by Wayne Grant
***
The French were waiting. Scores of men had crouched behind the parapet atop the wall, hidden from the crossbowmen’s deadly bolts. As the ramp crashed down, they arose from their hiding places, prepared to kill any man who tried to reach the top of Gamaches’ wall. Six defenders thrust out long pikes forming a bristling hedgehog of steel to greet anyone trying to cross the ramp. Knights in mail held up shields to protect their pikemen from the archers above. And from atop the gatehouse, a hail of crossbow bolts greeted the first men to emerge from the tower. Most lodged harmlessly in the wooden shields wielded by the front rank, but a sharp cry of pain from inside the tower meant at least one quarrel found flesh.
Roland leapt forward before the dust had settled. To his left, Declan was a step behind and to his right Seamus Murdo was charging forward like a bull. Roland felt the momentum of the Invalids’ charge gathering strength behind him, but ahead, the solid wall of pikes threatened to blunt their assault before it was well begun.
With only two paces between him and the wicked pike blades, Roland launched himself feet first, landing hard on his left hip and sliding beneath the steel points a foot above his head. As he slid past the immediate danger of impalement, he swung his shield up to hook the shafts of two pikes, forcing them down. Seeing an opening, Murdo waded into the gap, bringing his steel axe head down and cleaving both lances in two. The wicked axe missed Roland’s head by six inches and lodged in the ramp for a moment until the giant Scotsman ripped it free. He raised the weapon high overhead and the three remaining pikeman dropped their weapons and fled.
But the French knights did not flee. Still on his back, Roland locked eyes with a young Frenchman who stared back at him with defiance. The French knight was shouting orders to the defenders on the wall, but his words were lost in the roar that rose from both sides. The man’s appearance was striking. He was tall with long blond hair framing a handsome face. A bright blue tabard of some rich material partly covered the finest coat of mail Roland had ever seen. His dress marked him as a man of rank, but such things count for little when swords are crossed.
Roland scrambled to his feet as the French knight lunged at him with a broadsword. Twisting away, he watched as Seamus took a wild swing with his axe forcing the knight to lurch backwards. As the wicked blade passed just two inches from the Frenchman’s nose, Roland saw the knight laugh like a boy who’d avoided being tagged in a child’s game.
Now, with the pikemen dispersed, Declan was first over the parapet and on to the wall walk where he began driving back three defenders with his broadsword. Roland followed him onto the wall with Sir John Blackthorne close on his heels. The one-armed former Constable landed to Roland’s left and lunged at two French knights, his blade moving in a blur of thrusts and slashes.
As more men pressed across the ramp to the top of the wall, the familiar chaos of battle engulfed attacker and defender alike. Men hacked at each other in close quarters, screaming and cursing at each other, often in languages their enemy could not understand. Swords, dirks and axes probed and slashed, seeking to kill or wound as shields warded off blows and were used as bludgeons. Relentlessly, the Invalid Company pressed the attack. Just as relentlessly, the French fought back.
Siege towers, catapults, mangonels, and burrowing sappers all had their place in assaulting a walled fortress, but once the order was given to storm the place, the issue would be decided as battles had been decided for thousands of years—by men facing other men with murder in their hearts. And so it was on the wall at Gamaches. The French, knowing their cause was in peril, fought with desperate ferocity. The English, knowing they must pay a butcher’s bill to win the day, matched their fury, even as their comrades fell around them.
To Roland’s front was the young Frenchman who’d laughed at Murdo’s deadly axe. The man now grinned as he deftly parried every thrust and slash from Roland’s short sword. The French knight was the more skilled swordsman, but in the confined space atop the wall, there was little room for fancy blade-work. Here, strength and endurance counted for as much as skill with the blade. It was a place where Roland, who had the arms and shoulders of a longbowman, could use that strength to drive home his attack, hammering at the Frenchman and forcing him back.
