Gulling The Kings Page 4
Less than an hour later messengers leading remounts went out to the sergeants in command of our strongholds, and particularly to old Sir Percy at Trematon, telling them to gather in their local villagers and prepare for imminent attacks and sieges from a force of German knights and foot soldiers believed to be advancing from St. Ives.
After we watched the messengers ride off, I and all of my lieutenants but one, Thomas, put on our chain mail shirts and rode as fast as we could for Fowey Village. That’s where our archers and galleys were presently gathered at the mouth of the river. We’d wait there for word from Raymond about the Germans’ behaviour. Thomas would stay to command Restormel and guard the relics and our families. It would give him more time to recover from his pox; I was feeling better myself.
The bell of opportunity was tolling. There was not a moment to lose.
****** Lieutenant Raymond
My horse archers and I were overly full of food, prayers, and uncertainty as we rode out over Restormel’s drawbridges. John and James, my two new and surprisingly young apprentice sergeants and scribes, were wide-eyed with excitement and anticipation as they rode out over the outer drawbridge behind me.
I turned north as soon as we left the castle and led my men straight across the farmlands and pastures towards St. Ives. There was, of course, no proper cart path, just a muddy track that had been worn into the pastures and fields because couriers periodically carried parchment messages between Restormel and Trematon. Horse carts and wains rarely made the trip; there was no reason for them to do so.
“John,” I said as I looked back over my shoulder at one of the youngsters riding behind me, “I want you to ride back and find Senior Sergeant Anthony. Ask him to please ride forward and report to me. He’ll be easy to find; he’s got a big red beard and he’s riding a fine-looking black. He’s probably back towards the rear of the column riding with his friends.
“And John,” I added after a bit of a delay as the lad hauled his horse around to ride back down the column, “be sure you knuckle your head when you address the senior sergeant and speak to him most respectful.”
Sergeant Anthony ambled up on his black quite smartly a few minutes later with John tagging along behind.
“Hoy, Raymond,” Anthony said as he pulled in alongside of me at the head of the column. “The lad said you wanted to talk to me.”
“Hoy, Anthony. I do, I do. We’ve got a problem, don’t we? We may have Germans in front of us and we don’t know how many they are or if they’re friendly or not. So I want you and your lads to ride a couple of miles or more out in front of us with your eyes open. Put a couple of your lads off to each side as well. Have them do the usual, of course; ride in pairs so one can ride back to report while the other continues to watch. But you tell them that there’s to be absolutely no fighting until I gives the word.”
“Aye, my lads are to stay well out front in pairs and there’s to be no fighting until you gives the word,” Anthony repeated my orders dutifully as was always required when a direct order was given.
With that, Anthony pulled his horse around, kicked it in the ribs, and cantered back to his men. A few minutes later they streamed past us on either side as they headed out to take up their positions. I could see Restormel’s walls behind us and, off to my left, a family of farmers walking towards the castle carrying their bedding and valuables. It was sunny at the moment, but the clouds coming this way looked to be bringing rain.
****** Lieutenant Raymond
Everything changed late in the afternoon of the next day. I was riding at the head of the column and deep in thought when I heard a stir from the men riding behind me. I looked up to see a horseman in the distance. He was wearing an archer’s tunic and coming straight towards us. We all immediately knew we were about to learn something important; he was riding hard and whipping his horse—and he was riding double.
I continued riding and watched him, and particularly behind him, as he approached. Behind me I could hear my men stirring and talking. Without even looking I knew that some of them were retrieving their bowstrings from under their caps and stringing their bows.
It was Joe Josephson, one of Anthony’s chosen men, and he had a wide-eyed, ragged boy of seven or eight years of age riding behind him and holding on to his waist for dear life. Joe pulled his tired and foaming horse to a stop in front of me, turned around in his saddle, and in one big swoop he used both of his hands to grab the boy under his shoulders and lift him off to stand on the ground. The boy staggered but quickly regained his feet and started crying.
“Tell the lieutenant what you told us, Fred,” Joe commanded in a surprisingly gentle voice as he himself climbed off his tired horse and I dismounted to talk to the both of them.
“They killed me mum,” the boy sobbed.
The boy’s name was Fred and he was one of Trematon’s stable boys. He had been outside the castle wall gathering grass for the horses—and seen his mother run from her hovel and cut down by a horseman.
******
I got down on one knee and held Fred to me for a moment until he stopped crying and could talk. Then I gently questioned him, and learnt the worst—Trematon was under siege and the countryside was being pillaged by armed men who could only be Germans.
“Charlie,” I called out to one of the riders who had pulled up nearby and was listening intently, “Fetch the boy some food and water and carry him back to Lieutenant Thomas with him sitting behind you. He’s a good lad and he’s been most helpful.
“And you, Guy, take a good remount with you and get you straight to Restormel as fast as you can ride. Tell the captain that the Germans are tearing up the countryside and Trematon is under siege. Charlie and the boy will follow after the lad gets a bite to eat and settles himself.”
