The Bow

by Bill Sharrock

  Slowly the cog leaned to port and turned its stubby bow across the rising swell. A few of the crew ran to the starboard side, while others clung to the rigging and kept an anxious watch on the following sail. Creaking and groaning, and with sail flapping the John de Groen buffeted its way to a southern heading then at last settled upright once more and began to ‘make wake’. ‘Easy!’ cried the ship’s master. Then: ‘Hard on the helm there, or we’ll drift back before the wind!’

  ‘Aye, master!’ came the reply, and the tillerman swore softly as he fought to hold the course. Another sailor sprang to his aid, and with arms locked and feet square set, they wrestled the cog to the south.

  ‘How goes the lateener?’ yelled Pieter to the mast-watch after a while. ‘Does he hold his course?’

  There was a short pause. The sea crashed against the clinker planking of the hull sending a curtain of icy water showering across the deck. James felt the whole boat shudder beneath his feet.

  ‘Ho master!’ came the reply. ‘He alters course.’

  ‘Where away?’

  ‘South, master. Upon our heading.’

  Slowly Pieter of Bruges shook his head, and instinctively loosened his broad-bladed dagger in its sheath. ‘Too much to hope for,’ he said. ‘No fishermen these. They mean to run us down, that’s for sure and we’re still a fair way off Harfleur.’

  James noticed that the two women had disappeared inside the cabin. He rung the corner of his cloak out where the wave had drenched it.

  ‘So we fight,’ he said.

  ‘Aye, and with twenty crew including four ship-boys it’s a fight that’s not in our favour.’

  ‘I have my bow,’ said James.

  ‘Aye, so ye have, and it’s well for us that ye do. Still I’ll warrant they’ll have their own fair share of archer-men aboard.’ All the time that he had been speaking, Pieter had not taken his eyes off the pursuing boat which was now visibly closing them down. But now he turned his gaze away and called down to a sailor who was standing amidships by the mainmast rigging. ‘Hoy there, boatswain! Arm the crew and stand to along the portside rail. That’s where they’ll try to board us.’ The sailor waved and disappeared below deck. He soon appeared carrying broadswords, falchions and short hafted poleaxes. A ship-boy followed close behind, clutching two crossbows and an arrow-bag of quarrels. Suddenly the boat heeled to starboard as the breeze freshened, and gusts sent waves slapping against the hull. Pieter himself rushed to the tiller, and together with the other men held the boat on course.

  ‘That’s better!’ he said. ‘More of this and we’ll make some way on them, or at least slow the devils down. They’ll be short of free-board and won’t fancy the sea splashing over their gunwales.’

  The sky darkened and the waves turned shadow-grey. A heavy murk fell across the horizon, and the first spots of rain sleeted across the deck. James looked up at the scudding clouds, and then snatched at the ship’s rail as he felt the ship pitch and roll in the rising sea. For a moment his stomach heaved, but he was relieved that it was no more than a brief reminder of what he had suffered the day before.

  ‘I’ll get my bow,’ he said and headed down the ladder to the stern-castle cabin. Once there he quickly pulled his quilted jack over his tunic, and tied the lacings. Then he strapped on his broadsword, and checked that his ballock knife was smooth in its sheath. Slinging his arrow-bag over one shoulder, he picked up his bow, still careful to leave it wrapped in its cloth cover, and headed for the doorway. As he did so he noticed a pot-helm lying in one corner under a bench. He reached for it and held it up. There was a bit of rust around the rivets and a dent just below the crown, but apart from that it seemed quite serviceable. Dusting it off, he rammed it on his head. ‘Not bad,’ he thought to himself, ‘even though it lacks the padding of a leather hood.’ Cramming an old leather and horn bracer under the crown, he made his way back up onto the stern-castle deck. There he found Pieter who was still keeping watch on the pursuing vessel and calling instructions to the tillermen. As James arrived and came and stood beside him, he nodded and gestured towards the stern.