All around, the sound was deafening. Behind him, Roland sensed the Invalids pouring onto the wall and, for the first time, he saw doubt in the French knight’s eyes. Sir Alwyn Madawc once told him that there was a moment in a fight when both parties knew how it would end. The man blocked another slash from Roland’s short sword with his shield and stepped back, his smile gone.
He gazed over Roland’s shoulder and saw the Invalids surging across the ramp, eager to join in the battle as his own men tried in vain to stem the tide. He called out a command and men nearby who could hear him above the dim began to draw back. Those nearest the gatehouse bolted for the heavy door there and managed to get inside, barring it before it could be forced. The remainder made a fighting retreat toward a set of stone steps that led down to alleyway connected to the high street of Gamache.
Reaching the steps, the young French knight shouted another order and a dozen of the surviving defenders fled down to the street below as those left on the wall held back the tide of English. Once he saw his fleeing men had a reasonable start he gave another curt command. He and his remaining comrades turned and ran along the wall walk toward a tower fifty yards further down the wall that offered some hope of refuge.
Roland let them go. His orders were to assault the gate house and open the main gate to the city. He turned and started down the stone steps toward the alley below with the Invalids closing up behind him.
***
At the bottom of the steps, the fleeing French turned and prepared to meet the Invalids, now pouring down the steps from the wall above. A hurried line was formed blocking the narrow cobbled alley that ran along the base of the wall toward the main thoroughfare of Gamaches. The main road ran from the citadel at the far end of town through the massive gatehouse only a hundred paces away and on toward Rouen, thirty miles to the west.
On the far side of the gatehouse, the French defenders who had hurled back Mercadier’s mercenaries at the breach, now recognized the new threat forming in their rear. They streamed down over the jumble of collapsed stone to join their comrades in the narrow alleyway. If the west gate fell into the hands of the English, the battle would be lost and the French knew it.
As the French line thickened, Roland paused in his race down the stone steps. At the base of the steps, two new pikemen blocked his path. On the steep steps, there could be no repeat of his manoeuvre on the wall. He looked down. It was a twelve foot drop to the alley below, but he had no other choice.
He jumped.
He landed gently enough, but now stood alone in the narrow passageway with the French line only twenty yards away. Big Seamus Murdo who had been behind him on the steps did not like the looks of the jump and went after the pikemen with his axe. The pikemen had seen what the big Scot had done on the wall and deftly withdrew their weapons each time Murdo swung his blade. Behind him the steps began to fill with Invalids.
In their short history, the Invalid Company had only gone into battle under one commander and now that man was standing alone in a stinking French alley. That would not do. A warning from above moved Roland away from the wall as the Invalids began to jump from the steps in twos and threes, some landing more awkwardly than others.
As men leapt from the steps behind him, Murdo grew agitated. He made another lunge at the pikemen to his front, but they dodged his blow easily, jeering at him now. He looked back down at the alley and sighed. Twelve feet was a long drop for a man of his size, but he’d be damned if he’d spend the rest of the battle penned up by a few poxy pikemen. He closed his eyes and jumped, landing hard and rolling across the cobbles, his axe still in hand. Feeling nothing broken, he rose and pushed his way to the front of the gathering English line.
Roland waited for his numbers to
grow. With more French defenders streaming down from the breach, he would not lead a handful of his men on a fruitless, piecemeal attack against the new French line that was now two deep and completely blocked the exit from the alley. Slowly the balance shifted in favour of the English as more Invalids made the jump into the alley. When the count of his own men reached forty he made ready to give the order to attack.
Then a huge man came striding down from the rubble of the breach. He was fully as big as Seamus Murdo and had a long-handled mace slung over his shoulder. The Frenchman shoved his own comrades out of the way and took his place in front of the French line. He glared at the Invalids and lifted the big mace from his shoulder. The steel flanges that formed the head of the brutal-looking club glistened with fresh blood. He saw Murdo standing beside Roland and sneered, beckoning the big Scot forward. Before Roland could stop him, Murdo lunged toward the French line to meet the challenge.
