Blood on the Sand (29 page)

‘I am glad to see you here,’ Jean de Vervins said. He wore an ingratiating smile on his face.

The Vidame drew his lips tightly over his mouth. ‘And I you. I heard you were serving with the English against the Scots.’

‘Yes. It was an interesting little engagement. Quite lively.’

‘May I offer you wine, Sir Knight?’

‘No, I thank you,’ Jean said. ‘I merely wanted to come and find a friendly face.’

‘You can always rely on me,’ the Vidame said. ‘After all, when we renounced our vows to King Philippe, and became servants of King Edward, we burned our houses and vills behind
us.’

‘I did not,’ Jean said with a trace of asperity. ‘Mine were all stolen from me before. When the King took my enemy’s part, that was when I was forced to choose a
different route. He betrayed me, just as he did you, too.’

‘He betrayed us all,’ the Vidame said. But in his heart he was screaming at Jean de Vervins that there was only one traitor in the tent.

As soon as Berenger had spotted the ships, the men had scurried away from the rat-killing, apart from Clip who leaned down, quickly cuffed his losing dog, and grabbed their
arms and bows and arrows. With Georges, whom they had adopted as the replacement for Donkey, to push their cartload of arrows, they hastened to the docks and boarded a fishing vessel.

Casting off, Sir John and Grandarse had to threaten to kill a member of the crew to persuade the shipmaster to take them to the midst of the French ships. As soon as they drew near, the archers
began to loose their arrows. Some sailors could be seen leaping from the rigging as arrows ripped through sails or struck, quivering, into masts and spars, while many lost their grip and fell
screaming to the deck beneath. One man was hit and fell, only to strike the wale with such a loud crack that Berenger could hear it from his boat. The man had surely broken his spine, and started
to shriek with every movement of the ship, unable to free himself.

Sir John stood at the prow, his sword drawn, yelling with rage at the ships moving before him. ‘Aim for that one!’ he bellowed, and the shipmaster turned her prow towards the vessel
indicated, but before they could reach it, another was close to ramming them. ‘Mind that!’

As the ship turned to save her hull, Sir John roared at the men to get grapnels and draw nearer to this new target, but although some archers kept up their practice, to aim and loose from a
rolling, bucking deck was no easy feat. Many arrows flew too high, and as many ended up planted in the hull of the ship. Few indeed found their mark, and as they worked, so did the French sailors,
hacking with swords or axes at the grapnel ropes as soon as they landed. One parted with a great crack, and the men holding it were thrown backwards as the rope flailed. The rope-end knocked
another man senseless, opening his brow to the bone from temple to temple.

A shouted command, and suddenly crossbow bolts were coming at the English. Two archers were hit and collapsed, while another had a bolt through his thigh. He kept on loosing his arrows, but
Berenger could see he was weakened. Later they realised his artery had been severed, and he died of blood loss.

Berenger grabbed a polearm and began to use it to keep French sailors away from the grapnels, before leaping up onto the wale. At his side he saw Sir John jump lightly into the enemy vessel and
begin to attack the French with his sword. With three sweeps of his blade, Sir John had cut down two men, and now already Jack was at Berenger’s side with an axe and poleaxe, and Clip was
near, loosing more arrows and dropping more Frenchmen. There came a bellow, and a Frenchman darted forward to loose a crossbow bolt. All the men instinctively turned, and as they did so, two more
French shipmen pelted forward and hacked away the remaining grapnel ropes. Now there was only Sir John, Berenger and five men left on the ship, and the whole ship’s company of Frenchmen began
to press upon them urgently, striving to force them into the prow itself, where the boarders’ movements could be restricted and they could be picked off one by one. A crossbow bolt flew into
the face of one of the archers – Berenger didn’t have time to look down to see who it had hit – and then they were rushed. The French came at them en masse, and that was when
Berenger was struck on the left shoulder, making him cry out. Once more, his arm fell dead at his side. For a while he thought it was a sword blow that had cut off all sensation, but then the
feeling returned with a vengeance, and he had to grit his teeth against the pain.

