Sworn Brother (32 page)
Finally, in early afternoon, the leading Danish drakkar had pulled slightly ahead of her consorts, and was close enough for our Jutish captain to call out a greeting. ‘Well met,’ he bellowed, cupping his hands around his mouth so the sound carried over the waves washing along his vessel’s side. ‘Any news of Knut’s fleet? We go to join the king.’
There was a long delay and I saw the Danish captain turn to consult his colleagues on the aft deck. Then he looked back at us and shook his head to indicate that he had not understood. He gestured for us to slow down so the ships drew closer, and held his hand to his ear.
‘We go to join the king!’ our skipper called out yet again. The Danish captain stepped up on the bulwarks of his ship, and one of his men reached and gripped him by the belt to hold him steady as if a slightly smaller gap would make the sound carry more clearly. ‘Have you news of the royal fleet?’ yelled our captain, adjusting the helm so that the wind spilled from our sail and our drakkar lost speed through the water.
‘Watch out!’ — a sudden roar from our fore deck. Most of our crew swung round to see Thrand standing there, waving an arm in warning. Those who did not look at Thrand saw one of the Danes on the aft deck stoop down and produce a javelin, hidden behind the bulwark, and hand it up to their skipper. He drew back his arm and threw the missile across the narrowing gap. Either it was a very lucky throw or the Dane was a champion spearsman, for the weapon flew across between the ships and struck our Jutish captain in his side. Even above the sound of the waves I heard the soft thump as the metal point of the weapon sank into his unprotected ribs. The Jute staggered and fell, knocking down the helmsman. There was a rush of feet, and Thrand raced past us along the central walkway, his feet pounding the boards. He reached the aft deck, leaped to the helm and flung his weight on the bar, heaving it across so that our vessel sheered away downwind, and presented her stern to the attacking Danish ship.
‘Ease the starboard sheet, square away,’ he shouted.
The rest of us had been taken completely off guard. We were sitting or standing, numb with shock.
‘Jump to it!’ bellowed Thrand. He glanced back over his shoulder, judging the distance between our vessel and the hostile Danish longship. Our drakkar’s sudden swerve had taken the Danes by surprise and for a moment they had overshot their quarry. There was confusion on their deck as they too adjusted sail to follow in our wake. ‘I thought Ulf s people were king’s men,’ shouted the Wend beside me.
‘Not all of them, it seems,’ muttered the Sjaellander, as shocked as any of us by the sudden attack. ‘There’s treachery somewhere.’
Our entire crew was in turmoil. Some were searching for shields and weapons, others frantically donning their padded jackets, and opening the store chests to pull out their byrnies. Only a handful who were sensible enough to attend to the ship were checking that sheets and halyards were set up taut, and our venerable drakkar was sailing to best advantage.
Our consort, the second Jomsviking drakkar, had seen the ambush and was also adjusting sail. Our sudden swerve had taken them by surprise too, and we nearly collided with them as we changed course, passing within ten paces of the startled crew. That close encounter was nearly their undoing, for we were to windward and, as we passed, we took the wind from their sail and their drakkar lost speed. The pursuing Danes promptly switched their pursuit from us to our floundering consort. They swooped in close enough to launch a barrage of spears and stones, which rained down on the hapless Jomsvikings and we saw several men fall.
Now the Danes were roaring in triumph. One of them held up a red-painted shield, the sign of war. A warrior seated ahead of me cursed and left his oar bench to run aft to the stern deck, javelin in hand. He made ready to throw, but Thrand, without even looking round, reached out and held his arm.
‘Don’t waste the weapon,’ he said. ‘They are out of range. Keep your strength for rowing if it comes to that.’
By now our consort had managed to adjust her sail to the course and was beginning to pick up speed. The captain of the leading Danish longship was unwilling to close and board her in case we turned back to help and he found himself tackling two drakkars at the same time. We watched his crew delicately spill the wind from her huge sail with its red, green and white stripes, so she slowed in the water and allowed the two other Danish longships to catch up. The troop-carrying knorrs were left behind now that the trap was sprung. The Danes were intent on finishing off their prey, but they would do so in their own time.
The outcome of the chase was clear from the start. Our drakkars were built to an outmoded design. Old and worn-out, they could not match the speed of the Danish ships and the inexperience of our crews increased our handicap. The landsmen among us fumbled vital ropes and got in the way of those who knew what they were doing as they went about the delicate task of extracting the best possible speed from our drakkar. These novices were harshly commanded to sit still and shift position only when ordered to, and then to move smartly to the place indicated and stay there until instructed otherwise. They were movable ballast. The only time they were actively involved was when Thrand, who had assumed command, ordered every loose item on board, except our weapons and oars, to be thrown overboard to lighten the ship. Then the landsmen were set to prising up from the bilges the heavy stones which acted as our ballast and tossing them in our wake. But it made little difference to the pursuit. We watched the splashes as the pursuing Danes lightened their vessels too and slowly gained on us.
With the wind directly aft, our hope was that we could keep ahead of the chasing Danes long enough to evade them in the darkness or, better, meet friendly vessels from Knut’s war fleet who would scare them off. Until then every member of our crew watched intently, trying to gage whether the gap between ourselves and the pursing longships was increasing or diminishing. Occasionally we glanced across at our consort, who copied our every manouevre and stratagem because it was vital that the two of us kept together. For when — not if — the Danes caught up with us, at least the odds would be no worse than three to two against us.
