The Bow

by Bill Sharrock

  THE BOW

  by Bill Sharrock

  Copyright © 2009 Bill Sharrock. All Rights Reserved.

  Table of Contents

  Chiswick 13993

  Agincourt October 25th 14155

  Homeward44

  Harfleur January 141651

  Valmont67

  The Dunes89

  Peace and Home104

  Landfall and the Road Home179

  Chiswick Fields199

  Chiswick 1399

  He found it where it had been left. Dropped. Abandoned. Cast away. Lying among the reeds by the village stream, just where the dark green waters turn and wind away into Turnham Woods.

  It was a bowstave. How long it had been lying there he could not tell, but it must have had some hidden flaw, because as he lifted it up, and turned it over in his hands he could see that it was barely finished. And neither end was nocked or set with horn tips.

  He grinned at his find, and held it against the sun, and brushed the dirt from the rough yew grain. It was a boy’s bow. A bow for a boy such as him. It was four feet long, no more, with a narrow-fist grip, and scarcely a curve, where it had been cut from the branch and tested in the tiller. And it was his.

  Someone called, and he turned and looked to see who it was. Across the meadow, in the dying light of the winter’s day, he saw a tall, angular figure striding towards him. He knew that stride. ‘Simon,’ he said to himself, and waved in reply.

  Simon came up to him, and flung down the knapsack he was carrying. ‘Well met, little James,’ he said, rubbing the black stubble on his chin, ‘And what’s my brother been up to today?’

  ‘See here!’ replied James, holding up the bow. ‘I found it.’

  ‘Ah did you indeed,’ said Simon, and smiled as he took the bow and looked at it. ‘Strange! Good Spanish yew. So well made, and yet made for a whelp, and not for a real bowman.’

  James didn’t reply, but snatched it back, and hugged it to his chest. Then he began to walk away, turning as he reached the headland of the south field: ‘Well, it’s mine!’ he said. ‘And I shall shoot with it. You see if I don’t! I will. I’ll shoot with it!’

  Simon laughed: ‘All right, little brother. Have your own way then. Go shoot with your bow. Bend your back to that little morsel. But, you’d better pray that it grows up with you, because within a twelve month, it’ll be less use to you than a dried bullrush.’

  James shook his head, and hugged the bow even more. ‘It’s mine!’ he said. ‘I’ll get Samkin Petersfield to teach me how to use it. You wait and see!’ He waved, and trotted off across the field.

  It was the year of Our Lord 1399.

  Agincourt October 25th 1415

  The low sound of an army shuffling into position crept across the muddy meadow, and moving shadows appeared in dense clusters from out of the mist that hung about the scattered lines of trees. James Fletcher ran his hand along the bow and stared towards the French. So here they are! The dragons of his dreams. All of France. The chevaliers of sword and shield, the masters of the lance. Glittering in the mist. Cap a pieds in plate and mail, astride their great warhorses or jostling forward on foot.

  They were four hundred paces away, growing huge in the sullen light of dawn, but still no threat to his practised eye. He swallowed hard, rubbed his chin, then pushing back the leather cap that scarcely crowned his head, he took a bow string of waxed linen, fixed it at the lower horn tip then held it to the other end of the bow. Bearing down, with a smooth twisting movement, one foot braced against bow where it rested on the turf, he bent the polished grain of yew until he could slip on the string.

  ‘Twas done. He straightened up, eased his back, and checked the draw strain of the bow. That done, he took four shafts from his belt – three bodkin, one cloutheaded – and thrust them head deep in a semi-circle in front of him.

  His guts hurt, he was soaked through, hungry, tired and trembling with a slight fever, but – he shrugged – no matter, since over half the four thousand wretches that stood either side and all around him shared just the same condition. Some had the dysentery so bad, they stood with breeches down to give the colic free run. Most had the look of scarecrows, leaning on bowstaves, and spear shafts, threadbare cloaks and tunics hanging in limp tatters, and dripping in the muddy ooze.

  There was a clatter at his back, and someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned. A baggage boy had cast a bundle of war arrows behind him, and slashed the leather straps that held them, before scampering on to the next group of archers.

