[Norman Conquest 01] Wolves in Armour (6 page)

On the right flank the French and Fleming infantry were almost having to climb up the hill to the English, so steep was the slope of the land.

At a range of twenty paces the English line suddenly opened and a veritable storm of short-range missiles, javelins, throwing-axes, rocks and a few arrows struck the Normans. This caused them to reel backwards for a moment before regaining their momentum and resume moving forward.

Shield met shield with a clash and the ring of sword on sword could be heard. Spears were thrust on both sides, some finding targets and others not. Here and there the English shield-wall would open and one or two thegns or huscarles carrying massive Danish battle-axes, with a haft five feet long and a razor-sharp blade over twelve inches across, would leap into the open and swing their weapons with both hands. When they hit a shield it was smashed to pieces, and often carried on to cause serious injury to the target. When they hit a man they would cleanly chop off a limb or hack the man in twain. After several blows the axe-men would retreat back behind the shield-wall.

Although with better training and discipline and equal equipment, the infantry of the Normans and their allies were simply unable to force the mass of the English line back or create any gaps that the waiting cavalry could exploit. Chanting, shouts and screams rent the air. In places the men were pressed so close together that the dead could not fall to the ground and the wounded could not withdraw.

“Well, Plan ‘A’ isn't working. I suppose now it's time for Plan ‘B’. Hopefully the duke knows what he's doing,” commented Hugh as they watched from their vantage point. Alan grunted in reply.

William ordered his cavalry forward to support the hard-pressed infantry. The first two ranks of de Mandeville’s cavalry dutifully trotted forward over the difficult ground. The knights spurred their horses up the already blood-stained hill, their speed slowed by the slope, the slipperiness of the surface and the need of the horses to avoid tripping over obstacles such as bodies, rocks and discarded shields. The cavalry also was met by a hail of missiles that brought some men or beasts to the ground. Then the cavalry either threw their lances and wheeled away, stopped and prodded at the English line with their lances- or swept sideways this way and that seeking a gap in the English line. Norman horses were brought down by spears or javelins and the stunned horsemen killed, usually before they could regain their feet. The Normans found that the axe-men could, with a single well-aimed blow, cleave through shield, man and horse together.

Alan, Robert and Hugh de Berniers stood beside their destriers and watched as spectators from a distance of about 250 paces, becoming more and more morose as the battle wore on. A change-over in the Norman cavalry in the centre was about to take place, with the third rank readying to take their turn.

The banners of both Duke William and Count Geoffrey indicated they were engaged in the attack on the English centre, when suddenly the situation changed completely in almost a moment.

The Bretons and the other allies on the left flank suddenly collapsed. Their commander had asked too much for too long. At first the infantry broke and ran, disorganising the horsemen behind them, who soon joined in the general flight. Many of the right, or western, flank of the Englishmen, who had now for several hours suffered continuous assault, were overcome with bloodlust and anger and believed that victory was close. They boiled past the shield-wall and down the hill. Here the stream and marshy ground was only 250 paces away from the English line, and the English fyrdmen and thegns hit the struggling and floundering Breton infantry and horsemen, hacking, cutting and slashing as they killed every Breton they caught.

Alan and the rest of de Mandeville’s men mounted immediately without needing any order.

“Fucking Bretons! I knew we couldn’t rely on them!” swore Robert.

No instructions came. Alan looked to Hugh de Berniers, who in turn was looking frantically to the north for de Mandeville.

Taking the situation into his own hands Alan raised his lance and bellowed what he saw as the obvious order. “Squadron advance left at the canter!” he roared as he spurred Odin forward. His squadron and the two on each side, glad that an order had been given, advanced at first at a trot and then a canter, heading west- parallel to the English shield-wall and on reasonably firm ground. The fifty horsemen rode stirrup to stirrup over a front about 100 yards wide.

At first they encountered stray Englishmen who were only looking towards the Bretons. Then, at a full gallop, they smashed into the unprotected flank of the large disorganised mass of Englishmen who had followed the Bretons down the hill.

