The Bow (9 page)

‘
Oof! There’s a pretty speech. Still, ye’ve a
nerve to ask, and it’s nerve I like. Let’s see the lad.’

Together they wandered across the field to where Ralf
was sweating at the butts. He did not notice as they approached, so
they stood to one side watching him for a time. He had a bundle of
about twenty practice arrows, and was using his new bow to shoot them
into the straw butts from about eighty paces.

‘
What do you think?’ asked James after a while.

Yevan thought for a bit. ‘Well, he has some technique,
though I’d say he’s not sure whether to draw to the cheek or the
chest, and he hesitates a bit on the stretch. Feet a bit too square,
and a shade closed for my liking.’

As they watched Ralf loosed a shaft which caught the
wind and skipped wide of the butt. He cursed and drove the tip of his
bow into the turf.

'So there’s the fire,’ muttered Yevan, ‘Let’s
see the colour of his silver.’ He walked up to Ralf, and without
even greeting him took the bow from his hand. Ralf went to grab it
back and got a cuff on his jaw which sent him reeling.

‘
Shoot like that, and you don’t deserve to hold a
beauty like this’,’said Yevan, without even looking at him. ‘What
draw weight is she?’

Ralf looked at James who nodded. ‘She’s one fifteen
pounds,’ he said, rubbing the side of his jaw. ‘What’s it to
you?’

‘
Well laddie, I’ll tell ye. If a bowyer sells ye a
bow that’ll take the strain at one fifteen, and it’s made of good
bole yew, with a three year season, then ye can whip it to one thirty
no bother at all. See here!’

He snatched up an arrow from several at his feet, and in
a single flowing movement bent the bow and shot. The arrow drove
nearly to its fletchings in the centre of the butt.

‘
How did you do that?’ gasped Ralf.

'I’m Welsh,’ laughed Yevan. ‘It’s in me.’

'Teach me!’ said Ralf.

‘
What, to be Welsh?’

‘
To shoot!’

‘
Ye can shoot, ye lumpkin.’

‘
No, to shoot like that.’

‘
Ah, ye mean to shoot to stay alive. Is that what ye
mean?’

Ralf hung his head. ‘I guess I do.’

Yevan stared at him for a bit, them slapped him on his
back. ‘Cheer up, boyo ! James here tells me you’re worth the
teaching, and ye might be willing to pay for a few pointers.’

‘
How much?’

‘
How much do ye have?’

Ten shillings.’

‘
It’s an honest answer, cos ye didn’t flinch. Give
me five and I’ll make a Welshman of ye.’

Ralf beamed, touched his forelock and then turned to
James. ‘I’ll never forget this,’ he said.

‘
Make sure ye live long enough to make it a memory
worth having’, replied James, taking the bow from Yevan and tossing
it back to Ralf..

Yevan proved to be as good as his word. Over the next
ten days he drilled Ralf as though he had been paid fifty shillings
and not five. From dawn to dusk, weather permitting, they were down
at the butts, or away at the bowyers’ yard. One bow took so much
use it cracked and they had to get another. Some of the arrows too
needed re-fletching, and Yevan showed Ralf how to wind a spiral of
linen thread through the flights to hold the quills securely to the
shafts. He taught him how to quickly string his bow, and then fit an
arrow to the string in one easy movement. Then he showed him how to
draw beyond the cheek to the ear, and loose swiftly, without pause,
to lift his rate of shooting. Again and again, he corrected his
stance, forcing him to stand sideways to the line of shot so that he
could aim as he drew the bow up.

Ralf took all: the warnings, the curses, the cuffs of
encouragement, and the endless repetition of shot. He listened when
rebuked, and made no comment when praised. Moreover, not once did he
plead weariness or pain no matter how long the day, and never put
down his bow until Yevan gave the nod. And always James was there,
training alongside, but never saying a word. At last, one Sunday
down at the far butts by the salt marshes, as the February days
deepened under chill and heavy snow clouds, Yevan pronounced him a
halfway decent bowman. Ralf grinned from ear to ear, and opened his
mouth to speak, but simply shook his head as if in disbelief, and
took the masterbowman by the arm.

