Suddenly, he was back in Chiswick, a boy with a bow in his hand, and time to spare, and a careless ear that could ignore the shouts of his mother calling him in to see to the geese. And the muddy furrows he crossed were the furrows of the Great South Field that ran by the glebe and down to the Thames. And the stake he carried across his shoulder was the unfinished bowstave he had found all those years ago as a lad, and brought back to show his father.
The archers stopped to let the knights catch up and take breath. Then they gave a great cheer and advanced again. James heard himself cheering too, but scarcely knew for why or for what. It was as though he was just shouting at the cattle to turn them away from the corn in Brother Matthew’s crop.
But then the captains shouted, and the trumpets sounded close by, and there was the stake across his shoulder, and the heavy bow in his hand, and the bodkins in his belt. He stumbled on across the muddy furrows.
Some other archers came up alongside him. One put a hand on his shoulder. It was John ap Meredith, a tall and craggy bowman from North Wales. He had sand-red hair, straggling down to his shoulders, and a broad, tooth-gapped grin. ‘What ho, James!’ he said. James turned and nodded. He could see Jankyn Fustor, a Devon man, close behind with his painted bow of hardened yew, and an old battered pot-helm. Mat Bromfield, the Godstone tanner, was there too, with Yevan ap Griffiths a pace to his left, singing quietly, and frowning at the mud. Good friends to have in a fight like this. They went on, silent now, watching their feet, but looking up every so often to measure the distance to the French lines. They were getting close. Too close. Surely now, or very soon . . .
‘Ware lads!’ A captain’s voice rang out. ‘They’ve crossbowmen up ahead, and to the flank.’ The English line shambled to a halt. Without waiting for the order, the archers drove their stakes into the mud, and angled them towards the French line, which was edging forward at the flanks, but still holding back in the centre. They were just over a hundred and fifty paces away, and ripe for a clout shot.
James set his arrows once more, and checked the bow string. The air was cold and damp, but not enough to penetrate the wax. All should be well if the weather held.
Someone coughed and cursed. It was Morgaunt Filkyn. He had the fever at his throat, but was still strong enough to bring down a warhorse at a hundred yards. ‘Frenchie’ll pelt us with his bolts if we hang about much longer’, he muttered. ‘Those crossbows shoot like the devil.’
'Wisht now, Morgaunt!’ said Lewis the Hunte, an old shepherd from the Dales. ‘If they want to pipe to us, we’ll dance with them. Never knew a crossbowman who could hold his ground for more than three flights before he’d turn and run.’ He smiled and nodded to himself as he held a bodkin head up to the light, and turned it over in his hand. ‘I’ll save this ‘ere fellow for their pretty knights. War arrows and swallow tails for your crossbowmen young Morgaunt.’
The other shook his head, but James noticed that he nocked a war arrow all the same, and looked to the flank. There was another shout, this time high and distant. It came from the French lines. As it died away, a mass of crossbowmen ran forward, stood, and let fly with their bolts. There was a pause as a scattering of black dots flew across the open field towards the archers. They grew into ugly, stunted shafts which all at once leapt and whined and whizzed about the startled ranks. A few men toppled forward. Some cried out.
Almost immediately the master bowmen stepped from the ranks:
‘Knee!’ Every archer leant forward and nocked an arrow.
‘Stretch!’ They straightened and drew back on the great yew bows.
‘Loose!’ Suddenly the air was dark with thrice a thousand arrows.
Like a cloud of starlings at sunset, they rose steeply, arching against the lowering sky, then plunged down on the heads of the crossbowmen. Their ranks shook, wavered, and for just a moment seemed to gather their resolve: until the second volley struck. Now it was as if a giant hand had swept them from the field. Those who had not been instantly felled in the onslaught, were scattered in wild retreat. Their cries drifted across the open space towards the English lines.
‘Poor devils,’ said one archer.
‘It’s not over yet,’ replied another. There was a faint clattering sound as the lances of the French cavalry squadrons swung down to the charge, then the rippling call of horns all along their ranks. The banners of a hundred or more noblemen and all their retinues dipped and tossed above the glittering array as it move forward, and stirred itself to the trot. In the midst they could see the blood-orange standard of St Denis: the Orifamme.
