‘They think it’s all over,’ said Bashford.
‘It is now,’ said Sykes as once again the Norman centre crashed down upon them, surrounding them and cutting them off. Shouts of ‘Dex Aie‘ rose over the screams of the dying. There were no Saxon survivors.
And then, in a heartbeat, the fortunes of war again swung back the other way. As they do.
The Norman centre had gone too far too fast. Intent on returning to their own lines as quickly as possible, they fell victim to their unfamiliarity with the landscape. There was another reason why Harold had chosen this spot. The horses, plunging downhill back to their own lines, ran straight into a concealed ditch. None of them were able to stop in time. They fell, screaming, into the ditch and were crushed by those coming along behind.
We watched in silence, and then Sykes said, ‘Was that the Malfosse incident?’
‘I don’t think so,’ I said doubtfully, ‘I think that occurred at the end of the battle and there’s hours to go yet.’
She looked at the struggling men on the screen. ‘Hard to believe they’ll last that long.’
‘Many of them won’t.’
They had been fighting for hours and William had made no progress at all. The Saxons still stood around their two standards. Harold was making good on his promise not to cede one inch of English land. The ditches were full of bodies, lying in a tangle of bloody arms and legs. The breastworks had disintegrated. Absolutely nothing was left. Not even a few splinters to show where they had once been. The Saxon ranks were dreadfully thinned but the Fighting Man still stood, seemingly immoveable, and blocking William’s path to the crown.
Presumably William thought so too, unleashing charge after charge up the hill. One after the other. Both sides met with a terrible impact and loss of life, but every time, the Normans were thrown back. Every time. The day was wearing on and still William was getting nowhere.
Around mid-afternoon, there was a lull. We all shot off to the bathroom – me first, because rank hath its privileges. I splashed water on my face and returned to my place at the console.
It would seem that William had used my absence to have a bit of a think. He desperately needed to rest his knights and their horses. New tactics were called for.
He recalled his archers. From somewhere they’d found or cut fresh arrows. It seemed a new strategy had been devised. Now the archers fired into the air, over the front ranks, their arrows falling on the largely unarmoured fyrd behind the shield wall. The Saxons could do nothing but stand and endure the storm of arrows that fell from the sky, blackening the sun, but those who had shields protected themselves and their comrades as best they could. Still they stood firm. It would seem that nothing William could do would ever shift them.
The sun was beginning to set, sitting over the horizon like a giant red ball in the sky, but no redder than the earth beneath. They’d been at it for hours and hours. William must be growing desperate. The longer the Saxons stood, the better the chance that the northern Earls, Morcar and Edwin, would turn up with the reinforcements and, on the hill in front of him, still the Saxons stood, greatly depleted but still obstinate and unbreakable.
Horns sounded again for yet another cavalry charge. Although a cavalry trot would have been more accurate. Some of the horses could barely get up the hill. They dashed themselves against the front ranks. The hand-to-hand fighting was ferocious. The Saxons were crowded together so tightly that there was no room for the dead to fall, but still the Normans couldn’t break the line.
It seemed to me that the hail of Saxon missiles was thinning. Harold’s army was running out of things to throw. Many of them were making do with simply clashing their axes against their shields and shouting, ‘Ut! Ut! Ut!‘ Well, why not? It had worked well for them so far.
The sun nearly gone. I could see mist rising from the marsh at the bottom of the hill. Where the day had been hot – now it was turning cold. If the Normans couldn’t break them now…
William responded by hurling everything he had. The archers never let up, unleashing volley after volley, high into the air. The blood-splattered cavalry charged again. Spearmen ran up the slope, dodging through the horses. I’d never seen anything like it. The entire Norman army was hacking at the Saxon shield wall.
The Saxons took a weary grip on their weapons, steadied their shields against their shoulders and braced themselves through onslaught after onslaught.
The Normans were equally exhausted. Their knights were right up against the shield wall. Many were on foot. Both sides were slugging it out, face to face, so tired they could hardly raise their arms. Horses fell because they simply couldn’t stand any longer.
It did the Normans no good at all. Horns sounded and William’s forces disengaged and trailed slowly back down the hill again.
The light was nearly gone.
Thousands and thousands of men were dead. Brutally, horribly, bloodily dead. The fyrd was nearly gone. A few thegns still surrounded Harold. The Fighting Man and the Red Dragon still flew, but there were so few of them left.
The last light was fading. Surely it must be over. I knew how this ended but looking at the state of play now … I had no idea it had been so close. If William couldn’t break the shield wall in the next few minutes, then he was finished. The northern levies would sweep down and between them and the survivors today, his exhausted army would be annihilated. I know – we all know – how Hastings ends, and yet I couldn’t help wondering if I hadn’t strayed into another universe somehow, and that in this one, Harold won. Or – always our main fear – by simply being here we had changed some tiny event which meant that William lost and Harold won. Which would be a bit of a bugger, not least because History would have something very terminal to say about that.
The sun was going. The Saxons were intact and the Normans finished. William would never get them up that hill again.
And then, unbelievably, a shout went up from the Saxon lines. A great groan of anguish and despair rippled outwards. The Fighting Man dipped.
Harold had fallen.
‘What?’ said Bashford in disbelief. ‘When did that happen?’
‘Close up,’ I said. ‘Find him. Quickly now.’
We focused on the milling confusion in the Saxon ranks.
‘I can’t find him,’ said Bashford, panning back and forth.
‘Me neither,’ said Sykes.
‘Concentrate on the area around the Fighting Man,’ I said.
There was no time.
Horns were sounding and Norman heads lifting.
Weary men turned their horses around to confront a hill that must have seemed like a mountain. To give him his due, William was right up there at the front. Somewhere along the way he’d lost his white horse and now rode a black one. His tattered banner followed at his shoulder.
The horses could only advance at a walk. There was no more strength for thundering charges.
They walked up the hill, the men at arms following on behind them.
Orders rang out. Whether Harold lived or was dead already, the Saxons drew together. Both sides knew that these were the deciding moments. If the shield wall held then the Normans were beaten. Wiped out. After today none of them would survive to make the voyage home to Normandy.
If the shield wall crumbled then the Normans would swarm over the top of them, obliterating every last one of them, and that would mean the end of Saxon England for ever. It was make-or-break time.
The shield wall did not hold.