by Angus Donald
At my signal Christophe and I planned to dig like badgers – we knelt beside two convex patches of wall that had been very carefully dug away until there were no more than a few inches of earth and rock between us and the enemy. Christophe had tested the thickness with a cautious knife blade and we hoped to burst through in a matter of heartbeats and be at the throats of the foe in the time it takes to say a single Our Father. The two Wolves would follow us in and the rest of the pack would scramble along the tunnel and join the fight as quickly as they possibly could.
The plan would stand or fall depending on the element of surprise. It crossed my mind that they could be in there waiting for us – dozens of men, with swords and axes raised, waiting to chop us down as we emerged. I quickly pushed that thought away. It was time. I gave the signal, a tap on Christophe’s shoulder, and we began to dig.
Chapter Thirty-one
I attacked the wall before me with all the vigour that fear can bring to a physical enterprise. I hacked at it overhand, with my right shoulder giving the spade its power, as it smashed into earth and rock. Silence was abandoned, speed was more important.
My spade sank inches deep into the wall and I levered out a small mountain of rubble that cascaded over my knees. I swung the spade again, the noise hellishly loud, the clang of iron on rock, and again, and suddenly it went through, clear and free and, praise God, there was a patch of grey in the dark of the earthen wall.
I heard a French voice call out in alarm. I swung the spade again, knocked through, and the patch of grey was now as big as my head. I worked the spade feverishly, gouging, enlarging the hole, hurling rubble out of my path. People were moving inside their mine, their panicked shouting deafening in the small space.
A sword stabbed through the hole, a bar of grey jabbing over my shoulder, and I could make out a pair of bare legs directly in front of my face.
I chopped up through the gap with my spade at the underside of a knee cap and was rewarded with a scream, and a body fell in front of my eyes, a yelling face. I chopped again with the spade, digging through flesh, cutting into the bridge of the man’s nose. Screams, blood, waving white hands. I dug the spade into his open mouth, smashing teeth, slicing into the hinge of his jaw. I let out an ear-shattering roar and followed the spade through the hole, butting forward with my head, my mail-clad shoulders catching on the stony edges, pulling rubble down as I surged through. Somebody swung a pick-axe at me and it tangled with my upheld, warding spade, slowing the swing but not enough, the iron point crashing into my mailed back like a spear thrust, but I was up and on my feet, reaching around my back with my left hand. With my right, I hurled the spade, handle over blade, at the knot of men further back in the mine. Now, misericorde in my left hand, mace in my right, a howl on my snarling lips, clumps of earth and rock tumbling from my body, I launched myself at the enemy like a monster emerging from the grave. The pick-axe man drew back his weapon for another strike but, swift as a leopard, I unleashed the mace in a roundhouse swing that smashed his lower jaw out of its sockets. From the corner of my eye I could see Christophe emerging from his hole in the wall, a short sword in his hand. I charged forward screaming, ‘Westbury!’ and ran into a wall of men-at-arms. Half a dozen men, mailed, shields linked, lined up at the open end of the mine with the grey light of dawn behind them.
Waiting for me.
It was too late to stop. I crashed into their shields with my shoulder, pushing them back a half-pace and I felt the scrape of their swords on the muddy iron rings that protected my back, and one hammer blow on my helmet. My left hand swung low and hard, under the shields and I felt the misericorde sink into flesh, and a warm wet spray. I shoved again against the wall of shields, my boots scrabbling against the floor and, while my armoured back took a battering, I felt the shield wall give a little. Something crunched against my spine. A blast of agony. I swung low again with the misericorde and the man directly in front of me stumbled back shrieking, bleeding. I surged forward, screaming, ‘Westbury!’ once more – I had broken the wall and I was through, weaving between the enemy, mace swinging, jabbing with the dagger. I saw two men running for the dawn. But the others were full of fight. I took a crunching blow to the shoulder, but my mail held and I returned the compliment to the swordsman by way of an overhand strike, jamming the misericorde into his left eye. Christophe was battling two spade-wielding miners at the back of the chamber, but I saw two Wolves poking their heads and shoulders through the holes we had made. I blocked a mad sword-swing from a soldier with my mace, but before I could take him, he staggered away gurgling with a crossbow bolt in his chest.