'Watch my mark! Watch my mark!’ yelled William Bretoun, a master bowman of Yeovil. He was close by James, and James could hear the tremble in his voice. He drew a bodkin from the mud . . .
‘Stretch!’ The French cavalry managed a lumbering gallop, sending great clods of earth flying into the air. ‘Now . . . strike!’
James loosed his bow string, and felt the breath of the fletchings against his cheek. Then the slap against his wrist guard. The shaft sang clear. He glanced to see it go, then bent to the next bodkin.
Stretch! . . . Stretch! . . . Now, strike! . . . My mark! My mark!’
The ground shook. The arrows rose and fell, the lines of archers bent and straightened like wheat in the wind, and the storm of steel fell in a barbed blizzard against the horsemen of France.
Beneath their banners, they came on doggedly, casque, helm and sallet inclined against the hissing shafts. Everywhere horses and men were going down, some thrown to the ground by the force of the blow, others skewered in the saddle and left to slump backwards and sideways into the trampling mass.
In the midst of the slaughter the survivors pressed forward, urging each other on, but slowing visibly as the cloying mud gripped the horses at their fetlocks.
‘Knee . . .Stretch . . .Strike!’ James was into his rhythm now, not caring to see if his arrows made their mark, but keenly aware that the French had come to within a double spear-cast of the line. He hoped fervently that the boys had brought the king’s arrows forward, but dare not look back to check. He had two bodkin arrows, a clout-head and several war-arrows in front of him. That was all. After that, if the boys didn’t come it was down to staff and maul.
He could see the devices on their shields now, painted lions, and eagle heads, bells and battlements and lily fields – all bright with colour and shot through with shafts.
'Twice three more volleys, then look to the stakes!’ yelled William Bretoun.
James heard the clank of steel behind him, and a pole-axe in a mailed fist appeared at his shoulder. He loosed a shaft at five and twenty paces and winced to hear the scream of the horse as it crashed forward, throwing its rider under the hooves of a rearing destrier. Another shaft and another driving into the snorting ranks. And all about him the other archers swearing and cursing and calling for more arrows. All at once there was a chevalier not twenty paces away, bearing down on him, his huge horse wide-eyed and foaming, and tearing up the furrows with its mud-caked hooves.
With a gasp James snatched up the clout-head, and bent his back, but he knew that the lance would be through his chest before he could draw bow.
Chiswick whirled before him. Hettie, dear Hettie, standing smiling in the sunlit doorway, goose stick over one shoulder, and the shawl she knitted seven summers ago loose across her arms.The face of his father, his mother too. The mill, the stream, the old cow yard at Simkin’s byre. And practice by the glebe after Sunday church, sharpening the arrow-heads on the flintstones at the priest’s porch. Sun on his back in harvest fields, and the welcome breeze of a Summer evening as he lay among the lupins.
Something struck him hard on his left side. He fell to his knees, then sprawled forwards, clinging to his bow. He tried to look up, but another blow caught him on the back of his head, driving him against the turf.
There was pain, someone shouting, and hooves thudding against the clash of steel. Then silence. And the smell of mud.
He b
linked. He was alive. A tiny pool of muddy water glistened in front of him. Three blades of grass; no more than that, but all pressed into the mud. He was very tired. So very tired. It would be good to just lie here . .
‘Here’s up with you now, lad!’ There was a hand on his shoulder. He rose into the air. ‘Ah, let’s be lookin’ at ye! . . . Man, you’re a sight all right, but there’s more blood than breath in ye. Breath deep, breath deep, aye that’s it.’
James found himself looking unsteadily into the twinkling eyes of a broad, bluff man-at-arms, with square, black-stubbled jaw and large mailed fists. ‘Are ye all right, lad?’ James nodded, and put his hand to his head.
'Aye, just so,’ laughed the man-at-arms. ‘The butt of my poleaxe caught ye, as I was scrapping with Frenchie there.’ He pointed at body of a knight, pinned beneath his horse. ‘Had to knock you to one side to get at him. No time for niceties.’ He laughed again. ‘He’d a pinned ye like a jackrabbit.’
