What Thomas is asking about is what we did right after it got dark last night - we scattered two wagon loads of caltrops right where horses will step as they come off the Launceston Castle’s drawbridge. We are using every one of the caltrops we got from the Acre fortress. I brought them with me when I came to Launceston.
Well of course I did; we’re not exactly virgins when it comes to besieging a castle are we? Or being besieged in one for that matter.
There is a lot of shouting and noise everywhere. But then it begins to change and grow with the familiar sound of horses and knights hitting the ground as they come off the drawbridge. The growing rain of arrows and the horses impaling their hoofs on the sharp points of the caltrops are doing their job.
It’s what we expected. Once one horse goes down in a narrow area those coming on fast behind it also begin going down as they crash into those who’ve gone down in front of them. That’s particularly true in the darkness when the frantic horses and their riders can’t see enough to avoid the downed horse and knights in front of them and don’t have any place to go even if they do.
We can’t see it very well in the moonlight, but we can certainly hear it. Within seconds it is obvious that there is a growing pile of screaming men and horses at the end of the drawbridge and constant splashes as some the rearmost horses and riders are forced off the bridge and into the water of the moat. Behind the charging knights are their archers and men at arms running hard in a desperate effort to escape. They add to the confusion and make things worse by trying to get away by climbing over the growing pile of kicking horse and struggling men.
Chapter Eight
A few of the knights in the very front rank of the sortie ride free and some of the French men at arms are able to climb over the huge and growing pile of horses and men and run away. Most do not.
Hours later in the dawn’s early light we begin pulling the dead and injured from the great mass of horses and men. It is obvious that many of the men and horses trapped at the bottom of the huge pile died of suffocation.
Later in the morning we begin fishing drowned knights and men at arms out of moat to get their armor and weapons. But the water is so cold I quickly call off the effort – they’ll still be there in the summer.
Missing is Lady Isabel. She’s not among the dead and injured. It’s possible she’s still in the castle so I send a party of men under Henry the London archer sergeant in through the tunnel to explore while Thomas and I deal with the prisoners.
The archers, men at arms, and servants of the knights – the men stranded on the drawbridge and outside the castle gate because they followed the knights, are immediately freed – after they point out the knights among the survivors who rode with Henry FitzCount on the attack on Trematon or stood with him during his fraudulent challenge. They all did, the bastards, and now they are getting what they deserve - they are all being thrown in the carts with the dead and taken shivering and moaning and crying for mercy to be thrown in the river.
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What remains of Henry FitzCount disappears while we wait to see who is in the castle - our men throw him and the bishop into one of the carts that is taking their dead and wounded knights for a swim in the Tamar to wash away their sins. It will be a permanent swim because their sins are so great for killing children and betraying their knightly oaths.
Besides, as I explain to Thomas, the ground is too frozen to dig and our men have worked hard enough. The knights’ horses, of course, will be butchered and eaten unless they might still be usable. Waste not, want not, as the good book says.
Thomas and I talk while we watch the carts being loaded and the dead and injured horses cut up. We’re waiting to approach the castle gate and our mood is somber as we talk and watch the dead and wounded knights being stripped of their armor and shoes and thrown into the carts.
The shrieks and pleas of the wounded knights fall on deaf ears as they are thrown into the wagons – every one of our men saw the butchered children and watched the dishonorable bastards ride away from the field outside of Trematon.
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Our victory raises a number of questions. Should we bring Sir Percy here to Launceston or move here ourselves or stay at Restormel? We decide to stay at Restormel at least until next summer – primarily because that’s where the boys are and it’s closer to the River Fowey ships where our ships are anchored and beached.
We also decide on Martin the archer from London to be the commander at Launceston. Martin’s not the brightest candle but he’s steady and we’ll leave someone like Peter to be his second. Peter’s the fast thinking sergeant who had the archers shooting at the sortieing knights even before Thomas and I got there to give the order. Sir Percy and his wife will stay at Trematon.
What we don’t decide as we stand there stamping our feet to stay warm is whether our fleet will be based at the mouth of the Tamar or the Fowey next year. My initial thought is that the Tamar is too close to Devon and its earl who is potentially unfriendly because he may or may not be FitzCount’s cousin. That’s what I tell Thomas.
What we finally agree as we stand there in the cold morning air and watch the sun rise is that it is too important a question to answer quickly because the answer will affect where we end up locating our permanent headquarters and train our men.
