by H A CULLEY
We came across the Danes as they made their way along the bank of a tributary of the Temes. No doubt they were hoping to avoid us and sack Taceham. The river wasn’t very wide but the winter rains and melted snow had swelled it until it was too deep to wade across.
Ethelwulf sent me with my warband and another score of archers to attack the enemy’s left flank and to prevent them from retreating whence they had come. Meanwhile he formed his men into a shield wall whose own left flank curled around to meet the river. The Danes were now surrounded on three sides with the river on the fourth.
The enemy were flying two banners, one of which Erik identified as that of Jarl Sitric, the ruler of Jutland where my family had come from several centuries before. The other banner was probably that of a less important jarl.
It was a fine day, if somewhat chilly. The air was crystal clear and there was a breeze blowing from the east which would assist the flight of our arrows. Once we were in position we commenced firing volleys at the Danish flank. At first we caused severe casualties because we were firing into their unprotected side. As soon as they realised, they swung a hundred men around to face us so that they could use their shields to protect that flank. Of course, it that also weakened the line facing our own shield wall.
We changed our target and now aimed high to hit the warriors in the rear ranks of both those facing Ethelwulf’s men and those in front of us. With a roar the men facing us broke ranks and charged towards us. Perhaps a hundred and fifty yards separated us. We sent one final volley straight at them, bringing down perhaps a dozen more before we threw our bows aside and picked up our shields, spears and axes or drew our swords.
I had forty men and a few boys but the Danes charging us no longer numbered a hundred. We had killed or wounded half of them and now they charged us as an undisciplined rabble, which gave us an advantage.
I stood in the centre between Cei and Erik, our shields overlapping. The first man to reach me was a big bearded warrior wielding a two handed axe. He screamed and raised it high. Had it landed, it would have probably cut my head in two. It didn’t. I thrust at his eyes under the rim of his helmet whilst Erik on my right thrust his spear under his armpit and into his chest.
The big man fell, dragging Erik’s spear out of his hands. For a moment he was left defenceless just as another Dane thrust his sword towards the gap between the bottom of his helmet and the rim of his shield. I knocked the blade up so that it scored along the side of Erik’s helmet, doing little real damage. A second later Erik had managed to draw his seax and he chopped it down into the man’s shoulder, sundering the links of his byrnie and breaking his collar bone. The man screamed in agony and Ulf, to Erik’s left, finished him off with a thrust of his sword into his throat.
‘Drop the seax; it hasn’t got enough of a reach. Draw your sword,’ I shouted at Erik as another warrior headed my way.
This one was easier to dispatch. He tripped over the corpse of my previous assailant and I thrust my sword down into the back of his neck. Then, all of a sudden, the pressure eased. The Danes had prised apart the join between my shield wall and the right flank of Ethelwulf’s men. The rest of them fled through the gap, discarding helmets, shields and weapons in their haste to escape. The Danes had been routed.
Ethelwulf killed the wounded and a subsequent count of the dead revealed that there were over two hundred bodies. Scores more had been forced into the river and had to been swept away to be drowned, hopefully.
Of course, we had casualties of our own. I bitterly mourned the deaths of Jerrick, Swiðhun and especially young Hunulf. The fool had ignored my instructions that he should remain in the rear rank and he had stepped forward twice to replace a man who’d been killed or wounded. We were a sombre bunch on the way back to Silcestre, carrying our dead with us. That evening, whilst everyone else was celebrating Ealdorman Ethelwulf’s great victory, we sat morosely remembering our three friends.
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We had only just buried them when King Æthelred and his brother Ælfred arrived with the main army of Wessex. Word of Ethelwulf’s triumph had reached him in Wintanceaster and he’d come north to finish the task, as he put it. Only it didn’t prove to be as simple as that. After Inglefelle we estimated that the Danes numbered no more than thirteen hundred men. There was a rumour that Ubba had returned to Lundewic with his men; if true, he now occupied the most important settlement in Mercia. Whether that was true or not didn’t matter. As Æthelred had brought over two thousand to add to our four hundred and fifty, we now outnumbered the enemy by two to one.
