There was more than a little good thinking in Lieutenant Raymond’s intentions and his wife’s idea that he and his men should try to destroy the barons’ army before it even got to Cornwall. His archers were trained to fight both as mounted archers as the outriders fight, and as fast-moving heavy infantry with the larger shield, short sword, bladed pike, caltrops, and two sharpened stakes that each archer’s supply horse carries in addition to a rain skin and food for the archer and his two horses.
No one had ever before had troops who were trained and equipped with the most modern of weapons to fight both on foot and on horses, not in England or anywhere else, not even the Romans. The barons and knights fought more like the barbarians and Scots where every man fought by himself for glory and recognition, even when they stood side by side in a shield wall or charged forward in groups. Individually is how the barons and knights usually fought—and they had never come up against trained and organized men armed with longbows or hooked pikes with very long handles.
****** Lieutenant Raymond
Okehampton’s two drawbridges creaked and clanked as they were raised behind us. They would not come down until we return, except momentarily to let a messenger enter, and never at the same time. The senior sergeant in command of the castle and his number two are both dependable veterans with wives and children in the castle. I know them well and I am confident they will see to it that the castle is properly defended, if only because of their families. They also know that if they do not do everything possible to defend it, and particularly if they let themselves be gulled into letting the enemy enter, they will lose their stripes and I will hang them.
I led my men out of the castle and almost immediately turned off the cart path and headed north across the castle’s fields and pastures. My men had no idea where I was leading them. Even Francis, a senior sergeant with five stripes and my second in command, did not know.
None of my men knew where our war camp would be located because I wanted to keep it a secret for as long as possible. Captain William and my three fellow lieutenants know where it is, of course, because I had showed them on the leather map I taken with me to the meeting at Restormel. The only other person who knew was Wanda, my dear wife from the land on the other side of the Saracen’s desert. She should; it was her idea.
It took almost the entire day for my men and me to ride to the campsite I had long ago chosen in this part of Devon. It was north of the road to Cornwall and in an isolated corner of the Okehampton land now owned by William as the earl of Cornwall. It was on a tree-covered hill a good day’s walk from Okehampton and Launceston, and deliberately far away so we had have plenty of time to get ready in case the army besieging the castle got tired of our many little attacks and decided to end their siege and come for us instead.
I chose the place because of how long it would take an army with men on foot to walk to it from the London road, and because it has good view of the surrounding countryside and a little stream running through it where we can water our horses and men. From here, if we did not run into trouble and have to fight or detour, we would be able to reach both Okehampton and Launceston in half a day of steady riding.
****** Senior Sergeant Francis
It was a busy time for me as Raymond’s number two. Every four-stripe company sergeant and his three-stripe file sergeants wanted his men and horses near the stream so as to be close to the water. I was not having that, of course, and made them move. Lieutenant Thomas might show up and find a man or his horse pissing or dropping a turd in the water; I am not risking my stripes for that.
We stayed on the hill where Lieutenant Raymond had led us several days ago until Kenneth, the tinker's son from York, rode in from watching Okehampton to report that the first of the barons’ army had reached the castle and been denied entry when they asked for hospitality for the night. I knew all about it because we had gathered around the cooking fire that night and talked to Kenneth Tinker ourselves after he reported to the Lieutenant.
Kenneth told us the barons appeared to be setting up what looked to be a siege camp where the cart path to Okehampton Castle turns off from where the London road bends to go south towards Exeter.
That the barons would assemble their army in front of Okehampton was to be expected. It was the best place for the barons coming from the north and from London to join up with the men the Earl of Devon would be bringing up from Exeter.
What really surprised all of us, however, was when Kenneth said how pleased Raymond seemed to be when he heard the news. I would have thought he would have been concerned, what with his wife in the castle and such. I certainly was because my wife and two little children were there. I had already lost one family to the sweating pox, I did not want to lose another.
Kenneth told us he had been watching the cart path to the castle from a hide he had built where the little stream runs through the stand of oak trees in the south pasture. He also confirmed what we had already heard from our outriders watching the Exeter road, that the barons’ army assembling in front of Okehampton had been joined by a large force of men from Exeter led by the Earl of Devon, some of whom appeared to be wounded. Wounded? Of course; Michael the mason and his outriders must have caught them on the Exeter road.
All of our men were talking excitedly and trying to guess what would happen next? Rumours were constantly flying about like a swarm of bitey bugs. Would the barons and Devon remain where they are now camped and lay a siege on the castle, or would they march on Cornwall, or would some of them go and some of them stay?
Everyone had a different opinion and many claimed to have talked to someone who knew for sure all about our enemy’s plans. I was curious myself, of course, but it did not really matter; the Lieutenant Raymond had already told us how we had be fighting no matter who our enemies might turn out to be or where they decided to establish their camp or camps.