All around me I could sense the men’s approval of my orders and see them being repeated to the archers sitting on their horses too far away to have overheard my words. Within seconds word of the boy’s experience and what he had reported spread through the archers—and somehow resulted in a surprising amount of grim determination on the faces of my men.
Seeing the sobbing boy and hearing about his mother’s fate seemed to upset the men more than knowing they would soon be fighting an unknown number of Germans and Trematon was under siege.
There was no wonder in that; they’d been lads in the villages themselves not long ago and many of their mums were still there.
Chapter Six
Senior Sergeant George
We waited at Fowey Village for word about the Germans for three days. It was a busy time—we accompanied my father whenever he felt strong enough to inspect the galleys to make sure they were seaworthy and stocked with weapons and supplies, participated in archery practice and archery tournaments with our men, and awarded prizes for the moors dancing that occurred every night both on shore and on our galleys’ decks.
Finally, in the afternoon, right after it started raining, word came in from Raymond. It was distressing and unexpected—Trematon was being besieged by the Germans, they were marching and foraging in the direction of Restormel, and they were leaving death and devastation in their wake. It was time to pull up our anchors and leave.
Eleven fully crewed galleys rowed out of the estuary and into the channel at sunrise the next morning with more than fourteen hundred heavily armed archers at their oars and spoiling for a fight. We left one galley behind to make sure the Germans didn’t leave.
It was a bit choppy for a while and many of our men, including me, got seasick because they’d lost their sea legs when they were ashore; but we had the wind with us and were able to stay together as we rowed west until we came to Land’s End. Then we turned to row around the end of England and head back towards the east along the northern coast of Cornwall towards Wales. I was on Samuel’s galley along with my father and his lieutenants, Henry and Peter—and I was glad Beth and Becky and our two little girls were safe and sound with Uncle Thomas inside Restormel’s walls.
> Wales, of course, was not where we were going; we were on our way up the coast to nearby St. Ives and everyone on our galleys knew what we were going to try to do—surprise the Germans by taking their transports and cutting them off from escape.
“We’re going to cut the Germans off from their transports and kill the bastards,” my father had said yesterday when he called the galley sergeants together to give them their orders.
He hadn’t added “and take their coins for ourselves without giving them the relics,” but that was his intention he later confided to me and his lieutenants. It was then that I noticed for the first time that his hair was starting to turn white.
****** George
The roof of the rear castle on Samuel’s galley was crowded with anxious men as we approached St. Ives. My father was there and so were his lieutenants and myself, the galley’s sailing sergeant and Samuel’s loud talker, and four of Samuel’s best archers. Standing immediately below us on the deck were three apprentice sergeants and a confused and very sea poxed wain wright who’d been brought along because he could speak German.
Our longbows were ready to be strung and the bales of arrows lying all about were untied so their precious contents would be ready for instant use. Samuel himself was half way up the mast with one hand holding on and the other up to his face to shield his eyes as if that would somehow help him to better see what was ahead.
From up where we were on the castle roof it was only three steps down to the upper rowing deck and the archers resting on its rowing benches. I could see the archers’ bows were still unstrung and there were bales of arrows stacked up everywhere. All of the archers on the upper tier of oars, and some on the lower tier, had not been rowing for several hours in order to rest their arms for the spurt of rowing and the battle that was likely to soon begin.
We were ready to fight on either land or sea depending on where we found the Germans when we reached St. Ives. Sailors armed with short swords and boarding ladders were interspersed among the archers with grapples and carefully coiled grappling lines at their feet. The archers would climb over the rail of our galley and swarm on to an enemy deck if it was low enough for them to board. If it wasn’t low enough, the sailors would raise their boarding ladders and hold them steady so the archers could climb them.
As we neared St. Ives, our galleys were making a good speed with their sails all the way up because the wind was coming from behind us and somewhat to the south. The only rowing was being done by about ten of the most junior of the archers on the lower rowing tier in order to rest the arms of the more experienced archers who were sitting down there on the rowing benches with them.
******
We saw the German transports and war galleys as we came around a corner of land and swept into St. Ives Bay and then into the fishing village’s little harbour. Most of the Germans were at anchor and only two of the transports were at the village’s rickety little wooden wharf. But many galleys, many more than we had expected to see, had been nosed into the strand and were moored all along the shoreline in front of the village. Their location made no difference; my father and his lieutenants were determined to either capture or destroy them so the Germans and their coins could not escape.
Samuel had re-joined us on the castle roof and the rest of our galleys were following behind us in a close-packed group when my father nodded to him.
“String your bows; string your bows” Samuel immediately ordered and his loud talker immediately bellowed in one of the loudest voices I’d ever heard.
The order reverberated throughout the galley as all the sergeants and chosen men repeated it as loudly as they could shout. The rowing drum stopped for a brief moment as everywhere the men hurried to comply just as they had practiced almost every day when they were afloat.
