“Yes, my lord. I have a man watching them and they were heading for Bergerac. They were in line of march!”
I saw his face light up. That was crucial for it meant they did not expect to have to do battle. “Then we have them. Are there roads we can use to set up an ambush?”
I pointed to the north. “There is a small road there, my lord, although there will not be much cover for us.”
He nodded, “Stafford, take the Gascon spearmen and I want them to be able to stop a retreat back to Montcuq. Some will try but you will stop them. I will go with the archers and we will use arrows to dismay them and then cold steel to slaughter them. Hawkwood, lead on! I can see that you bring luck to our battles!”
It was an improvised plan but clever for all that. The Gascon foot would take time to get in place but once they were astride the road then the Earl of Stafford could be an effective barrier to the fleeing French. Besides, he would probably be able to take their baggage train! He and his household knights rode with me. The one thousand foot archers would take some time to reach us but so long as our five hundred horse archers and the men at arms were in position then I hoped that all would be well! We pushed our animals and reached the road well before there were any signs of the French army. They were moving at the pace of the foot soldiers and they would be looking to the west for signs of us. The village of Issegeac suddenly emptied as we appeared, and the villagers fled east. We let them go.
“This is perfect, Hawkwood. You and the archers secrete yourselves in the village. The spearmen on foot will join you. I will take the men at arms four hundred paces down the road. I think that there is a convenient hollow we can use. As soon as the French are in range then rain death upon them and continue to keep doing so until we attack.”
“Aye, my lord, and after?”
“Then mount and join us to chase them, we can take Bergerac!”
Ever decisive he turned and rode off. There was a Captain of Archers who had come with Lord Henry, Jack of Nottingham who was a good man but the fact that Lord Henry almost deferred to me meant that he looked at me and I said, “Let us put our horses somewhere safe and use the houses and their roofs to find protection.”
He smiled, “Captain Philip said you were a good man. I will follow your lead until I know this land!”
The Welsh and English foot archers were out of breath when they ran into the village and, from my vantage point on the top of the roof of a small house, I could see the standards heading up the road. I waved at Captain Jack who shouted, “Nock an arrow and await my orders. When we begin to release I want your arrow bags emptied so quickly that the French will think that the sun has set!”
I would not have said that, and I learned from it for all of the archers cheered.
The vanguard was made up of the light horsemen who had chased us, and Captain Jack wisely allowed them to close to within a hundred paces of the village. There was no metal for the sun to catch and Captain Jack wanted the juicy prize that was the large body of knights and lords who followed. We let the light horse pass us and then listened for the order.
“Release!”
This time I was not in command and I was free to be an archer. I sent five arrows, all bodkins, at the mailed men and then risked looking to see if all of my archers had obeyed. They had and I emptied, as commanded, my war bag! Some of the foot archers took longer to empty their arrow bags but as soon as the arrows stopped and we could view the devastation we had caused, I heard a horn and Lord Henry led five hundred men at arms to charge into the shocked and disordered French knights and men at arms. My men all had a second war bag and I shouted, “Kill the horsemen!”
The light horsemen had, very largely, escaped injury and now that the initial shock was over, they would seek to hurt us. I took my time and selected good war arrows to hit, first the leaders and then the braver souls. As our arrows took their toll so the French fled. Some tried to make their way through the village but the foot archers who had used all of their arrows merely drew their swords and axes to hack both horses and men. The wiser men used the fields to the east and west of the village.
I shouted, “Hawkwood! Mount your horses! We ride to Bergerac!” I slung my bow and slithered down the roof to the ground. I knew that I was lucky with my horse for while others were skittish, reared and pranced, Megs just waited patiently. The result was that I was the first to mount and as French knights began to gallop through the village and the Welsh and English archers wisely took shelter, I was able to follow. I saw that Lord Henry and Sir Ralph were leading the chase. Their mail was spattered and smeared with blood. They had fought and they had killed; that was what good leaders did. This was a race to Bergerac, and it was a race we had to win.
I drew my sword for I had chased fleeing men before and you took your chances when they presented themselves. I saw a man at arms whose horse had a wound. From the look of it, the animal had been hit a glancing blow from a war arrow and it was bleeding. That meant it would slow. Added to that the man at arms wore mail. The fact that I did not, allowed me to close with the Frenchman and draw further ahead of Lord Henry and Sir Ralph. The man at arms knew what was coming and he kept glancing over his shoulder in fear. I was new to this but even I knew that was a mistake. I held my sword to the side and approached the left hindquarter of his horse. The man at arms had a shield but he was also holding the reins and it was hard to do both. I just had a sword. I urged Megs on. I knew that I was trying to impress Lord Henry for he was a good leader and I was desperate for his praise! When Megs’ head was level with the tail of the French horse I stood in my stirrups and began to swing. I knew it was pure luck for I have never practised this, but my swing brought my sword across his shoulder and back. My sword had a good edge and I was strong. I sliced through mail links and the man at arms’ gambeson and then through flesh as well as muscle until, finally, it ground on the man’s spine. He may have been dead before I slid out my sword and he fell from the saddle!