  ‘The blighter has tucked himself in our wake right enough. He’ll creep up on us, and then dart out to port and try to take the wind out of our sails.’ He scowled and held up a cudgel that he kept by the rail. ‘Well let him try that’s all. If it’s broadside he wants, then we’ll meet him hard and fast.’

  James didn’t say anything. He leant over the stern rail and looked at the pirate ship as it cut through the wake not three hundred paces away. Though the wind had strengthened and the waves had risen from a mere chop to a cresting sea, the pirate captain had heeled the ‘lateener’ right over and was making the most of its smooth and hungry lines.

  ‘Like a war-hound’ muttered James, and he measured the distance with his eyes. Too far off, still. Especially in this wind, and with the deck pitching crazily at every wave and trough: he’d have to wait until at least a hundred paces, then try and pick his targets. No point in firing at a venture now. This time he’d have to find his man and wing him with whatever: bodkins, livery arrows, cloutheads or swallow tails. It wouldn’t matter which. No pirate he’d ever heard of wore plate armour at sea, and none would be able to stand the stripe of his bow at a hundred paces or less. Pieter also came and leaned against the rail, his eyes still fixed on the pirate ship. ‘Knows his trade and keeps his nerve,’ he said after a while. ‘Not bad for an Englishman.’

  ‘An Englishman!’ James stood up and shaded his eyes. ‘How can you tell?’

  ‘By the way she’s rigged. No doubt the keel was laid in Portugal, but the crew and captain are from England’s southern shores. I’d bet my life on it.’

  'Ye may have to,’ replied James, ‘but if they’re English . . .’

  ‘Makes no odds either way. English, French or Easterling they’ll cut your throat and heave you over the side before you can cry craven. That pretty red cross on your jack will not save you.’

  James frowned and peered at the boat as it neared them. All at once he saw the design on the masthead pennon and forehead sail. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘St George’s cross. They’re my countrymen.’ He unslung his arrow-bag. ‘And I’ll not raise a hand against them.’

  Pieter shook his head. ‘Two things, laddie,’ he said. ‘First, they’ll cut you down because you’re worth nothing to them, English or not. That red cross is their licence to kill and plunder, nothing more. Second I’m master of this ship, and as long as you are on this ship you are under my command. This deck is your country now, and I am king here.’

  The two men stared at each other, neither flinching, each measuring the strength in the gaze he saw. The planking groaned and shuddered beneath their feet as a larger wave thumped against the hull and spray lashed the cog from stem to stern. At last the ship’s master spoke, lifting his voice above the roar of the sea:

  ‘If your bow is not ours in this fight then we are dead men.’

  Still James did not answer. The shipmaster’s words seemed lost against the wind. He was aware of the crew, all in position now, tensed and waiting, looking at their captain and waiting for his next command. Within a sword’s length, the tillermen wrestled with the rudder and gasped to hold it against the thrust of the sea.

  ‘Will ye not fight?’

  The boat staggered and wallowed as another wave struck. James lost his footing for just a moment, and in that moment a crossbow bolt hummed by him, brushing his jack-sleeve and burying itself up to the fletchings in a railing post which straightway split. He glanced at Pieter who raised one eyebrow and gave the ghost of a smile: ‘Your countrymen, not mine,’ he said.

  James smiled back grabbed his bow, and stripped off the cover. ‘I’m ready,’ he said and strung the bow in an easy movement despite the pitching of deck. He took eight arrows from his arrow-bag and stuck them into the decking. Another bolt sang by and thudded into the planking by the tillermen. The pirate ship was now directly astern by about eighty yards, butting through
the waves and closing even more rapidly than before. Its bow was crowded with figures, and James thought he could make out a deck mounted crossbow. He bit his lip and nocked an arrow. Such a crossbow would have a draw weight of one thousand pounds, its steel cable wound back by a two-handed windlass. He had never seen one before, but he had heard that they were capable of driving a bolt through the finest of steel plate or ‘white harness’, and could certainly pierce two men with one shot.

  A single black dot rushed towards him from the pirate ship, standing out for an instant against the pale brown sail. Instinctively he swayed to one side, but the bolt sped well wide, clipped the rigging and disappeared into the greyness. Waiting briefly till the ship steadied at the base of a trough, he leant forward, tensed, straightened and sent a shaft winging back in reply. And another, and another, then four more, but still no counter-shot from the pirate bow.

