Lord of the Isles (Coronet Books)

by Nigel Tranter

  Two hours later, with the sky beginning to lighten beyond the mainland mountains across Loch Linnhe, men were wiping their bloodstained dirks and hands on the grass and moving down from the trees to the edge of the lochan to wash themselves and slake their thirst. Rounding-up and killing can be thirsty work, as well as messy. It was not, however, Norse blood which they were disposing of but that of cattle. More than fifty beasts lay dead there just within the cover of the trees, all the township’s precious stock which the Vikings had left to them. Somerled regretted this; but it could be assessed as the price the local people had to pay for their release from bondage. The knot of cottagers, rudely roused, who had been forced to help in the process, stood nearby in agitation and looked unappreciative.

  The meat would no doubt be very useful hereafter, for a celebratory feast—assuming that there were sufficient of them left alive to do justice to it all. It was not for their meat that those beasts had died, however, but for their hides. All had been flayed, not always expertly, and the skins cut in halves. These now lay piled in smelly heaps, eyed rather askance by all.

  Somerled was straining his eyes to see if there was any sign of their four ships. But in the half-light it was impossible to disinguish anything beyond the vague collection of hulls and masts which represented the mass of the Norse craft. It was a dull and cloudy dawn. He reckoned that there would have to be at least another half-hour before it would be light enough for action.

  He ordered the half-hides to be laid out in neat rows for easy availability. He went to speak to the villagers. He checked that his leaders knew exactly what to do—at least in the early stages. He sent men to gather dry tinder, wood, dead branches and the like, to aid the fire-raisers, but also other material less combustible but more liable to smoke, old leaves, bracken fronds and broom foliage, separately. Then he could only wait.

  At last he gave the signal for the fires to be lit. Quickly along the eastern half of the wood the flames sprang up and began to run together into a blazing wall, fanned by the quite strong morning breeze. Soon a great pall of smoke, luridly tinged with red, went rolling down across part of the lochan and marshland and pasture towards the Norse encampment.

  After that, reaction was swift. Half-a-mile away, figures could be seen emerging from the sailcloth awnings, to stare. Shouting could be heard, growing in intensity. Within a minute or two, sails of their own ships began to appear around the spur of the point.

  Somerled had to restrain his people who would have rushed down, there and then, using the smoke as screen, crossed the marshy levels below the lochan and hurled themselves upon the sleep-bemused and disorganised enemy. He did allow them to shout, however—and a mighty and sustained din they made, which could not fail to be heard at the camp.

  The alarm and indecision there was very evident, men milling about. But priorities and discipline were not long in beginning to assert themselves—especially when new smoke began to arise from two of their beached longships. Crews began to stream away down to the shore.

  “More! More!” Somerled exclaimed, through the hubbub.

  “They see only the four attacking craft,” MacNeil pointed out.

  “But cannot know how thinly they are manned. I had hoped . . . ah, there are more going. That is better. And more—another crew. Five crews. Or six. Now you see why I would have no revealing of numbers here, yet. I want as many away after our craft as may be—not all holding back here to face us. We wait awhile longer.”

  Their four decoys did not linger. Well before the first Norse crewmen were pushing out and boarding their vessels, the attackers had turned tail and were tacking out of the bay—but not before the gallowglasses had tossed many of the enemy oars into the water and rent furled sails with their dirks, to give them a fair start.

  It was a little while, in the circumstances, before the Vikings were able to get their ships ready and off in pursuit, six of them, half the total, and in much of a straggle. Restraining his own impatience now, Somerled let them round Sallachan Point and out-of-sight, before at last he gave the orders that his men awaited and ran to put himself at their head.

