by Tony Roberts
“You haven’t answered the question, Cass,” Sills said, probing.
“Italy,” Casca said quickly. “Always some petty Duke or Count there fighting someone else. Florence, Milan, Pisa, Genoa, Modena, Sienna. There’s more, but those are the main employers. Venice, too, but that’s mostly navy and I don’t fight well aboard. Prefer firm ground under my feet.”
“So what brought you to England?” Gavin asked.
“Oh, got tired of the squabbling; one year you were fighting Florence, then next year fighting for Florence. Nobody ever stayed friends for long. Just like damned kids all the time. Pointless it was; I mean, nothing ever got sorted and all it ended up with were more bodies, all for nothing.”
“So you prefer to fight for a definite outcome, eh?” Walt observed. “Rather than one of those soulless mercenaries, fighting for whoever paid him the most?”
“Perish the thought, Walt. I like to think I’ve got standards. I might not always end up on the winning side, but I like to think I fought for the right reasons at the end of it.” He pulled a wry face. He hadn’t always chosen the right side but sometimes that was difficult, given the confusion at the start of any war when both sides stated they were in the right. It was usually once one side came out on top that they declared the loser was in the wrong, they must be else why would God allow them to lose? Casca knew that to be crap; sometimes the good guys lost, especially if blessed with bad luck, bad numbers or simply bad generals. There again, who was the bad guy and by what criteria?
Ah it was all crap. Someone somewhere always wanted something someone else had and would go to war over it, and when that happened, people like Casca would join the fight because that was what he did. He had centuries of experience and often used it for his and his comrades’ benefit. He just hoped each time he fought he was doing it for the right side and that he won.
So what of this particular war? He’d signed up to get away from Cooper and his murderers, and to quit England. It wasn’t easy to decide whether King Henry was on the side of the angels or against them; he saw himself as in the right in claiming he was the heir to the French throne, and legally he had a point. However the French naturally argued the point and invoked an old custom to choose an alternative ruler. The English and French kings had long been rivals to the French throne, and it wasn’t an argument that would go away any time soon. Who was right? Who was in the wrong? Neither, and both. Ah shit. It was one of those wars where he could so easily pick the other side and have no pang of conscience; he had merely been in England at the time so that decided on which side he was going to fight.
His problem was Pip. He desperately wanted to protect her from Cooper’s hired hand, but he had a real big problem; who was it? Where was he? Somewhere in the army here, without doubt. That was his main concern now, not whether the army could take Harfleur or not.
Pip had blisters. The spadework, even the lighter tasks that Casca had made sure she was undertaking, had an effect on her hands. She had a bucket before her full of seawater and was rinsing her hands in it. She hissed from time to time with the pain but she’d been told that salt water helped heal the blisters much faster.
“What are we needed for?” Gavin asked morosely. “Not much call for archers here, is it? Taking a town doesn’t need us.”
“I don’t think we were brought across for this,” Casca said, looking across at the Welshman. “The King needs us on the battlefield to shoot down hordes of Frenchmen. I don’t think he envisaged being delayed too long here. I just worry we’ll be here stuck with our backs to the sea when the main French army turns up. We need to take this place pretty quick.”
The others muttered their assents. They were all worried about being left out in the open in hostile territory before an enemy town, and hoped to hell it fell quickly.
* * *
Harfleur had no intention of falling quickly. The cannons were assembled and began blasting away at the walls, and in a short time they were beginning to collapse, but the defenders were determined and rebuilt the damage at night. The second night was a full moon so the bombardment went on through the night, and gave the French no respite. Some of the shots passed over the walls into the town and caused damage there, too.
A few French knights rode in from the east, much to Henry’s anger, and he soon ordered the east blocked off. The Duke of Clarence sent his men round the swamps to a hill overlooking the town and occupied it, thus cutting Harfleur off from any direction, and the fleet, having offloaded every piece of equipment, moved to the mouth of the River Lezarde, making sure nothing came upriver to the town.
