Master of War

by David Gilman

  Sir Gilbert’s men-at-arms and archers, like every other recon­nais­sance group, burned every village and hovel they found. Smoke clung to the land as if the whole of France was a funeral pyre. But no bridge had been found and, as Philip’s men had stopped the crossing of the Seine, so too he stopped the English at the Somme. Edward’s strategy had failed and the cost of trying to attack the fortified bridges on the river had cost too many lives. Time was running out as fast as the river’s tide, and Edward, King of England, would soon be stranded and forced to face an overwhelming army and fight them at a place not of his choosing.

  The day before St Bartholomew’s Day was a fast day. Not that the men had a choice. There was neither meat nor fowl to eat. John Weston tethered his horse and, grinning like a monkey, scurried to where his own company of archers camped after their day’s fruitless search for a crossing. He dragged a dead swan behind him, its silk-like feathers saturated with its own blood. He dumped it on the ground in front of the others.

  ‘All right then, lads, got us a morsel here that’d grace the King’s table.’

  ‘Sweet Jesus, don’t let Sir Godfrey see it or he’ll have it himself,’ Roger Oakley said, as he dragged the heavy carcass out of sight. Two of the men began cleaning the bird.

  ‘Get some more wood on that fire. We’ll need a few rocks as well,’ Blackstone told Will Longdon, ‘and dig the pit deeper. We’ll cook it slow.’

  ‘Right y’are, your highness, sire, my lord,’ Longdon teased. A swan was a fine meal and this was no time to worry about a younger man organizing the fire pit. ‘Bull’s balls, lad! You’d make a fine nobleman,’ Elfred said.

  ‘If he weren’t a guttersnipe archer,’ Weston told him.

  ‘And you would know,’ Blackstone answered with a smile. The men were in good cheer now that there was to be a succulent bird for their next day’s breakfast.

  Sir Gilbert walked across to them. ‘There’ll be a fight on your hands in the morning when the others smell those juices. I daresay I can keep things under control for the price of a drumstick.’

  ‘That’s exactly what we were saying a minute ago, Sir Gilbert,’ said Elfred, ‘weren’t we, lads?’ There was good-humoured agree­ment from the archers.

  ‘Is one bird all you could manage, John Weston?’

  ‘There were two pairs, Sir Gilbert, but I had to wade in to grab this one before the tide took him out to sea,’ John Weston told him, as he slit the neck free from the body. ‘The others weren’t about to paddle around and wait on another arrow coming their way. Just as well, mind you, damned near drowned m’self in that current.’

  Blackstone threw more wood on the fire. What John Weston said reminded him of the river at home where he and Richard would set fish traps. The swans there were for Lord Marldon’s table, but they were usually taken at low tide when they were feeding.

  ‘Were they feeding?’ Blackstone asked.

  ‘That they were. Head down, arse up. I couldn’t miss, not that I ever do. Mind you, the bloody tide nearly took my legs away and I can’t swim, so thank the good Lord, he brought me back with you wretches’ breakfast.’

  Blackstone turned to Sir Gilbert. ‘If there is a low tide on the estuary, shallow enough for the swans to feed, and John got him­self out into the stream, then perhaps that’s where we can cross, Sir Gilbert.’

  ‘John?’ Sir Gilbert asked the forager.

  ‘Aye, it could be done, I suppose. Risky as tickling the devil’s arse with a wet fletching, though.’

  ‘Show me.’

  ‘Right you are, Sir Gilbert. But your authority would go some way to saving the bird from being thieved by the time we’re back.’

  ‘The bird stays in the pit. Cook it slow, lads. It’ll be ready for the morning,’ Sir Gilbert told the men. ‘Elfred, Thomas, John, with me.’

  They rode under moonlight until they crested a hill and saw the Somme’s estuary widen across the tidal marshland, its water a glistening ribbon that stretched towards the sea. A breeze rippled the broad reach of water whose eddies testified to the truth of Weston’s assertion of a strong tidal current. Sir Gilbert followed the archer’s route down through the edge of the marshes and then dismounted.

  ‘I went in about here. Had about a hundred-odd paces to where the nearest bird was feeding. The others were midstream. Didn’t see no point in risking the loss of an arrow.’