Yevan shrugged him off with a good natured smile.
‘You’re welcome, young Ralf, and I thank ye for your silver, but
it’ll all be for nought if ye don’t keep to the training.’

‘
I promise,’ replied Ralf.

'Promising is doing, boyo! Is that not right, James?’

‘
Aye it is, Yevan ap Griffiths, but ye’ve given this
lad more than most.’

The Welshman grinned, and put his hand on Ralf’s
shoulder: ‘Ye’re a bowman now boyo, and there’s a little bit of
welsh in ye, that ye never had before. But remember this, I can do
nothing for you. It’s the bow will see ye home. Take yourself down
to the bowyer’s yard tomorrow, and spend what ye have on a good new
bow. Not wych elm, mind, or I’ll send ye back! I want to see strong
grained yew with a one twenty five draw weight at least.’

‘
One twenty five!’

‘
Aye, lad! And the shoulders on you tell me that
you’ll whip that to one forty without so much as a blink.’ He
laughed and clapped the Norwich apprentice on the back. Ralf beamed.

They walked back to the town with an easterly at their
backs, and the first flurries of snow pattering against their cloaks.

Two days later, the Earl of Dorset called an assembly
with trumpets and banners and heralds all a-scurry. The army was to
prepare for the march. Knights, captains and sergeants were summoned
by turn to the great coloured pavilion that the Earl had set up in
the centre of his camp. Orders were given to the victuallers,
requisitions for supply were written out, and bonuses on wages
promised to the first companies that paraded in good order before
their lord.

Rumours flew around the town like sparrows: some said a
French force was marching against Harfleur; others said that Earl
Thomas had been told to launch a ‘chevauchee’ towards Paris; a
few said that the army was bound for the Vexin. Beneath the town
walls, battered seven months earlier by the twelve great guns of
Henry V’s siege train, the townsfolk set up stalls for a last
furious few days of buying and selling before the army marched.

As the snow drifted down on the slushy streets,
alleyways and paths of Harfleur, equipment and stores were loaded
onto the carts and packhorses of the Earl’s household troops. All
around them archers and men-at-arms gathered, leading their horses
out onto the whitening field.

James had bought a chestnut hack from a Breton
horse-dealer, while Ralf had found a shaggy coated pony in a shambles
courtyard and paid a shilling for him. They met their captain, Sir
Walter Hungerford by the tents that flanked the East Gate, and there
they presented their indentures and drew their last pay before the
march.

And there too they heard for sure where the army was
headed: the Somme Valley.

Sir Walter told them as they lined up to collect their
wages.

‘
Five miles a day,’ he said in his rough Wiltshire
brogue. ‘Four abreast with bows strung. All mounted, mind you, and
all with a sharp eye. There’s French about. We march up the valley
until we bump into them.’

‘
And then what my lord?’ someone called out.

Sir Walter glowered, his bushy eyebrows knit. ‘And
then, my friend we go a-fishing,’ he replied.

There were a few ironic cheers, but mostly the men fell
silent, staring at the snow on their boots, or checking the horn tips
on bows for one last time.

Two days later they marched. There was no send off. They
left with the rising sun, and tramped away into the river mist that
blanketed the banks of the Seine. Soon all but the tops of banners
were lost to view from the battlements of Harfleur, though it was
only the guards of the dawn-watch near the Montvilliers Gate that saw
them go.

They marched north from the Seine towards the Somme
Valley, covering a good ten miles and then making camp outside a
small village. The following day they did the same, and the day after
– though this time they made only four miles because the weather
turned foul and the roads went to mud. The harbingers went ahead
until they found clear ground, and there they made camp again: in
open fields by the Amiens-Abbeville road. A palisade was set, and
ditches dug. Foragers were sent out. They took what they wanted, and
paid as they wished, but the Earl would not give the land over to
slaughter. He was mindful of his king’s words: that France was
England’s by sovereign right, and therefore every citizen of France
had the protection of King Harry. Some grumbled at this, most just
shook their heads. They knew that the country was easier to pass
through if they did not leave it a smoking ruin, and they also knew
that any man who ignored this king of England would soon have his
neck stretched and his goods parted.

