Alan’s archers walked back and forth behind the ranked men of the shield-wall, shooting arrows into the faces of men they could almost reach out and touch. Again, many of them were in their first battle and the sight of the huge arrows slamming into the face, throat or chest of men at very short range, the spray of blood from the arrow-strike and the eruption of blood from the mouth of the target as he fell screaming was very different from shooting at straw targets at 200 paces. Many were white-faced and looking as if they would vomit at any moment as they mechanically reached into their quivers for the next arrow and looked for their next target.
When the Danes were fully engaged, separated into three untidy gaggles partly in front of the defensive pits and partly still awaiting the opportunity to move forward, Alan let loose his cavalry. They charged from their hiding place in the woods, through a corridor in the ditches left for their use and smashed into the right flank of the Danes from behind. With the din of battle the Danes did not hear the drumming of the horses’ hooves as they closed.
The first target of each horseman was speared with a lance in his side or back. Some lances broke at the first contact, others lasted to account for two or three of the enemy before the shattered wood had to be discarded and the horseman drew his long sword and began to deal death with each swing of his arm, as the arrow-head formation of the cavalry smashed through. As the momentum of the charge was lost and the Danes realised what was happening and turned to defend the flank, the cavalry drew back to collect new lances and reorganize for another charge. More than 100 Danes lay dead along the path of the charge, along with six horses and four cavalrymen.
In a few moments the Danes on their right flank, the English left flank, had been virtually annihilated. With nearly half their number dead or wounded and with their leaders having been specially targeted by the archers, in particular Owain, it took some time before the men on the Danish left flank and in the centre realised their predicament, and the rear ranks to start trying to extricate themselves.
Many Danes in the centre were looking across at where the cavalry were lining up for their next charge, knowing they would be the target. As the Danes tried to pull back, the English shield-wall swarmed forward, maintaining the pressure. The Danes slowly retreated, trying to keep a coherent force and maintain discipline. The English cavalry charged down another path through in the trenches and hit the Danish centre like an Act of God, again cutting a swathe through the struggling foot-soldiers like a scythe through grass.
The Danes routed and fled to the south towards the ships.
It was then the second part of Alan’s plan became evident. Havorn and Alekrage had rowed into Barfleet Creek just as the Danish infantry had started to march north. Being snekke build by the Danes and with Norwegian captains, they had encountered no difficulty in mingling with the ships of the invaders, with Sven shouting replies in Danish and Norwegian to the few shouted questions he heard. The English crewmen kept their mouths shut and heads down. When the battle on shore was joined and the attention of the Danish anchor-guard was distracted, Sven and Lars had quietly taken action against the Danish ships, which by now had floated off the mud bank with the incoming tide and were secured fore and aft by an anchor. Both of the English longships had towed a sunnmorsf?ring, a Norwegian four-oared rowing-boat, and positioned themselves about 70 yards distant from each other along part of the line of Danish ships, which stretched in total for about 200 yards. There were six Danish ships between the two English longships and three Danes to the south of Havorn, with the rest of the Danish ships being north of Alekrage.
While this occurred, on land the Danish troops had just reached the English shield-wall. Distance and the dust thrown up by hundreds of feet made it impossible for those who had remained with the ships to see what was happening, but to a man their attention was drawn north-west, interest piqued by the shouts, screams and din of battle that could now be heard.
The English rowed out with ten men crammed into each sunnmorsf?ring, each targeting the ship next to their own in the group that was flanked by the two English ships. The first ship the men from Havorn approached never even saw them, the four men on anchor-watch standing together near the bow and were dispatched by a silent rush of knife-wielding Saxons. The next ship was slightly more watchful, and Sven waved a large earthenware jar of aqua vitae in each hand before inviting himself and his men aboard, clambering over the stern of the ship and having his men take down the three unsuspecting watchmen.
The third ship saw them coming and some instinct or surliness made the senior watchman wave away the rowing boat. Now with only six men aboard Sven decided to quit while he was ahead and turned to row back to the Havorn, just as shouts were heard from the ship one further along, which was being attacked by the men from Alekrage.
“That’s put the cat amongst the pigeons!” commented Sven casually as he stood and nonchalantly lobbed a small flask containing Wildfire onto the ship that had just refused to allow him to board, starting an instant conflagration. In the meantime ten men had moved from Havorn and Alekrage to crew each of the five captured ships. Anchor ropes were cut at the bows of each ship and the ships hauled backwards into the main stream of the creek using the kedge anchors. Even with skeleton crews the seven ships had little to fear from the Danes, as only an anchor-watch had been left on the Danish ships with barely enough men to raise an anchor and certainly not enough to row the ships.
Remembering one of the maxims written by the Roman Vegetius in the 4th century allow your enemy to retreat, Alan had instructed Sven that he wanted to leave six or seven ships in Danish hands, enough for them to use to flee if the battle went in favour of the English, but with their strength significantly diminished.
Alan knew that, like the wolves they were, the Danish raiders would move on and look for easier prey if they could. He also knew that, also like wolves, if trapped they would fight to the death. Even now there were still more Danes than Englishmen and to totally defeat them would cost many English lives for what Alan saw as no benefit. There seemed an inexhaustible supply of Danes and longships and he wanted as few Englishwomen as possible being made widows today, and as many men as possible ready to respond when the Danes next raided. So Sven and Lars had their crews row close to the Danish longships, carefully tossing flasks of Wildfire into four snekke. The pint or so of incendiary material splashed across the decks setting fire first to the tar-drenched caulking, then the wood hulls and the tarred ropes. One burning ship drifted into another, setting it ablaze in moments, as the Danish crewmen threw themselves in the water and swam away.
The undermanned ships crewed by the English, Havorn and Alekrage together with the new prizes, rowed away slowly towards the Colne estuary and then headed north, using their flax-coloured woollen sails to take advantage of a favourable breeze and give the tired rowers a rest.