  The squelching marsh gave under their weight, but they walked further towards the river.

  ‘Tide’s on the turn, Sir Gilbert,’ Blackstone said. ‘You remember the river at home? It’ll be a death trap if men are out there when the flood starts.’

  Sir Gilbert ignored him and waded out further into the stream. Blackstone gathered the horses’ reins and gave them to his brother. No further instruction was needed. The disgraced boy was to stay behind.

  The archers followed their captain into the deeper water that tugged at their thighs. The men spread out a hundred paces across, each testing his own foothold in the silt. After a while Elfred raised his arm.

  ‘It’s here,’ he called. ‘It’s firm underfoot.’

  The others waded towards him and felt the riverbed harden. Elfred stared across the moonlit water to the far bank. ‘Has to be a mile if it’s a cloth-yard,’ he said.

  ‘Mile and a half,’ Blackstone said quietly. ‘At least.’ The fright­en­ing prospect of wading that distance if there were Genoese crossbows waiting for them was more chilling than the cold water lapping his groin.

  ‘Mile and a half it is, then,’ Sir Gilbert acknowledged. ‘At least.’

  The swan was left in the fire pit, abandoned when Godfrey de Harcourt’s scouting party returned to the main force with news of the crossing. They needed sleep and food, but neither was given once the King was told of the chance that his army could cross the Somme. Trumpets blared, the army roused and each captain told his men what was expected.

  ‘If we don’t ford the river we’ll be trapped. The French vanguard is less than seven miles to our rear. We’ve only the sea ahead of us. It’s as simple as that,’ said Sir Gilbert. ‘And we haven’t come seven hundred miles to be slain like rats in a pit by a rabid terrier.’ He walked along the line, making sure that every archer and man-at-arms could hear. ‘We march tonight through the marshes.’

  There was a shuffle of worn boots and a murmur of uncertainty among the gathered men. Moving across marshland at night was exhausting and dangerous. ‘There’s nothing for it, lads. We have to get across. There are Frenchmen to be killed and a crown to be gained. We’ll be at the river by dawn. Sir Reginald leads and I follow.’

  He turned and faced the bowmen. By now he knew every name under his command. ‘Archers will go across first,’ he said solemnly.

  Blackstone’s exhausted gaze followed the water’s current.

  ‘It’s still too high.’

  ‘We wait,’ Sir Gilbert said. ‘And pray the French are still yawn­ing and scratching their balls.’

  The army slowly gathered behind them, men and animals packed tight on the riverbank, their ranks lying in depth, jostling back into the trees, across pastureland and cornfields. Twelve thousand men to ford a river estuary two thousand yards broad on a firm footing so narrow as to permit only ten men to stand shoulder to shoulder. If the French approaching from the south caught up with them now there would be no chance to form battle lines. They’d be slaughtered mid-river.

  They waited for the tide and watched as a French contingent from the main army at Abbeville secured the far bank.

  ‘How long to get across, d’you think?’ Will Longdon said.

  ‘Sun’ll be quartered, up near them clouds,’ Elfred answered. It would be nearly an hour before their feet touched the distant shore.

  ‘Aye, that’s what I thought,’ Longdon confirmed. ‘Was hoping I was wrong. I go down, someone’d better drag me up.’

  Elfred turned to Blackstone. ‘Thomas, you get Richard on hand to haul his soggy arse up. I need him for killing them bas
tards.’

  Blackstone nodded. ‘Might be better if we all took a swim,’ he said pointing to the far shore.

  The horizon changed shape as pennons and banners cluttered the skyline along the hundred-and-fifty-foot-high embankment on the far shore. The French defenders drew up in three lines along the water’s edge.

  ‘They must have known this was the only ford,’ Sir Gilbert said. He looked at the French banners, some of which he recognized. ‘Godemar du Fay. He’s a Burgundian knight. He’ll be the one laying that defence across the shoreline.’

  ‘Beloved Christ, don’t ask Thomas how many there are or he’ll tell us,’ said John Weston as he gazed at the swarming infantry and men-at-arms.

