The Bow (2 page)

Hit a coated knight almost anywhere with a clout-head
and he would go down. Down but not out, and fit for ransom if the
chance came, and King Harry allowed.

'They’re on the move again!’ An old bowman next to
him cursed, and spat evil coloured bile at his feet. James looked up.
The French surged out of the mist, then paused. The clink and clatter
of their harness sounded dully across the bellied field. Above their
lines the banners of Orleans, d’Eu, d’Alencon, Vaudemont,
Bretagne, de Nevers and the House of Bar crowded together in a blaze
of colour: silver roses and golden lilies, black lions and red
eagles, on fields of blue and white and semi-de lis.

'Sweet Mary,’ muttered a Flintshire farmer. ‘They’re
all here.’

‘
Aye,’ laughed a stocky little Welsh man-at arms,
‘And like to choke themselves on that lot! Look at those flags. No
wonder they don’t come on at us. The poor beggars can’t see, let
alone move.’

Indeed, as James watched, he saw some of the banners
furled and carried to the rear. Shortly afterwards, the sprawling
ranks opened, and four horsemen, one bearing a banner of fleurs de
lys trotted forward, then spurred heavily across the field. The
foremost was a herald, tabarded with the arms of France, all in blue
and gold, and wearing a velvet bonnet, instead of a visored helmet or
bascinet.

‘
That ‘uns ripe for a clever shot,’ said a raw
Lancashire voice from somewhere along the line. ‘I could pick him
with a swallow-tail right through the gizzard, and knock his wee head
clean off. It’s sure I could.’

‘
Do that chum, and ‘Arry ‘ll have your hide nailed
to a church door before you can blink.’

There was a silence.

‘
Am I right?’

‘
Aye, captain, right enough, but how long till we can
let fly at these piss-pots? It’ll be the forenoon hour soon.’

James stepped back a pace, so that he could see the
captain. He was tall and strong, with a jet black beard, closely
trimmed about his jaw and chin. He wore a mail coif and arming cap,
as well as a brigandine of quilted leather, polished to a deep
reddish-brown. His bowstave rested easily over his shoulder, and a
finely scabbarded sword hung at his hip.

‘
You’ll wait your turn like everyone else’, he
replied to the Lancashire bowman. ‘But we will fight, don’t ye
worry about that! Here, today. In this place. Otherwise, there’s
none of us here like to see England’s shores again, and all of us
most like to drop down dead for weariness and fever.’

After that, no one said anything for a while. Slowly the
herald and his escort neared the English lines, heading for the
centre battle. At last, he slithered to a halt, not twenty paces from
the royal banner. Someone called out that they could see the coat of
arms of Jacques de Crequy among the escort: the famous knight who had
broken parole and fled from Wisbech castle to make good his escape to
France.

Three English knights trudged out to meet the herald.
One of them was Sir John Holland, the hero of Harfleur, bearing on
his shield and coat the three lions of England. Sir Thomas
Strickland, banner bearer of St George, was the second knight, his
three scallops argent just visible against the murk. And even from
that distance James could see that the last of them wore a golden
circlet on his helmet, and his surcoat was quartered in blue and red
and gold. It was the king. He had sent his horse to the rear, and
would face the herald on foot.

'More talk,’ said a sergeant wearily.

‘
Aye!’ replied the little Welsh spearman. ‘It’s
the mud, ye see. Frenchie knows ‘e’s got us trapped, but he
doesn’t fancy coming at us across all that mud. Sticky it is. Rare
sticky, and just right to suck old Frenchie down to his knee-cops.’

You think so, Taffy?’

'I know so, sergeant. Mind you now, our good King Henry
is spoiling for a scrap. He knows this is just the place to have it.
Only, it’s just too good a place, look you. Too narrow, too wet,
too muddy. Frenchie won’t have it. He’ll wait till it’s good
and dry.’

'Hah! That could take hours. Days!’

The Welshman smiled, and planted the butt of his spear
in the mud.

‘
Which is what we don’t have, boyo!’

With a shake of the head, the sergeant looked up at the
sky. ‘Could rain again before long. I’ll be blowed if I stand
here all day, up to me ankles in this stinking mud, and freezing my
tail off.’

