Macbeth the King (51 page)

MacBeth had just become aware of a lightening of the eastern sky and an increase of activity amongst the wildfowl, when the noise suddenly broke out, to the north-east, shouting and the clash of arms, faint on the easterly breeze. That could only be at the boats, over a mile away. So the attack had started there. Yet that was the least hopeful sector from the enemy's standpoint. There was no sign nor sound of movement opposite here, at Rhynd and Culfargie, as yet. To start the attack back there thus early, before daylight, must be for good reason. That reason must be linked with the darkness. Something to hide. Siward was as cunning an adversary as could be met; and he was fond of feints. The probability was, then, that this attack with the boats was to distract attention from elsewhere, to give the impression that it was the major thrust, to draw the defensive forces thither.

Although his every instinct was to be up and doing, to hurry men to the scene of conflict, the King forced himself and his followers to wait where they were, inactive. Colin had a thousand men to repel this gesture, and could send to the reserves for aid if essential.

The sound of battle went on and on, and all the time the light strengthened and visibility improved. Mists still lingered over the area, but they were patchy and thinning. No runner came from Colin of the Mearns.

Then, at last, it was sufficiently light to see quite distant movement—and to see it not eastwards, where MacBeth had looked for it, but due southwards, half-a-mile away around Aberargie, where the riverside flats rose through scrub woodland to the Ochil foothills. As they stared, they saw that there was much movement. Siward, then, had made a great southwards detour into the Abernethy area, in the darkness, where he could be unseen and unheard, and was now advancing towards the Earn parallel with the Farg Water, in strength. No doubt a similar host would be approaching the Kinmonth ford from the same general direction. MacBeth sent a runner to warn Neil.

This time the Dane's ruse had failed. But he had more than ruses at his disposal.

So, doubts and questions past, the Scots awaited conclusions.

If Siward was disappointed to see his enemy still in position behind the Rhynd ford, MacBeth was anything but elated at what
he
saw. As the English drew near he assessed their numbers at 3000 at least, a disciplined, heavily-armed host advancing deliberately in its might. Presently it could be seen that Siward himself was in command. Also it was revealed that his shrewd generalship was not confined to feints and detours. His men were carrying with them much timber, slender birch-trunks and poles, and other objects which they decided were hurdles woven of willow-boughs and alder boughs. Also ropes of twisted bracken and straw. MacBeth's heart sank at the sight.

Siward went about his business with unhurried efficiency.

Lining his host along the riverside in companies, he set men to tying up the birch-logs into large rafts, many rafts. At the same time he pushed forward his hurdles to the very water's edge, scores of them, and set them up on props as screens and barricades against arrows.

Siward seemed in no hurry to make a start, prepared to wait while the rafts were constructed. No doubt too, now that surprise was lost, he all the time was hoping for his southern army to come on the scene. MacBeth felt notably helpless, watching him; but apart from shooting arrows, of which the Scots had only a limited supply, there was nothing that he could do meantime.

Noise from the boats area still continued; but no messengers came to tell of victory or disaster.

At length, the wailing of bulls' horns up and down the enemy line signalled the actual assault. With loud cheering the English front hurled itself forward in a furious wave, the main mass in the centre to plunge into the river at the shallows of the ford, seventy or eighty yards in width, those on the flanks to drag the rafts into the water and launch out, as many as could on top, others clinging to the sides with one hand and swimming with the other, so propelling the heavy, clumsy contrivances forward.

Now the Scots surged down to meet the foe, their own archers busy for so long as was possible. Little less than halfway across the Earn the two sides met in bloody hand-to-hand conflict. The water here rose little above men's middles, and the bottom, being mainly silt and pebbles, made fair footing.

MacBeth himself held back, as did Siward. There was just not space for more than a small proportion of the two forces to operate. The leaders waited to throw in larger numbers where they might do most good. The King was more anxious about his flanks, at this stage. He thought possibly they might control the ford crossing meantime; but these rafts, scores of them, stretching upstream and down, were a major distraction and demanding too much of his manpower to deal with. They were very slow, of course, and tended to slew and swing downstream with the current.