  ‘We’ve not seen the worst of it yet, lads,’ Blackstone said, his eyes fixed on the embankment where five hundred crossbowmen swarmed into position, keeping to the heights, giving themselves additional range.

  ‘I was just about to say I were glad there weren’t no bloody crossbowmen with ’em,’ Will Longdon said.

  ‘You think their eyesight’s as good as ours?’ John Weston asked.

  ‘You’ll know when a quarrel takes your head off,’ Sir Gilbert answered.

  ‘Hey! French bastards!’ Weston shouted and walked to the shallows, untied his hose and pissed in the river. ‘Can you see this?’

  The men laughed and roared derision at the Frenchmen and their hired mercenaries.

  ‘God help us, Weston, we’ve to wade in there. Your piss could rot armour,’ Sir Gilbert told him.

  ‘It’s chilly in there, Sir Gilbert, I was just warming it up for you.’

  Fear slipped behind their bravado; a healthy disdain for the enemy could drive a soldier to face a hellish attack. Blackstone’s brother edged towards him, and tugged his sleeve. He uttered a muted sound and gestured. He wanted to be at Blackstone’s shoulder. Blackstone saw the longing in his face. He had tried to forgive, had tried not to think of the boy killing the girl he professed to love. There was no forgiveness. But there was duty. Blackstone nodded. The boy made no sign of joy but tears welled momentarily and then he stood a pace behind Blackstone’s shoulder.

  The Earl of Northampton stood in front of the company.

  ‘The French think we’re coarse, ignorant ruffians! And they’d be right!’

  The men shouted their approval. The earl raised his sword.

  ‘Their knights will ride down their own infantry in order to kill us. You archers are going to make them bleed and then we will slaughter them until this damned river runs red. Kill them, and keep killing them until they weep for mercy and then kill them some more! Go to it!’

  A wave of battle cries carried across the broad expanse of water like a threatening summer storm about to strike.

  Sir Gilbert tied a leather loop around his sword grip and wrist. He smiled. ‘My blood knot. I’m not losing hold of my damned sword because a squirming Frenchman spews blood all over me. Good luck to you, Thomas.’

  ‘You too, Sir Gilbert.’

  Three hours after prime, the eighth hour from midnight, on St Bartholomew’s Day, Sir Reginald Cobham with the Earl of Northampton and Sir Gilbert Killbere formed a column of one hundred men-at-arms. To their front Elfred’s hundred archers formed an extended line, ten men wide and ten men deep, across the breadth of the ford.

  With their bows raised to keep their cords dry they waded into the water.

  8

  The tide sucked at their legs; the taller men were knee deep, for the others the water was waist high. They cursed and grumbled, but they kept their formation as best they could. Three hundred yards from the shore the first crossbow bolts struck. Blackstone and the other archers could not yet level their bows in the deep water and the undefended men were the first to die. The added height of the embankment gave the Genoese bowmen extra distance and the bolts cut down twenty or thirty men in the first volley. Their bodies fell against others carrying them, floundering, into the current. Men cried out, others cursed.

  ‘Keep going! Keep going!’ someone shouted.

  As men fell others took their place, surging forward to take the fallen men’s position, less through bravery than to get themselves to the far shore as quickly as they could. They were dying out here, exposed and helpless.

  Iron-clad bolts whirred through the air, Blackstone ducked instinctively, heard them strike wooden shields of the men-at-arms behind them, tapping like a score of drunken woodpeckers.

  ‘Faster, for Christ’s sake, faster,’ Blackstone urged himself. Dear God, don’t let me die… don’t let me die… not here… not like this.

  The man next to Blackstone suddenly tumbled backward as a bolt smacked into his forehead with a sickening crunch. Too many archers were dying. Roger Oakley pushed forward. ‘Come on, lads, come on!’

  His surge carried thirty-odd men with him, forcing their leg muscles to fight the water. Archers gasped for air, exertion and fear driving them onwards. More men fell. The splash of their bodies sounding as rapid as the terrible, unrelenting whirring wind that shuddered past the survivors. Too many down! We’ll never get there! Sweet Mother of God, forgive me. Blackstone’s mind taunted him with the prospect of dying in the river. What was being asked was impossible.