****** Lieutenant Raymond
I drew a circle in the dirt as Francis and my seven four-stripe sergeants stood around me. They were there because they each commanded one of our 21-man horse companies. In the middle of the circle I scratched an “X” and called it the barons’ army. Then I assigned each of their companies to a position on the circle I drew around the “X.”
My plan was simple and fully understood by each of the seven company sergeants and his three file sergeants. They should have understood it; we had been constantly practicing what we had be doing over and over again for some years.
It was a simple plan. We were going to put a loose circle of mounted longbow archers all the way around the bastards and use the greater range of our “longs” to keep the barons’ men in constant danger. We had fall back if they sallied forth, and move back closer when they fell back—and constantly push an arrow at them whenever an archer sees a target. In other words, we had be the bees constantly stinging the bear who was going after our honey. And if the bear moved towards Cornwall or anywhere else, our circle of archers would move with him, and keep stinging and stinging and stinging.
“Remember lads,” I said as I finished giving my sergeants their orders and positions. “The important thing is to keep your men constantly trying to kill the bastards and their horses. No man can go wrong if he stays near the enemy and pushes out an arrow whenever he has an opportunity.”
Then, after a moment’s pause, I added a bit of good news and a warning to go with it.
“Neither George’s outriders on the London road nor those of Michael the mason on the Exeter road have reported seeing any Genoese crossbow men. And the barons have not ever had very many archers in their own ranks in the past, have they? But that do not mean there would not be some among them, does it? So tell your lads to be careful and remind them that it takes a crossbow man a long time to reload a new quarrel.
“Also remind them to pick up their arrows whenever possible and reuse them. We have got bales and bales of extra arrows as we all know, but an archer can never have enough, can he?”
******
All in all, that was one hundred and fifty-six men going out to fight as horse archers counting me and the young man Thomas sent to me to gobble church-talk when someone dies and fetch for me as my scribe. He is a three-stripe apprentice sergeant just like George, Captain William’s son, was before he earned his fourth stripe.
I led the horse archers out of the camp riding at the head of my Number One Company, the company I myself would be leading into the fighting that was sure to begin as early as tomorrow. What the barons did not yet know, and my men and my new young scribe did not yet fully realize, was that the fighting was going to continue constantly until either our enemies were gone or we had run out of arrows. Well, they had find out soon enough; yes they would.
All of my men were going out as mounted archers. Accordingly, each man’s personal supply horse, and thus his shield, short sword, and pike that his supply horse carries so he can also fight on foot, were left behind in our war camp in case he needed his land fighting weapons later. At the moment he did not. Today every man was going out to fight as a mounted archer and carrying five full quivers of arrows, mostly longs, and a ten days supply of cheese and bread for himself and oats for his horse.
In addition, the men in each seven-man file were leading two supply horses carrying a tent, a hammered breast plate to cook flatbread, and extra bales of longs. We had sleep rough and each company would use its supply horses to carry its wounded back to its camp and fetch more food and arrows. That was the plan my wife helped me put together; she is very good at thinking behind her eyes.
We all rode together for a while and then, with shouts of encouragement and good wishes, each horse company went its own way under its four-stripe company sergeant, twenty-two men in every company. Each would each operate independently as part of the circle of horse archers I was placing all around the enemy army.
The assignment I had given to each company sergeant and every archer was simple—get in contact with the enemy and stay in contact. Fall back pushing arrows at them when they advance against you; move forward pushing arrows at them when they fall back. In other words, never let the bastards feel safe and kill them every chance you get until they break and run. Then ride them down and kill them.
Francis stayed behind with a few men to sergeant our war camp whilst I was away leading Number One Horse Company. I had to be out with one of my companies somewhere or my men might think less of me—even if it was much to the displeasure of John from London who was the company’s four-stripe sergeant and wanted to lead it himself instead of riding beside me as my number two. Ah well, John’s a good man, he is. He will get over it, yes he will.
Number One Company’s position on the circle of archers surrounding the enemy army was one of the most important because it would be between Exeter and Okehampton; Exeter being where the barons would likely look to for supplies and might try to run after we defeat them. We would not be totally alone; I had already placed Michael the mason and his two files of outriders astride the Exeter road to harass Devon and his men, and to cut the road totally once Devon and his men came past.
****** Lieutenant Henry
Messengers have been coming in constantly from Raymond with news of the barons’ army. The latest word is that the barons are assembling their army in a camp along both sides of the cart path leading up to Okehampton Castle. As we expected, they have been joined by the Earl of Devon and his men.
They should have moved faster. All nineteen of our fully equipped foot companies of archers, over fifteen hundred archers with longbows, short swords, shields, and bladed pikes, and another four or five hundred local men and sailors to bring them water and keep them supplied with arrows, were now either already in place at the River Tamar ford or would be there in the next few hours.