Trying to keep a level head in his first major engagement, Alan was nearly unseated when Odin swerved to run down a thegn carrying an axe and who was looking the other way. He then used his lance to quickly spear one after the other three unarmoured fyrdmen, two of whom were spearmen, before his lance shattered in the third and was wrenched from his grasp. Drawing his sword he angled towards the next horseman in line, shouting to the other cavalrymen to form an arrow-head formation and trying to recover control of the charge, which had now progressed about 300 yards in distance to be level with a small hillock behind the Bretons’ starting position.

They had compressed the English on the western flank to the point that continued progress by the cavalry would be foolhardy. The charge had taken the pressure off the Bretons, whose own cavalry now rejoined the fray from the swamp to the south. At the same time Duke William’s half-brother Bishop Odo of Bayeux, who ostensibly for religious reasons had not so far taken part in the battle, had gathered de Mandeville’s final rank of cavalry who had not followed Alan’s charge, his own bodyguard and whatever other loose horsemen he could find, and had begun to press along the stream to the south closer to the marshy ground than Alan had led his charge.

In the meantime the Norman centre had disengaged and fallen back to its start-line, the left flank of the Normans angled to protect its now vulnerable flank. On the right flank, the Flemish and French commanded by William fitzOsbern, a cousin of the duke, also disengaged and moved back out of missile range of the English line.

Alan’s men returned to their starting position, where they saw Duke William. The duke had removed his helmet and was galloping around proclaiming he was alive. Eustace of Boulogne had seized the papal banner and was carrying it as close to William as he could. Alan gathered that a rumour had arisen that William had been killed, and the duke was in the process of overcoming that rumour. William gathered what cavalry was available on the Norman left flank, including Alan and the men of de Mandeville that Alan had just led, and then led them back into the English still below the shield-wall. There some of the English were making a forlorn last stand on the hillock near the stream, some 200 yards from the main English shield-wall at the top of Caldbec Hill. Hacking and slashing, the Norman horsemen cut them down and stabilized the line.

A protracted break in hostilities then occurred while the English moved troops to their now weakened right flank. At the same time the Normans and their allies re-established their lines, watered their horses at the streams and sat to eat whatever food they had thought to bring with them. In Alan’s case it was a piece of bread and some jerked beef, washed down by clean water he carried in a water-skin tied to Odin’s saddle.

Hugh de Berniers walked up to Alan and handed him a replacement lance before sitting down next to him and clapping him on the shoulder. “That was warm work! By God’s grace we suffered few casualties,” he said as he accepted a swallow of Alan’s water. “It was quick of you to size up the situation and take control over what had to be done. I’ll see that Count Geoffrey hears of it. I’d better get moving, as we’ll be back at it again soon!”

Hugh was correct. After a break of about an hour and a half the Norman infantry and cavalry followed the archers up the now blood-soaked and churned ground of the hill. New supplies of arrows had arrived and this time the bowmen aimed higher, allowing the arrows to fall on the lesser-protected fyrdmen in the rear ranks. The crossbowmen were more effective, with their bolts smashing through shields and into the men beyond.

The infantry struggled past dead and dying men and horses from the previous attacks. Again the English war chants rang out, increasing in volume as the foreigners reached the shield-wall and once again the bitter hand-to-hand fighting resumed. Again the Norman infantry were unsuccessful and were repulsed. Again the Norman cavalry were sent up the hill, but still the Normans couldn’t force the English off the hill or force a way through the shield-wall.

The Normans had noticed that the banners of Harold’s brothers, the earls Leofric and Gyrth, had both disappeared- but still the Dragon Standard and the banner of ‘The Fighting Man’ flew over the centre of the English line. Time and again the Norman horsemen battered against the English line, each time falling back and allowing the hail of Norman arrows and crossbow bolts to resume.