The Wolves were among us.
I crushed the skull of a man-at-arms an instant before he could land a blow that would have hacked my head clean off. And there were more of my own men in that grim space now, four Wolves hacking and stabbing among the miners and the men-at-arms. I saw Christophe drop a man with a lunge to the belly. And then a sound that filled my soul with dread.
Crack.
The sound of a heavy stone ball smashing itself to splinters against the walls above our heads.
Crack.
The French artillery, silent for so many days, had chosen this morning to renew its bombardment of the inner bailey. And, by the sound of it, all of Philip’s mighty castle-breakers were concentrating their missiles on the walls above the mine.
The enemy were all dead, or being finished off by the Wolves, and for the first time I looked around the space that we had just captured.
Crack.
Their mine was no bigger than a decent-sized private chamber, perhaps twenty feet long and ten feet wide, and narrower at the mouth, where the first rays of the sun were warming the chilly air. Outside I could see into the cat, the bare brown wood of the underside of the sloping roof and the handles fixed into the walls for man-handling its bulk across any terrain.
How I hated that infernal machine.
I said to a Wolf at my elbow, ‘Jehan, burn that—’
Crack.
My words were cut off by another missile smashing into the rock above our heads. But the Wolf understood and bent over the crude hearth by the entrance and began to revitalise the miners’ banked fire. There were more than a dozen corpses to deal with and I set the other men to piling them neatly by the mouth of the mine.
I stood for a moment and looked out at the familiar stones of the middle bailey. There was the wine seller’s stand, now abandoned, the cheerful striped awning in tatters. There was the big gatehouse where de Lacy had stood and refused entry to the Useless Mouths. A pair of curious French men-at-arms saw me, shouted and began running towards the mine, and with a slithering swish were both transfixed with arrows from above. Robin was keeping his word to ward off a counter-attack.
Crack.
But there was nothing my lord could do about the castle-breakers.
‘Christophe,’ I called. Scarecrow was at the back of the mine examining the supports.
‘I need you to get back down the tunnel and start organising a chain of men to bring the masonry in here as fast as you can.’
‘Sir Alan, I must warn you,’ he said, and I saw to my surprise that his face was white and he was trembling. ‘I am bound to tell you, sir, that it is not safe in this place.’
‘All the more reason to get the masonry in here quick and shore up the roof,’ I said, trying to be confident. But the worm of terror was eating into my spine.
Crack.
The huge stones above our heads screamed like a woman in childbirth. A shower of dust cascaded upon our heads.
‘Sir Alan, there are not enough supports, not nearly enough. They have removed some of the pillars. Deliberately taken them out, leaving just enough to … This roof … this roof could come down at any moment.’
‘Surely we could use some of our timbers, or build columns of stone—’
‘No, Sir Alan, no.’ The man’s faded eyes were filled with terror. He was close to shouting: ‘There’s. No. Time.’ He’
d removed his helmet and his grey hair matted with sweat stood out in weird spikes. He looked as mad as a march hare.
I finally understood. ‘Right, right, everybody out. Now!’
I looked to my left, one of the Wolves was stacking burning embers and half-burned sticks in a corner of the cat, and blowing on them, urging them to flame.
‘Leave that, Jehan. Everybody out, right now!’ I started to push men towards the two dark holes in the wall.
‘Out now! Everybody! Out!’
The Wolves knew how to obey an order and were slipping swiftly out of the mine and down the twin holes as fast as cellar rats when a lantern is lit.
Crack.
Another missile crashed into the wall and we were showered once again with fine dust. One of the beams that lined the walls popped out of its joint and leaned drunkenly out into the chamber. Christophe ran over and began trying to push it back into position. I looked at the two escape holes; they were now clear of men. I took a step towards the nearest one. I was feeling the fear, a sickness in my belly, a horrible tightness in my lungs; I crouched down next to the hole. Christophe was on the other side of the mine, shoving uselessly at the thick beam, trying to force it back in.