  James was leaning to his eighth arrow when the bolt came. The first he knew of it was the sound of breaking timber, then a splinter of wood struck him in the cheek. He was hurled backwards against the railing, and fell to the deck. When he regained his footing he saw that the tiller had been smashed and both tillermen lay dead beside it, one transfixed by the steel shaft.

  Almost immediately the ship broached, and waves crashed over its deck. Shouting instructions above the rising wind and sea, the shipmaster ran to the broken tiller, and began to lash it to what remained of its wooden supports. Other crewmen dashed to his aid, while still more hurried to the rigging and sail ropes.

  By the time they had regained control and steadied the ship the pirates were almost upon them. But they too were bouncing crazily in the heavy sea, and James could see that their captain had shortened sail, and was preparing to come alongside the floundering cog.

  ‘Ware boarders!’ he heard the master cry, and saw him take up his cudgel. Gasping and slipping, James caught up his bow, snatched a brace of arrows and ran to the starboard railing. He found himself looking down onto the deck of the pirate ship. It was crowded with armed men looking up at him. Almost without thinking he fired twice into the upturned faces. With that the ships struck one another broadside throwing men about on both decks. There were cries and warning shouts followed by a flicker of crossbow arrows. Two men pitched forward into the narrow, pulsing gap between the cog and lateener. Drawing out the last of his arrows, James took aim at man he took to be the captain: a broad-faced, red-bearded giant with old-style breastplate and a mail aventail. He was carrying a double-headed axe, and roaring at his men in a deep west-country brogue. Unused to the sudden shifting of the cog, James loosed a shade early. The arrow missed its target but felled the pirate standing next to the giant who turned to see where the shot had come from.

  All at once the rain came lashing down, driving across the ships in freezing gusts that mixed with the sea spray and white-tops, and turned the decking slick. For a moment the pirates seemed to hesitate, and the lateener sheered away two spear lengths. But then it came surging back on a sudden wave and crashed against the hull of the John de Groen. Even before James could draw his broadsword there were men swarming over the railings and onto the deck. He grabbed one by the shoulders as he swung across the rail and butted him hard with the rim of his pot-helm. The man gasped, flung his arms back and disappeared over the side. Immediately, another came at James, his short-hafted axe raised, and teeth bared below a shaggy moustache. With no time to draw his sword, James snatched his ballock knife, and drove it at the attacker’s throat. The blade struck home, there was a choking cry, and the pirate dropped to the deck. The rain came down harder still making it difficult to see more than a few feet, and as the ships pitched and buffeted in the heavy sea, the fight quickly lost all sense of order, and became no more than a deadly brawl. It was the kind of set-too that archers were used to in the taverns of Flanders when indentured men, goaded by rough maize beer and gaming dice would turn on one another and fight until the watch came through the door. There was no mercy, no call for quarter, and each man fought for himself, striking out blindly wherever he could.

  Twice James felt himself dragged down from behind, and twice he twisted like an eel and broke the grip before the killing stroke could fall. Once he narrowly missed stabbing one of Pieter’s men, and several times he was driven to his knees as a body fell against him.

  He was exhausted now, fighting in a mad frenzy, but struggling to keep his footing. His dagger was knocked out of his hand by a jarring blow from an axe haft, and he snatched wildly for his sword. It jammed in the scabbard, and he gasped as a dark figure reared up in front of him, out of the driving rain and spume. Then just as at Agincourt, all that while ago, a strike from over his shoulder, and the swift shadow of a cudgel as it broke the darkness ahead of him.

