‘Rally your men,’ I told the brothers. ‘Their spears will be needed before long.’
Even as I left them an idea was forming in my mind: one that might just give us a chance. It wasn’t much, but we had nothing to lose by it, and if it worked we could at the very least be sure of taking a good number of the enemy with us.
Fifteen
SNOCCA AND CNEBBA were waiting when I returned to the head of our host. Other boys were attending to their lords, bringing them spears and shields, leading their destriers away and corralling them with the packhorses on the open ground behind our lines. This battle would not be won in the charge but in the clash and grind of shield-bosses, the crush of men, the struggle of wills. Not with swordcraft but with the grim, close work of spears and knives.
‘Come with me,’ I said to the twins, and then to a group of sturdy lads carrying bundles of spears under their arms: ‘You too.’
I would need strong arms for what I had in mind, and so I called over Pons and Turold and Serlo too.
‘See those carts, the ones the enemy left behind? I want them laid on their side, blocking the gaps in that wall.’
The wall ran along the firmer ground on our left wing, coming to an end where the mill-pool had once been. It rose only to waist-height in most places and chest-height in some, and so on its own hardly presented much of an obstacle. Together with the carts, though, I hoped it would be enough to frustrate the enemy’s approach and present them with a choice. Either they could waste time and lives trying to clear the obstruction before they could meet our shield-wall, or else they would have to attack across the marshier ground on our right, where Wace and our Welsh allies were positioned.
We got to work without delay. The carts were heavy things, and it took several men to pull them, and to turn them over on to their sides. Other men, seeing what we intended, pulled timbers from the ruined mill and added them to our crude barricade. It wasn’t much, but it all helped. Had we more time, I would have tried to find some way to set fire to the whole thing, but we didn’t, and so it was a futile thought.
‘Quickly!’ I shouted, at the same time throwing my shoulders and my back into tipping one of the carts over, grabbing the rough timbers from beneath as Snocca and Cnebba each took a corner. It took the effort of all three of us with Serlo as well, but eventually I felt it slipping from my fingers, falling away from me and coming down with a crash on to its side. The barrels it had been carrying spilled and rolled into the long grass that grew in the open ground between us and the enemy. I’d half hoped they might contain something that we could use, but luck wasn’t with us, for they were all empty.
‘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.