One thing is certain, praise God—we will not be going hungry for a long time because of all the food in the wains and the sheep we have captured.
It is been hard for me to miss a meal ever since I began attending Bishop Thomas's school and stopped being hungry because I was getting two big meals with meat and an egg and cheese every day, plus extra bread and cheese to carry with me and eat whenever I was hungry. My mum would have been astonished.
Joe was our only casualty. He was killed by a crossbow bolt. We did not even know he had been killed until the other horse holder, a one stripe archer by the name of Luke, galloped up to us with all but two of our horses and reported that he and Joe been attacked from behind by men coming through the forest. Joe, he said, had shouted “I am killed; ride” as he handed him the reins of all but two of the horses he was holding. We found Joe but we never did find the two missing horses.
Chapter Sixteen
A narrow escape.
Lieutenant Raymond’s camp had grown from a few dozen men to almost half a hundred in the past three or four days as the circle tightened and our battle groups began coming in contact with one another. I was no longer there as Lieutenant Raymond’s apprentice sergeant, his scribe and fetcher. To my great surprise and pleasure, I was now there because I was made the sergeant of what remained of the outriders who had initially been sent to watch the Exeter road and rode with me to the forest ambush, all eight of them.
I was so full of myself from being given my own command that it was all I could do to keep from abusing my newfound powers by giving meaningless orders.
******
Lieutenant Raymond had us tighten the circle around the barons’ army even more once there were no villages for the barons to pillage between us and Okehampton. He split the companies of horse archers and outriders who came into his camp into small battle groups consisting of a file or so of men under a company sergeant or file sergeant—and constantly sent us out to harass the baron’s army and prevent its foragers from collecting food. We were to stay in close contact with the enemy and pick off its stragglers, foragers, and couriers. As a result, the barons’ men stayed more and more in their camp and we increasingly tightened our encirclement.
It had reached the point where more and more of the barons’ foraging parties only pretended to go out searching for food. Indeed, in the past several days archers from some of our battle groups had been riding or crawling right up to the edge of the barons’ camp to pick off the sentries and harry the heavily guarded parties of men being sent out to cut grass for their horses. Our noose was tightening.
One result of tightening the circle was that our horse companies began increasingly making contact with each other and camping together under Lieutenant Raymond's direct control. Another was that we became vulnerable to knights trying to make their reputations by leading their men out to ambush us as we crept in to do them harm. It was a dangerous game of cat and mouse and it was not always clear who was the cat and who was the mouse.
******
My outriders and I continued riding and camping with the Lieutenant and the men of his Number One Company after the battle against the turtles. Several mornings later we all rode out together looking for the barons’ men until we found some and chased them back to their camp with great shouts and the pushing out of our arrows to kill and wound them. We got so close to the barons’ camp that we could see Okehampton Castle in the distance.
It was an important sighting; it meant there were no more villages between us and the castle. We had driven in their foragers and, according to Lieutenant Raymond, now had the barons’ army trapped with no sources of additional food.
During the afternoon we linked up with another company of horse archers and joined them in their camp. They had been in their camp for several days and regaled us with stories of how they had been attacking the barons’ camp and, in particular, how they had been attacking the parties of men going out to cut grass for their horses. The lieutenant was very pleased.
I thought the lieutenant and the older sergeants would look more favourably on me if my men and I did something similar, so the next morning I gathered up my men and off we went. We were not the only ones—almost every battle group sent its men out in some kind of a raiding party at one time or another every day. Lieutenant Raymond allowed each sergeant to lead his men out to hit the barons’ camp on his own. It was expected of us.
Had I been asked, which I was not, I might have suggested it might be better if we all went together and launched our attacks at the same time. On the other hand, I have to admit that I probably would not have mentioned it; I am the most junior sergeant of all. What do I know?
******
We rode out early and I began leading my men towards the barons’ camp. Other sergeants and their men were doing the same thing and we all waved and smiled at each other and everyone wished everyone else good hunting. It was very exciting and our camp was full of hustle and bustle. The lieutenant was, as usual, leading one of the attacking groups, a file of men from Number One Company. He smiled and agreed when I asked permission to lead my outriders in a separate foot attack right up to the edge of the barons’ camp.
I did not, of course, just lead my men blindly towards the barons’ camp until we found some of their men to kill. First, I gathered my men around me and we planned our raid. It was quite helpful that they were all outriders and knew the lands around Okehampton like the palms of their hands. After I made a quick inspection to be sure everyone had their quivers full and at least one extra bowstring under their cap, we all took one last piss. Then we mounted up and I led them off to put a sting on the barons’ army.
Each of the little battle groups such as mine was supposed to attack a part of the barons’ camp roughly corresponding to our assigned part of the encirclement, and its sergeant was supposed to lead his men to the enemy camp and then lead the attack against it. When we got there, we had do our best to push our arrows into as many enemy men and horses as possible, and then we would mount up and ride away before the barons’ men could launch a counterattack. Attacking the barons’ army in this way was the Lieutenant’s preferred way of waging war. He said it would bleed them to death from a thousand little cuts. It sounded good to me. It was very exciting.
