******
“Quick. Back into the trees. Dismount and lead your horses,” I shouted as I wheeled my horse around, dismounted, and strung my bow almost all in one motion. I, thank God, had carried a second spare bowstring.
Once again everything seemed to happening very slowly. I selected a “heavy” and pushed it at the thruster in the front of the horde of shouting and sword waving horsemen coming at us. It went low and missed him, but it took his horse in the chest and after a few steps it went down and sent him tumbling towards me. My next arrow took the man who had been riding next to him.
That was was all I could push at them before they reached me. I nocked another heavy as I abandoned my horse and darted off to my left to get deeper into the trees and the heavy brush and tangles that surrounded them—and began shouting to get the horsemen’s attention and pushed an arrow at them.
My next arrow missed but it, and the shout I gave as I pushed it out, worked in that it attracted them. Some of them crashed into the forest to pursue me. They did not get very far because the trees and brush of the forest were so thick, but neither did I because I tried to keep my bowstring from getting wet as I ran. I soon lost all sense of where I was located.
One of my pursuers got close to me almost immediately and there were others behind him. He had the visor up on his helmet so he could see, and was threading his horse through the trees towards me with his sword in his hand. Several other riders were immediately behind him. I could clearly see his red beard and yellow teeth because his mouth popped open when I pushed one of my heavies into his chest with a grunt and another shout.
My pursuer was bending down in the saddle to avoid a tree limb when my arrow hit him. He instinctively raised himself up and the tree limb swept him off his horse. The men right behind him were all shouting and screaming and crashing through the trees as I desperately scrambled away through the heavy forest as if the devil and his disciples were on my heels. And they were—I could hear them crashing through the forest behind me and shouting to each other.
I lost all sense of direction and slipped and fell repeatedly as I vaulted over fallen trees and stepped into deep patches of mud that tried to suck me down. I lost one of my sandals almost immediately and quickly dropped my bow so I could use both hands to push away the branches that grabbed at me and to help me get up when I fell. I had stopped thinking about leading them away from my men. Now all I could think about was getting away from the pain and death coming close behind me. Actually, I did not think at all; I just ran.
It may have been minutes before I stopped crashing through the thick forest and it may have been hours, I really do not know. My hands and feet were cut and bloody by the time I could not go another step and fell trembling to the ground. I was totally exhausted.
Perhaps I fell asleep. I have no idea. The next thing I knew is that I jerked awake when I suddenly heard myself give a loud snore that caused me to raise my head.
For a very brief instant I was confused and did not know where I was. That passed in an instant, and I raised my head and listened—there was nothing around me except the swarm of bitey bugs that formed a cloud over my face and arms. I was covered in mud, my tunic gown was ripped and torn beyond repair, and I had lost my horse and bow and the leather belt with the pouch attached to it that held my coins and food—but I was alive. Thank you, dear Jesus and all the saints in heaven.
I put my face down in the mud and rested for an instant, and then slowly and cautiously raised my head up again into the swarm of bugs to look all around me and listen to the forest. Nothing. I closed my eyes to keep the bugs out and slowly put my head back. I did not move quickly, and rightly so; I had been learnt over and over again in Bishop Thomas’s school that it is movement that attracts the eye and draws the attention that gets a soldier killed.
Finally, I could not stand the bugs any longer and decided to take a chance by opening my eyes again and slowly and silently sitting up. Still nothing; so I cautiously got to my feet. Suddenly I began itching everywhere and realized I had been cut and scratched and bitten all over my body. I wanted to move away from where I was sitting, but did I dare?
******
I finally decided to move. But which way should I go and how much time did I have before the sun went down? I had no idea. What I did know is that I had to move silently, and that meant slowly and carefully. To my surprise, I discovered I was still wearing one of my sandals. My sandal and my muddy and ragged tunic gown were all I had to my name. I suddenly realized I was desperately hungry and thirsty.
Slowly and carefully, and stopping frequently to listen, I worked my way through the dense forest without any idea of where I was going. For all I knew, I was going in circles. I heard not a sound except the buzzing of bugs, not even the chirp of a bird. Then there was the sharp crack of a tree branch breaking almost next to me.
I turned my head and found myself staring straight into the eyes of a deer not ten feet away. It was a female, at least I thought it was because it did not have horns. I was astonished that I had not seen it. A few seconds later it suddenly turned and began crashing through the forest undergrowth with great leaping bounds—and was joined by four others I also had not seen. I have got to be more careful.
Once again I began moving. And just before the sun went down I found what I was looking for—an open area where I could look for the sun and find out which way I would have to walk in the morning in order to go towards the east, away from the barons’ camp.
******
All night long I shivered and shook while either sitting with my back to a tree in the darkness or standing up to jiggle my arms and legs in a futile effort to get warm. I thought the night would never end, particularly when it started raining.
It stopped raining by the time morning arrived, and I began to be able to see more and more of the little glade in the forest. To my surprise, there were a number of deer moving about in it. All does without horns. I had never even heard them arrive. But now, at least, I knew which way I needed to walk; or perhaps limp, my bare foot hurts most fiercely every time I take a step.