And so they waited while the Herald of France and the
King of England stood eye to eye and talked in the mud. The minutes
passed, then:

‘
Heads up, lads!’ said the captain, ‘I think we’ve
got action at last.’

As he spoke, James noticed that the Herald had bowed,
then turned away back towards his own lines. At the same moment King
Henry seemed to shout something, and pointed at his own banner that
hung limply over the centre battle. He then knelt, took a handful of
earth and pressed it to his lips. Every man in those front ranks did
the same, and the movement spread like a wave through the entire
army.

Almost immediately afterwards, they heard the great
barrel-chested roar of the old grey-beard warrior, Sir Thomas
Erpingham, marshal of the king’s army:

‘
Up stakes ! Up stakes! We advance two hundred paces!’

And then the king raised his voice. The whole army fell
silent, and the archers paused. His voice rang on the morning air,
and James felt a tingling across his shoulders and up his neck.

‘
In the Name of Almighty God. In the Name of Jesus. In
the Name of the Trinity, Avaunt banner in the best time of the year,
and Saint George be this day thine help!’

Sir Thomas threw his marshal’s baton into the air and
yelled, ‘Let’s go felas!’ The army roared, and the archers,
with spearmen, and heavily armed knights at their backs, advanced.

The excitement seemed to hurl James back into another
world. He wrenched his stake free, like a man caught in some strange
dream, and began to walk towards the French as though they were
waiting for him out of another place and time. There was no fear,
only a kind of eerie distance, as though his body was somehow
floating forward, while his heart and mind had never moved, but
stayed rooted to the spot.

Suddenly, he was back in Chiswick, a boy with a bow in
his hand, and time to spare, and a careless ear that could ignore the
shouts of his mother calling him in to see to the geese. And the
muddy furrows he crossed were the furrows of the Great South Field
that ran by the glebe and down to the Thames. And the stake he
carried across his shoulder was the unfinished bowstave he had found
all those years ago as a lad, and brought back to show his father.

The archers stopped to let the knights catch up and take
breath. Then they gave a great cheer and advanced again. James heard
himself cheering too, but scarcely knew for why or for what. It was
as though he was just shouting at the cattle to turn them away from
the corn in Brother Matthew’s crop.

But then the captains shouted, and the trumpets sounded
close by, and there was the stake across his shoulder, and the heavy
bow in his hand, and the bodkins in his belt. He stumbled on across
the muddy furrows.

Some other archers came up alongside him. One put a hand
on his shoulder. It was John ap Meredith, a tall and craggy bowman
from North Wales. He had sand-red hair, straggling down to his
shoulders, and a broad, tooth-gapped grin. ‘What ho, James!’ he
said. James turned and nodded. He could see Jankyn Fustor, a Devon
man, close behind with his painted bow of hardened yew, and an old
battered pot-helm. Mat Bromfield, the Godstone tanner, was there too,
with Yevan ap Griffiths a pace to his left, singing quietly, and
frowning at the mud. Good friends to have in a fight like this. They
went on, silent now, watching their feet, but looking up every so
often to measure the distance to the French lines. They were getting
close. Too close. Surely now, or very soon . . .

‘
Ware lads!’ A captain’s voice rang out. ‘They’ve
crossbowmen up ahead, and to the flank.’ The English line shambled
to a halt. Without waiting for the order, the archers drove their
stakes into the mud, and angled them towards the French line, which
was edging forward at the flanks, but still holding back in the
centre. They were just over a hundred and fifty paces away, and ripe
for a clout shot.

James set his arrows once more, and checked the bow
string. The air was cold and damp, but not enough to penetrate the
wax. All should be well if the weather held.

Someone coughed and cursed. It was Morgaunt Filkyn. He
had the fever at his throat, but was still strong enough to bring
down a warhorse at a hundred yards. ‘Frenchie’ll pelt us with his
bolts if we hang about much longer’, he muttered. ‘Those
crossbows shoot like the devil.’