Bergerac was just a couple of miles ahead. I tried to remember what I knew of it. There was a bridge and, so I had been told, a barbican at the end of the bridge. If that was closed to us, then we would have to besiege. I was aware that there were, perhaps, less than a hundred men before us but they were all important. That might be our way in. The attack at Montravel had shown me that a man should never give up and so I urged on Megs. The nearest Frenchman was now more than five lengths from me and so I risked glancing over my shoulder. To my great relief, Ned and Jack were closer than Lord Henry and Sir Ralph and that meant that they would watch my back. Behind them, I saw even more of my archers. I was truly proud of them.
It was when we neared the river that the
French began to bunch up as they tried to cross the narrow bridge. They went from twenty men abreast to ten and then six. Some of the men at arms turned to fight us and that allowed our own knights and men at arms to bring their skills to bear. I was no fool. It was one thing to slash at a man’s back but quite another to try to fight, on horseback, a mailed man at arms with a shield. I blocked the blow from the knight who tried to punch me with his shield. Sir Ralph galloped up and contemptuously hacked across the knight’s back. He and Lord Henry and their household knights ploughed through the men trying to get through the barbican. It was like Montravel all over again. The sentries should have been ruthless and closed the gates, but they did not for it was Henri de Montigny, Seneschal of Périgord and Lord Bertrand who were trying to reach the safety of the castle. That decision doomed them!
I merely followed Sir Ralph and watched his back. I hacked down and slew two men who sought to slay him and then we were at the barbican on the bridge. It was different from Montravel because the knights had bigger horses and were mailed. Both of the leading knights wore greaves and cuisse. They were impervious to all that the sentries on the gates could do. As we passed under the wooden barbican and our horses’ hooves clattered on the wooden bridge then I knew that the Earl of Derby had won a great victory. Men threw themselves into the river as the steel snake pushed them aside. More knights had joined the two earls and Ned, Jack and I had an easy time. The men we slew were the ones who had been ridden down by the knights and were just rising to their feet. As we galloped into the town, I could not resist a cheer. It was not like me, but this seemed to me to be a perfect victory. We now had Bergerac and we controlled all of the lands to the south of the Dordogne!
We not only captured the town and the bridge but had also slain six hundred men at arms and captured an even greater number. The Earl of Derby’s share of the ransom was over thirty-four thousand pounds! It was an incredible amount! Thanks to my endeavours I received one hundred pounds! I was now a rich man! More importantly, all of my men benefitted from the victory and I was held in higher esteem than even Captain Philip. Men called me lucky. We enjoyed many days in Bergerac and then the Earl of Derby took us north, first to Mussidan, which was an Anglo Gascon stronghold and then Périgueux, to which the survivors from Bergerac had retreated. I wondered if we were going to endure another siege, but the Earl of Derby surprised me. Having left a strong garrison at Bergerac we headed back to Bordeaux for more men when a small force of French soldiers approached. Lord Henry was the best teacher I ever had for he knew that we did not have enough men, having left garrisons, to fight another battle and guarantee victory!
His senior sergeant at arms, Will, Tom’s Son, rode next to me and explained what his lord was doing. “We have left strong garrisons in all of the castles and the French would have to build siege engines to reduce them. His lordship wants to do battle with the French and defeat them.” He laughed. “He knows we have a weapon the French do not, the longbow! I cannot, for the life of me, understand why some of these other armies, the Italian, the Spanish, the Flemish, do not have longbows! The likes of me and the men I lead know your value and we are just simple soldiers. You would think that the lords and kings who lead these others would see what is as clear as the nose on your face.”
I nodded and explained the realities of it to him, “The trouble is, Sergeant, that you need to begin preparing for such a force when boys are yet to become youths. My uncle started to train me when I had seen but seven summers and this chest and these arms are the results of much work. It needs planning and any king who began to create such a force would not see its benefit in their lifetime. I am just surprised that these kings do not simply hire English archers. We would not cost any more than a Genoese crossbowman and we can send more arrows than they can.”
“Then when this is over, John Hawkwood, why do you not do so? Hire yourself out and you could be a rich man and a great lord within a very short time!”
I laughed but he had planted a seed there and I did not feel it growing inside me, but it did. Instead, I replied, “Let us do this task first and then I will think about it. I am still a young man and I have much to learn!”