They fought on, weary but determined, as the French tried to force them into the sea, or at least just kill them all. And then, when Berenger felt sure that he was at the uttermost limits of his
own strength, there came a juddering crunch in the timbers at his feet, and he was almost thrown to the deck. And joy of joys, suddenly he saw that it was their shipmaster with his humble little
fishing boat, and the deck rang to the clatter of English armour as the men sprang over the sides and attacked the French from behind.

Yes, it had been a success against that one ship. That was itself good. But the rest of the ships had got past and revictualled the town.

‘We cannot go on like this!’ Sir John said as they disembarked.

‘We could mount siege engines to sink their ships, sir,’ Jack suggested.

‘Archibald would be happy to test his gonnes against them,’ Berenger put in. ‘Although whether he would hit them at any distance is another matter.’

‘Don’t ever let him hear you question his machines,’ Sir John joked, but then continued more seriously, ‘This siege is sapping our army. With all those ships getting
through, we’ll be here another three months at least – all through December, January and February. My armour will have rusted to dust in that time.’

‘What else can we do?’

‘Break this damn siege!’ Sir John grated, and in the grey morning light, he stalked away in the direction of the King’s pavilion.

Sir John de Sully looked exhausted already when Berenger saw him the next morning. The knight had been up all night, first with Berenger’s archers and then on the ship,
and his efforts had taken their toll.

The vintaine itself was weary, after sending flight after flight of arrows into the ships sailing into the harbour, but today they had a little respite. They stood on the shore and watched while
Archibald’s gonnes thundered and roared – and achieved spectacularly little. Sir John, furious to see so many ships making their way for the harbour, had commandeered another small
vessel and tried to get to them to sink some, but it was already too late. He had spent all the early hours trying to clamber from one ship to another, but beyond gaining a fresh scar on his right
cheek, his attempts had all failed.

‘You should rest, Sir John,’ Berenger said. ‘You look worn out.’

‘Nonsense. Never felt better.’

Berenger grinned to himself. Sir John was unfailingly cheerful – a trait that could never be underestimated in an army.

‘How about you?’ Sir John asked kindly.

Berenger gave a dry smile and flexed his arm.

Earlier in the summer, he had taken a crossbow bolt in the flesh of his upper torso, and the muscles had never fully healed, and then during the vicious fighting outside Durham, the maul which
had struck him hit near the same place. Fortunately, he had been wearing his padded jack, and that, along with the mail on top and the tippet of his bascinet, had deflected much of the force of the
blow. Even so, it was a cruel injury. Sometimes he thought it hurt more than the wound on his face.

‘I feel as if a horse has kicked me,’ he said.

‘At least you have been persuaded to keep your helm on your head,’ Sir John said.

‘Yes, sir. After this Scottish cut, I felt my luck was running out. Besides, a helm is less annoying in this temperature. It’s much worse in the middle of the summer, when you can
scarcely breathe with it on.’

‘Aye. True enough.’ Sir John was gazing back out to sea. Now that the sun was thinly penetrating the heavy clouds that lowered overhead, the battlefield of the night before could be
seen clearly.

‘What now, Sir John?’

‘We have to do more to stop ships entering the harbour. Archibald swore his gonnes would stop them, but they are as much use as throwing shit at the French. They achieve sod
all!’

‘He does his best.’

‘Well, his best is not good enough. We need to come up with something else.’

He was exhausted, but it had been exciting to see the battle, Ed thought. He had been at the gonnes with Archibald when the ships had appeared, but once the vintaine was sent
to a ship to pursue the French craft, Georges had been left behind. The younger boy and Ed took the opportunity to run to Archibald’s emplacement and see the gonnes fire.

Archibald had made a comfortable fort on the northernmost tip of the east shore, and the two gonnes were resting on great oaken trestles, pointing directly over the entrance to the Calesian
harbour, towards the Rysbank. There, Calesians with crossbows and small gonnes tried to blast at him, but since he could call on a vintaine or more of archers to guard him, he and Béatrice
could work without fear of being hit. The crossbowmen were not foolish enough to put themselves to the challenge when so many archers could rain down missiles on their heads.