I led my men north for about an hour and then turned towards the barons’ camp. I knew where it was even if I could not see it because I could see Okehampton Castle in the distance and knew the enemy army was camped on both sides of the cart path leading up to the castle.
Ours would be one of nine or ten such mini-raids this morning on the south side of the barons’ camp. According to Lieutenant Raymond, the horse archers assigned to the north side of the enemy army would also be attacking, at least that was what they were supposed to be doing.
My men and I rode easy so the horses would be fresh and strong if we had to run for it. I brought my men, all eight of us, in over the open fields south of Okehampton. I had thought about leading them straight up the cart path, but decided not to do so because more of the barons’ men might be positioned there to fight back. Better, I thought, to attack them where they were less likely to be waiting for us in force.
******
My little band of men and I ambled along on our horses for about an hour until we could once again see Okehampton in the distance. Then we stopped at a little stream, so narrow a man could jump over it, and watered the horses and drank our fill. I noticed the men were eating the pieces of bread and burnt sheep strips we had each stuffed into our pouches, so I got mine out and ate with them. We let the horses rest for a while. Then we all pissed and a couple of my men took advantage of the little stream to shite and wash their arses with their hands so they would not get their tunic gowns all sticky and smelly.
“All right, lads, mount up. It is time to push some arrows.”
I shouted out the order with a bit of excitement as I mounted my horse and bent over to push the tip of my bow against the ground to bend it an
d string it. And why am I so excited and pleased to be doing this?
It took almost an hour before we made contact with our enemy. I was leading the way and saw the barons’ camp as I came out of a little stand of trees. Immediately in front of me were a number of men gathering grass in a large meadow and loading it onto a two-wheeled horse cart. Behind them I could see the tents and wains and horses of the barons’ army stretching out into the distance—and all around them were a large number of walking and sitting men.
The grass cutters saw us almost immediately and began shouting and running back to their camp.
“Get them, Lads. Get them,” I shouted as I kicked my horse in the ribs and simultaneously drew an arrow out of one of my quivers. In my excitement I selected an armour-piercing “heavy” instead of a “long.” It really did not matter; we galloped forward, dropping our reins as we did, and began pushing out arrows as fast as we could.
One after another the grass-cutters closest to us went down as we reached them and pushed arrows into them from up close. At the same time, the barons’ camp turned into an absolute beehive of activity. Some men seized weapons and began running towards us; others were running in the opposite direction. A number were running for their horses, either to mount them to ride out and challenge us, or to lead or ride them away to the relative safety of the centre of the barons’ camp.
I grabbed up my reins before I reached the edge of camp and turned my horse to the right. And not a moment too soon; a few more seconds and I would have been inside the enemy camp and vulnerable. My men were strung out behind me as my horse galloped hard along the outer edge of the camp and I fired arrow after arrow at the nearest men. I think I hit several before I grabbed the reins instead of another arrow and turned my horse around to make another run along the edge of the camp.
The outriders behind me were still coming as I turned and started back. That was when everything fell apart. I saw it clearly. My last outrider, the tail of my hard-riding little band, was still galloping along the edge of the barons’ camp pushing out arrows when his horse suddenly went down as if its legs had been jerked out from under him. He went head over heels tumbling along the ground. I was moving fast and I went right past him at a full gallop and so did the outrider immediately behind me.
Retrieving a fallen rider and carrying him to safety riding double as the Templar knights sometimes do on their big horses, is something we had practiced over and over again. The fallen rider jumps up behind his rescuer and they ride away together. It happens quickly. But somehow retrieving a fallen rider when a man actually goes down turned out to be much harder than doing it in a practice rescue. The confusion and difficulty was ten times greater.
I dropped the arrow I was starting to nock as soon as I saw him hit the ground, jerked my horse around, and started back towards the fallen man. And so did everyone else. It all happened quickly, very quickly. Several of my men had already dismounted and were trying to get the fallen man on his feet by the time I arrived a few seconds later. There was so much confusion that at first I could not tell who had been hurt and who had dismounted to rescue him.
There was no way the archer who had gone down was going to be pulled up on to a rescuer’s horse and sit behind him while they both galloped away. The men coming to help him could see he was injured and did not even try. Instead he was picked up and tossed over the neck of his rescuer’s horse’s on his belly so that his legs hung over one side of his rescuer’s horse and his head and arms the other. It was all his rescuer could do to keep the poor fellow from sliding off as they rode away.
While all that was happening, the horse of one of the men who had dismounted to help the fallen rider ran away. That man, at least, was able-bodied and capable of being pulled up behind someone so they could ride away one behind the other like Templars before the men pouring out of the barons’ camp could reach us.