It made a chaotic, yelling, splashing and stumbling clash, there on the ford, with both sides hurling in extra men as the struggle ebbed and flowed. Soon the water was running red and many bodies were being carried away down towards the Tay. Then a curious situation developed, which presumably Siward had not foreseen. The current was stronger than anticipated, and carried those rafts immediately above the ford slantwise down on to the struggling mass of men in the shallows, with disastrous results. The heavy laden timbers were not to be halted, and bowled men over, the people aboard them unable to do anything about it. With four of the rafts nudging and swirling through the press of fighters, utter confusion prevailed and the attack faltered and broke up. Siward's horns sounded a retiral as other rafts bore down to add to the confusion, and those of his men who could staggered back to the south bank.

Farther down one or two of the rafts had won across, but the enemy thereon were quickly rounded up and despatched.

The Scots cheered.

Gratified as he was, MacBeth recognised that this was only a breathing-space. Not one quarter of the English strength had been engaged as yet. And the Scots casualties had not been negligible. Siward would not make that mistake again.

While the enemy reorganised, the King sent Luctacus and a group back to bring horses, garrons, in sufficient numbers to mount a troop. There was no room for any large-scale horsed operations here, but he thought that there was a part mounted men might play.

Siward changed his tactics, and used his larger numbers greatly to widen his attack, and thus disperse the defence. He spread his rafts far along the riverside, left and right. Inevitably MacBeth had to send increasing numbers to rebuff them, weakening his centre grievously. But the English retained about a dozen rafts at the ford, and these they formed up side-by-side into a long line, with the massed waders drawn up behind. The flank attacks had already started when, at a signal, those at the ford, in the front ranks, started to push the rafts, empty, before them, as a sort of floating ram.

The Scots found this difficult to deal with. Their archers admittedly achieved some initial success; but then, as before, they were masked by their own men. Hand-to-hand fighting was all but impossible. At one stage it developed into quite a ridiculous stalemate, with defenders and attackers facing each other across the width of the rafts, pushing with all their might and all but stationary.

MacBeth sent Farquhar and some of the mounted men to the downstream end of the raft-line. He judged that there was space for them in the shallows. If the enemy had used a few more rafts, he could not have done this. But the floating barrier did not extend for the entire width of the ford. So there was room for the horsemen to get round the end, there to tug and haul the first raft away, while their colleagues hacked and speared at the English pushing it. The current assisted, of course, and the raft swung loose and drifted off. They started on the next.

Siward reacted swiftly, throwing in more men at this downstream end of the ford. MacBeth retaliated with further horsemen. Soon a second and third raft were gone, and in the resultant space, the horsemen could prove their advantage of height and reach, with their weapons, the garrons themselves aiding with sheer trampling weight and brute force.

The attack wavered.

The King had only part of his attention on this central sector. He was concerned about his flanks. The situation upstream was not good, with some of the rafts across and quite a number of the enemy on the north bank. He sent the remainder of his horsemen to aid the defence there to drive these back into the river.

Fortunately the central assault broke up at this stage, with the raft front shattered and the English assailed front and side. The confusion was so great that Siward ordered his men back, and to bring their rafts with them. When this became evident to the flanking forces, they tended to lose heart—since it would be no man's choice to be left isolated on the wrong side of Earn. Most who had got across elected to return, either on their own rafts or swimming.

The second attempt had failed.

MacBeth sent for more garrons. Although his sons and some of the other Scots leaders, were elated, he knew only too well that, with his overwhelming numbers, time was apt to be on Siward's side. He would keep trying, wearing the defence down. Now he was in process of tying the rafts together, and more of them, having recognised his previous miscalculation. The next attempt would span the entire width of the ford shallows.