Alan participated in two of these charges. Odin snorted and cavorted as he rolled his eyes in a mixture of fear and excitement resulting from the smell of blood, the constant shouting- and empathy with Alan’s own feelings of fear. Labouring up the hill, slipping on the spilled blood and stumbling over the fallen bodies of the dead and living, Odin pressed gamely up to the shield-wall to allow Alan to prod with his lance at whatever target presented itself beyond.

In the next charge Alan saw Hugh de Berniers fall from his horse, hit in the thigh by a throwing-axe. Alan forced Odin over to where Hugh stood gamely on one leg, offered him a hand and pulled him onto the pommel of the saddle before turning to trot back to the Norman lines. There, as Hugh was assisted to the ground he slapped Alan’s hand in thanks for saving his life, saying nothing as he was hit by a wave of pain as his injured leg touched the ground.

By now any precision in the Norman attacks, always hampered by the terrain, was a thing of the past. Duke William appeared to have given up on the Norman heavy-infantry, accepting they were not up to the task of forcing their way uphill and through the shield-wall. Instead he was relying on waves of the heavy cavalry that had won him each of his previous victories, supporting them with archers and cross-bowmen.

The horsemen were no longer organised into their original squadrons, and attacks were mounted sporadically as sufficient knights and men-at-arms at the base of the hill felt that they and their mounts were ready for another tilt at the enemy. Blown and exhausted horses were led to the streams to be watered. Some men, on foot and on horseback, could be seen going up Telham Hill on their way back to Hastings. Others were shuttling backwards and forwards to the large tents that been erected on the level ground near Starr’s Green, where the injured were being treated.

Alan watched the flow of battle for nearly an hour, having watered Odin and allowing him time to recover his strength. The Norman right flank, where fitzOsbern commanded the Flemings and French, had twice successfully lured overconfident Englishmen into following by pretending flight, with the ‘fleeing’ cavalry and others from the Norman centre then cutting the pursuing Englishmen to pieces.

In the late afternoon Alan lined up for another attack on the English centre. As he had often done during the day, Duke William joined the line. His personal leopard banner waved in the air, carried by the standard-bearer next to him. Riding up the hill was a re-occurring nightmare, except that by now the English had run out of missiles to throw as the constant attacks by the Norman archers kept the English within their lines and unable to retrieve their missiles.

The Normans were now walking their tired horses up the hill, only rising to a canter over the last few yards where the shield-wall was partially protected by a virtual breast-work comprised of the bodies of Norman men and horses.

As he turned for his third run of the current attack Alan saw a group of a dozen men suddenly spring from the English line, most carrying the two-handed battle-axe, and attack a group of an approximately equal number of Norman knights. The axes cleaved through shield and armour as, taken by surprise, the knights were swarmed under.

The standard of the golden leopard fell, as quickly did those around the central figure of the group. The last-standing axe-man smashed his axe into the neck of Duke William’s horse. As the horse fell atop its rider the Saxon raised the axe for another blow. Before it could fall Alan delivered a back-handed blow with his sword that saw the axe-man’s head rolling away. Alan leaped out of his saddle, put his hands under the duke’s armpits and started to try to pull him out from under the horse, as he was in deadly danger just yards from the English line.

Duke William’s dark brown eyes looked up into Alan’s face. Both men were covered in blood, grime and sweat. Moments later another dozen men were assisting and the duke was freed. Alan noted a deep cut on William’s forearm, probably from a horseshoe of his fallen mount, and swiftly but expertly applied a somewhat dirty cloth as a bandage. Odin had not taken the opportunity to bolt, but instead did as he had been trained and bravely stood between his rider and the enemy. Alan patted his mount’s shoulder and lifted the small saddlebag from the horse before turning back to William and handed him the reins. He shouted above the din of battle, “Take him. His name is Odin and he’s a good horse, although I think even his big heart only has one more charge in it!”

William nodded, clapped Alan on the shoulder and as he levered himself tiredly up into the saddle he said, “Come and see me after the battle. What is your name, Sir?”