The roar and flame of the gonnes discharging was enough to send Georges squeaking and weeping to the back of the bunker at first. The two shots were so loud, he thought his ears must be
destroyed. A gout of flame, and then the slamming concussion hit, as he saw the enormous blue-black smoke launching towards the ships in the harbour. He felt a mixture of horror, terror and
exultation all rolled into one.

Ed saw his initial shock, and put his arms about him. After witnessing ten or more discharges, he gently pulled Georges away from the cannonade.

It was then that he saw the cleric. The man was standing nearby, his rosary in his hand and an expression of deep sadness in his eyes. Ed was sure that the man hadn’t noticed the two boys,
but he felt Georges stiffen momentarily and then he shot a quick look at Ed, as if wondering whether he too had seen the man. But Ed took no notice. There were clerics and soldiers all over the
town of Villeneuve-la-Hardie.

One more made little difference, so he thought. But when they had moved away and left the gonnes some way behind, he was aware of Georges turning and staring back towards the man again. But when
Ed looked, the cleric was gone.

Weeks passed, but the determination of the English to break the deadlock was never stronger. After the last convoy had managed to break into Calais with their supplies, it was
clear that the town would be able to survive well beyond Christmas and into March 1347. But even with the new town being built all around Calais, none of the English wanted to remain there longer
than necessary.

The members of the vintaine were as cheery and enthusiastic as only English soldiers can be.

‘Look, Frip, the poxy water’s frozen again,’ Oliver called.

Clip sneered unpleasantly. ‘Stick your head in then, and talk. With all your hot air, you’ll soon have it boiling.’

Even Jack chuckled at that. Then, ‘Oliver, why are you bothering our captain with that? You know he’s an ideas man. He can’t deal with detail.’

‘Because I’m fed up with being stuck in this shit-hole and want to get back to England, to a real alehouse with English ale that hasn’t gone sour or salty being brought over
here.’

‘You should be grateful. It takes away the taste of the rotten meat,’ the Pardoner said.

‘We’ll break the town before long,’ Berenger said.

‘How?’ the Pardoner said rudely. ‘Are we to cut the ice into the shape of rocks and use the stone-throwers to fling them over the walls so we may freeze the townspeople to
death?’

‘No,’ Berenger said. ‘For some weeks there’s been a plan to assemble ships here – I’m told they’re on their way. We’ll have more than fifty
fishing boats and all with ladders pegged to their decks. The King’s had all the carpenters he could find in the South of England working on them for the last month, apparently. With luck,
when they arrive we’ll be able to scale those walls and take the town.’

‘Scale those walls, eh?’ Jack turned and stared in the direction of the town, where the great walls reared high over the shacks of Villeneuve-la-Hardie. ‘They’re the best
walls of any town in France, they say.’

‘Yes, but even the best walls can be taken by a few determined men,’ Fripper said.

‘So long as we’re here to protect them,’ Clip said. ‘You wouldn’t get me up a ladder on a ship.’

‘The ladders won’t all be on the ships, I expect,’ Berenger said. The thought of using a boat as a base for a ladder did not appeal to him either. ‘But once we’re
in the town, all this nonsense will cease. The French can come and knock on
our
door for a change.’

‘Aye,’ Clip said. He pulled a face. ‘So long as they don’t seal us in there like we’re trying to do with them!’

Clip need not have worried.

Berenger was grim-faced as he passed along the line of his archers. The Donkey was at the cart again, helping to show young Georges what was needed. Berenger wanted to give them a smile as he
passed, but he couldn’t. His face felt like it was on fire, and he could only wear a fixed glower. It felt as if he had a scalding flame licking all the way from his ear to his nose and
beyond, and he felt close to screaming because of it. The pain was constant, nagging at him no matter what he did all day. It kept his expression harsh and unrelenting, and he regretted it when he
saw Georges recoil, but there was no time to spare for a young lad’s finer feelings.