[Norman Conquest 02] Winter of Discontent (44 page)

The men all wore leather scale-
armour at the insistence of Sven, who set an example. Danes and Norwegians usually wore
chain-mail
byrnies, although not always when at sea. Given Sven’s brief comment that not many men could swim in rough open seas wearing
forty
pounds or so of steel, most of the men had opted for armour made of boiled leather, which weighed about one-third of that. Along the
saxboards
, the sides of the ships, were
tied
the oarsmen’s personal weapons.
These were c
ross-bows for use at distance, boarding pikes and both long and short swords. The archers kept their longbows with them, unstrung, along with sheaves of arrows. Two barrels of spare arrows sat before and abaft the mast. The yard and the
woollen
sail were currently lowered.

Alan marvelled at the military force packed into such a small hull, barely twenty paces long by three wide, and the way that the light, swift and manoeuvrable ships could project power at long distances and at great speed. King William was a man who had fought all his battles on land against foes who travelled on foot or horseback. His lack of understanding of the importance of a strong naval force to protect coastal trade and repel raiders was something that irked Alan. He wished that he could have more than two ships. He could afford to buy them, but the manning requirements of fifty or more men per ship made
such a plan
impossible. The men he did have were fyrdmen, fishermen and farmers from the sea-
side villages, who usually spent one day a week
in
training. Alan had doubled that at the moment to two days and the current day’s training was to take advantage of the strong southerly winds that had the sea forming a short chop with waves up to six feet high and a short swell.

As soon as they left the shelter of Alresford Creek the boat began to pitch up and down as the men rowed into the wind. The motion disturbed the rhythm of the rowing, with oarsmen ‘catching crabs’ and having their oars skim across the surface in the troughs and bite too deeply on the crests. Sven became animated for the first time that Alan had seen him, shouting curses and directions at the oarsmen, telling them to watch each wave and adjust the depth of their stroke while maintaining rhythm. Alan went amidships and stood next to the mast, wrapping one arm around it to maintain his balance.

Once the ship was a mile offshore Sven turned
west, putting the longship side-
on to the wind and waves. The motion increased dramatically as the ship rolled and plunged like a berserk horse. Sven’s shouted imprecations grew even hotter and more personal, with many references to mothers and their marital status. The sailing crew were instructed to raise and lower the sail several times, oarsmen assisting
with
pulling on the ropes that controlled the mast and yard. The mast itself was raised and lowered repeatedly, the kerling and the mast
-
fish being man-handled into and out of place with the activity disturbing the adjacent rowers. The ship’s motion had made a number of men ill. Some had been able to find a place at the side, while others were forced to vomit where they
sat
. Alan had difficulty in controlling his own stomach as the ship rose and fell and rolled side to side.

With the mast lowered and the oarsmen at work Sven then ordered an empty barrel thrown over the side. The archers stood and tried to maintain their footing as the ship plunged and rolled and the bowmen tried to shoot at a moving target from a moving shooting position.
Next
the oarsmen were given the opportunity to use their cross-bows before Sven ordered the ballista crew into action.
They were o
rdered only to use plain iron bolts without Alan’s secret incendiary mixture called ‘Wildfire’, similar to Greek Fire, as the motion of the ship made it likely that the mixture would be dropped and their own ship burned instead of the target
. T
he ballista crew were surprisingly accurate out to three hundred yards. While the target barrel was hit only once, at least a third of the shots would have hit a ship sixty feet long. The flat trajectory and the velocity of the bolt meant that when the target was in the sights a quick release
of
the bolt would
see it
usually strike home before the target had moved or disappeared into a wave trough, and that unlike arrows the wind hardly affected the aim.
Th
e archers were
then
given another opportunity for nearly an hour, before Sven ordered the oars on one side of the ship stilled for a few moments and pointed the ship towards home. He could have sailed most of the way back, but insisted on the men rowing as part of the objective of the training cruise was to have the oarsmen fit and able to row all day.

When they returned to
the head of Alresford Creek, some half mile from Thorrington, the tide was half out, exposing a large mudflat that the men had to struggle through, up to their knees in thick black mud, to reach the shore. Sven had left four men on board with instructions to properly moor the ship when the tide returned. As he and Alan squelched their way home he commented
,
“Not bad. They’re improving and will give the Danes a run for their money. They’re farmers most of the year as well, not like us Norwegians.
We had di
fficult conditions today and they didn’t do too badly. In good conditions the longbowmen and the ballista will be a real surprise for the Danes. Your men may not be as good as Vikings, but they are as good as the Danes!”

It was with a very strong sense o
f déjà vu that Alan sat at the
high-table
in the Hall.
Just after midnight on
Friday 24
th
July
,
the eve of the Feast of St James the Apostle
,
he had been roused by a messenger from the lookout at the mouth of Barfleet Creek
and informed
that a number of longships had approached the village of Brigh
t
lingsea in the moonlight several hours before. ‘At least ten ships’ probably meant that the
lookout
hadn’t bothered to take off his boots to be able to more accurately count the raiders. As well as nearly sixteen hours of sunlight
each day
, there was a full moon and calm weather- excellent raiding conditions.