As the two giants met between the lines, Murdo cocked his long-handled axe and unleashed it in a vicious scything stroke aimed at the Frenchman’s midsection. His target, displaying incredible agility for such a big man, jerked backwards, swinging his steel mace in a vertical stroke that struck the Scotsman’s handle just below the axe head. As the impact of the blow vibrated through the oak, a lesser man would have had the handle wrenched from his hands, but Murdo’s grip did not loosen.
The big Frenchman had made as though to charge forward and finish his work, but stopped himself, surprised that he had failed to disarm his foe. He held back, cautious now, and began to circle to his right. Murdo matched him, circling left. Roland watched with growing fear. He’d seen the mace strike Murdo’s axe handle and amidst the sharp sound of steel on wood, he’d heard the faint sound of oak cracking.
He prayed the Frenchman had not heard it and that Murdo had. His latter prayer was quickly answered as the big Scotsman stopped for a moment, raising the axe up to eye level and staring at it. Then, in one quick motion he brought the handle down across his knee, the force snapping it just below the axe head. The steel head fell on the cobbles with a clatter, leaving a jagged end where the crack had been. Murdo now faced the Frenchmen with nothing but a length of oak that he held in one huge fist.
Roland started forward, but Seamus froze him with an angry look. The Frenchman stopped circling and a small smile played across his face. He began to edge forward, slowly raising the bloody mace over his right shoulder. Murdo did not wait for the man to close with him. He sprang forward.
The Scotsman was remarkably fast. Shocked, the Frenchman tried to hasten his blow, but he was too late. Murdo thrust the jagged end of the axe handle up under the man’s chin, driving it into his neck. The man dropped his mace, which hung from his wrist by a cord, as Murdo jerked the axe handle back. A bright spray of blood spurted from the jagged wound it left behind. The man grasped at his throat with both hands, but it was to little avail. Slowly he sank to his knees, then toppled over and lay still, his hands still vainly trying to stem the flow of blood.
Murdo reached down and picked up the heavy mace, then faced the French line, a snarl on his ravaged face. Roland turned to the Invalids who had been standing transfixed by the mighty combat between Murdo and the giant Frenchman.
“The gate is there!” he shouted, pointing his sword toward the inner arch of the gatehouse. “Take it and we’re done here!”
The Invalids roared in response. They had once broken through a line of fierce Dub Gaill mercenaries that was four deep. This French line would not stop them. Roland turned and charged toward the line of defenders as his men surged up the alley behind him. As he reached Murdo, the big man joined in the rush. The French braced themselves but could not hold against the English. Their line broke in the centre as Roland and the big Scot slammed into it, driving three men back into their comrades in the second rank and tumbling them to the ground.
Roland kept his feet and found himself alone behind the French, but only for a moment as first Sir John Blackthorne and then Declan followed him through, the two best swordsmen in the Invalid Company widening the break in the French line as they turned to either side and hacked at the defenders. Seeing the widening breach and the howling mob of Invalids surging toward it, the rest of the French panicked and fled.
“Dec! The gate!” Roland called out, pointing toward the archway of the gatehouse as he turned his attention to a half dozen French knights picking their way down the rubble of the breach across the road, bravely hoping to stem the tide and save the gate. Declan led a dozen Invalids into the shadowed space beneath the gatehouse arch and recoiled as crossbow bolts from murder holes in the ceiling rained down on them, felling two of his men.
“Shields up!” cried the young Irish knight, as the men moved back into the space to haul away their wounded and address the gate itself. The door was massive but the means for securing it were simple enough. A large oak beam was set into four heavy iron brackets at chest-height, while a second, smaller beam secured the gate at twice the height of a man.
“Jamie Finch!” Declan shouted and the young Londoner shouldered his way through the ranks gathered behind the Irish knight. Declan looked over at the wiry young man.
“Can ye climb up to that, Jamie?” he asked, pointing to the higher crossbar securing the gate.