The Danes had abandoned their camp outside the settlement and taken refuge within Readingum. Our only option was to flush them out so we entered the place in four columns. At first the place seemed deserted then our column was attacked from the side streets and the alleys. Before we could react the attackers had retreated into the maze of back streets. Then rocks were hurled down at us from roof tops. I managed to kill one of our attackers with an arrow but we had suffered a dozen dead in return and the fyrd were getting jittery. Eventually Ethelwulf, who led our column decided to retreat but, when we tried to do so we found the way out was blocked by a barricade.
We charged it only to find it was manned by axemen who chopped our men down with ease as they tried to scale it. When I saw Ethelwulf fall with his helmet and skull crushed I decided the time had come to get out anyway we could. Yelling for everyone to follow me I ducked into a narrow alley.
Of course it could have been a dead end but luck was with me and eventually we emerged into the barren fields that surrounded the settlement. We made our way to the nearest wood and treated our wounded as best we could. I sent some of my men to the edge of the trees to watch for any pursuing Danes but, thankfully, none chased us. Out of the six hundred men Ethelwulf had led into Readingum, less than five hundred made it to safety, and of those fifty were wounded.
It had been a disaster but the other columns had suffered even worse. Thankfully both the king and Ælfred had survived and we retreated to Silcestre. The next day we abandoned it, much to my sorrow, and retreated to Æscesdūn where we encountered the fyrd of Dorcesterscir led by Bishop Heahmund. Not only did that restore our numbers to well over two thousand but it was a great boost to morale.
The night after we arrived the Danes camped in the nearby old Iron Age hillfort and we spent a miserable night without hot food. That night the rain lashed down and we were soaked to the skin. On the morning of the eighth of January we took up a position astride the ridge below the hill fort. Unsuprisingly, the men were grumbling about being cold, wet and miserable. To make matters worse, the ground was sodden and even boggy in places and damp bowstrings meant that our arrows would lack any power.
We formed up with Æthelred commanding one half of the army and Ælfred the other. The dividing line was the ancient track known as the ridgeway, which ran down the spine of the ridge. Bishop Heahmund was with the king and proceeded to celebrate mass before the coming battle. That put the men in better heart, especially when the saw the advancing Danes slipping and sliding on the wet ground. Much to my amazement King Æthelred ignored the oncoming Danes; he proceeded to pray on his knees whilst Heahmund carried on with his service.
By the time the Danes reached Ælfred’s wing the enemy were exhausted and their charge lacked any vigour. The two shield walls clashed and gradually we managed to push the foe back along the ridge. As we slowly advanced men fell on both sides but we had the greater numbers and they lost more than we did. Eventually they broke and ran. We were too exhausted to give chase and watched them go. Then I remembered the other wing of our army and I clambered up to the top of the ridge.
The king’s division were still locked in a furious battle with the rest of the Danes and so I ran, slipping and sliding, to where Ælfred stood. I explained the situation, panting with exhaustion as I did so and Ælfred immediately yelled for his men to form up in wedge formation. Five minutes later we crested the ridge and charged down into the en
emy’s left flank. That was enough to decide the battle. I managed to hack down one man before the Danes were routed and fled.
Æscesdūn was regarded as a great triumph, but the truth is we lost as many men as the Danes did; it was only a victory because we were left in possession of the battlefield and, perhaps more importantly, one of the enemy dead was Jarl Brynjar.
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We needed to regroup and raise more men. I was thankful that my small warband hadn’t lost more than we had. Two of the scouts who had joined me from Edmund of Bebbanburg’s household had been killed and I regretted not getting to know them better. Two more were wounded but would recover in time, with any luck. They were Cináed the Pict, who had a shoulder wound, and Ulf. He’d suffered a stomach wound which eventually killed him. That left me with a warband of fifteen, six of whom were the boys we had rescued the previous year.