No more than twenty steps later I realized there was a little stream running through the glade. I had suffered all night long from a great thirst and there had been water only a few steps away. The deer bounded out of sight as I hurriedly limped along the edge of the glade until I came to where the stream ran back into the trees, and drank my fill and then some. It was a great relief and I promptly decided to follow the stream since it seemed to be heading more or less in the direction I wanted to travel.
I walked all day through the thick woods and saw and heard no one. The only thing of importance, at least to me, was that my stomach suddenly began getting great pains and I repeatedly had to stop and shite, and even then my stomach did not stop hurting. Fortunately I was near the stream and could water my arse. I spent another wet and cold night shivering in the forest.
The next morning I once again began following the little stream as it moved towards the south and east. And once again it was slow going until my sore foot became so numb I barely felt it.
Everything changed about half way through the day. For the first time I reached a large open area of farmland. I dare not try to walk straight across it because there was no way I could run back into the woods in time to escape if an enemy on horseback saw me. There was nothing for me to do but stay close to the trees and walk all the way around the edge of the farmland until I could once again start walking south and east.
I saw them when I was about half way around the field. A file of mounted men came out of the trees heading south and east in the general direction of where I wanted to go.
What should I do?
****** Archer Alfred the wainwright
“Look. Over there next to the trees,” Ed suddenly shouted as he pulled up his horse next to mine and pointed. “Someone’s waving.”
“String your bow and go over there for a look, Ralph,” the sergeant told our chosen man
as he too pulled up his horse and held his hand up to his eyes in an effort to see better.
“Take Alfred and Eddie with you. But do not take any chances by getting too close to the trees. We will wait here and cover you if you have to run for it.”
We strung our bows and began ambling our horses towards the frantically waving man. Suddenly he began staggering towards us and calling out.
“I think he is wearing an archer’s tunic.” Ralph said over the familiar pounding sound of our horses’ hooves hitting the ground.
“By God; I think you are right,” Eddie called back. “Yes; he is.” ... “Do you know him?”
“Eddie, ride back and tell the sergeant we may have found one of our own and he looks to be wounded.”
Ralph and I kicked our horses in the ribs and began galloping towards the staggering man as he fell and tried to get up; meanwhile, Eddie had wheeled his horse and galloped back to the rest of the party waving his arm in a great circle over his head to summon them. They had seen Eddie turn back and were already moving towards us even before we reached the man who was still waving one of his arms in the air and struggling to stand.
He was definitely wearing an archer’s tunic gown and, even though it was torn and muddy, we could see it had three stripes. The man himself was in no better shape. He was caked with mud from head to toe, wearing only one sandal, and covered with scratches and the big red welts of bug bites.
“Who are you?” I shouted as I dismounted and handed my reins to Ralph so my horse would not bolt.
****** Richard
I tried to run out into the field when they got close enough to see that they were, indeed, some of our archers. For some reason I was terribly afraid behind my eyes that they would turn and ride away. But they did not.
“I am Richard, the Lieutenant’s apprentice sergeant, his clark,” I croaked as I tried to stand up and one of the riders dismounted. I was crying and laughing at the same time. “It is me, Richard; I am Richard.”
A man who had dismounted and was trying to help me stand up was surprised and said as much.
“It is Richard, who used to be the Lieutenant’s apprentice, Ralph; the young’un who sergeants the outriders.”
The man who dismounted said this to the horseman with surprise in his voice. Behind them I could see the rest of the party galloping up. For some reason, I noticed that they all had their bows strung.
“They said you were dead; said you saved them, did not they?” the archer said to me with wonderment and approval in his voice as he held me up and the other archers began returning their arrows to their quivers and dismounting all around us.
Dead? “I am not dead,” I insisted as I swayed and would have fallen if someone had not caught me and held me up. My right foot which had been so numb suddenly began to hurt most painful.
“Food? Do you have any food?” I gasped as I tried to stand on one leg and hold my hurting foot off the ground.
******
They found a piece of bread for me from someone's pouch and helped me onto the horse of the dismounted archer. His name, he told me, was Alfred, and he used to be a wainwright's apprentice before he ran away and joined the archers. I vaguely recognized him from camp but did not know him at all.
Alfred mounted behind me to hold me in the saddle. I was able to get my left foot into Alfred’s stirrup even though it was too short, but my right foot hurt so much when I tried to put it in the other stirrup that I just let my leg dangle. It was a painful ride to our new camp. Fortunately, it did not take as long as I had expected; we had moved closer to Okehampton and the barons’ army since I had led my outriders on our ill-fated raid.
Our arrival was quite pleasing. I did not see him go, but one of the men must have ridden on ahead to tell the Lieutenant they were bringing me in, and that I would need a clean tunic gown, and maybe a bleeding to help me recover if a barber was available.