It was at this stage that a horsed messenger arrived from the west in panting agitation. The Thane of Cawdor required immediate aid. The English had won across the Kinmonth ford in major strength, and he could not hold them. They were fighting well back from the river now. The Scots rear would be overwhelmed if the King did not do something, and quickly.

MacBeth beat his fist on his saddle-bow, his mind going blank for a moment. He forced himself to think, methodically. Presumably Neil had already sent for the reserves under Martacus and Malpender, so the situation must be very black.

There had been no word from Colin of the Mearns. This three-point battle, with miles between each sector, was the worst possible for an outnumbered defence. But he dared not allow his rear to be over-run and taken, Siward in front or no Siward. When that man heard that the Kinmonth ford had fallen, he would switch large numbers of his force there, to cross.

MacBeth made his desperate decision. He personally must go, to try to save the rear. He would leave Brodie in command here, with Farquhar. He believed that the boat-attack at the Earn-mouth was little more than a feint. He sent a rider to Colin to tell him to leave only a small covering force there, and to come back westwards with most of his people, to join him, picking up their horses as they came. He sent another courier to find Sir Osbert Pentecost and the Normans, to bring them to him. Then, leaving the royal standard flying, to try to disguise the fact that he was gone, he and Luctacus slipped away as inconspicuously as possible, two more messengers, to ride up the tongue of land behind. At the Wester Rhynd farmery they turned westwards, riding hard.

The battle a mile ahead was very visible, but it was difficult to see what went on, all appearing to be no more than a vast, incoherent mass of struggling humanity amongst the corn-rigs. But as he galloped closer, the King could see tall horses towering above the heaving press. So the Normans were involved already. One more hope gone.

Martacus of Mar came hurrying up, the hesitation in his speech more pronounced than ever in his excitement and anxiety. All the reserves were thrown in, he announced. The Normans also. But they were still outnumbered two-to-one. The English were under Siward's own son, Osbern, Earl of Deira. Neil of Cawdor was wounded, but still leading the fight. Malpender was fallen.

"The Normans!" MacBeth cried. "What are they doing in there? They ought to be outside it. Cutting up this battle. That is what they are for. God in His heaven—what folly is this?"

"Your brother, lord King. Neil has not learned to fight with mounted chivalry. Up in Moray. Wounded, he ordered the Normans to come and form a secure ring round him. As centre of the battle. A bodyguard..."

"Saints have mercy! The waste—the damnable waste! We must get them out. The horse-lines. Quickly...!"

They reached the ranked garrons just as Colin of the Mearns and the first of his people came up. The mormaor began to tell him of the situation at the Earn-mouth, but the King cut him short, ordering him to get his party mounted and lined up into a spearhead formation with all speed, those who had learned some cavalry tactics at front and flanks, others in the centre. Placing himself at the apex of this group of about seventy, with Luctacus, Martacus and Colin, MacBeth barely allowed time for them to form up before he spurred off.

His headlong assault was not just a blind dash. He swung round to the north side of the battle area before wheeling his company and plunging directly into the melee where it was thinnest, immediately behind the leadership' stance in the centre, signing and yelling to his followers to close up more tightly in formation. Thus they thundered down upon the struggling mass of men.

Their own folk, of course, were first to be hit and ridden down by that arrowhead charge, inevitably. MacBeth, sword pointed directly ahead of him, could by no means help that, and steeled his heart. Furiously, without pause, they drove a blocdy wedge through the press, mainly Strathearn men here, ears closed to the yells of rage, resentment and fear. Then they were into a detached group of the enemy, fighting
behind
Neil's beleagured position. Now the King and his foremost and outermost colleagues slashed and hacked as they cantered; the majority could not do so, from their inside position, where they contributed only essential weight to the charge. Surprised, overwhelmed, the English went down before them, under them, and they were through, unscathed—to find themselves facing a ring of steel-clad Norman cavalry on their tall armoured horses.

Pulling up his garron rearing on its hind legs, MacBeth was all but flung right into that stern barrier by the impetus behind.