The Gods, whether Wendish or the Aesir, seemed to smile on us. The wind, which had continued to be erratic, picked up strength. This helped the older vessels because, in a strong wind, there was less difference in their speed against the newer Danish ships, and the more ground we covered the better were our chances of meeting Knut’s fleet. So we kept up full sail, even though we could all hear the mast foot grinding in its wooden socket. The wind raised a succession of fast-moving swells which swept beneath us, heaving up the ancient hulls and making them twist and groan. The swell turned into long breaking waves, the spray flew back from the bows and as our craft began to swoop and sway the stress on the elderly hulls became more and more obvious.
That was when disaster struck. Perhaps it was the absence of ballast, or it might have been the clumsiness of her inexperienced crew which brought our companion, the second Jomsviking drakkar, to make a fatal error. The accident happened so suddenly that we did not know whether a main sheet snapped or the mast step slipped on the keelson, or whether it was just plain bad fortune that a larger swell lifted up our accompanying drakkar’s stern at the very moment she dipped her bow to leeward and skidded sideways on the forward rush of water. The drakkar abruptly buried her nose in the back of a wave, tripped and slewed, and water began to pour into her open hull. Without her ballast to hold her steady, her sail was driving her forward at full tilt, and the inrush of water plunged her even further downwards. She ran herself underwater. One moment she was sailing at full speed on the surface, the next moment she was on her side, bow down and half submerged. The halt was so abrupt that most of her crew were flung headlong into the water, while the remainder were left clinging onto the stern deck, which was all that was left above the surface of the sea.
From the Danes came a roar of triumph and there were frantic signals from the leading longship, clearly the commander of their squadron. In answer the vessel nearest to the stricken drakkar swiftly dropped sail, put out oars and began to row, bearing down on her disabled victim. As our own boat fled on, we looked back, unnerved, and saw the Danes reach our comrades. They began spearing them like salmon trapped in a net, stabbing repeatedly downward on the swimmers. Those who were not massacred, had already drowned, pulled down by the weight of their mail. There would be no survivors.
Only Thrand seemed unmoved by the calamity. He stood on the aft deck, gaunt and intense, the helm still in his hand, his face showing no emotion as he kept his attention fixed on the set of our sail, the strength and direction of the wind and the balance of our vessel. Just twice he glanced back over his shoulder at the slaughter in our wake and then — without warning — he suddenly pushed across the helm so that our drakkar heeled over and came hard on the wind, heading for the distant shore. He gave no explanation for the sudden change of course, and once again the abruptness of the manoeuvre caught the Danes by surprise. We gained a few precious boat lengths on them. Along the oar benches we looked at one another, wondering what Thrand had in mind. Not one of us challenged his decision. From the moment he had seized the helm, he became our unquestioned leader. I swivelled in my seat and looked forward over the bows. Ahead the Sjaelland coast stretched away on either hand, low and flat without any sign of a harbour or a channel into which we might escape. Yet Thrand was aiming our vessel straight towards the distant shore as if he had a plan to save us.
The captains of the two Danish ships must have been equally perplexed because the furious pace of their pursuit slackened while they conferred, shouting across the gap between their vessels. Then they decided that, whatever we intended, they could still overhaul us before we reached the land. I saw their white bow waves surge up again and the slant of their masts increase as the two ships hardened up against the wind and resumed the chase. Aboard our drakkar the entire crew except for five sail handlers had scrambled to the windward side to improve the vessel’s trim. Even the greenest of our recruits now knew that our lives depended on how well we coaxed our venerable vessel to her best performance.
Slowly and inexorably the Danish ships gained on us, while in the far distance the third of their vessels, having finished off our comrades, hoisted sail and set out to join in the hunt. We could only sit and watch the advancing enemy, and note how the best of their warriors had assembled in the bows, ready to hurl javelins at our helmsman the moment they were in range, hoping to strike him down and cripple our flight.
One of the Wends reached under his oar bench, pulled out his chain-mail shirt and began to tug it over his head.
‘That’ll drown you if we capsize,’ warned his neighbour. ‘Didn’t you see what happened with our other drakkar?’
‘Makes no difference,’ the Wend replied. ‘I don’t know how to swim.’
The tension mounted as we watched the shoreline rush closer. It still appeared featureless, a low, sandy, yellow beach backed by dunes and sea grass. The place was uninhabited. There were no fishing skiffs drawn up on the beach, no houses, nothing — only gulls circling hungrily, squabbling amongst themselves over a shoal of sprats.
‘No one lives here. It’s too barren,’ said the Sjaellander who had previously sailed this coast. ‘There are only shallows, mud-banks and the occasional sand spit.’
The Danes very nearly caught us. Their leading ship was close enough for the first javelins to be thrown, and an arrow or two whizzed overhead, but without any harm. Judging his moment, Thrand again pushed over the rudder bar and altered course abruptly. Our drakkar swerved, and like two greyhounds which overshoot the hare as it jinks, the Danish vessels overreached and had to check their onward rush before they picked up the hunt again. Thrand had managed his manoeuvre well. The leading Danish ship cut across the bows of its companion and for a few moments there was confusion as they adjusted sails to avoid a collision.
By then Thrand had turned our drakkar back onto her original course and once again we were heading straight for the shore at full pace. He was staring forward intently, ignoring the chasing ships behind him as we sped towards the strand. We were already in the outer surf before I understood what he intended. Ahead of us a long outer bank of sand ran parallel to the beach itself. Waves were breaking across the ridge of the sandbank, washing into the shallow lagoon which lay on the far side.