The King then ordered a few mines dug, in an attempt to undermine the walls, but the French turned out to be better at tunneling and this idea was abandoned after a couple of bloody failures. Harfleur was beginning to be a royal pain in the ass.
To add to the problems, on the last day of August, another enemy appeared.
Dysentery.
CHAPTER SEVEN
he men all crouched behind their barricades, waiting. The order to attack would come soon enough, and Casca gripped his sword, tensing. This was what he lived for; combat. The fear-filled faces around him were those of men facing their first fight, knowing they would be confronting people pretty soon who were out to kill them. It would be a fight with no quarter; their task was clear. Take the barbican in front of the Porte Leure.
The barbican was in ruins. The cannons had done their job over the three weeks of the bombardment, and it was in a sorry state, but still in French hands. The King had finally decided to act. Men were falling sick all over the place, and amongst them were some of his senior commanders. Rather than sit there, as Andrew had pointed out, and shit themselves senseless, better to attack and perhaps actually make progress. Taking the barbican would boost English morale and lower that of the French.
Casca was immune to dysentery. When the great plague of the previous century had caused so much carnage, he had been untouched. Now here, with two of their number sick and confined to their tent, he was still feeling fine. The stench in the camp was indescribable, but such things always were. It was awful, and Pip especially found it gut-turning. She was now with him behind the barricade, trembling. Going into a fight was not what she wanted but it was preferable to being in the camp with the ailing men and their bowel contents splattered all over the ground, bed and their legs and hose.
For Casca, he preferred to have her by his side, for he hated the thought of Cooper’s unknown minion closing in on the defenseless girl and him not around to protect her. At least her being with him he might be able to keep her from being hurt.
The cannons fell silent and the English slowly raised their heads, looking at the smoke-shrouded barbican. Dust was settling from the last of the impacts and a few stones still rolling down from the shattered walls to the ground. Casca and his men were part of the force assigned to storm the barbican while other archers were there to provide cover, shooting at any Frenchman who opposed them.
The main attack would be carried out by the men-at-arms, warriors with the training, arms and armor in hand-to-hand combat, but there was just not enough of them and so some of the archers had been drafted in to help them, and Godfrey Fulk’s men had been volunteered, amongst others.
Casca grimaced; they would be facing desperate and well-armed defenders, men who didn’t expect any quarter and therefore would give none. He looked at the other strained faces by his side beyond Pip; Walt, Will, Andrew, Gavin and Sills. Two of the group were bed-ridden and a couple more guarding the camp. Other members of Sir Godfrey’s entourage were alongside, both right and left, grim-faced men with the look of resignation in their eyes. They were archers, not men-at-arms. They fought the distance combat, not close up. They had swords, axes and hammers, but no armor to speak of. Padded cloth or leather. Maybe a piece of metal here and there they had picked up or inherited at some time, but these were pitifully few.
They mostly wore the wide brimmed iron helmets that were the
rage these days, but other types were in evidence, such as the open-faced pot helms or even cloth caps, which wouldn’t stop a fist, let alone a full-bloodied down sweep of a steel blade or blunt weapon.
“Stick to me, Pip,” Casca said softly. “This won’t be pleasant; it’ll be noisy, bloody, frightening. Keep behind me, understand?”
She nodded, too scared to talk.
“Good; that way you can watch my back. Give me a couple of feet so I can swing my sword. I don’t want to hit you by accident,” he grinned.
Pip smile wanly, her lips trembling with fear. Casca squeezed her arm, then tensed as the captain slid forward, his eyes on the wrecked masonry a couple of hundred yards distant. They would have to rush the barbican in the open, fully exposed to missiles shot from the walls. Another good reason for Pip to be behind Casca.
One of the nobles stood up and waved hard at the barbican. His voice was only just audible to Casca and his group. “There you are, before you stand the enemy. You are to vanquish them and drive them from the gate. May God go with you all!”