Finch nodded.
“I’ll need help.”
Declan pointed to two men standing on either side of Finch.
“You two, give him a boost.”
The two dashed through the archway to the gate, shields held high and crossbow bolts pinging off the cobbles around them. They turned and signalled to Finch. The Londoner handed his sword and shield to Brother Cyril who stood beside him and sprinted across the deadly space, lurching to his left and right as he ran. More quarrels rained down, but Finch dodged them. Reaching the gate, he stepped into the cupped hands of the two men there and was hoisted up until he could hop onto the lower beam.
Balanced on the beam, Finch reached above his head and, with more strength than his wiry frame would suggest, heaved the upper bar off its brackets and let it crash to the cobbles below. Behind him the Invalids sent up a cheer and surged forward. A moment later the large lower beam securing the gate was lifted from its brackets and the big oak doors were hauled open.
Outside the gatehouse, Roland heard cheers from under the arch and from outside the walls of Gamaches as Mercadier’s mercenaries saw the great doors swing open. But a new sound from inside the city caused him to whirl around. Charging straight toward him down the main street were sixty men bent on retaking the fallen gatehouse. Leading them was the tall young knight he had faced on the wall. The Frenchman had apparently not sought shelter in the tower along the wall, but had instead gathered a considerable force around him in a final attempt to throw back the English attack.
“Invalids!” Roland screamed. “Make ready!”
***
The sudden assault struck the Invalids before they could properly form a shield wall and its momentum forced them back toward the gatehouse. The French fought valiantly, but numbers did not favour the defenders of Gamaches and, slowly, the Invalid Company line steadied and began to push them back. Behind the Invalids, Mercadier’s mercenaries began to surge through the open gate.
The French saw the wave of men coming and their desperation gave way to despair. The young leader of the counterattack spat out a curse, then ordered his men to run, as an unstoppable river of men now pushed through the open gate. Roland and the Invalids gave chase, pelting up the main street of the town toward the citadel. The French managed to keep some semblance of order as they fled, but as they neared the bastion at the end of the long street they saw that the door had already been sealed and bolted. There would be no refuge there.
Their young leader screamed an order at his men and the panicked defenders followed him into a smaller side street. Roland turned into the street twenty paces behind them and saw that Patch had found his way through the warren of alleys that laced the cen
tre of the ancient town and had emerged with a sizeable number of Invalids further up the street, blocking any further retreat by the fleeing French. With nowhere to run, the French streamed into a small stone chapel. As Roland neared the front of the building, the iron doors slammed shut, leaving only one man outside.
The young French knight stood before the door and held out his sword, hilt-first. He said something, but his words were lost in the din. Roland raised his sword to halt the Invalids and the noise slowly died.
“Je m'appelle, Simon, Vicomte de Dammartin,” the man said with quiet dignity. “Je me rends. Nous sommes vos prisonniers.”
“He’s some nobleman,” Sir John whispered to Roland, “and he’s surrendering.”
Roland nodded.
“My French is poor, but I gathered that.”
He raised his own sword in a short salute, then stepped forward and took the hilt of the Frenchman’s own in his hand. The young knight gave him a curt bow and stepped back. The noise of battle still came from the main street of the town where the rumble of wooden wheels over cobbles could be heard. Declan shouldered his way through the mass of men gathered before the chapel and leaned in to Roland.
“They’re bringin’ up a ram to break in the door of the keep.”
Roland nodded and beckoned to Blackthorne.
“I leave this lot in your care, Sir John. Post a heavy guard and have the French pass out all of their weapons. Once the fight is done, we’ll find what’s to be done with the captives.”
“Aye, sir,” said Sir John, who turned to the young knight and spoke to him in passable French. The knight bowed, then turned and rapped on the iron door, calling out to his men inside and ordering them to disarm. Blackthorne pulled aside a score of men to watch over the French captives as Roland led the Invalids back toward the sound of battle.