Those of us who could pushed arrows out behind us as we rode away and then, without anyone giving an order, we paused when we were far enough away from the camp to compose ourselves. Our fallen man, a one-stripe outrider named Adam, was in bad shape with a broken arm and pains inside his chest. He screamed when he slid off Kenneth’s horse and then again as he was being boosted up by numerous helping hands to sit behind him. I saw him grimace in pain with sweat pouring off his face as he rode off holding on to Kenneth for dear life.
Our raid was not a total success; in addition to Adam, one of our horses had been killed and its uninjured rider had to ride double to get back. We were lauded, however, by the men in the camp when we returned with Adam; we had suffered a loss but had inflicted a number of dead and wounded men on the barons’ army. Lieutenant Raymond was very pleased.
That evening I listened to the other sergeants as they talked around the campfires and was pleased to be included in the conversation. We all agreed that very few crossbow quarrels had been shot at us; either the barons have very few crossbow men left or they are running out of quarrels. One thing’s certain we assured each other with great determination—they would not be receiving any more supplies of quarrels, or anything else, not if we have anything to say about it and maintain our blockade of the enemy camp.
Chapter Seventeen
Disaster strikes.
The next day, greatly encouraged by what happened the previous day and the Lieutenant’s response, I led my men out again as did the other sergeants. As usual, we each led our men to the barons’ camp separately. This time there would only be six of us going to the barons’ camp including me. Adam was wounded and Jacob would be left behind to hold the horses because he was coughing so much that we were afraid the barons’ men would hear him and know we were coming.
My men and I got caught in a trap and it was my fault. It happened because I decided to dismount my men, lead them to creep forward to the edge of the barons’ camp, and then push arrows at the men and horses in it. One of the sergeants who had brought his men into our camp yesterday said he had already been doing it with his men for several days and it worked very well.
I had heard him talking to the Lieutenant about it. His men, the sergeant claimed, were killing more of the enemy by dismounting so they could push their arrows out further and with more accuracy than was possible while sitting on a horse. The important thing, he said, was to have your men keep your horses close at hand so they could quickly remount them and escape. It sounded like a good idea so I decided to try it.
The next morning we rode from our camp for several hours until we came to a particularly dense forest to the east of the barons’ camp. There we dismounted and hobbled our horses in the trees so they would not stray and were not likely to be found unless someone knew exactly where to look for them. I thought we had be able to walk from where we hidden our horses all the way to the barons’ camp without being seen.
It had rained the night before and it took us what seemed like many hours to walk through the very wet and thick trees and undergrowth of the forest until we reached the barons’ camp. We were moving single file through the trees, and we were wet and cold when we first saw the barons’ tents and temporary shelters through the trees.
Everything started to go wrong almost immediately. Twenty paces or so from where we came out of the trees, a skinny young man wearing a ragged tunic was carrying an armful of grass to a couple of horses hobbled near one of the camp’s many tents and temporary shelters made of tree branches. Our movement as we began restringing our bows caught his eye and, not being a fool, he started shouting as he ran away towards safety in the middle of the barons’ camp.
Pushing an arrow into him so he could not sound the alarm should have been easy. But it was not. Our bowstrings had gotten wet and useless during our walk through the wet and muddy woods. We took our replacement strings out from under our caps and quickly restrung our bows; he was long gone by the time the fastest of my men could push an arrow at him. The alarm had been raised before we had killed so much as a single man or horse.
Sure eno
ugh, some of the barons’ men on horseback almost instantly galloped up and gathered at the edge of the barons’ camp. From the looks of them and the speed with which they arrived, it was probably some kind of a fast-response force the barons had put together to fight off attackers such as we—and some of them had crossbows.
We began pushing arrows at everyone we could see and they had an effect. There was chaos in the barons’ camp with horses and men going down left and right. But that did not stop the enemy counterattack. The horses and riders quickly came charging out of the camp to engage us.
It seemed like time was standing still and that it took the barons’ men a lot of time to get organized and charge towards us. In reality, they quickly formed up and charged us. Even so, we had each gone through the best part of a quiver, almost twenty arrows, by the time we ran back into the dense forest from which we had emerged.
Almost immediately our bowstrings once again became too wet to use. We stayed together and ran, slipping and sliding through the damp and muddy forest. Being on foot enabled us to move faster than the horsemen who tried to follow us. It was a tired and muddy, and very elated, band of outriders who slipped the hobbles off their horses and mounted them. Our spirits were high; we had once again wreaked havoc and damage on the enemy and escaped.
We cantered out of the trees into the sunlight to a sight that chilled my heart and caused the hair on my arms to prickle and stand on end—a large number of mounted knights and their squires and men at arms were waiting for us, and not a one of us had a usable string on our bows.
They instantly charged. My God. Where did they come from?
The Captain's Men Page 12