Blood on the Sand (44 page)

Berenger felt the ship come alive as he stood on the forecastle. At the quayside, she was a mere shell of pieces of wood and rope, but once she had been shoved away bodily from the land, she
became something else. At first, while she was tugged out into the open, she rolled and lurched like a drunken sow who’d got to the ale slops, but as the shipmen ran about aloft, releasing
sails and then reefing them in to the commands of the shipmaster, she righted herself and became like a hawk observing its prey. As she slowly moved off into the main channel, more sail was let
out, and she stiffened and strained, her tension apparent to all about the vessel.

For Berenger, it was a thrill to feel the deck begin its rhythmic progress, rising and falling regularly. There was a crack and some creaking, that had more than one landsman whirl his head
around, thinking a spar had snapped and the ship must sink, but it was only a wooden stanchion settling itself as the ropes gripped more tightly. Berenger smiled to himself as he saw first the
Pardoner, then Aletaster run to the rails and empty their bellies. Aletaster didn’t think, and his vomit was thrown back into his face by the wind, which was the cause of much hilarity
amongst the rest of the vintaine, apart from two men who suddenly grew very thoughtful as the stench travelled amongst them. One was later to be seen leaning over the wale himself.

Their ships were all moving swiftly enough, and it seemed no time at all before they could see the lines of the convoy up ahead.

Berenger moved to the prow and stared ahead. With his awful eyesight it was hard to make anything out, but soon he could see a series of masts. There were so many it looked like a small forest
coming ever closer. He gave the order to string their bows, and the men set to, one timing his efforts badly and tumbling as the ship rolled, sliding down the deck to the jeers of his
companions.

All the archers had quivers and stacks of arrows in sheaves at their feet. They were as ready as they could be.

‘Is this my bow?’ Clip complained. ‘It’s got a knot in it.’

‘Like the one that should be about your neck,’ Dogbreath said.

The Aletaster glanced over. ‘Yes, it’s yours.’

‘It doesn’t look right.’

The Earl looked down at it. ‘Clip, it is a
bow
!’ he said. ‘How much more bow-like could it look?’

‘On mine the heart wood was darker than this,’ Clip protested. ‘Look at this: it’s all light-coloured, like a good honey.’

‘Does it pull? Yes. Does it loose arrows? Yes. It’s adequate for its function and purpose,’ the Earl said.

‘It’s not mine, though. Mine doesn’t have this knot. How can you use a bow like this? The wood will go right where that knot is. It’ll snap.’

‘Clip,’ Berenger said, ‘shut up. You have a bow. It will do the job.’

‘Ach, I don’t know why I bother. We’ll all be killed anyway. Whoever thought of fighting on board a ship must have been mad . . . or just hated sailors.’

‘Or moaning English archers,’ Berenger said. ‘Now shut up.’

They were moving at a good pace now, and the distance between them and the French fleet was shrinking.

Up at the rear of the ship, Grandarse was bellowing orders. He stood like a Viking, his head encased in steel, his belly protruding beneath its covering of mail. ‘Archers! We will sail
into their midst and bring to action the nearest ship we can. Is that clear? When I give the order, I want all archers to loose at the same time. Now, hold to your positions!’

Berenger heard the shipmaster snap a command. A change in motion warned them that the ship was altering direction slightly, and now they were pointing straight at a barge. Her red sail was
billowing, but with the weight of her cargo, she still lumbered along slowly.

‘Archers,
the barge is ours!
Get ready!’ Grandarse bawled, and all the ship’s company stared ahead at the vessel. She was sluggish and low in the water, but her crew
were doing all they could to coax a little more speed from her. They were inching closer and closer, the barge attempting to turn away slightly north, while the English cog tried to head her
off.

Then Berenger was startled by a shriek from aloft: ‘’Ware! Galley on the larboard side!’