The captains got to their feet and waved their men to follow them. With a roar the men followed, scrambling to their feet and running hard for the barbican. Casca nodded and climbed out of the ditch and over the collapsing barrier, disintegrating under the weight of so many men pushing at it at once. It fell flat to the ground and now they were pounding across bare, dry earth, still showing signs of scorching from the now vanished suburbs. Here and there a charred beam lay with nails protruding and Casca had to vault over one that was right in his path. He got a whiff of burnt wood as he did so.
He was aware Pip was right behind him, her breath sawing in and out of her lungs with that unmistakable feminine sound, and to both sides men grunting, clinking, thumping.
One man cried out and fell sideways, a bolt sticking out of his chest. A few curses flew through the air, aimed at the crossbowmen now beginning to shoot into the mass of men; they could hardly miss. A man two to the left gasped and stumbled to a halt, clutching at something protruding from his shoulder. Behind him, Casca heard Pip panting out a prayer, begging to be left unhurt. Whatever helped, so be it.
Two groups of archers now stood, one to either side of the main body of men, and began loosing arrows at the crossbowmen, hoping to keep their heads down. Missiles filled the air, flying from both directions. One bolt spat narrowly past Casca’s head and hit someone a few feet behind and he swung round in alarm but Pip was still there, hand on her helmet, which was a little too large for her, her other hand clutching a mallet which they had picked for her as being the only weapon she could wield, the others being too heavy.
The barbican had fallen masonry before it, and a ditch. The ditch had been filled with faggots that the French had set fire to a few days back, but more had been thrown in and now it was crossable, if hazardous.
Before them the armored men-at-arms were scrambling up the broken stones and fallen walls and the defenders now rose up to meet them. The sound of blades meeting came to him and the familiar sight of men trying to chop one another to bits in combat filled his vision. Ahead was a knot of men trying to push forward but here being thwarted by three Frenchmen who were all well-armed and armored. To the right was another gap, with a fallen slope of stones they could get up to what may once have been a window.
One of the men just to his right screamed as a crossbow bolt struck him in the thigh and the man crashed to the ground, right at the edge of the ditch. Casca stepped onto the faggots and kept a precarious balance, reaching back for Pip’s hand. Three men ran past, eager to get to grips with the French and they scrambled up the long uneven slope of the fallen wall. Pulling Pip up, Casca reached the wrecked window and glanced in. Three English soldiers were there battling two defenders, and more defenders lay on the wooden floor of the chamber, having been struck by the bombardment that had brought the wall down from above them.
Half of the chamber was a mass of rubble and stones lay in an untidy pile across most of the rest of the floor. Some of the floorboards were split and were moving rather alarmingly. Casca pulled Pip through the opening into the room. “Here, stay at the back. Keep this wall behind you.”
He waved Walt and Will to accompany him. Before them the two French men-at-arms were beating back the three Englishmen, having already wounded two of them, and the initial charge had been stopped and now the archers were desperately fighting for their lives.
Casca gritted his teeth and pulled the man before him back out of the way. He was onto a hiding unless he got the hell out of there, so Casca had decided to help. Now he was face to face with the Frenchman, dressed in the blue of the French army, and with the surcoat of the fleur de lys over his plate mail. He was carrying a broadsword of about four feet in length and was swinging it two-handed.
Well, son, two can play at that game, Casca thought, and stepped up to the man. The Frenchman swung, expecting to cut this Englishman in two, but was surprised to find his blow blocked with a force that jarred his arm. Casca braced his left foot behind his body and countered, swinging up from the right to the left, across the chest. The point narrowly missed the Frenchman’s neck as he bent backwards in a reflex motion.
