‘Shit,’ whispered Evans.
Spurring their horses, they moved uphill, strung out in a long line that left us nowhere to go, all ready to flush us out.
‘Shit,’ said Evans again.
Now what? Did we stand up and run? Where to? Did we stand and fight? With what? Did we crouch and hope they’d miss us in the dark? I’ve heard that horses won’t willingly stand on a human being, but with our luck, these horses would be ancestors of the infamous Turk, the horse allocated to me for side-saddle training, whose relationship with his rider included biting, kicking, rolling on, crushing, attempted drowning – and trampling.
I could hear the horses snorting as they increased their speed. They couldn’t see us. Yet
We began to inch our way backwards. The torches were less than twenty yards away. They would be on us in seconds.
We were concealed by long grass and some of the prickliest brambles in south-east England, but they didn’t have to see us to run us down. Which was probably what they intended to do. Yes, we both had stun guns, but frankly, who wants a stunned horse and its rider crashing down on top of them in the dark?
‘Come on,’ said Evans. ‘We have to make a run for it. Stay with me.’
Someone shouted.
I don’t know what happened next. I was nearly blind. Their torches had ruined my night vision. My ears were full of the sound of thundering hooves. They were almost on top of us. And then, someone shouted a warning. And then someone else screamed. The sound of hooves became confused. A horse neighed – high pitched in fear. And then another. I could hear furiously scrabbling hooves. And then a series of crashes. Men shouted in warning and in fear. More men were screaming. And horses too. The torches began to disappear, one by one.
Some went out, but some lay on the ground, still burning and giving us flickering glimpses of a dreadful scene.
My first, admittedly slightly overwrought, thought was that the ground had opened up beneath our feet, illuminating a scene from hell. But it was true. The ground had indeed opened beneath our feet. Here, at last, was the Malfosse. The Evil Ditch.
The story goes that a small group from William’s forces, responding to the taunts of a bunch of anonymous Saxons, were lured into an area where long grass concealed a number of steep-sided and very deep ditches. Oh my God – were we those taunting Saxons? My heart turned over. What had we done?
No time to think about that now. Unable to see in the near darkness, the Normans had run straight into one of the open ditches. And they didn’t just stumble and fall. They had been galloping headlong when the ground ended and the earth gaped for them. Horses had fallen headfirst, somersaulting over each other. We had heard the crack of broken backs and legs. Their riders, flying through the air, had hit the ground with bone-shattering force and lay helpless as they were either trampled to death or crushed by those falling in after them.
Another wave of horses and riders were following them in – tumbling and cartwheeling, to land with hideous impact. Huge, heavy destriers flew through the air as if they weighed nothing. Broken men and horses lay in a mangled mess of bodies and limbs. Any survivors of the initial fall couldn’t possibly be saved and were perishing either from their injuries or suffocation.
The dying screams of fatally injured horses and their riders echoed through the gathering night. Down below, in William’s camp, horns sounded the alarm. Already, we could hear the sound of hooves as Duke William, possibly fearing another Saxon army falling on his camp from out of the dark, despatched forces to investigate.
I tried to look away, but there are some things you can’t unsee. I saw a horse, one of the first to fall, I guessed, wedged vertically, head down, trapped and suffocating beneath a mass of bodies. Its back legs were clear, and it kicked and kicked, legs flailing violently in its frantic efforts to be free, injuring all those around it. Even as I looked, its struggles weakened and then ceased.
A solitary, riderless horse ran past us, almost knocking me over, its reins flying loose. I caught a glimpse of a wild, rolling eye, and then Evans grabbed my arm.
‘Come on. Uphill and to the left. Get into the trees.’
‘But this is the Malfosse incident. I have to …’
‘Listen. Guthrie’s gone. Markham’s gone. I’m in charge and I’m not losing you on my very first assignment. Get into the trees or I’ll stun you and drag you there myself.’
Fair enough, I suppose.
We made no attempt at concealment, running as fast as we could for the cover of the forest, finally collapsing and crawling, panting, into a patch of scratchy brambles.
I could see lights moving uphill. Part of William’s army was coming to investigate.
We crawled deeper under cover and I called up Sykes.
‘Oh, hello Max. Everything all right?’
‘A bit busy here, but I know what happened after the battle. I’ve just seen Edith Swanneschals making away with Harold. And he’s still alive. And I’ve just witnessed the Malfosse incident. And there’s any number of Normans on their way to investigate. And I’m trapped in a bramble patch with our Head of Security.’
‘Oh dear,’ she actually sounded sympathetic. ‘Well, if he gets a bit frisky, you should fetch him one with a rolled-up newspaper.’
Bashford intervened. ‘Do you know if Edith got Harold away?’
‘She must have. There’s no report of him being captured after the battle and there were always rumours that he got away.’
‘Do you think he survived?’
I thought of big, strong, vigorous Harold Godwinson. Then I thought of those wounds. ‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because if he had lived he would have fought William with every breath in his body. The country would have risen up and followed him. It didn’t. So no, I’m sorry, Mr Bashford, but I don’t think he did.’
Evans intervened. ‘Far be it from me to interrupt this intellectual discussion, but I need to get your lost historian back to the pod. Watch out for us and be prepared to have the door open in a hurry.’
‘We’ll come and search for you.’
‘No,’ I said alarmed. ‘We’re quite safe where we are.’ Evans rolled his eyes. ‘We’ll work our way back to you. No one leaves the pod. That’s an order.’
*
We struggled back in the dark. We saw no one and no one saw us. We tumbled in through the door, where Sykes passed us some tea. I don’t think mine even touched the sides. I gulped it down while Evans described what we’d seen. He had a bit of a job dissuading them from going to have a look for themselves.
Then we washed our face and hands, tidied ourselves up, because historians never go back looking scruffy, and, finally, we jumped away.
Normally, the return from an assignment as important as Hastings is a triumphant business. As many of the unit as can be prised away from their work – which is all of them – assembles on the gantry or behind the safety line and cheers us in. We wave and march to Sick Bay for them to pull us about in the name of medicine and then retire for a shower and a favourite meal. Reports are written, arguments settled, the odd margarita secretly imbibed and we sleep for twelve hours.
This wasn’t anything like that.
We disembarked quietly. I don’t know about anyone else, but I could still hear the ring of steel on steel, the thunder of hooves, the moans of the dying.