Turning, Berenger saw a sleek vessel plunging through the waves towards them. It had a great ram beneath the sharp prow, and he could see the rows of oars rising and dipping as it advanced. He
bawled, ‘ARCHERS! A
RCHERS
,
NOCK
! A
RCHERS
,
DRAW
! A
RCHERS
,
LOOSE
!’

There was a flurry of whistles, and the arrows leaped into the air, all so close together that Berenger saw some strike others in mid-air, righting themselves and plunging together with all the
others.

‘Archers, nock! Archers, draw! Archers, pick your targets! Loose!’

A second stream of long arrows sped on their way; by now, the English cog was turning, but too slowly . . . and then the two ships struck. All could hear the impact of the ram splintering the
cog’s hull. And then the enemy vessel was drawing away, the rowers tugging their galley from the stricken cog before she could begin to sink and snag the ram, pulling the galley down with
her. Berenger wanted to send grapnels onto her so that he and his men could clamber aboard and try to take her to replace their own ship, but the collision had knocked all the archers off their
feet, and there was no time to recover themselves and hurl their ropes.

Screams and cries spoke of men trapped beneath the deck as the English cog began to fill with water, but then the ship, wallowing badly, turned her prow a last time, and Berenger saw what the
shipmaster had noticed. A second English ship had tried to take the barge, which had turned back towards the archers. ‘Grapnels and anything else – get that ship!’ he screamed,
reaching for the nearest coil of rope.

The two ships edged closer and closer. On board the barge, Berenger could see that the shipmaster was attempting to hurtle past the English cog before those on board had recovered enough to try
to board his vessel. If he was fast, he might succeed. But then the two ships met with a loud squeal of protesting oak, and the English archers needed no instruction. Without a single command being
given, they sprang onto the lower decks of the barge. A spirited resistance was mounted by the sailors, and Berenger saw Clip and Jack loose arrows at two strong and determined shipmen at the prow,
killing them both; at the tiller, the old grizzled shipmaster laid about him so incautiously with a heavy falchion that one archer lost his hand. That was when Berenger leaped at him, his own sword
striking down at the man’s sword and bearing it to the ground. He then stood on the blade while he punched the older man about the face. The first blow was hardly heeded, while the second
simply made the man blink – but Berenger’s third punch was aimed at the side of the fellow’s head, and he reeled like a rabbit hit by a slingstone, before collapsing.

The shipmaster of their cog was still at his poop. Berenger shouted to him: ‘Would you come over to this ship? Yours must surely sink!’

‘This old bitch? You know how much it’d cost me to replace her? No, she won’t sink – she wouldn’t
dare
!’ the fellow replied. ‘I’ll get her
back to harbour.’

Slowly, the great cog turned back and began to limp her way towards the shore, while the hardy crew ran about the decks under the shipman’s orders. Berenger hoped they would make it back
safely.

At present, he had other things to concern him.

Jack pulled at his shoulder. ‘Frip!’

Looking round, Baldwin saw that the galley had executed a neat turn and was now pointing at them once more. He saw the oars begin to rise and fall again, and then the vessel was bearing down on
them.

‘Bloody hell!’ Jack said.

Clip was staring at the galley with a frown on his face. ‘That bastard’s really got it in for us! Shit for brains!’ And he began to hurl insults at the men on the ship, waving
his bow in the air with a rage so pure it was hard for Berenger to know whether to laugh or sympathise.

In the event, it was Dogbreath who said, ‘Do you not think it would be better to try to kill the bastard, rather than waste your breath shouting at him?’

It was a call to commonsense, and the archers began to loose their arrows swiftly into the ship. At first, it appeared that their efforts were going unrewarded, but this time the galley had a
greater distance to cover, and every yard of the way, a hundred arrows plummeted from the sky. Many struck the great sail, after which they travelled on and caused injuries to those beneath. Some
lanced down and pinned the rowers to their benches. The drum itself suddenly gave a deep boom, then went silent, and Berenger wondered whether they had hit the drummer or the skin of the great
instrument. There came more cries, and he saw that the oars now rose and dipped irregularly; a series of oars had ceased to move, but floated in the water.

