by Dan Davis
I mentioned my thoughts to Jocelyn. He called me mad for even thinking it.
“How do you get down to the beach?” Swein asked, cutting in.
“Jocelyn is quite right. It is beyond us,” I said. “We would have to attack between the forces of the camp and the town, being trapped between both. The cliffs are low by the town but it is still a steep, narrow slope down to the beach. Then we would have to burn the ships and fight back up that slope. I saw it from afar last summer when we scouted the camp. The lowest part of the cliff is thirty, forty feet high. We would never make it back up while under attack.”
Swein laughed. “Now that would be a feat worthy of a song.”
“Indeed,” I said. “It would be a beautiful thing, though, would it not?”
“You have a strange idea of beauty, Richard,” Jocelyn said.
A thin drizzle started, then stopped. Then started again.
“These God-forsaken peasants,” Jocelyn muttered in French. “What is taking them so long?”
“Be patient,” I said, fingering the hilt of my sword.
“Perhaps they have run away,” Jocelyn whispered. “What can they be doing?”
The men around me fiddled with their clothing or pissed where they stood. Anselm went a few paces back to take what must have been his fourth shit of the morning.
Swein chuckled to himself and spoke in a low voice. “How can you even take a shit while wearing a coat of mail?”
“It can be awkward and messy, squatting in a hauberk,” I said. “But all you need do is hold your small clothes aside. And anyway, it is preferable to shitting yourself during the battle.”
“Does that happen?” Swein whispered, amused, no doubt, at the idea of knights soiling themselves.
“It happens very often,” I said. “Would not be a battle without the stink of shit. I seem to remember doing it myself once or twice.”
“You do it every time,” Jocelyn said.
“Shut your mouth.”
In truth, I was growing nervous at how light it was getting. It was only a matter of time before the watchers in the French camp saw us. They would see hundreds of men spread in a broken crescent about the edges of their camp, crouching in the shadows of the brush. No doubt, we would run into the first French work parties at any moment, coming to chop wood and cart it back to the camp.
Jocelyn fretted too, mumbling to himself. “What is taking them so damned long?”
A hunting horn sounded far to our left.
Cassingham’s signal.
I nodded at our man, standing at my shoulder and he blew his horn just as the third to my right sounded, halfway to the town.
“Thank Jesus for that,” Jocelyn said and jammed his helm down over his head.
Leaving a few lads to bring up and guard the horses at the palisade, we streamed into the camp on foot. The place was laid out much as the previous summer. A rough circle half a mile away from the castle, which rose high on its mound with the mighty walls and tower after tower around it. The town of Dover was half a mile to my right, lower down the hill.
The camp in front of me was protected by a narrow ditch and a low bank, topped with a half-hearted attempt at a palisade of steaks. Roads crisscrossed inside between the rows of canvas tents. Latrines and piss-trenches lined the downhill side.
On the far side of the camp, beneath the walls of the castle but outside of bow range were the great war engines that the French were building. Black struts and beams stuck up into the dawn. Mostly half-finished and dwarfed by the walls of one of the greatest castles in the land but still impressive structures.
They were our targets. We would have to fight our way clear through the entire camp to reach them. And, more to the point, back out again.
All of a sudden, I was struck by the madness of it. I saw our attack through Cassingham’s eyes and the eyes of his men. But I had cajoled and browbeaten them into the attack and it was too late to back out now. Withdrawal without first attacking them would have been disastrous, leaving them free and full of confidence to chase us down.
Most of the men with me were archers in the prime of their life. There were a handful of boys with us, and a couple of priests and at least one woman had snuck along with us, too. It was not Eva.
The men who were supposed to be guarding their gateway were lax indeed. If there were men watching the approach at all, then they had fled at the sight of us and had not even paused to spread the alarm.
We had declared our presence with horns but we did not cry out yet as we streamed into the camp. We saved our war cry. But we made plenty of noise as we shouted instructions to each other.
“Walk,” I shouted to my eighty men as the ones in front starting pulling further ahead. “Save your strength. Stay together, stay together.”
French men pushed aside the flaps of their tents, blinking in the overcast dawn light, looking confused. These first few men received arrows for breakfast or were cut down with our blades.
We were quite deep into the camp when the first proper, martial French cries came, their shouts of warning, their own horns sounding and warning bells started clanging.
A line of bleary-eyed soldiers jostled each other into place, blocking the roadway between the tents. We had to get beyond them. There were a dozen, then twenty and thirty of them. Many were without mail armour, some without even gambesons and others had no helmets but there were plenty enough armoured men-at-arms there to frighten my men back from them.
We had to cut them down before they inspired more men into making a stand. Although the camp was barely populated, we were still vastly outnumbered and the French organising against us would be our undoing. We had to break them.
“Stay together,” I shouted, drawing my sword and pointing at the line ahead. “And kill them. King Henry! King Henry!”