  He had said that the land must fight for them. A small, low spur of the same high hill, Beinn Leamhain the local folk called it, from whose crest he had viewed all the day before, projected in a broom-clad knoll at the end of their wood. Behind this, away from the flame and smoke, Somerled took his one-hundred-and-forty, plus some of the local men, out-of-sight of the camp. Rounding the far side, they did come into view again, although even at this side the smoke formed a thin screen. Taking half the men, he led them, leaping and brandishing swords and battleaxes, along the front or northern flank of the knoll, amongst the broom-bushes, a yelling horde which the enemy could not fail to see. When they reached the wood again, and cover, each man grabbed up one of the half cattle-hides and went racing back round the far side of the hillock once more—whilst meantime the second section performed the same manoeuvre. Back at the starting-point, they slung the slimy hides, hair out, like tloaks over their shoulders and went bounding along the front of the knoll again, shouting louder than ever, their comrades repeating the crazy spectacle. A third time they all went through the exercise, on this occasion with the hides turned hair inwards. Finally, panting, they did it once more, hides discarded, before sinking down exhausted in the shelter of the trees, feeling fools but hopeful that the Norse would have seen, at half-mile range, no fewer than eight companies of over seventy each, all differently clad, hurrying from that hillside to the cover of the woodland, the part which was not burning.

  How would this affect the enemy tactics? Gasping for breath, Somerled watched.

  The Norsemen took their time, evidently somewhat at a loss. But presently they made a move. Two columns issued from the encampment, each of perhaps two hundred men, heading somewhat warily towards the smoking woodland, one round the east side of the loch, one round the west.

  Somerled heaved a sigh of relief and thankfulness. “We have them!” he declared, “Or else we are poor fighters! We have them well divided. Those west of the lochan will be here first—for the ground is firm above the water, with only the burn to cross. But below it is marshy, soft and will take them time. We attack on the west first. Saor, Conn—ready your men. Dermot—make smoke, much more smoke. All the leaves and brackens we have gathered. We have to fight in it—but at least we are prepared. Let them well into the trees before we strike. When I blow the horn, leave off, to turn on the others. Do no delaying, then. You understand? Break off, whatever. So—God be with us!”

  The fight in the woodland was a horror, by any standards, a ghastly mêlée in smoke and gloom and chaos. There could be no front, no line nor any unified direction or control, on either side, amongst trees and bushes and shadows, nothing but innumerable individual encounters or duels battled out over a wide area. Yet duels would give a wrong impression, since it might imply an equality and there was little equality here. For though the Norsemen were as fierce fighters and expert swordsmen as the Irish, they were at a grievous disadvantage from the first. Somerled’s tactics were for his gallowglasses to fight in pairs, to strive to make the clashes two-to-one where it was possible—and since the Vikings entered the wood just as they reached it, raggedly and in no order, this device was the more effective. Also one side knew the approximate numbers of the enemy and the other did not—always a great advantage. Again, the Irish, even though their eyes streamed and smarted, were by now more inured to the smoke. Moreover they had chosen the battleground, were prepared for its problems and likewise advantages and were not suffering from the shock of being rudely awakened from sleep and hurled into battle on empty stomachs. All of which told.

  Somerled himself fought vehemently, almost joyfully, yet his attention was not wholly on what he was doing—which was dangerous. Part of his mind was busy in calculating how far the other wing of the Norse assault would have reached, across the marshland beyond the lochan. Deliberately he had had the dead leaves and brack
en fires lit at this western end of the main blaze so that the denser clouds of brown smoke would billow down between this first battle and the rest, preventing the latter from seeing what went on here—but equally of course, he could not see in the other direction, and in the prevailing noise could not hear either. He had to guess at timing and to judge what the others would do when they reached the trees. They would presumably not plunge into the fiercely blazing woodland itself, so must swerve left or right. The chances were that they would swing right, to link up with their fellows. That must not be allowed to happen. When, having felled his third Norseman and, slow in withdrawing his sword from the man’s rib-cage, he was assailed by another, with a battleaxe, and only saved by the swift intervention of one of his Irish, he recognised that this would not do and that his duty was otherwise. Extricating himself from the struggle he made his way over to his right, towards the smoke-fires—but was able to aid a hard-pressed gallowglass in the by-going. On the whole this battle appeared to be going well, he decided.

