‘Next one,’ Serlo said. ‘Next one!’
Two of the carts remained, but there they would have to stay, since at that moment Turold yelled out a warning.
The cry was passed through the ranks and down the line, and I looked up. The enemy had seen what we were doing and now were sending men to stop us. Already the first column of them had begun the long march down the hillside and across the valley floor, beating their shield-rims and raising the battle-thunder. My heart thumped in my chest, louder than I had ever known it, but now the din drowned it out.
‘To arms,’ I shouted to the men and boys. ‘Find your lines!’
Most did not need telling twice, but a few of the boys weren’t listening. Running out across the meadows, four of them took the pole with the yoke that usually sat across the oxen’s necks while two others pushed from behind. The wheels bumped over the uneven ground, sending some of the barrels toppling over the sides.
‘Leave it, you fools,’ Serlo roared, but it was no use.
Those of the enemy with bows had stopped to nock arrows to their strings, and now were letting fly. Most of the shafts fell well short, but one sailed true and sunk itself into a barrel inches in front of the nose of one of the boys pushing. A delighted cheer went up from the rest of the enemy warriors as they closed on us, little more than a furlong now from our makeshift barricade.
‘Bring your men forward,’ I shouted to the barons, not for the first time. If the wall and the carts were to be of any use, I needed our shield-wall right behind it where their combined spearpoints and axe-blades could threaten the enemy as they tried to negotiate the obstacle.
Now that the enemy archers had found their range, steel was falling in showers all about the lads hauling the cart. A silver point struck one in the back; he fell to the ground and suddenly the rest were shouting to each other, fleeing back to our lines, leaving their fallen companion where he lay on his back, his eyes tight and his teeth clenched, as forlornly he cried out for help that would not come.
For the enemy were on their way, hundreds of them roaring with one voice. They did not march in even ranks but rather came at us in a disorganised rush, having divided themselves into two main groups: one approaching our left wing in front of which stood the wall and the overturned carts, the other across the boggy ground where Wace and the Welsh princes blocked their path, while the contingent of archers drew up in a line behind both. At least with the river at our backs the enemy could not outflank us, although they did not need to. All they had to do was throw more and more men at our shield-walls until our resolve broke, as eventually it must.
I took my place next to Eudo in the first line of the shield-wall, with Serlo to my left and Turold and Pons on the other side of him. Hurriedly I donned my helmet and tied the chin-strap, before someone from the rank behind passed a spear forward to me.
‘How long do you think we can hold out?’ Eudo asked as he overlapped the rim of his kite shield with that of mine.
I had no answer to that, and so said nothing.
‘I never thought I’d meet my end like this,’ he said. ‘I always thought that it would be in the midst of the charge, not fighting like a cornered beast to hold some godforsaken scrap of land, in Wales of all places.’
‘All of us die someday,’ I replied. ‘And if today is our time, then the least we can do is kill as many of them as possible first.’
The first of the enemy were less than a hundred paces away now. I fixed my gaze upon them as they ran through the tall grass towards us, so close now that I could almost see the visions of blood and slaughter in their eyes. One or two stumbled as they ran, falling over the hidden barrels, but not nearly as many as I had hoped.
‘Stand firm and hold the wall!’ I yelled to those around and behind me, my voice already growing hoarse. ‘Keep your shields up; don’t let them through. Remember the faces of the men either side of you. The enemy may be strong but we are stronger! We will defend our banners; we will hold our ground whatever it takes, we will grind them into the mud and we will kill them!’
The words came tumbling out in a rush. It was not much of a rallying call, but it would have to do.
‘Kill them!’ Eudo echoed, and the cry was repeated through the ranks, the words coming in time with the beating of their weapons, until with one voice they were shouting: ‘Kill them!’
Had we had more time I might have tried to offer further encouragement, to rouse their spirits and inspire them to even greater fury. Still, words could only do so much, and valour alone never won a battle. Will, wits and the strength of one’s sword-arm were what really mattered, and I could only hope that our small host possessed enough of those things. Enough, at any rate, to overcome their fear. For no matter how many years a man had been fighting, no matter how proficient he was with spear or sword or axe, he would have been lying if at that moment he said that he was not scared.
I inhaled deeply, steeling myself as best as I could, grasping my spear-haft tightly, feeling the grain of the wood against my palm.
And then they were upon us. Some worked together to try to pull the carts aside and make gaps through which the rest could charge, while others stood next to them, protecting them with shields from the javelins that those in the ranks behind me were hurling at them. Most glanced off their bosses or else lodged in the wood, but one at least found its target, plunging into a gangly Welshman’s breast right where his heart was. His eyes glazed over, his mouth gaped wide and his knees gave way beneath him. No sooner had he hit the ground, however, than another came to take his place, stepping over his blood-stained body.
My ears were filled with the sound of men yelling, cursing, screaming, dying. We pressed forward, thrusting our spears over the top of the stonework and through the gaps between the carts, aiming for the enemy’s heads, since only a few possessed helmets. That was when I realised that most of this rabble were no more than peasants: sent, no doubt, to test our fighting spirit, to soften us up and tire us out before the more hardened warriors were given their chance to finish us. Yet for all their enthusiasm, mere farmers and labourers such as these usually lacked the stomach for a long struggle; they could hold a spear but little else. It would not take much to break them, or so I hoped.
My blade found a man’s neck, tearing a gash between the bottom of his ear and his collarbone, and he reeled back, clutching as blood bubbled from the wound. Some way to the right, his countrymen had managed to partly shift one of the carts, exposing a gap in the wall wide enough for a couple of men to stand shoulder to shoulder, but none of them wanted to be first to try their luck against our stout shield-wall. The two at the front hesitated, uncertain what to do, until eventually the weight of bodies behind them forced them forward on to Norman spears.
‘Ut!’ the enemy bayed, a deep-throated call that put me in mind of wolves on the hunt. ‘Ut, ut, ut!’
It was a battle-cry I knew well. I remembered first hearing it that October morning at H?stinges, when with the glimmer of sun rising over the trees and breaking through the clouds, we had stared up the slope at the ridge they called Senlac, and shivered at the sight of so many hundreds of the usurper’s vassals and their retainers, their pennons flying defiantly in the breeze, their mail and their spearpoints flashing in the autumn sun.
Which meant that these men standing before us were not Welsh but English: some of those who had taken up arms under Eadric’s standard, I didn’t wonder.