'Wisht now, Morgaunt!’ said Lewis the Hunte, an old
shepherd from the Dales. ‘If they want to pipe to us, we’ll dance
with them. Never knew a crossbowman who could hold his ground for
more than three flights before he’d turn and run.’ He smiled and
nodded to himself as he held a bodkin head up to the light, and
turned it over in his hand. ‘I’ll save this ‘ere fellow for
their pretty knights. War arrows and swallow tails for your
crossbowmen young Morgaunt.’

The other shook his head, but James noticed that he
nocked a war arrow all the same, and looked to the flank. There was
another shout, this time high and distant. It came from the French
lines. As it died away, a mass of crossbowmen ran forward, stood, and
let fly with their bolts. There was a pause as a scattering of black
dots flew across the open field towards the archers. They grew into
ugly, stunted shafts which all at once leapt and whined and whizzed
about the startled ranks. A few men toppled forward. Some cried out.

Almost immediately the master bowmen stepped from the
ranks:

‘
Knee!’ Every archer leant forward and nocked an
arrow.

‘
Stretch!’ They straightened and drew back on the
great yew bows.

‘
Loose!’ Suddenly the air was dark with thrice a
thousand arrows.

Like a cloud of starlings at sunset, they rose steeply,
arching against the lowering sky, then plunged down on the heads of
the crossbowmen. Their ranks shook, wavered, and for just a moment
seemed to gather their resolve: until the second volley struck. Now
it was as if a giant hand had swept them from the field. Those who
had not been instantly felled in the onslaught, were scattered in
wild retreat. Their cries drifted across the open space towards the
English lines.

‘
Poor devils,’ said one archer.

‘
It’s not over yet,’ replied another. There was a
faint clattering sound as the lances of the French cavalry squadrons
swung down to the charge, then the rippling call of horns all along
their ranks. The banners of a hundred or more noblemen and all their
retinues dipped and tossed above the glittering array as it move
forward, and stirred itself to the trot. In the midst they could see
the blood-orange standard of St Denis: the Orifamme.

'Watch my mark! Watch my mark!’ yelled William
Bretoun, a master bowman of Yeovil. He was close by James, and James
could hear the tremble in his voice. He drew a bodkin from the mud .
. .

‘
Stretch!’ The French cavalry managed a lumbering
gallop, sending great clods of earth flying into the air. ‘Now . .
. strike!’

James loosed his bow string, and felt the breath of the
fletchings against his cheek. Then the slap against his wrist guard.
The shaft sang clear. He glanced to see it go, then bent to the next
bodkin.

Stretch! . . . Stretch! . . . Now, strike! . . . My
mark! My mark!’

The ground shook. The arrows rose and fell, the lines of
archers bent and straightened like wheat in the wind, and the storm
of steel fell in a barbed blizzard against the horsemen of France.

Beneath their banners, they came on doggedly, casque,
helm and sallet inclined against the hissing shafts. Everywhere
horses and men were going down, some thrown to the ground by the
force of the blow, others skewered in the saddle and left to slump
backwards and sideways into the trampling mass.

In the midst of the slaughter the survivors pressed
forward, urging each other on, but slowing visibly as the cloying mud
gripped the horses at their fetlocks.

‘
Knee . . .Stretch . . .Strike!’ James was into his
rhythm now, not caring to see if his arrows made their mark, but
keenly aware that the French had come to within a double spear-cast
of the line. He hoped fervently that the boys had brought the king’s
arrows forward, but dare not look back to check. He had two bodkin
arrows, a clout-head and several war-arrows in front of him. That was
all. After that, if the boys didn’t come it was down to staff and
maul.

He could see the devices on their shields now, painted
lions, and eagle heads, bells and battlements and lily fields – all
bright with colour and shot through with shafts.

'Twice three more volleys, then look to the stakes!’
yelled William Bretoun.

James heard the clank of steel behind him, and a
pole-axe in a mailed fist appeared at his shoulder. He loosed a shaft
at five and twenty paces and winced to hear the scream of the horse
as it crashed forward, throwing its rider under the hooves of a
rearing destrier. Another shaft and another driving into the snorting
ranks. And all about him the other archers swearing and cursing and
calling for more arrows. All at once there was a chevalier not twenty
paces away, bearing down on him, his huge horse wide-eyed and
foaming, and tearing up the furrows with its mud-caked hooves.