William was pleased with our strength and said as much as he and Peter and I stood wolfing down bread and cheese as we watched another foot company of archers and their carriers march down towards its position in the line we were forming on the Cornwall side of the Tamar ford. They were marching on the side of the cart path because the cart path coming up from the ford was packed with the wains and people and livestock we were sending west to escape the fighting that was sure to come.
At the moment, the ford was filled with people and a flock of sheep splashing across in the muddy water. They were on their way to safety deep in Cornwall. Our great horse herd had come through yesterday afternoon, but there was still a mass of people and sheep gathered on the other side waiting to cross. One of our companies was on the Devon side of the river helping to organize them, and another was at the ford helping to bring them across, carrying the babies and the lambs and such.
“If Raymond’s outriders have counted proper, the barons have only got about six thousand men including Devon’s, and we have got over sixteen hundred archers with longbows and almost nine hundred of them are also carrying bladed pikes. We will destroy the bastards,” William growled.
“I know; I know,” I replied. “Our line looks strong. But I still want to put another company in reserve behind it. No sense taking chances, eh? Besides, if we place them there, they will be easier to move if the barons try to slip a force across the river somewhere else to get behind us.”
What I was concerned about was something that has never yet happened such that William and Peter seem to have stopped worrying about it—a force of enemy knights and their soldiers either breaks through our line or somehow gets around behind us because we do not have enough men in reserve who can be sent to confront them.
It could happen; God forbid, it could happen; our men running because someone breaks into our line or attacks us from behind. We may be as nicely equipped and trained as William thinks, indeed we are; but you never know what surprises an enemy might throw at you, or how your men will react when he does.
I breathed a sigh of relief when William agreed to let me hold another company in reserve, and I promptly gave the necessary orders.
“Hoy there, Freddie. Move your company back from the river to where the cart path bends by the big pile of rocks; you will be the reserve for the right side of our line. I will be wanting you to move fast to attack an enemy breakthrough or to turn sideways and go down the river path if anyone tries to flank us or gets behind us.”
Chapter Twelve
The fighting begins.
Number One Company rode south towards the Exeter road for hours with me riding at their head. Both their four-stripe company sergeant, John, the one-time butcher from London, and young Richard, my priestly new sergeant apprentice and scribe riding along side of me. We had ridden out of our war camp with the other companies but they soon began peeling off to head for their assigned positions in the circle of horse archers I was putting around the enemy army.
Within a few hours we were twenty-four men riding alone through the Devon countryside on the east side of the Tamar. It was strangely silent and empty, not at all the way I had seen it in the past when I had ridden this way. No one was working in the fields, and both of the Okehampton villages we passed seemed deserted. Way off on our left we could see one of our companies as it moved across a distant field. There were not any sheep or cattle in the pastures.
The absence of any activity and people was reassuring. The villagers in this part of Devon lived on Okehampton lands, the only lands in Devon owned by Cornwall, and had been ordered to take their families and their sheep and cattle and head for the safety of Cornwall.
&n
bsp; ******
I had just dismounted to piss and barely lifted my tunic gown and gotten started when everything changed. Out of the corner of my eye I saw one of my archers stand in his saddle and point to the east. I was still shaking my dingle when I turned to look where he was pointing. What I saw in the distance was a line of mounted men following two horse carts, each with a driver and a couple of men riding in it and some men walking beside it. There were ten or eleven riders and they were coming around a hill about a mile ahead of us—and heading straight towards us.
They saw us at the same time we saw them. A foraging party, by God.
“John, take your number one file and get around to the north of them; the rest of you, string your bows and follow me,” I shouted as I finished shaking my dingle and moved quickly to swing back up into my saddle.
My horse caught my excitement and my sudden move to remount. It jerked its head and pranced sideways a couple of steps as I pulled myself up into the saddle and leaned over to push the tip of my bow against the ground to bend it so I could string it. All around me excited men on excited horses were stringing their bows and pulling arrows out of their quivers.
******
At first, the riders from the foraging party trotted forward to meet us. Perhaps to see who we might be; perhaps to attack us because they already knew we were not friendly. It did not matter. I responded by leading my two files of men south instead of straight at them and John led the seven men of his number one file off to the north so as to get on the other side of them.
My men and I rode away to the south so any knights accompanying the party would think we were afraid of them and trying to escape. We wanted them try to catch us, and that was what they did. They galloped after us. As they came closer and closer, I could see that some of the riders riding towards us, three or four of them, were knights wearing armour. The others were undoubtedly their squires and mounted retainers and men-at-arms. Despite the distance still separating us, some of our pursuers had already couched their lances and others had drawn their swords.
The Captain's Men Page 9