Thomas and I are still standing just out of arrow range in front of the castle talking when the gate opens and Henry and the men who entered through the tunnel wave us in. There is no sign of Isabel and she’s not among the dead and wounded at the drawbridge. There are only cowering servants, including a number of Isabel’s and a handful of local men at arms who declined to join the escape effort. All will be pardoned and retained if they will pledge their liege and were not present at Trematon. If they were present? Well, then they’ll join the knights and bishop swimming in the Tamar.
Then it dawns on me where Isabel might be. There must be a mine under the castle and Isabel who came here to live here with FitzCount is likely to know where other mine tunnels enter the castle and where they go. I immediately send a messenger to tell Martin to ask the servants and begin looking for other entrances to the mine under the castle.
Chapter Nine
Spring of 1193 arrives with flooded rivers throughout Cornwall when the rains come and the snows melt on the hills. We respond by launching the beached galleys and floating everything down to the mouth of the Fowey. It’s just as well – it’s time for me to take our galleys and cogs back to the Holy Land and earn more coins.
Getting them while the getting is good is always the best policy isn’t it?
While I’m gone Thomas will be in charge. He’ll stay at Restormel with George and the boys and a very strong force of men to discourage the Earl of Devon and his friends from attacking us.
Thomas’ main task while I’m gone will be to do what he truly loves to do - he’ll learn the boys to scribe and sum and, additionally, supervise the training and assignments of any additional men he recruits from the steady stream of men who constantly walk into our camps seeking to make their marks and join us.
He’ll also meet with the franklins and the masters of our manors to negotiate alternatives to their paying of their taxes and rents with coins – bringing us foodstuffs and firewood and horses, for example. Horses for sure; we really need more horses.
Possessing land and castles is beyond my wildest dreams. But, truth be told, I’m getting bored and ready to head back to the Holy Land.
End of Book Two
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Sample pages from Book Three
“The Archers Return”
The storm lasts almost two days. Then the weather clears and we pass Gibraltar both rowing and running before the wind with a leather sail up on our stubby mast. And we’re not alone. One of our cogs, the one with the big patch on its sail captained by Albert the archer from Chester, comes up on us so fast that we have to row to keep up so we can talk as we pass the big rock w
ith the huge Moorish castle on its peak.
But why are there no Moorish galleys here to collect tolls and taxes?
Harold and Albert manage to keep our two ships together until we reach the harbor at Palma two days later. To my absolute delight our other cog is already at anchor and so are four of our galleys. There are happy hails and waves as we enter the harbor and drop our anchor. Within minutes dinghies are rowing towards us from our other ships.
Palma is on Mallorca Island which is under the nominal control of a batch of Moors called “Burburs” or something like that. What’s good for us, and the reason we’re here, is that the Moors are having a bloody civil war and the island’s Burbur ruler is a deadly enemy of the Caliph who rules Tunis and Algiers.
All and all, as we know from our last visit, Palma is apparently a fairly civilized place with many Christians and Jews living on the island. Genoa and Pisa have had commercial establishments here for years. We’ve come back to Palma again because we didn’t have any problems when we rendezvoused here last year on our way to England and when some of our galleys successfully stopped here last fall on their way back from England to Cyprus. Once again that seems to be the case - the local Moslems seem pleased that we’d given the Tunisians a poke in the eye. At least that’s the story we got from the local merchants when we were last here.
“It’s good to see everyone here and safe once again,” I tell the captains as they come to report.
“Nothing’s changed. We’ll leave here and rendezvous in Malta and then in Cyprus as soon as the rest of our galleys arrive and the weather’s good. In the meantime you can give your crews two hour shore leaves during daylight hours. But only a few men at a time and not after dark. Explain to your men that they have to stay close both because we want to be always ready to fight in case the Moors come and because we’ll be leaving for Malta as soon as the rest of our ships arrive and re-provision.”
We want everyone to think we’re going to Malta from here. We’re not.
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Martin Archer is also the author of the five novels of the acclaimed “The Soldier” saga which follows a young soldier through his entire career as a professional soldier - from his first taste of combat in the bitter fighting of the Korean War and then in Vietnam and the wars that might have subsequently occurred after Vietnam or will occur in the near future.