So they went gently through Picardy, and only looked to
war when they came upon castles, redoubts or towns that barred their
gates. Few held out for long. The castles were too small, and the
town gates too weak to withstand the shock of more than a thousand
men thrown against them. One by one they surrendered, their banners
draped over their walls in sign of submission, and their commanders
kneeling before the Earl with sword and keys.

And so the wagons grew fat with plunder, and captains
scoured the countryside for more oxen to pull them. The men cursed
and complained as they heaved and strained at rut-bound carts, but
they worked with a will, knowing that when there was no more to
gather the army would turn for home. When the weather lifted and the
sun came out, so their spirits rose. The wind still bit hard from the
east, and the mud froze at night, but the rain and wet snow had gone,
and men could sleep dry if they found a place beneath a hedge or
under a provost’s cart.

There came an evening, after a day’s march under clear
skies, that they made camp in open fields on a low ridge that ran
between two stands of trees. As usual, they fortified the site, and
placed guards at every twenty paces.

‘
Soon be a-turning!’ said Yevan cheerfully, as he
stirred the barley pottage, and kicked more twigs and straw under the
blackened crock.

‘
For home?’ asked Ralf, inching closer to the fire,
and screwing up his eyes against the smoke.

‘
Aye, for home, and keep your boots out of my fire!
I’ve enough to do to keep a blaze without your trampling it. What
say you James?’

James looked up and smiled. ‘I’d say we was lucky to
be sharing your pot, Yevan ap Griffiths, being as we are Englishmen
and out of our company this present night.’

The Welshman chuckled and bent to his task. ‘That’s
right enough’, he said. ‘Hungerford’s men are half a bowshot
from here, and nibbling mouldy bread in a mud puddle. Poor divvils.’

'It’s nay that bad,’ said James. ‘but we’re
happier here, that’s true enough, as long as your brothers are
happy to have us so.’ He glanced at the other Welshmen gathered
around the fire. They nodded, smiled, and returned to their muttered
conversations.

‘
Faith, but ye are slow witted, even for an
Englishman!’ laughed Yevan. ‘If I didn’t count ye for a friend,
I’d never have fished ye out of the mud at Agincourt.’

James waved his hand, but said nothing.

'Tell me!’ cut in Ralf suddenly. ‘Agincourt. What
was it like?’

For a time no one spoke. Yevan broke a branch, shoved it
under the pot, and held it there until it blazed. ‘Twas all mud and
arrows,’he replied. ‘The French came at us and we shot them down.
But they damn near had us. Good they was, and gutsy too. Six deep the
bodies lay before our battle, but still they came.’ He stopped and
stared into the flames.

Ralf gave a short laugh. ‘As long as we have the yew
bow they can never beat us.’

'Who’s that would say so?’

They all turned at the sound of the voice.

It was William Bretoun. Ralf scrambled to his feet.
‘Sire!’ he said.

‘
Don’t sire to me, lad!’ snapped the Devon
captain. ‘I’m as common as ye, but longer in the tooth, that’s
all. Now, what’s this I hear ye say about the French?’

Ralf blushed and ducked his head. ‘They can never beat
us ‘cos we have the bow,’ he mumbled.

‘
Hah! Is that so? Well, when ye see them come at you,
and their sword points are damn near up your nostrils, then tell me
how much use your pretty bow’ll be.’

He turned and disappeared into the shadows.

Ralf stood awkwardly for a bit, then sat down heavily by
the fire.

Don’t mind the captain, boyo,’ said Yevan quietly.
‘It’s just he lost some good few mates at Agincourt. He knows the
measure of the French.’

‘
But at Agincourt . . .’

‘
At Agincourt we had the mud.’

‘
Aye!’ a Welshman by the name of Owain ap Glyn broke
in, ‘We had the mud and King Harry’s prayers.’