Wasting no time, Casca stepped forward. He now slashed down from high, aiming to smash in the helmet of his opponent. The man-at-arms desperately deflected it aside but he was off-balance and falling back towards the crumbling doorway. Casca stepped forward again. Slash! Swing! The Frenchman, his face hidden behind the face plate of his helm, grunted audibly as he blocked twice more. More figures were filling the room now as more archers came in, and they mobbed the second man, pulling him down and hacked him to pieces. Pip put her hand to her mouth in shock and horror. The vicious, animalistic manner in which men were going about things was beyond anything she could have imagined.
Casca, meanwhile, had cornered the defender, backing him into a pile of rubble so he couldn’t go anywhere. One huge swing knocked the sword aside and Casca brought his blade down on the helmet of the man, cutting into it and driving the metal into the man’s face. He screamed and clutched himself through the ruined faceplate, and blood began to dribble out through the breathing holes. He sank to his knees and keeled over, writhing in pain. He couldn’t move his helmet as the cut edges had been driven into his face. Casca sent the point of his sword into an exposed opening in the armor, in between the neck and shoulder, and leaned on it until the man had stopped flopping about.
With both defenders dead the archers pushed through the doorway into the passageway outside. More clashes of swords came as more Frenchmen met them, and it became a pushing match as the outcome went down to whoever had the most weight, and the attackers outnumbered the defenders. Beyond was a spiral staircase, open to the elements thanks to a cannon ball strike, but still functional.
Casca beckoned to Pip. She came over, her face white. “Stick close to me, Pip.”
“It-it’s horrible!” she gasped, fighting to keep her food down. “Those poor men!”
“Those poor men were trying to kill our’s, Pip. Its kill or be killed.” He dragged her, unwillingly, in his wake.
She almost covered her ears at the sound of men being slaughtered – the grunts, cries and curses, the ringing of blades and that deep muffled sound of bodies being cut, sliced or stabbed. The iron smell of blood was in the air, too, which was overpowering to her.
To one side the archers were pushing the French back towards the staircase. On the other side the passageway led up to another stairwell that was totally blocked with rubble. A man lay half seen beneath it. The expression on his face wasn’t something to comfort the already horrified Pip.
Casca joined the throng at the stairwell and added his weight to the crush. Gradually they prevailed, the French being forced back unwillingly to the lip of the staircase. With no room to swing weapons and arms being pinned against their comrades, both sides relied on brute force to win the struggle. With a scream of terror one Frenchman went over the lip of the
opening that had been torn in the wall, arms and legs flailing. A crossbow bolt came blurring in through the gap and hit an archer in the chest, and he sank to the ground, swallowed up by the others. The floorboards were splintered and moved about under the weight of the combatants, and there came a cracking sound.
“Look out – the floor’s giving way!” someone shouted.
With a gut-tearing sound the middle two planks split, having been weakened already, and the struggling knot of men plunged through to the chamber below. Casca felt the ground give way and he flailed out, hoping to grab something solid, but everything was caving in now it had started. Pip screamed as the men before her all fell through and she was left alone at the top, staring down at the dark hole in the passageway.
Casca fell heavily and landed on someone who grunted as the air in his lungs was forced out. He rolled, still gripping his sword, and crashed into a table. He staggered, and then got to his feet as rapidly as he could, ignoring the stabbing agony in his leg. It would heal; his wounds always did.
He glanced down at his injury. A long nail was sticking into his leg. It must have come from part of the ruined floor above. He yanked it out, hissing with the pain. All round him men were groaning and slowly getting to their feet. Others remained where they had fallen. The sound of battle carried on, unabated, from beyond the room.
“Cass!” Pip’s voice came from above.
He twisted his head and looked up. The drop was perhaps the height of two men. “Here,” he offered his hands to her, placing his sword back into its sheath on his belt. “Jump down, I’ll catch you.”
She looked dubiously but crouched at the lip of the hole. An arrow struck the wall close to her head and clattered away harmlessly, and she squeaked in fear and dropped towards him. He caught her and absorbed the force of her jump. She clutched hold of him and pressed her head into his chest for a moment. “Oh, God,” she breathed, “I’m scared.”