Sample pages from Book One of “The Soldier” saga
Book One
SOLDIERS AND MARINES
Dust and gravel periodically spray out behind the Jeep as it slowly backs up towards the top of the low ridge. The early morning sun is bright and already hot, and the periodic sound of thunder in the background has been coming closer for two days.
Three men are in the slowly backing Jeep as it moves over the abandoned farm land and up towards the ridgeline. The passenger sits impassively almost as if he’s in a trance. The gunner on the mounted machine gun crouches and squints down the barrel into the sun as he constantly moves it to the left and right. He is chewing furiously on a mouthful of gum.
Everyone in the Jeep is trying to be as quiet as possible. But it’s not working because of the engine noise and the periodic burst of sound each time the Jeep runs over a patch of rocks or breaks a stick. Each of the men is terribly anxious without saying it out loud.
The occupants of the Jeep are nervous. And rightly so. It’s the morning of July 29th and thirty four days earlier the Soviet-trained North Korean army poured over the border into South Korea. It catches the poorly equipped and under trained garrison troops of the South Koreans and their allies by surprise - they are everywhere overrun and either killed or pushed back.
The sky is partially cloudy and the flat field of the upward sloping rocky farmland is empty of life and crops. There are great towering white clouds to the north, but at the moment the men are traveling in bright summer morning sunshine. It’s dusty and hot on the rough track across the abandoned farm. The mud ruts from a previous rain are baked hard and the men in the Jeep don’t know what they will find when they get to the top of the rise they are slowly approaching. But they are highly visible as they slowly bounce over the uneven ground and seriously worried about it.
“Careful, goddamn it, careful,” the passenger hisses in an unnecessarily low voice as they slowly approach the summit. He is twisted around and trying to see over the crouching gunner behind the gun mount. The driver is slowly backing the Jeep upwards towards the top of the rise.
Damn the passenger thought to himself as he tries to stand so he can see better, and just when I was about to rotate back home for a new assignment. He is about six feet tall with close cropped gray hair, about 190 pounds, and, although he never did really think about it, glad he only has daughters who won’t be called to serve.
He’d picked up the driver’s carbine ten minutes ago, checked its banana clip to make sure it is full, and clicked its fire selector from single shot to automatic. The carbine had ridden wedged between him and the driver until they reached the start of the gradually rising farm land a couple of miles back. Now, holding the carbine in his right hand like a pistol and trying to keep his balance by holding the edge of the lowered windshield with his left, he is standing as high as possible in the slowly bouncing and rocking Jeep in an effort to see around the gunner and over the top of the ridge.
The passenger is a fairly chunky man wearing the shoes and summer uniform of a garrison officer instead of boots and battledress. His pants are filthy and ripped, but that’s what he’d been wearing when the war started and he hadn’t taken them off yet. There is a colonel’s badge on the summer soft cap he’d grabbed off the bedroom table and jammed on his head when he’d gotten the 3am call about the invasion and rushed to headquarters.
Brown hair streaked with white pokes out from under the Colonel’s cap. It was cropped short and neat when the war started, but it hasn’t been cut or combed for weeks. He is forty two years old and desperately needs a shave and something to eat. He’d been the commander of a tank battalion in Germany during the big war and knows trouble when he sees it.
What happened? Why weren’t we ready? Even bouncing along in the Jeep he can’t get the disbelief out of his mind. Once again the United States and the United Kingdom have been caught flat footed and ill-equipped.
The Jeep lurches to a stop at the colonel’s whispered order. He hoists himself on the barrel of the carbine and slowly raises himself up as high as possible. Damn, still not far enough to see what’s on the other side. The colonel isn’t taking any chances. He’d quickly learned in Germany that it is really stupid to show yourself on a ridge line until you are damn sure you know what’s on the other side.
He hasn’t slept for days, his clothes are filthy, and he is totally exhausted. Being worried and backing slowly up a hill in a jeep brought back fleeting memories of the earlier war. He almost smiles at the memory.
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** Read more: Search Amazon.com for “Martin Archer” or
“Soldiers and Marines.” Martin Archer can be contacted
at [email protected]. He would value your suggestions
regarding these novels and publishing print versions
of them.**
The Archer's Castle: Exciting medieval novel and historical fiction about an English archer, knights templar, and the crusades during the middle ages in England in feudal times before Thomas Cromwell Page 10