  Penetrating the denser smoke, he pushed on above the lochan, choking, blinking, seeking for some thinning of the pall where he might observe. But the screen he had conjured up was all too effective.

  When at length he gained some hazy visibility, it was to discover that the foremost of the enemy was almost up with the woodland near the loch-foot. Admittedly many others seemed to be much scattered and strung out, plowtering and stumbling and making deviations in the bog. But it would not be long before these reassembled, to become a menace. It was time for a diversion.

  Hurrying back, he found his way, with some difficulty, to where he had left the group of local men, herders, fishers and the like, standing in alarm behind the line of fire and listening to the sounds of battle.

  “You men,” he called hoarsely, “show your worth! Aid us to defeat these pirates who oppress you. I do not ask you to fight. But run you down to the edge of the lochan, there, shouting your loudest. A company of Norse are making for here, across the bog. Give them pause. No need for blows. Just show yourselves, in all the smoke, with much noise—then back here into the trees. No danger—but it will give us more time.”

  The men looked doubtful but could scarcely refuse. He left them to it.

  Back in the area of the main battle, he blew on the bull’s horn which hung at his side. Long and loud he blew, the signal to break off this struggle and rally for the next.

  It was not so easy, of course, to break off at a summons when one was fighting for one’s life. That was why Somerled, aware of it, needed time. He had to blow two or three times before he got any large proportion of his warriors assembled, a reproachful, disgruntled, battered lot, not a few of them wounded, all weary. He told them that he was sorry but this was necessary, one last push and then it should be as good as over. The Norsemen here, he reckoned, would have had enough. They were unlikely to rally and attack again meantime, although they might not be totally defeated. They could be left, for the moment.

  Shouting from the other end of the woodland seemed to indicate that the Sallachan men were carrying out instructions, Somerled took his reluctant Irish through the smoke and trees in that direction.

  They met the others coming running back, declaring that they were being close followed. This was what Somerled had hoped for. Telling his men to hide themselves as best they could—it was not difficult amongst woodland and smoke—hardly had he flung himself to the ground than the first Norsemen loomed up, in coughing, stumbling pursuit. They let these past, some way, to encourage the others, then set upon their successors as they appeared.

  At this stage it was almost too easy, picking off the enemy in twos and threes as they came hurrying. The Irishmen became careless, laughing and joking at the grim business and pushing one another aside in order to get their due share of the killing. But when the oncoming Vikings began to trip over the growing numbers of their fallen, they became more wary, and presently leadership asserted itself and they fell back to regroup.

  This Somerled sought not to allow. Shouting, the gallowglasses went over to the assault, hurling themselves after the retiring foe.

  Once again forethought and planning gave them much advantage. The Norse had already suffered reverse and losses here, and found themselves on the defensive against unknown and confident numbers. They fought in denser smoke and heat than had the others—and they must have wondered what had happened to their fellows. So, although individuals fought bravely enough, they were not in a winning state and were gradually pressed back towards the lochan-foot and marsh.

  Somerled grabbed a pair of gallowglasses. “Back to those villagers,” he ordered. “Find them and bring them. Shouting and yelling again. Round from the right, the east. No need to fight, just noise. A seeming new attack from that side. That should aid us. Off with you.”

  The pair must have found the locals not far behind, for, more speedily than Somerled could have expected, there was a great outcry on their right and, armed with sticks and stones and the weapons of fallen Vikings, the Sallachan men came charging in from the east, cheering.

  That was sufficient for the disheartened Norsemen. Almost with one accord they turned and sought to bolt back into the bog.

  Although Somerled had indicated that this would be the last of his demands on his men meantime, he was not quite finished.