I missed Ulf the most, but not as much as Erik did. He was now the last of the three Danes. Fifteen of my ceorls from Silcestre and Basingestoches had also been killed or badly wounded and I was left with a fyrd of eighty men and boys over the age of fourteen. I felt depressed and, on top of everything, I was worried about Leofflæd. I hated being parted from her in these unsettled times.
The next day, whilst the army was collecting our dead for burial, I sent Erik, Cei and Ædwulf to shadow the heathen army and see what they were up to.
Erik and the others came back just before dusk with disheartening news. There were a dozen new longships at Readingum. They must have been rowed up the Temes all the way from the sea. No doubt these were new arrivals attracted to England by tales of plunder back in their homeland. It meant that the Danes had now replenished their losses and were as strong as ever.
Once the king and Ælfred learned of the enemy reinforcements they decided to withdraw further into Wessex and to send to shires that hadn’t yet provided a contingent for reinforcements. The place they chose for our encampment was Basinges, barely two miles from my vill of Basingestoches.
I took the opportunity to ride over to Basingestoches with Ecgberht and his three boys as escort to find out how my wife and the children were. Leofflæd was in a bad mood when I arrived, which I put down to being confined to the hall. Much to my alarm, she announced that she was going to join me. However, her brother and I eventually persuaded her that care of the children was more important and I asked Ecgberht to take them, and everyone left in the vill, to Wintanceaster for safety.
I made a fuss of the baby, who we had decided to name Æscwin after my eldest brother, and played with little Cuthfleda until it was time for her to go to bed. Perhaps I should have sent them away immediately. I was worried that the Danes might arrive in the area but I wanted one last night with Leofflæd. Who knew when we would be able to make love again, if ever?
Normally our sex was passionate and exhausting; however, that night it was gentle and tender. The next morning I said goodbye to her, and to our three children, with a heavy heart. I watched them until they were out of sight and then returned to the settlement to carry out one other task; I buried the coffer containing all our wealth in the pigsty. Hopefully, if the Danes ransacked the place, they wouldn’t find it there.
When I returned to Basinges I found out that the nobles and fyrd of Suth-Seaxe had arrived to swell our numbers. They were just in time. On the twenty first of January one of my patrols returned to say that the Great Heathen Army was camped five miles away.
The hall, the timber church and some of the huts at Basinges were located in a fort that dated back to a time before the Romans came. It was a simple circular structure with one entrance up a ramp. Beyond it there was a square of flat ground on which several more huts had been built which was bordered by a steep earthen rampart. It was a perfect defensive position which the king had improved by tearing down the huts and using the timber to improve the ramparts.
I was given command of the circular part of the fort, which was manned by my scouts, all the hunters who possessed a bow and the newly arrived men from Suth-Seaxe – the least experienced part of the Wessex fyrd. To my surprise and delight Æthelred made me Ealdorman of Berrocscir to replace the dead Ethelwulf. It also meant that I wouldn’t be junior in status to my fellow ealdorman of Suth-Seaxe. Inevitably he was a great deal older than me. At the time I was nineteen but I had much greater experience of warfare than my fellow ealdorman, something which he thankfully acknowledged with good grace.
The rest of the army was drawn up at the top of the ramparts between my men and the advancing Danes. Our plan was to use the archers to rain arrows down on the heathens at high trajectory until the Danes succeeded in forcing our men manning the ramparts to retreat. They would then fall back and form up on the level ground either side of the central part of the fort. With the centre secured, we hoped that the two wings could hold the Danes until such time as they were exhausted and forced to retreat. That was the plan but, as so often happens in war, it didn’t quite work out like that.
The Danes suffered significant losses, both from my bowmen and from those defending the outer ramparts, but their determination eventually drove Æthelred’s wing back. When the king was wounded his wing lost heart and they fled, leaving Ælfred’s wing and my centre to face the combined weight of the heathen army.