  ‘Up lad! Up! There’s more to be done!’ Pieter, ship’s master, hauled him to his feet, laughed and struck about him with the cudgel. Three more English pirates had fallen with stoved-in skulls before James could even nod his thanks. He finally managed to free his sword, and brought it straight to parry as a war hammer swept down on his helmet. His blade, which he kept so well oiled and honed, cut deep into the shaft below the iron rivets. With a cracking sound the shaft gave way and he smashed the pommel of his sword hard against the pirate’s jaw. The pirate jeered, spat teeth, then took him by the throat. James knew the move: one hand to grip the throat and crush the windpipe, the other to strike low at the stomach or groin. He wrenched himself sideways, at the same time hacking down hard with his sword against the pirate’s wrist. He felt the edge of his blade smash the bone. At the same time the jagged shaft of the war-hammer scored across his hip, the fingers about his throat released their grip, and the pirate stepped back with a scream of rage and pain. A moment later the man was dead, struck down from behind, and James stood over him breathing hard and swaying with the deck.

  The fight for the John de Groen was over as quickly as it had started. The attackers suddenly turned and melted away, scrambling over the side, and back onto their ship, leaving their wounded to be despatched by cheering sailors. A flash of lightning lit the waters all about them, and a clap of thunder shook the rigging and masts. ‘Away! Away!’ roared Pieter, as the boatswain cut through the boarding ropes. ‘They’ve no more taste for us.’ He kicked a body at his feet. James glanced down, and saw that it was the pirate captain, spread-eagled among the dead and dying, his eyes already glazed over, and his breastplate all stoved in.

  The ship lurched, crashed once more against the lateen-rig, and then turned slowly to windward as the crew brought her back under control. At the same time the pirate ship, short of crew, and without its captain, heeled over in the driving seas, sails flapping, and slowly disappeared into the murk.

  A wave of nausea swept over James and he sank down on one knee, reaching out for what remained of the broken railing. The deck seemed awash with blood and sea water and filth. The stench struck at his nostrils and stomach. He retched.

  ‘Not pretty, is it?’ said Pieter, breathing hard. ‘Still, I s’pose ye’ve seen worse.’

  James looked up, smiled and shook his head. ‘It’s the deck,’ he said. It won’t stay still.’

  The crew cleared away the dead, both pirate and friend, casting them over the side with either a curse or a muttered prayer. The wounded were carried below and left in the care of an old cordwainer, working his passage to Harfleur, and the two young women from Bruges who had emerged after the fighting stopped.

  Within the hour the ship’s carpenter had repaired the tiller, and Pieter had set course for Harfleur. Just as the last of the rigging was checked, and the sail was trimmed, the windstorm began to die away. Overhead the cloud broke up, the sun came through, and daylight swept across a flattening sea.

  'That’s more like it!’ Pieter breathed in deeply again and smote his chest. ‘Calm waters at last, and a friendly breeze to see us safe to port. But look now! Your English friends, James! They put their tails between their legs and run for home!’ He point
ed westward at the faint silhouette of the lateener bobbing against the grey-green horizon. ‘We’ll not be seeing them again.’ Resting his hand on the tiller arm, he nodded at the tillerman. ‘Keep her firm to south and west. I’ll call the shoals when we round the headland at Cap le Havre.’

  James who had been sitting on the deck with his back to a gunwale, sighed and got slowly to his feet. The bruises were beginning to smart, and the keen wind, though much lighter now, was chilling him to the bone. Half buried among some broken weapons and discarded armour, he noticed his bow and arrow-bag. Stooping over, he picked them up. ‘I’ll be glad for solid ground,’ he said.

  Over the next hour they sluiced the decks with buckets of sea water and fixed the shattered railings and gunwales as best they could. Feeling sick, James sought out the sailor who had given him the leaf to chew. The sailor grunted, laughed, and slapped him on the back. Then he gave him three more leaves from his wallet. ‘Nearly home, lad!’ he said.

  The sun grew brighter, the sea became no more than a gentle swell once more, and as the sun reached its final quarter the two women of Bruges came out on deck. They stood on the battered forecastle, looked eastwards to France, and let the wind blow their corn-blond hair free.

  ‘Ever think of marrying?’ asked Pieter as he glanced at the women, and then turned his gaze to the top ‘yard.

  ‘I’m away to a wife in England,’ replied James.

  ‘Oh, aye! So ye are! So ye are!’