I ran ahead, trusting they would support me. Arrows cut the air right by my and felled every man in the line before I could reach them. An arrow at close range can pierce mail, especially the cheaper sort and some of the men wore none at all. The arrows thudded and slashed into their bodies. They cried out, some screaming. A few turned and ran but were brought down by arrows in the back. Most of the fallen were wounded but not dead so I finished them off, stabbing them through the necks and eyes and armpits. Jocelyn and Anselm came up beside me and together we made short work of those unlucky survivors. French who had been coming to their aid backed away, looking to make a stand elsewhere or, hopefully, flee to safety.
“With me, with me,” I shouted to my wonderful archers.
We made our way further in. There was no chance of us killing them all. Indeed, we did not wish to do so. We wanted only to scare them away so that we could do our burning of the engines and the food and wine and shoes and arrows and other supplies.
I had insisted to Cassingham and his men that we needed to leave the French a route of escape, toward their fellows in the town garrison. But they were not fleeing as swiftly as I needed them too.
“Burn these tents,” I said to my men. “Stir up some camp fires. Get the boys to start blazes here. Let’s scare them back into the town, come on. Make a noise, you bastards. Show them who the men of Kent truly are. For the Weald! For Cassingham! King Henry!”
They took up the cry, shouting for their homeland, for their leader. They kicked over tents and lean-to’s and threw burning brands into them. Fires flickered and grew. Black smoke drifted across the dawn light. The rain stayed away.
The gathering French ran. In ones and twos and then, seeing that so many of their fellows fled, swiftly followed. They ran for the town, plodding down the hill.
“To the engines now, to the engines, men, with me, with me,” I cried. “King Henry!”
The engineers, those experts who constructed and then operated the mangonels and other engines, were proud men. They were men who brought down castle walls, towers and gates. They were men who brought down counts and dukes and kings. A few brave fools defended their half-built mango
nels from the trenches they had dug about their engines. They shouted challenges, brandishing huge mallets and iron spikes and long, heavy wooden levers.
“Leave,” I shouted at them. “Go join your friends.”
Reason said that I should have killed them anyway, because if they were dead then who could build the replacement engines for the French? But I admired the way that they stood defiantly in the face of such odds and I offered them the chance to live.
Instead of taking it, they mocked my men and were full of contempt, for they could see how poorly dressed we were and they knew us for the peasant rabble we were.
But these peasants were deadly beyond any that could be found in France.
“Kill them quickly,” I told my archers. The men cheered and they murdered the engineers in moments. The bowstrings thrummed and the arrows crunched through the clothes, skin, flesh and bones of those men. The arrows ripped through them like the hand of God had smitten the engineers. After the single volley, the archers leapt into the ditches to finish them off by hand.
“Good God,” Jocelyn shouted to me. “Why do we not have archers with us every time we fight? With a thousand of these men behind us we could conquer all France.”
The Wealden men in earshot roared their approval and Jocelyn’s standing was immediately improved among the peasantry.
“Shut up and burn these machines,” I shouted. “Burn them now, burn them well. Come on, hurry. This is why we are here.”
I took a dozen men and we kept up the madness of the attack to keep the French away and afraid. We whooped, cried, kicked over barrels and tents, and threw down everything that was upstanding and tore up anything planted in the earth. My men doused the timbers of the machines in oil and set fires about them. The flames licked up and took hold.
But something was not right.
There was no great store of food and weaponry and equipment.
“Bring me a Frenchman,” I shouted and they dragged a wounded engineer over to me. He seemed young but it was difficult to tell as he had taken a cut across the forehead and his face was covered in a torrent of blood.
“If you ransom me,” he said, wiping his eyes and peering up at me. “My father will pay you handsomely, my lord. He is a rich burgess, a craftsman in-”
“The best you can hope for,” I said, “is that I end your life swiftly. If you do not tell me true answers to my questions, then I swear to you that I shall throw you onto that fire.”
He started shaking. “No, no, no, please, I know nothing, I know-”
I slapped his face. Too hard, knocking him senseless for a moment.
My hand was covered in his blood. I fought down the urge to lick my fingers and suck the blood from his face. My men were all around me. I had to fight it down.
I grabbed him. “Where are the supplies?” I asked him. “Where are the stores of grain? Where are your barrels of oil?”
“On the ships,” he said, gibbering and whimpering. “The beaches ships. Not yet unloaded. We need the grease, also, to coat the parts before we assemble the gears...”
I stared down toward the sea.
“What is it?” Swein asked beside me. “What did he say?”
“The supplies are on the ships.”
The men’s shoulders slumped.
“A partial victory is a victory still,” I said though I did not believe it. The smoke billowed up
An English voice shouted from over by the burning engines. “A counter attack! They are coming, knights and soldiers are coming this way.”
I ran to the men who were calling, shouting at them to fall back to me. It was all falling apart. We were going to be driven off and I would be robbed of the great victory I needed.
“Where?” I shouted, looking toward the town.
“There, my lord,” the men shouted, pointing up the hill.