  Good! He chose half a dozen shafts, checked the fletchings, and drove them in around the other arrows. These would be his first flights. After that . . .

  The breath rose from his cracked lips in grey-white clouds. This was it then. All those months on the reeking roads between Calais, Harfleur and Blanchetaque. All those freezing nights sleeping in ditches, or standing to at the sound of hobelaars. And for what? For nothing but the silly chance of fighting their way out of this rat trap valley they call the Somme. No booty, no glory, just an aimless shambling back and forth along a river bank, looking for a way of escape. They were indentured men, signed for a year’s service ‘in our duchy of Guyenne, or in our realm of France’, bearing in their wallets writs sealed by the lords of England. And all because of King Harry. God bless him! So here they were, beyond the bridge at Blangy, and there the great host of France awaiting them on the plateau above the river.

  James smiled, and sharpened his eyes against the French lines. If the sun broke through it would be low and smack in their eyes: one advantage at least. Well, there was nothing for it now. Our Harry had said as much, and Harry was a king who knew what was what. This very morning he had steeled their souls with a call to arms that reminded them of what and who they were fighting for: England and their homes and families. As they listened to him, seated astride his charger, his back to the enemy, their weariness and sickness of spirit seemed to melt away. He spoke as a king who understood his people, and a man who called his soldiers friends and brothers. He was young and brave, with piercing blue eyes and a strong, easy voice. James felt he could follow such a man to Hell itself. How he had cheered, when young Henry breathless with his speech took hold of a banner and shook it above his head: ‘For he today, who sheds his blood with me shall be my brother’ – or somesuch. And then he had paused: ‘Remember, lads’, he said, ‘Yon noblemen of France have promised to take the string fingers of every archer when they have beaten us this day. But you will have the glory of them, I doubt not, as your forefathers and mine had in these same fields those many years ago.’

  The archers shrugged and smiled, the men-at-arms cheered, and Henry wheeled away accompanied by Lord Camoys, John Cheney, his body- squire, and the Duke of York.

  There was no doubt, this Henry had plenty of the madcap about him, and was a bit too religious for James’ liking, but he knew how to fight, and he knew the men he fought for. There was a difference. Not like to be seen in his father, or the sulking Richard who came before him. This king was flesh and blood. He marched beside his men. Got off his horse and walked. Like a Welsh spearman. And swapped jokes with the best of them. No wonder he chose Davy Gamm as his right hand man. Davy! More ploughman than prince. A hard-talking Welsh longbowman from the borders: Dafydd ap Llewellyn. That was his real name. But all the archers, mounted or on foot, knew him as Davy Gamm.

  Davy had scouted for the king this very morning. That’s what young Thomas Strickland, who bore the banner of St George, had said and he should know. The king sent Davy out once the armies were mustered to see the strength of the French Host. And what had he come back with?

  ‘Enough to be slain, enough to be ta’en, and enough to be chivvied away!’

  That’s what he said. So said t
he banner bearer, who smiled and spat, and bit his lip, and said: ‘Must means there’s three ten thousands of the blighters at least!’

  A trumpet sounded. Lean and harsh against the morning. It was French. A herald’s call, a call to arms on Crispin’s Day. St Crispin’s Day! James shook his head. No day to fight. No Englishman should be fighting during the last days of October. Better off ploughing the fields for the Autumn sowing, or hunting rabbits down in the high grass meadow. Back home.

  That’s where he should be. Right now. Just as if he were a young lad again, and all his poor, brave life stretched before him, and there was time yet to avoid the bloody fields of France.

  He had lost mates. Good mates. Too many good mates lost. Some butchered by roving cavalry, some ambushed while foraging, but most just choking up their guts in the trenches of Harfleur, or along the Somme Valley roads. Lost his horse too. Stumbled and fell and broke its leg outside the village of Harbonnnieres. Within moments it had been slaughtered, gutted and cut up by the king’s provenders. Meat was short. So too was mercy. It was on that same day that King Harry had an archer hung for stealing a pyx of copper from a church. Swung him from a tree in front of the whole army. No one laughed. No one cheered. It was a warning, no more.