Slowly, uncertainly, James looked around. His head still hurt. ‘They’ve gone,’ he said.
The man-at-arms brushed some mud off his breastplate. ‘Aye, they have. Leastways, that lot have. There’s more to come though. That was just for openers. Look!’
Away across the field, where it narrowed between the woods of Azincourt, James could just make out a large formation of knights coming towards them. They were on foot, huddled behind shields and pavisses, dark blues and greys against the farmscape. Here and there the pale sunlight caught helmet, blade and spear point, but it was too far away to see all the colours of their coats and banners. There were thousands of them.
Instinctively, James turned round. He sighed with relief. The arrows were there: fresh sheaves brought up by the wagon boys, and laid out every few yards. Then he remembered his debt: ‘My thanks ta ye,’ he said to the man-at-arms.
The man shrugged. ‘No thanks needed,’ he said. ‘Just sorry I had to knock you down. Still all’s well, eh?’
Yevan ap Griffiths came up. He had a rag bandage tied around his head, and he was grinning: ‘You’re on your feet, James? Good! I thought that great big Frenchman had you for sure. We all saw it. Eric here brought him down with that stick of his. And Jankyn put a shaft through the horse.
Pity.’
‘Pity?’
‘Aye.’ He grinned again. ‘There’s no ransom in a dead knight, and this horse is good for nothing but meat.’
The captain in the red brigandine shouted a warning, and they all looked to their weapons. The French ‘battle’ was coming on apace now, and they could hear the distant cries of command as nobles and knights struggled to keep order in their ranks.
‘If we don’t split them, they’ll split us, that’s for sure’,’said Yevan. He chose eight war arrows and placed them at his feet. ‘Mind if I keep you company?’
James shook his head slowly. The pain was easing. ‘No Yevan, you’re welcome. I’m a bit fuddled in the head still.’
‘Aye, well!’ The Welshman laughed out loud. ‘Just make sure you shoot ahead o’ ye, boyo, and not back’ards.’
All along the French ‘battle’ trumpets sounded. After that, came the drums, their harsh, rattling beat urging the knights on.
The archers watched them come, ignoring the anxious advice of the men-at-arms who crowded at their backs.
‘We’ll wait till they cross one twenty paces,’ called William of Yeovil, and all the other master bowmen shouted the same. The French, still some distance away, pushed forward across the muddy field, hemmed in by the woods and jostling one another, but nonetheless presenting a formidable hedge of jagged steel: pikes, pole-axes, spears and flanged maces, short-hafted axes and heavy bladed falchions, as well as two-edged swords. James had never seen the like before, not even at Harfleurs or Blanchetaque.
'They mean to have us for dinner,’ Yevan muttered, but his voice was low, and he was no longer grinning.
'And suck on our bones for supper’, replied Eric. ‘When will ye send a flight at them?’
'When we’re told to,’ the Welshman replied. He glanced toward his left, then leant forward and brushed the fletchings of an arrow with the back of his hand, as though testing the distance.
'Wait on my mark,’ said William Bretoun quietly. ‘That oak there. See the old one, leaning out with the bark-stripped bough. We’ll wait till they reach that.’
James studied the oak. What had taken that bark? A lightning strike? Or deer? Or perhaps village kids just fooling around. There was an oak just like it back home, by the river. It was owned by the Bishop of Southwark.
The first of the French neared the tree, turning slightly to straighten the line, and then trudging on once more. It seemed that the entire ‘battle’ was made up of knights, all in fine plate armour and brightly coloured tabards. Every one of them was a master of the sword, every one a chevalier par excellence, all of them with visors firmly closed and bascinets lowered to meet the coming storm of arrows.
'They’ve got guts, I’ll say that for them,’ someone said.
'They’ll have your guts, and spread ‘em all over this field if you don’t watch yourself,’ snapped the master bowman. ‘Now, on my call . . .’
The archers tensed.
'On my mark, on my mark. . .Knee! . . .Stretch! . . . Strike!’