‘More arrows!’ he cried. ‘We could take the galley! Can we catch it?’ This to the shipman who had been left with them while their cog returned to shore. The man on the
tiller peered ahead at the galley, but even as he stared, the galley turned and headed towards the harbour at Calais. The man looked back at Berenger and shook his head.

‘Frip! Frip – look!’ Jack shouted suddenly, and Berenger whirled round to see the man at the poopdeck of the galley. It was the Genoese again.

‘That fucking donkey turd! Not content with stealing our first ship, now he’s sunk another under us and wants to take our barge too!’ Clip spat. He drew his bow and let fly at
an extreme angle. Clip had always been a natural archer, with an eye for distance that was unmatched by most, and Berenger watched the arrow’s flight with a mingled desire to see the cocky
Genoese shipman pierced, and a reluctance to see him harmed. It was, after all, this man who had set them free from their captivity.

He was pleased to see the Genoese spring back as the arrow struck, quivering, impaling itself into the planking within a few paces of the man.

Grandarse was puffing and blowing at his side. ‘Clip, man, next time, wait a minute and let a grown-up use his sodding bow rather than wasting an arrow.’

‘It was the wind caught me arrow as I released – didn’t you feel the gust?’

‘Mayhap it was the wind from your bowels, Clip,’ the Earl drawled.

‘Hey, you want a taste of my fist? I’ll take you on any day, you . . .’

‘Yes?’ the Earl enquired mildly.

‘You overgrown, illegitimate son of a poxed Winchester goose!’

‘Overgrown? Perhaps. Son of a whore? Perhaps that too, I confess. But illegitimate? Yes, my friend. But I was born that way, I’m not a self-made bastard like you!’

Clip went quite pale with anger, and stood rigid, at a loss for words. Berenger glanced at Jack and both surreptitiously moved nearer. However, a few seconds passed and then Clip gave a grin,
conceding, ‘You’re not all bad, Earl.’

‘I agree with you there.’

‘We can be friends.’

‘There you test me.’

There was a sudden roar from behind them.

‘There’s another vessel over there!’ Grandarse bellowed at the top of his voice, pointing. ‘Come on – let’s see if we can catch ourselves a ship!’

Archibald sat outside on his gonne’s barrel and stared up at the sun. With a small barrel of ale on the earth wall behind him, and a pewter goblet in his hand, life was
sweet. The ale he had won in a game of Nine Men’s Morris, but the goblet, which had been liberated from a house on the way to Calais, had become his yesterday in exchange for a small charge
of black powder encased in a wrap of parchment, sealed with pig’s fat. Later that evening, he had heard of a near riot in a house in the town when a somewhat morose captain, who was disliked
by most of his men, had been dining with a woman, and for some reason his fire had exploded when the two were growing affectionate. Archibald saw no need to investigate. His ale was tasty, all the
better for being served in a noble vessel such as this, and he sighed with content. It was all good.

The smell, however, was not. The town over there, across the little dribble of water, had a right stench coming off it. He had been near towns with bad odours in the past – for instance,
who could forget Exeter in the high summer, when the reek from the tanners over to the west spread all over the city, enough to make a man’s eyes water . . . This was different, though. The
smell had a bittersweet tang that caught in the throat like vomit. At least most of the time it was pleasant enough here. The wind tended to blow away from the little fort. And now, with the
evening sun behind him lighting the town’s walls with a glorious golden hue, he could almost have felt himself to be back in England instead of here, and no longer at war. The stone looked
like the golden rocks used in places like Evesham. That had been a lovely town, he remembered, and sighed.

He passed a pleasant evening. Rested, he ate a good meal and went to his palliasse at the rear of the fort, secure in the knowledge that the Donkey was keeping watch. A little while after
sunset, he was deeply asleep.