  From somewhere down the line, near where the three-crescent standard of Sir Robert Babthorp hung limp against the morning mist, a master bowman called. Others replied, some with shouts, some with whistles and not a few with grunts. They stirred their men into little wedge formations, wooden stakes driven in all along the line, where the land sloped away from Maisoncelles just as the king had commanded. It was a waiting game. There were three ‘battles’ of heavily armed English knights: one on their left, one in the centre, (James could see the king’s banner there), and one on the right. They stood and waited in the cold and wet, while the French shuffled about. Again and again, James tested his bow. It drew one-fifty pounds. He sighed. There were some bowmen who could draw one-sixty, and it was common enough to find a man from Cheshire or Somerset who claimed a better stripe than that. It was said that Mark the Hayward from Evesham carried a bow that took one-eighty pounds of draw weight, though he was a bull of a man, and admitted in his kindly way that he could only loose eight shafts a minute when he held such a stave, instead of the usual twelve.

  With the French still hesitating, James looked along the grain of his bow, and held it against his cheek, just as he had always done before a shoot. One-fifty pounds: enough to give a Frenchman a smack and split his plate at eighty yards. With the right arrow, and a breeze at his back. Pray God the yew grain held today: the bow was older than it should be, and perhaps he should have discarded it after Blanchtaque. But there was no sign of cracking – he kept it well oiled – and good bowstaves were hard to find along the line of march.

  He looked up. The sun had risen beyond the trees, though still shrouded in the clearing sky. When would they come? Why did they hesitate? Every French noble and his retinue must be in that heaving mass. The men either side of him began to mutter what he was thinking. One or two sat down, and were cuffed to their feet by sergeants.

  Loosening his shoulders, James leant forward, drew a war arrow from the turf and looked along its length. A king’s arrow. Not bad. Not the best, but not bad. A birchwood shaft. Well, that would do, though blackthorn or poplar would be better. Grey goose feathers for the fletching of course, and broad-barbed iron for the tips: heavy enough, and true enough to smash through mail and brigandine anywhere in the killing zone. Still, he frowned, these barbs were useless against plate armour unless the cavalry was almost down your throat. Today it was the bodkins that would have to break up the charge of these French aristocrats, and James was not sure that he had enough of them.

  Nevertheless, he had a clout-headed arrow or two, and they could pack a punch. It was, as James’ father used to say, like firing a blacksmith’s hammer when the range was long, and like an anvil when it was short.

  Hit a coated knight almost anywhere with a clout-head and he would go down. Down but not out, and fit for ransom if the chance came, and King Harry allowed.

  'They’re on the move again!’ An old bowman next to him cursed, and spat evil coloured bile at his feet. James looked up. The French surged out of the mist, then paused. The clink and clatter of their harness sounded dully across the bellied field. Above their lines the banners of Orleans, d’Eu, d’Alencon, Vaudemont, Bretagne, de Nevers and the House of Bar crowded together in a blaze of colour: silver roses and golden lilies, black lions and red eagles, on fields of blue and white and semi-de lis.

  'Sweet Mary,’ muttered a Flintshire farmer. ‘They’re all here.’

  ‘Aye,’ laughed a stocky little Welsh man-at arms, ‘And like to choke themselves on that lot! Look at those flags. No wonder they don’t come on at us. The poor beggars can’t see, let alone move.’

  Indeed, as James watched, he saw some of the banners furled and carried to the rear. Shortly afterwards, the sprawling ranks opened, and four horsemen, one bearing a banner of fleurs de lys trotted forward, then spurred heavily across the field. The foremost was a herald, tabarded with the arms of France, all in blue and gold, and wearing a velvet bonnet, instead of a visored helmet or bascinet.

  ‘That ‘uns ripe for a clever shot,’ said a raw Lancashire voice from somewhere along the line. ‘I could pick him with a swallow-tail right through the gizzard, and knock his wee head clean off. It’s sure I could.’