The king’s gesith conducted a fighting withdrawal, defending the wounded Æthelred until they were safe inside the centre area of the fort.
Several of the monks with the army rushed over to tend to the king. He had been wounded in the thigh and an artery had been nicked. Consequently he was losing a lot of blood. One of the monks applied a tourniquet whilst another cleansed the wound with wine and sewed it up. They applied a poultice of moss and honey and then bound it up. The bleeding had been stopped but the greatest risk was one of infection.
My instinct had been to rush over and see how Æthelred was, but my duty was to organise the defence of the fort. My archers sent arrow after arrow into the packed ranks of the enemy. Many were killed or wounded but they reached the bottom of the ramparts and started to climb them regardless.
I left my fellow ealdorman in charge of our reserve of a hundred men and asked him to use his judgement to bolster any point where it looked as if the enemy were about to break through. I glanced around me. The weakest point looked as if it was where the ramp entered the fort. Although we had built a palisade there with a gate out of wood taken from the huts, it wasn’t anywhere near as stout as I would have liked and the Danes were chopping at the gate with their axes.
I called my warband to me and we ran to the ramparts either side of the palisade. Whilst the boys held shields to protect us from thrown spears, stones, hand axes and the odd arrow, the rest of us shot arrow after arrow into the throng clustered around the top of the ramp. It was with some dismay that I realised that my quiver was empty and the other archers were down to their last few arrows as well.
However, God answered my prayers and the Danes suddenly withdrew. All along the ramparts they started to fall back, leaving behind a pile of dead and seriously wounded. The greatest number were piled in front of our makeshift gate and I felt that the burning sensation in my aching arms, caused by firing so many arrows in quick succession, had been well worth it.
Halfdan himself strode forward from the ranks of the enemy and shouted up to us, asking in poor English for a truce whilst they recovered their dead and wounded. I strode to the top of the rampart above the area where Ælfred’s men had been fighting and called down, asking for the ӕtheling’s instructions.
‘It’s barely two hours before dusk; allow a truce until nightfall,’ he called back. ‘We’ll take our own dead and wounded to the rear as well. Then we’ll fall back under cover of darkness.’
That night we withdrew, allowing the Danes to claim a victory as they’d been left in possession of the old fort. However, the truth was that many had died on both sides, but they had lost at least a hundred more than we had.
Chapter Fourteen
Spring 871
We took our dead and wounded to Wintanceaster; the former for Christian burial and the latter for treatment. I enjoyed a tearful reunion with Leofflæd and made a fuss of the children. She had rented a small hut but, as the Ealdorman of Berrocscir , I was invited to move into the king’s hall, where we were allocated a small chamber. It wasn’t as large as the hut we’d vacated but we ate in the main hall and we felt honoured to be guests of the king.
Æthelred’s wound was taking a long time to heal and so, for the meantime, Ælfred took over the running of the kingdom. The heathen army had retreated to Readingum to lick their wounds and, as it turned out, to wait for reinforcements. As we learned later, they had come in the shape of Ubba and the men who had left to occupy Ludenwic.
The nobles and fyrds of Dyfneintscir and Sūþrīgedcir arrived to bolster our own numbers and we concentrated on training the new men to fight in a shield wall. Then on the tenth of March a patrol of my scouts came in to report that the Danes were on the move. This time they were heading straight for Wintanceaster and estimates of their numbers varied from two and a half to three thousand men. We had three thousand men fit to fight, so they had an advantage as eight hundred of ours were, as yet, unbloodied.
March had been a wet month and the roads were mired in mud, except for those stretches of the Roman roads which were paved. It took three days for the enemy to reach us and by that time everyone was inside the walls. The place was crammed with people and food would become a problem if the enemy besieged us for any length of time. A direct assault was less of a threat. The Danes had no siege engines and the walls were high. Using scaling ladders was unlikely as it would be expensive for them in terms of casualties.