The bows sang and the arrows flew like starlings against the lightening sky. There was another flight in the air before the first struck. And another. The ranks of French knights staggered and buckled, but did not give way. On they came, heads lowered, shields raised, shouting out with anger and alarm as the bodkin shafts drove in among them. Men were falling everywhere: some wounded, many killed, and all trampled by the feet of the knights who were hurrying up behind them. Banners went down, only to be snatched up, and then moments later go down again. The trumpets blared desperately, and even from the English lines French captains could be seen urging their men on, helmets cast aside and shields lowered to show they felt no fear.
Soon, despite the losses, and despite the mud, the battle had advanced well beyond the bark-stripped oak and was closing to within eighty paces of the English stakes.
'They die well!’ shouted Morgaunt Filkyn as he sent another war arrow arching and dipping towards the mass of knights.
'They kill better!’ replied Lewis the Hunte. ‘If we don’t stop them soon, they’ll be in among us like scythes in a harvest.’
With a shudder James loosed another arrow. He knew how dangerous the French were at close quarters. Only a few days ago, a company of archers were caught unawares near the Somme by a French patrol. They were all but wiped out: two hundred men. The French commander sent the only two survivors back to the English army: the oldest and the youngest of the company, stripped to their breeches, and with their bow fingers cut.
Again James loosed, bending and straightening in unison with the rest of his comrades. The field ahead of him was strewn with bodies, but still the French came on. How could they? Arrows sleeted down on them in showers of black and grey, sweeping over their melting ranks and throwing all into bloody disorder. But every time James looked up between the constant flights, he saw huddled groups of knights pressing forward. Soon, very soon, he would have to throw down his bow and unsheathe the broadsword that hung at his belt.
At his feet were the last of his own arrows. One of them had been smashed and snapped by the rearing destrier which now lay dead in front of him: a protecting bank of muscle and bone.
Beside him Yevan ap Griffiths continued to loose arrow after arrow, silent save for a grunt of satisfaction or a stifled curse as he glanced to see a shaft to its target.
There came a familiar clatter behind him: good! More war arrows. Perhaps there would be time for a few last flights.
He was now firing directly into the faces of the oncoming knights. No longer were they simply targets, random parts of an advancing mass. They were men. Men with their own shields, their own devices painted on them. Men who gasped and panted as they charged, so that their br
eath steamed in clouds about their visors and helms.
James could pick the gaps in the armour now: those chinks and fatal, dark lines that leather straps and rivets could not conceal. Bodkin arrows were no longer needed; war arrows from the king’s ordnance were sufficient to find the parting of the plates, where neck meets shoulder, and chest meets throat. It was there that the broad-barbed arrow-heads smashed easily through mail, and gambeson, and flesh beneath.
A man-at arms appeared at his right hand, and another on his left. The one on his left was Eric. He winked: ‘Here we go again!’
James nodded, and shot one last arrow that took a knight from Amiens in the shoulder and spun him to the ground. Then, almost without thinking he unstrung his bow, dropped the stave at his feet and drew the broadsword.
'Know how to use that thing?’ asked Eric.
'I can swing it well enough.’ He trembled as he spoke.
Eric grimaced and shook his head. ‘Well keep your guard high, and whatever you do, don’t parry. Not against these fellows.’ (The French, no more than a dozen paces away, were struggling towards them, swords and spears levelled.) ‘Just duck the cut,’ he went on, ‘and sway inside the thrust. It’s your only chance.’ He took a step forward and raised his poleaxe. ‘See that big ‘un? Leave him to me!’
A trumpet sounded away to their left, where the English banners of St George and the Lions Royal stood. The whole line gave a great cry and surged forward, led by the lion banner of that old warhorse, Sir John Cornwall, and the golden cinqfoil of Gilbert Umfraville, knight of the King’s Chamber. James hesitated, got a blow on the back, and stumbled into the advance with the others.
They were on the French in an instant. Swords clashed. Steel rang on steel. Shouts and curses, and men sprawling bloodied in the mud. A knight in plate and mail, but with his helmet gone, came straight at James.
He was young, fresh faced, with dark eyes and russet-brown hair cropped in the chevalier style. He fought with his sword in both hands, sweeping aside James’ over-stepped lunge then making a back-cut that missed his throat by a hair’s breadth.
The Bow Page 2