  ‘Do that chum, and ‘Arry ‘ll have your hide nailed to a church door before you can blink.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘Am I right?’

  ‘Aye, captain, right enough, but how long till we can let fly at these piss-pots? It’ll be the forenoon hour soon.’

  James stepped back a pace, so that he could see the captain. He was tall and strong, with a jet black beard, closely trimmed about his jaw and chin. He wore a mail coif and arming cap, as well as a brigandine of quilted leather, polished to a deep reddish-brown. His bowstave rested easily over his shoulder, and a finely scabbarded sword hung at his hip.

  ‘You’ll wait your turn like everyone else’, he replied to the Lancashire bowman. ‘But we will fight, don’t ye worry about that! Here, today. In this place. Otherwise, there’s none of us here like to see England’s shores again, and all of us most like to drop down dead for weariness and fever.’

  After that, no one said anything for a while. Slowly the herald and his escort neared the English lines, heading for the centre battle. At last, he slithered to a halt, not twenty paces from the royal banner. Someone called out that they could see the coat of arms of Jacques de Crequy among the escort: the famous knight who had broken parole and fled from Wisbech castle to make good his escape to France.

  Three English knights trudged out to meet the herald. One of them was Sir John Holland, the hero of Harfleur, bearing on his shield and coat the three lions of England. Sir Thomas Strickland, banner bearer of St George, was the second knight, his three scallops argent just visible against the murk. And even from that distance James could see that the last of them wore a golden circlet on his helmet, and his surcoat was quartered in blue and red and gold. It was the king. He had sent his horse to the rear, and would face the herald on foot.

  'More talk,’ said a sergeant wearily.

  ‘Aye!’ replied the little Welsh spearman. ‘It’s the mud, ye see. Frenchie knows ‘e’s got us trapped, but he doesn’t fancy coming at us across all that mud. Sticky it is. Rare sticky, and just right to suck old Frenchie down to his knee-cops.’

  You think so, Taffy?’

  'I know so, sergeant. Mind you now, our good King Henry is spoiling for a scrap. He knows this is just the place to have it. Only, it’s just too good a place, look you. Too narrow, too wet, too muddy. Frenchie won’t have it. He’ll wait till it’s good and dry.’

  'Hah! That could take hours. Days!’

  The Welshman smiled, and planted the butt of his spear in the mud.

  ‘Wh
ich is what we don’t have, boyo!’

  With a shake of the head, the sergeant looked up at the sky. ‘Could rain again before long. I’ll be blowed if I stand here all day, up to me ankles in this stinking mud, and freezing my tail off.’

  And so they waited while the Herald of France and the King of England stood eye to eye and talked in the mud. The minutes passed, then:

  ‘Heads up, lads!’ said the captain, ‘I think we’ve got action at last.’

  As he spoke, James noticed that the Herald had bowed, then turned away back towards his own lines. At the same moment King Henry seemed to shout something, and pointed at his own banner that hung limply over the centre battle. He then knelt, took a handful of earth and pressed it to his lips. Every man in those front ranks did the same, and the movement spread like a wave through the entire army.

  Almost immediately afterwards, they heard the great barrel-chested roar of the old grey-beard warrior, Sir Thomas Erpingham, marshal of the king’s army:

  ‘Up stakes ! Up stakes! We advance two hundred paces!’

  And then the king raised his voice. The whole army fell silent, and the archers paused. His voice rang on the morning air, and James felt a tingling across his shoulders and up his neck.

  ‘In the Name of Almighty God. In the Name of Jesus. In the Name of the Trinity, Avaunt banner in the best time of the year, and Saint George be this day thine help!’

  Sir Thomas threw his marshal’s baton into the air and yelled, ‘Let’s go felas!’ The army roared, and the archers, with spearmen, and heavily armed knights at their backs, advanced.

  The excitement seemed to hurl James back into another world. He wrenched his stake free, like a man caught in some strange dream, and began to walk towards the French as though they were waiting for him out of another place and time. There was no fear, only a kind of eerie distance, as though his body was somehow floating forward, while his heart and mind had never moved, but stayed rooted to the spot.