  “The ships!” he shouted. “They must not reach their ships. Cut them off. Quickly—east-about. Round the bog. Down to the bay-shore. Follow me!” And he went leaping off.

  The fleeing Norse had the shorter distance to cover, but they had gone, as they had come, through the soft marshland. It might give them a sense of security but it slowed them down notably. By skirting round on firmer ground, Somerled’s people were able to run where the others plodded and jumped and circled, to reach the salt-water shore, half-a-mile from the longships. But once on the hard shingle they were able to race directly for the beaching area, with only the shallow outfall of the Water of Gour to splash across.

  The enemy could not fail to see it and to recognise who would reach the ships first. They began to swing away northwards, the only direction which offered any escape. And there, ahead of them, were the survivors of their first company, also streaming off from the burning woodland in the same direction. Not unnaturally they headed to join them.

  It was a strange situation, with Somerled the clear victor and left in possession of the field, and more than that, the precious ships, yet the enemy still outnumbering them heavily—although they clearly did not know it. To be sure there were the other six ships, somewhere up Loch Linnhe chasing decoys, still to be reckoned with.

  Reaching the vessels, Somerled sought to review the position and decide upon priorities. He had been prepared to get the vessels afloat, then board and if necessary defend them, ready to fight the other six when they returned. But it seemed that such a programme was not called for meantime, for the dispirited Norsemen were continuing to hurry off north-westwards into the hills, a straggling horde. So what was best now? The thought of trying to wage a sea-battle at this stage, with his exhausted force in six sorely undermanned ships, was less than appealing. It occurred to him that this might not be advisable now anyway. What would most upset these returning Vikings—a sea-battle against an inferior force, which they might so well win? Or to find their other ships burned and destroyed, their camp wrecked and their comrades gone, obviously defeated? He knew what would impress himself most.

  So he issued new orders. These ships were to be fired, thoroughly, burned out. Then they would go up to the camp, eat and rest themselves briefly—provisioning would be there—then destroy the place and follow after the retreating foe, to keep them on the run and prevent any junction with the ship-borne group.

  So more flame and smoke was added to that Sallachan conflagration and thereafter refreshment, if not much in the way of rest, was the order of the day. Celebration too, for amazingly they had not lost a single man dead, although there were not a few wounded, some s
eriously. These were roughly aided and then handed over to the Sallachan folk to be cared for—who also were charged with burying the Norse dead.

  Before they left the camp—most of them extremely unwillingly—to follow the fleeing enemy into the hills, Somerled consulted the township men as to where the Norsemen would be likely to head in these circumstances. All agreed that they would almost certainly make through these Ardgour mountains, up Glen Gour and over the Sunart watershed for the great sea-loch of Shiel in Moidart, which lay some twenty difficult miles north-westwards and reached another score of miles inland from the ocean. The Vikings were known to have a base on Loch Shiel, from which they dominated Moidart and Sunart. These defeated would almost certainly seek to join their fellow-countrymen there.

  Twenty miles. Somerled calculated. These sea-pirates were not likely to be good hillmen and, dejected and with their wounded, they would not cover that distance quickly through rough country. But his own people were desperately tired also and in no state for further fighting meantime. Besides, he had achieved his immediate objectives. There was no need actually to catch up with these fleeing men, so long as they saw them off these Argyll territories and prevented any reunion with their shipping. He would follow on slowly, therefore, and allow the enemy to know that they were being pursued.

  He left behind a couple of men, and Murdoch the Achranich fisherman, to keep hidden watch for the returning longships and to bring him word as to what they did. He also warned the Sallachan folk to be ready to retire from their township meantime, with his wounded, for the returning Norse crews might well seek to work off their wrath on the local population, although in the circumstances he thought that they would be more likely to fear further attack and be concerned with leaving the neighbourhood. Somerled assured the people that he and his men would be back before long. Also their four decoy ships, from the Lochaber side, might well turn up in due course and should be instructed to await him here.