Crack.
One more ball crashed above our heads and with a rumbling roar a thousand tons of stone poured down upon us.
I had less than a heartbeat. I saw a deluge of grey tumble on to Christophe and dived for the tunnel. Something caught my right heel a tremendous whack but I got all my limbs pulled into the chamber behind me and, in the midst of that roaring, choking dust-filled hell, I hauled my body down the tunnel we had so carefully dug over the past two days. I got no more than three yards with the supports creaking and squealing like tortured souls, scarcely able to breathe, when the roof of our own tunnel collapsed on my back and a giant, jagged stone hand shoved me hard into the earth.
The darkness seized me.
Chapter Thirty-two
I was in my grave. I was lying on my belly, in utter blackness, rock and earth packed tightly around my body. I could not move. I could hear and see nothing. The earth squeezed me tight as a lover. For a few moments I truly thought I was dead. But a dull pain in my right leg and across my lower back told me I was still among the living – for the time being. A wave of panic crashed behind the wall of my eyes; I tried to struggle and to cry out for help, but could move my body only a fraction. My immobility seemed to suffocate me. The world was pressing down on every part of me. My heart was pounding in my chest, trying to burst free of its bony cage. I screamed and screamed but my cries for help were weak and muffled and only echoed around in my head. I began to pray, muttering the familiar words of the Pater Noster, and holding an image I had once seen of the Virgin Mary in my head. Somehow the face of the Virgin became the face of Tilda. I prayed for an age; I prayed in a place beyond time. I called on the Virgin to save me. I called on St Michael. I spoke directly to my Maker.
And He answered.
There was a shift in the world and instantly I felt His living presence beside me in the darkness. Gradually I brought myself back under control; my mind grew calm. I knew that God did not intend for me to die in this hellish place. It was a test. It was all a test. The Lord God was testing me, as He had tested the Israelites, as He had tested Jonah. I would not fail.
My head was lying in the crook of my right arm, allowing me to breathe only shallowly in the dusty space beneath. My left arm was pinned against my side. My steel helmet had been knocked forward and was cutting painfully into my forehead. I moved my right hand, a finger, then another. My hand crept up my face and shoved against the cold steel of the helmet. With a scraping of metal on stone, and no little effort, I managed to push the helm higher, off my brow. My fingers felt warm wetness. It trickled down my nose and into my mouth – gritty, rusty blood.
I realised that I was very thirsty. My mouth parched. I was alive, though, and by some miracle not too badly hurt. I flexed the muscles of my legs and back in turn, and my left arm. There was a tiny amount of lateral movement, a half-inch, no more, and while I was in great discomfort – pain burned in the raw patches on my skin and something sharp was digging into my buttocks – I had been injured enough times to know no bones were broken. I pushed my right hand out in front of my face and encountered rough rock and loose earth a few inches from my nose. I swept the earth to one side using only my fingers and took a grip on the rock and pulled. It moved a fraction, sliding towards me. I pulled again and it came free; I could feel its cool, sandy, roughness against my cheek. It was about the size of an apple. A clod of earth fell on the back of my hand; pebbles rattled off my helmet. It was awkward to manoeuvre for only the fingers on my right hand were able to move, and a little room for my wrist, too. My upper arm and shoulder were jammed hard against rock. But I pushed that apple-sized stone up my cheek, smearing the skin, and over my shoulder, and with a tiny wriggle and shrug, I got it off my back and over to the side. There was now space in front of my face.
My fingers quested forward again, brushing away earth, feeling the floor of the tunnel rubbed smooth by the bodies of crawling Wolves. It sloped downwards – and suddenly I knew where I was. About two yards from the little pool of water that had collected at the bottom of the passage. And five yards from the courtyard of the inner bailey. My spirits soared with that knowledge. I had found my place once again on the curve of this green Earth. I knew where I was. I was seven yards from freedom, from my friends, from Tilda. I pushed out of my mind the thought that there was half of Château Gaillard on top of me. I told myself I was only two yards from getting a drink of cool water.