Every man strung his bow, including senior sergeants like me, and even my father and his lieutenants, and their apprentice sergeants. In our company, everyone fights when there is fighting to be done, even the wide-eyed wain wright who was clutching a bladed pike someone had handed him and the sailors with their ship’s shields and their short swords and axes.
A few moments later our bows were strung and the archers, this time all of them, were ordered to once again start rowing. Our galley picked up speed rapidly as every oar went in the water and it surged forward faster and faster as the beat of the rowing drum increased. We were moving at our top speed when my father shouted his order to the men in our galley’s lookout nest to stop waving the all-yellow “follow me” flag and start waving the blood-red “attack” flag.
Almost instantly the galleys behind us began to spread out. Two were charged with preventing any of the German transports and galleys from escaping; they peeled off to patrol the entrance to the little harbour and chase down and seize any of the German shipping which tried to run.
The rest of the galleys, including Samuel’s, the one I was on with my father and his lieutenants, headed straight for the strand. We would fight the Germans among the galleys and fishing boats that been pulled ashore. That’s where the Germans were, so that’s where we were going.
****** George
The rowing drums were pounding loudly, our oars were making their distinctive splashing and swishing sounds at the end of each stroke, and we were moving fast as our galleys sped past the anchored German transports. The men on the German decks gaped at us in surprise as we went past them—and then screamed and shouted as they were either hit by the arrows of the archers who weren’t rowing or dove out of the way in a desperate effort to escape them. We didn’t slow down until we approached the shore.
“Stand by to back oars.” ... “back oars.”
In his excitement, Samuel gave the order too early. As a result, our galley lost its forward momentum too soon and did not quite reach the shore. No matter. Our men poured over the railing at the front of the galley and waded ashore holding their bows and quivers over their heads to keep them dry.
What was so surprising about the moment, so surprising that we later talked about it, was the loud noise of the great flock of seabirds which flew low and close about us as we waded ashore; they seemed to think we were fishermen bringing in fish.
"Jimmy, get into the water and pull us to shore," I heard Samuel shout to one of the sailors at the front of the galley as those of us on the castle roof jumped down on to the deck to follow our archers ashore.
But then we had to wait anxiously for a few moments to avoid getting trampled by a great crowd of shouting and cheering archers who were pouring up from the lower rowing deck.
I followed my father and his lieutenants to the deck railing and felt the galley scrape onto the sand and rocks of the strand as I jumped down into the knee-deep water. It was very cold and I landed on a rock and almost stumbled.
Three or four big splashing steps later and I was on the strand with an arrow nocked and ready push—with a great mass of shouting and screaming archers ahead of me similarly looking for someone to kill, and all amidst a great flock of swooping and noisy birds. I could see our other galleys and similar groups of men on either side me all up and down the strand.
We found very few Germans. The beached German galleys were mostly unattended except for a few poor sods who were quickly cut down by the thrusters who were the first to jump from our galleys and board the German’s to search them. There were no defenders; the galleys nosed into the beach were virtually empty except for the chained slaves who helped row them and a handful of sailors who mostly instantly raised their hands in surrender. Those who did not, and some who did, were quickly cut down or fell to our archers’ arrows.
Instinctively, my father and his lieutenants and most of the men continued running past the beached galleys and into the nearby village where St. Ives’ fishermen, merchants, and local farmers lived in their thatched roof hovels, drank in a daub and wattle ale house with a very low ceiling, and prayed in a small church with stone walls.
I followed my father as we he led us at a run a
cross St. Ives’ rocky beach. As I ran, I watched as the men from our galleys began checking out the boats and galleys along the shoreline, boarded and cleared those that had Germans aboard, and poured into the little village.
Men carrying swords and putting on helmets as they ran came out of several of the hovels and ran for safety towards the nearby trees. As they did, a dozen or so men came running out of the church carrying swords and shields and acting as though they meant to fight.
The men who came out of the little church were guards of some sort and the only Germans who tried to stand against us. It didn’t go well for them. Most of them quickly went down quickly in a storm of arrows. But not all of them. Several managed to get back inside the church and shut the door behind them, including one poor sod who staggered to the door and fell through it into the church with at least one arrow sticking out of him and several in his shield.
I was still running when I saw the church door suddenly open for an instant as someone poked his head out for a look, and then ducked back inside and quickly shut it again—and not a moment too soon because arrows were immediately pushed at the looker’s head and several thudded into the church’s wooden door. In the distance, I saw a couple of men hurriedly mount their horses behind one of the village hovels and gallop away.
We shouldn’t have shouted and made so much noise when we came ashore; it warned the Germans in time for some of them to get away. I must remember that for later when we meet with my father and his lieutenants and each sergeant tells what he did and saw.
Somewhere along the way I had smashed my big toe against a rock. It hurt most painful when I stopped running. That’s when I smelled the smell of death in the air—and realized my father was sitting on the ground in front of the little church and his lieutenants and some of our archers were gathered around him with worried looks on their faces. Henry and Peter were down on their knees talking to him.