There was much shouting and men coming to gather around us as we rode into camp. The Lieutenant himself came to greet me and help me climb down off Alfred’s horse, and steadied me when I failed to stand on one leg and started to fall to the ground. And, of all people, my old school chum, George, Captain William’s son, was there with his outriders beaming their approval. The last I had heard of George, he was off with his outriders to watch the London road. He must have come in while I was away.
My own outriders, the ones I had taken over sergeanting when John fell, all came rushing up with big smiles on their faces. I found myself counting them and coming up short. Several were missing.
“Who did not make it?” I croaked.
Chapter Eighteen
The Barons march.
The air was heavy with anger and disbelief as the barons gathered in the camp they had established where the cart path to Okehampton turns off from the road to Exeter. Many of their foraging parties had not returned and some of those that had returned had come back with dead and wounded men instead of sheep to slaughter and sacks of corn. It was not at all what the barons had been led to believe would happen, and they were not happy about it.
“First our baggage train is heavily damaged, and now the replacement supplies you promised to provide us from your villages are slow in arriving.”
The white-bearded lord glared at the Earl of Devon as he said it and pounded his fist on the wooden plank that had been taken from the side of a wain and set up in the tent as a table. His nephew was one of the seriously wounded.
“We have not even gotten to Cornwall and already we are suffering heavy losses. Some of my best men have already been killed and wounded and I lost two more yesterday when they went out to cut grass for our horses. My men know they will soon be running out of bread. They will soon be hungry and start deserting if we do not do something.”
“Do not blame me for the attack on your baggage train. I am not responsible for your failing to guard it properly,” the red-faced Earl of Devon retorted. He was not used to someone shouting at him.
“Besides, you were able to quickly retake your baggage wains, were not you?” the earl added.
“Yes,” came the angry answer, “but only after we lost almost all of our draught horses and much of our corn supplies were scattered on the ground. We had to use some of our riding horses to pull the wains, for God’s sake. And then those peasant bastards followed us all the way back here and picked off some of our men with their arrows. You told us Devon was peaceful and Cornwall was weak.”
He glared at the Earl and slapped the table as he made his accusations. Devon did not back off.
“Well, I admit I did not expect them to come out of Cornwall. But it just shows how weak they are—they have no knights to fight us so they have to sneak around and ambush us with their arrows. That was why I have begun sending much stronger parties out to my villages including men with crossbows.
“Besides, their being here in Devon instead of waiting for us in Cornwall should make things easier. They cannot be in two places at once, can they? If they are scattered about in small bands around here, we will be able to walk in and take Cornwall without even having to fight a real battle—though I admit they will probably have the relics hidden somewhere, probably at Restormel, that we will have to take with a siege. On the other hand, without knights to stiffen them and lead them, they may just surrender to save themselves.” Not that it will save them.
The possibility that they would lose never entered the barons’ minds; they were angry at being inconvenienced by commoners who did not fight fair.
******
It was not until a few days later that the full impact of the horse archers was finally understood by the barons. They now knew that many of the foraging parties which had not yet returned, would never return.
They themselves were alive and still did not fully realize what their men were facing because it would have been beneath their dignity to go out foraging or cutting grass. And they were, at least so far, well fed and, truth be told, so were their men—because of the
supplies that had been salvaged from their baggage train and the corn and sheep some of their foragers had been able to bring in despite the constant attacks by Cornwall’s archers.
Almost all of the barons had experienced fighting in France and knew it was likely that Cornwall would be stripped of food by the time their army arrived. That was why they had intended to carry enough food into Cornwall to last the entire fighting season.
The loss of much of their baggage train had been an unpleasant surprise. It resulted in the Earl of Devon quickly offering to make up their losses with the food reserves of his own villagers. Of course he did; he stood to gain more than the others if they got the relics—he would get Cornwall and the lands of Okehampton in addition to the restoration of his baronial powers. Now, however, it increasingly looked as though he would not be able to make up the shortfall in food. It was all the fault of the archers of Cornwall.
But all was not lost for the barons despite the large knight-led parties not being able to bring in enough corn and livestock to support a prolonged campaign. Those of the foragers and grass cutters who did return reported that they had fought fiercely and had inflicted great casualties on the archers even when they were unable to bring in any food. This encouraged the barons.
“We would not need so much corn and mutton, do not you see?” said one of Devon’s supporters from amongst the rebel lords.
“Now we can defeat them quickly because we have already hurt them badly in the fights with our foragers and grass cutting parties. Skirmishing with our foragers is one thing, fighting us in real battles is another; those villagers will melt away like butter in the sun when they face a proper army. One charge and the war will be over.”
Some of the barons were not so sure; not all of their men had returned claiming to have killed large numbers of the archers who had bloodied them and all too often sent them back empty-handed. In the end, however, they too agreed with the new plan—to march on to Cornwall two days later with the supplies of food they had in hand. The agreed because they knew that an army without armoured nobles and knights to raise their banners and lead it into battle could not win a war. Never had; never would. The conquest of Cornwall would be over quickly. Then they would settle into sieges until the relics were surrendered.
The Captain's Men Page 13