My fingers snaked out, ruffled through the loose earth and found a shard of flint. I felt the smooth plane of the grey stone and the pitted roundness of one of its limestone-covered nodules. I gripped it and pulled. Nothing. Nothing. I pulled again and all of a sudden it moved, sliding towards me. I grasped it in my hand and used it as a crude spade, chopping and gouging at the loose rock and rubble around my left shoulder. And I felt the joint come free. I could move my left arm. I wriggled and worked my elbow back and forth – there was a threatening rumble as the stones and loose matter shifted above me – but praise God, bless His Holy Name, my left arm came free. I freed my right shoulder, hauling the rocks clear and packing them back by my waist. Then I began to dig my way forward using both hands.
It took an eternity. I pulled rocks, stones and clumps of old mortar from the rubble face before me and pushed them either to the side or behind my shoulders, and then I pulled myself forward a few inches. I was swimming forward through rock, rubble and mud, moving more slowly than a lazy snail, but I was moving, and downhill at that. To occupy my mind, I thought of Tilda … After perhaps an hour – although my sense of time was buried with me and I cannot be certain – my fingers groping before my face felt wet. And soon I was sucking up a few mouthfuls of putrid, lime-tasting, muddy water. It was pure nectar.
I had been right. Five yards to go. I hauled at the stones and mud, squirmed forward, moving uphill by now. When I stopped to catch my breath, I thought I heard something. It sounded like men’s voices and iron implements hitting stone. I took a deep breath and called out with all my might. And listened. Nothing. Was it all in my imagination?
I shouted again: ‘It’s me, it’s Alan!’
I thought I heard something. Another chink of iron on stone. Yes, somebody was definitely digging up there.
‘Help me!’ I shouted.
Clear as a bell, I heard Robin’s voice. ‘Stay where you are, Alan. We are coming for you. Do not move and we will be with you directly.’
Then I passed out of this world once more.
The next I knew I was being pulled from the rubble by my armpits by Jago the Cornish miner and his brother Denzell, and Robin was staring into my face with a look of frowning concern.
The light was blinding. I felt sick and light-headed. My hands were shaking and black with dirt, the nails broken and bleeding. Robin held
a dipper of water to my mouth and I swallowed too fast and the wrong way and collapsed to the ground coughing like a dying man. There were folk all around me: Wolves and men-at-arms of the garrison but the one face I wanted to see was not there.
‘Where is Tilda?’ I said. ‘Where is my true love?’
‘He’s delirious,’ said Robin. ‘We’d better get him into the keep.’
I allowed a couple of the Wolves to carry me to an empty cot on the ground floor of that bastion. While I sat there on the edge of the bed, glorying in the fact that I was alive, the men stripped me of my mud-encrusted hauberk, boots and hose and washed me, roughly but with kindness, and fed me sips of water and half a stale oat cake. When he realised that I still had most of my wits about me, Robin sat down on the cot next to me and gave me the latest news, most of which I knew already.
At dawn the bombardment had begun again, he said, the castle-breakers hurling their missiles over the walls of the middle bailey, focusing their anger on the powerful gatehouse of the inner bailey above the mine the cat-men had dug. After only a few strikes from the castle-breakers, the right side of the gatehouse collapsed, bringing down a section of the inner bailey wall. But the bombardment did not cease: Philip’s petraries continued to fling their missiles at the breach, battering at the edges to widen it and hurling their round stones through the gap to cause havoc inside the inner bailey.
I listened hard but I could hear no sounds of bombardment.
‘They relented about an hour ago,’ said Robin, apparently reading my thoughts. ‘I’d say they have run out of missiles. Or just packed it in for the day.’
‘What hour is it now?’
‘Nearly dusk. You were under the rubble all day long, Alan.’
‘If they have created a sizeable breach, why have they not attacked?’
‘That’s anybody’s guess. Perhaps they were not ready. But I think it is safe to assume they will come tomorrow morning. You should get some rest, Alan. We will need every able-bodied man at the breach tomorrow.’