  But they kept going.

  Roger Oakley turned and looked at his men. ‘They’ll be crying for their mothers. Another two hundred yards, boys. That’s all! Push on, lads, push on!’ His constant encouragement was a beacon for the floundering archers to follow. ‘You’re my archers! And we’ll be first to take the bastards down and—’

  The double strike tore through Oakley’s cap, shattering his face and jaw, the second bolt ripped through his throat. A gurgle of blood, and his twisting body was taken by the current. The line of men faltered.

  A voice carried from behind. ‘Keep going, for Christ’s sake, or we’re dead!’ It was Sir Gilbert with his men-at-arms. If the archers failed the attack was doomed.

  Blackstone saw Oakley’s death throes as he swirled in the water, a hand feebly trying to grasp air for a few seconds, but the shat­tered head and throat told them all he was already dead. Blackstone stumbled, but before he went down his brother’s grip hauled him to his feet. Neither looked at the other, their eyes fixed on the figures they could see on the skyline cranking their crossbows, while the French men-at-arms waited on the shoreline to kill the survivors.

  And then the water shoaled. ‘Go wide!’ Elfred shouted, and the men broke the ranks to spread their line and lessen the target offered to the crossbows. One hundred and fifty yards from shore Elfred levelled his bow as did every man with him, and the first storm of arrows fell like God’s vengeance on the crossbowmen. In less than a minute the archers had advanced another thirty yards and delivered six more volleys until the Genoese dead lay scattered on the forward slope of the embankment or retreated to get out of the archers’ range.

  Elfred looked for Roger Oakley and saw only Blackstone firing steadily with what remained of the line of men. Will Longdon and John Weston were to Elfred’s left.

  ‘Thomas! Take twenty men! Flank! Flank! You hear me?’ he cried as he veered left with the others, opening a gap for Sir Gilbert’s men behind them to pour through. Blackstone waded to the right.

  ‘With me! Take position!’ he called. ‘Men-at-arms! Kill the men-at arms!’

  Northampton, Cobham and Sir Gilbert were already splashing through the gap created as the archers loosed again. Now the arrow hail beat down on plate armour and chain mail. By the time the English knights waded ashore they had to step over the French dead. The clash of steel and shield rolled across the water. And the archers fired until their missiles were depleted. But Edward and his marshals knew that unless the bowmen could sustain their fire the English men-at-arms could not fight and clamber uphill against so many – and he had ordered pages and clerics with armfuls of bound arrow sheaves to re-supply the advance. Knives quickly cut the wrappings of the bundles, and archers fired relentlessly until more men-at-arms pushed
in behind those fighting on the shore. Where five men fell, another ten took their place. It was a desperate and determined attack to gain the heavily defended shore before King Philip’s army swept up from the rear and slaughtered them mid-stream.

  Blackstone and the archers had sown a field of death and scram­bled from the shallows to stop any attacking force outflanking the tenuous beachhead. Cobham cut and thrust, his high guard scything the men to his front and side, his steady, forward pace and skill matched only by Northampton, bloodied from head to foot, and Sir Gilbert, the three of them relentlessly killing those before them. French bravery could not be faulted; they fought for every inch of the gore-drenched sand.

  Blackstone was eighty yards away from Sir Gilbert. He saw French men-at-arms bearing down on his sworn knight, who braced his stance and fought the first four men away, but the numbers would soon overwhelm him. Half a dozen of his own men around him were killed or wounded. The French attack surged.

  Blackstone could run no harder towards the beleaguered knight. An arrow was already nocked, the cord drawn back. He hesitated, seeing the flight in his mind’s eye – all of a second’s thought, for if he was wrong the arrow could kill Sir Gilbert. Two men struck Sir Gilbert – hard, stunning blows from mace and poleaxe. It was a relentless assault; Sir Gilbert went onto one knee, shield raised. A French knight raised his sword for a double-handed strike. Blackstone was already reaching for another arrow when the first knifed through the knight’s plate armour. His knees buckled and he fell backwards. Blackstone saw Sir Gilbert try to stand, still stunned from the blows.