I laughed and clouted them about the head.
“You great, bloody fools,” I shouted. “Those are Englishmen. That is the castle garrison, riding out to fight with us.”
And so it was.
They were glorious to behold. The knights of Dover Castle streamed from their castle gates on their fine horses and down the steep slopes towards us. Lances held aloft, pennants streaming. They had dressed for war quickly.
I called for my horse and Anselm ran back and brought it up to me. I rode up to meet them as the sun broke through the layer of low cloud.
There were twenty or so knights and twice as many squires, all mounted.
Their leader advanced his destrier to me. “I am Hubert de Burgh,” he called. “Constable of the Castle.”
He was a small man, rather young for his position but he came from the best stock and his entire family were loyal followers of King John. His oldest brother had taken half or Ireland and another brother was the Bishop of Ely. Sir Hubert was dressed in magnificent armour and cloth but his horse looked thin and weak. Horses suffer in sieges.
A few of his knights and squires stayed with him but most of the others rode by us, toward the French camp, to join in the slaughter and the destruction.
Hubert de Burgh and I spoke from horseback.
“My lord,” I said. “I am Sir Richard of Ashbury. I have heard nothing but fine things of you, my lord. We were all mightily impressed by your resistance to the French last year.”
The Constable frowned. “You are Richard of Ashbury? Are you the son of the Sir Richard who fought beside the Lionheart?”
I sighed. “My lord, we have come to raid. We are only two hundred and fifty. Freemen of the Weald, for the most part. We cannot hold this position, not for very much longer.”
“I can see that,” Hubert de Burgh said. “And we are too few to risk becoming too much embroiled in your fight. We do not have long. We cannot be caught out here. But we came to hold off their counter attacks while you burn as much of the damned place as you can before their master arrives.”
“Our scouts and spies told us the camp was full of supplies but in fact, much of it remains onboard the ships below. I mean to go down there and burn them.”
“Good God, man,” the Constable said, looking down toward the distant beach. “We cannot help you to do this.”
I pushed my horse closer to his. “Your men can hold the French back from the town while my men burn the ships.”
“But you have no time,” the Constable cried. “Prince Louis is about to land.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look,” Hubert de Burgh shouted, pointing out to sea. “Are you blind?”
The sun was near its zenith. The day had half gone in the blink of an eye while we had fought and burned. Out to sea, beyond the roofs of the town and further along the coast to the southwest, crept a scattered line of dark shapes.
“Ships,” I said.
“Prince Louis,” de Burgh said. “The false king of England. He is coming. He is coming here. And he is coming now.”
“Then we had best move quickly,” I said and dragged my horse around to tell my men to gather so that I could tell them the change in plans. I was half expecting them to tell me to stick my ship burning idea up my backside and I wondered what I could promise and threaten to get them to risk being killed or captured.
But when I turned, Swein was already shouting at the men. They were gathered about him as he stood atop a wagon. He had his bow raised in one hand and one foot up on the sideboard of the wagon.
“... and we’re going to go down there and we’re going to send them back to France with their arses on fire. Now, grab your kindling and every arrow you can find. For the Weald!”
The men shouted as one, “For the Weald!”
Swein turned, saw me and grinned. He leapt from the wagon and strode over to me as I dismounted.
“I suppose it would be churlish of me to ask you hold my horse,” I said.
Swein laughed.
All men are afraid of battle, unless they are mad. But some men can also enjoy it. Many great warriors do not love the madnes
s of battle. But the very best do in fact revel in it. Not in the way a madman does but with the certainty and surety of a man who is doing the thing he loves. Much as a blacksmith does when fully occupied by his art or a carpenter consumed by the procession of his carving or when one is riding a horse at a full gallop and you fall into a state of perfectly flowing clarity. For some few of us, the madness of war makes perfect sense. I was always one of those few. I was surprised to find young Swein amongst our number also.
“Find two men to take a message to Cassingham that we go for the ships,” I said to Swein, for he knew the men more than I did and I trusted him to pick the right ones.
“I will.”
“And tell the rest to bring all the kindling and fire that they can carry.”
Anselm looked after the horses and with four men and all the boys, he held by the edge of the French camp under the castle walls. Other than Anselm, all were archers and they would keep any roaming bands of French away from our few mounts.
The Constable led his forces down the hill away from the camp and toward the town below. There were hundreds, if not a thousand or two thousand men down in the town and still more filed down to their fellows from the camp. The Constable let them go and his men spread out, ready to charge down any attempted counter attack.
We were about sixty as we trotted down the path to the beach. What unburned skins of oil we had remaining were slung about a few shoulders. Others carried bundles of twigs or smouldering brands and all of us carried tinder.
The younger men ran forwards and shouted back what was ahead and below but I saw for myself soon enough.
A dozen, fat bellied traders ships in a row high up on the golden sands. Just as the messengers had asserted. It was a narrow beach, with the tide high and licking at the sterns. The salt spray of the sea blew right up the cliff.