Riders had been dispatched along the roads to the west, north-west, north, north-east and east. The glow of fires against the night sky from Brigh
t
lingsea showed there was no need to send a rider in that direction. Alan hoped that Edsel, the King’s Reeve of Brigh
t
lingsea, was still alive and had learnt the
lesson
of his refusal to participate in the collective defense efforts undertaken by
the others in the Hundred
. Alan tried his best to snatch
moments of
sleep as messengers hurried
to and fro
, Huscarle Brand dealing with most of the minor matters.
He
heard
reports
of fires to the south-east, almost certainly the village of St Osyth. Anne
. T
he servants of the Hall were kept busy providing food, drink and straw palliasses to the arriving messengers.

First light was due at about four in the morning. By
three
in the morning over
400
men were gathered at Thorrington, having come as far as fifteen miles from Dovercourt and Cliff to the north and Frinton in the east.
N
ot only the men of Alan’s own manors had mustered, but also those of the other thegns including Engelric’s man Leax, the thegn of Birch Hall to the north-east.
Leofstan mentioned that he had ridden through Great Clacton on the way and that the inhabitants were hurriedly organising defences, not unreasonable since they were the next village to the east after St Osyth.

Mounted scouts had been
dispatched
and reported back that there were seventeen longships in Barfleet Creek near Brigh
t
lingsea, less than two miles from Thorrington. Alresford and Wivenhoe to the west reported no ships in sight.
This was a
favourable report, but given that the longships could move so quickly and loom unheralded out of the sea-haze, not necessarily to be relied on. Seventeen ships meant probably nigh on
800
hundred men. Alan was certain that once again their main target would be Colchester, which meant that the Danes had to pass Wivenhoe. The village was now much more strongly held than two years previously, as it belonged to Anne and both time and money had been lavished on fortifications and equipment since the last raid. The men of Wivenhoe and Alresford had been instructed to remain with their villages but to adopt defensive positions, armed and ready as required.

At first light Alan rode out on a rouncey
together
with half a dozen scouts towards Barfleet Creek. The creek was a shallow tidal inlet that wandered north and west from the sea and whose headwaters were a mile south-east of Thorrington. The land was flat, low-lying and, until close to the village, soft and marshy despite the recent lack of rain. The Danish longships were drawn up on the west bank of the creek just north of the village of Brightlingsea. A quick count confirmed they were in fact seventeen in number. A haze of smoke hung over the village and a number of charred ruins could be seen, including several outlying farmhouses. Alan’s manor of Great Bentley was on the east side of the creek and appeared deserted, in accordance with his instructions. The stables of the horse stud lay empty, the horses being led to safety inland. Also empty were the byres and pig-pens, with the cattle and swine also having been driven away. The people were either with their livestock
in wood
s
several miles north or at the apparent safety of Thorrington. Alan hoped
that the Danes would be satisfied to loot what they could from the empty
village
and not put it to the torch.

Several Danish scouts could be seen moving through the area on horseback, presumably on steeds seized at Brightlingsea that night. A large number of men
were
clustered around cooking fires on the shore near the ships or moving through the village. Alan presumed that he could only see a small part of the Danish force and that many others would be resting in the village or on the ships after their exertions in the night attack.

Alan had expected and hoped that the Danes would board their ships and move on to Colchester, just a few miles up the estuary. However, from the relaxed atmosphere of the camp in front of him, it appeared that a move to attack the city was not an immediate concern for the invaders
- w
hich meant that Thorrington could expect a visit later that day.

The villages were some two miles apart, the road running virtually north-south along a narrow patch of relatively firm ground between the salt-marshes at the head of the Alresford
Creek to the west
and Barfleet Creek
to the east
. There was another
route along the west bank of Barfleet Creek, but given the swampy nature of the ground no commander would use that when a suit
able alternative was available.

Alan discounted the possibility of the Danes boarding their ships to travel the mile or so to the head of Barfleet Creek. The effort involved, the need to wait for the flood tide which would not be until evening and the requirement to disembark across a mudflat while under attack by archers would not appeal to any leader. At a point a little less than a mile south of
the village of
Thorrington the road that the Danes would take skirted a marsh to the east of Alresford Creek. At that point was a large stand of trees and tangled undergrowth that continued east through to the salt-marsh that ran on the west side of Barfleet Creek, and which left a clear area near the road only
150
paces or so wide. It was at this natural choke-point that Alan intended his men to make a stand.

Without further delay he dispatched
100
men to hold the chosen battlefield and archers and horsemen to drive
away
the Danish scouts so that preparations could be made without observation by prying eyes. He also ordered
to sea
his own two longships
, currently
in Alresford Creek just to the west of Thorrington, so as not to be detected
and
with instructions to maintain contact and await further orders. The ships had been stripped of their archers and half of their oarsmen as the extra sixty trained men may make all the difference in the battle that would be decided on land. Alan was by no means sanguine
as to
the outcome, knowing he was on the wrong side of two to one numbers, and he was troubled by the fact that his wife and child would be in his house no more than a mile from his back.