When we reached Bordeaux, we prepared to return to Périgueux. We had good news and bad news in equal measure. King Edward had been forced, by inclement weather, to abandon his attack in the Low Countries but the Earl of Pembroke was on his way to support us. If the French thought that there would be no invasion which threatened Paris, then King Philip could turn his attention and his might to us! We could expect a much larger army.
A messenger arrived from the castle of Auberoche. The French army, led by Louis of Poitiers, was besieging the castle which lay close to Périgueux. The commander of the castle, Frank van Hallen, did not have enough men to hold off the huge French army. The messenger who had made it through the French lines told Lord Henry that there were at least seven thousand men besieging the castle. The Gascon joined us at our camp while Lord Henry and the Earl of Stafford considered their plans.
“Five of us set out but the other four must have been captured.” The Gascon looked around our camp. “Where are the other camps?”
“What you see is all we have. The rest of the men we brought are now in garrisons in the castles and towns we recaptured. By my estimate we have a thousand archers, less than five hundred men at arms and knights and just over a thousand English and Gascon soldiers.”
The Gascon’s shoulders slumped, “Then my lord is lost, and my journey was a waste.”
“Why?”
“The Earl will not attack against odds of almost three to one.”
It was my turn to laugh, “Then you do not know Lord Henry Plantagenet. He believes he can defeat any French lord and, thus far, he has been proved to be right!” The Gascon was not convinced.
My estimate of the numbers and my estimation of the character of Lord Henry were both accurate. Two days later we returned to the east. Another two hundred horses had been found and we took eight hundred mounted archers. Four hundred men at arms would be our only mounted support and we had one thousand two hundred English and Gascon soldiers. Jack of Nottingham commanded the archers and he honoured me by having me ride with him.
“His lordship knows we are outnumbered, and we will use stealth and surprise as we did on the road to Bergerac. The messenger described the land around the castle well and the French are camped in a large meadow.”
We camped close to the castle so that the messenger’s information could be confirmed. We were camped less than a mile from the French encampment, but such was their confidence that they did not keep a good watch. Lord Henry and Jack of Nottingham went to spy out the French camp and when they returned, I saw that the news they brought was not good. I was invited to the meeting with Lord Henry.
He was an honest man and I liked that, “The French have reinforced their army with many thousands more men. I estimate that we will have to fight at odds of five to one. However, I lead better men and we have surprise on our side. There is a wood which lines the French camp and we will position the archers at the tree line. Some of the foot soldiers, led by Sir Raymond, will block off one end of the meadow while the rest will follow myself and the men at arms will lead a charge through their camp as they eat their evening meal.”
I nodded, for the plan was pure genius. No one in any army ate a meal with their weapons to hand and most took off their mail. They would not be expecting an English army to return so soon, and their guard would be down. The French, especially, liked their food! The odds did not worry me. Each archer had more than fifty arrows with them and we had five times that number in the wagons which followed us. We could slay an army four times the size of this one and if we fought from the edge of the wood then we had the means to escape.
It was late in the afternoon that we parted from the main body of the army. We went with two hundred foot soldiers under the command of a Gascon knight, Sir Raymond de St. Emilion. When we reached the wood, we tethe
red our horses at the edge and then, after Sir Raymond and his men had left us, we made our way through the woods to the French camp. We could smell their fires and their food. We heard their laughter and the noise from the camp. It was as we stood on the edge that I became just a little daunted. Normally a camp would be spread out over a large area but here, the enormous meadow was so covered by men, fires and tents that I could not see how men could move around. The Earl and his men would not be able to get through the camp! There would be no path for them and I wondered if Lord Henry had miscalculated.
I had no time for speculation as Jack of Nottingham nodded for me to take my position at one end of the line of eight hundred archers. Other vintenars were spread out along the line. We did not speak, although we could have for the noise from the camp was loud enough to drown us out. Instead, as I walked down the line, I patted each of my archers on the shoulder, spoke to them and they nocked an arrow. When I reached the end of my company, I did the same with the rest of the men. I had told them all, while we rode, that we would be using war arrows. There was little point in wasting bodkins for the men in the camp would not be wearing mail. Jack of Nottingham would begin the attack. The archers around him, Lord Henry’s men, would launch their arrows and a heartbeat later we would send ours. After that, the arrows would continue to be loosed until we saw the horsemen, hopefully, sweeping all before them. I used the half draw while I waited for I knew it would not be long before the harvesting of the French began. I heard the sound of the arrows and I pulled and released. My men did me proud and their arrows were sent at the same time as mine. I then began to nock, draw and release almost like a machine. The sounds of laughter in the camp ended and were replaced by screams and shouts of panic. It was not yet completely dark, but the French would have had no idea of where we were. I emptied one war bag of arrows and I replaced my string. I did so for two reasons: one to give my right arm some rest and to ensure that my arrows flew as hard as possible.
