Ken Follett - World Without End

Ralph kept hold of the girl’s bleeding hand. “How sure are you?”

“Oh, lord, as sure as I am of my own name, I swear!”

The man probably did not know his own name right now, he was so distracted with terror. Ralph looked at the leather worker. There was no sign of deceit on his face, no defiance or eagerness to please in his expression: he just looked a bit ashamed of himself, as if he had been forced, against his will, to do something wrong. This is the truth, Ralph thought exultantly; I’ve done it.

He said: “The Blanchetaque. Ten miles downstream from Abbeville, at the village of Saigneville. White stones on the river bottom. Low tide at mid-morning tomorrow.”

“Yes, lord.”

Ralph let go of the girl’s wrist, and she ran sobbing to her father, who put his arms around her. Ralph looked down at the pool of blood on the white altar table. There was a lot of it, for a slip of a girl. “All right, men,” he said. “We’re finished here.”

The trumpets woke Ralph at first light. There was no time to light a fire or eat breakfast: the army struck camp immediately. Ten thousand men had to travel six miles by mid-morning, most of them on foot.

The prince of Wales’s division led the march off, followed by the king’s division, then the baggage train, then the rearguard. Scouts were sent out to check how far away the French army was. Ralph was in the vanguard, with the sixteen-year-old prince, who had the same name as his father, Edward.

They hoped to surprise the French by crossing the Somme at the ford. Last night the king had said: “Well done, Ralph Fitzgerald.” Ralph had long ago learned that such words meant nothing. He had performed numerous useful or brave tasks for King Edward, Earl Roland and other nobles, but he still had not been knighted. On this occasion he felt little resentment. His life was in as much danger today as it had ever been, and he was so glad to have found an escape route for himself that he hardly cared whether anyone gave him credit for saving the entire army.

As they marched, dozens of marshals and under-marshals patrolled constantly, heading the army in the right direction, keeping the formation together, maintaining the separation of divisions and rounding up stragglers. The marshals were all noblemen, for they had to have the authority to give orders. King Edward was fanatical about orderly marching.

They headed north. The land rose in a gentle slope to a ridge from which they could see the distant glint of the estuary. From there they descended through cornfields. As they passed through villages the marshals ensured there was no looting, because they did not want to carry extra baggage across the river. They also refrained from setting fire to the crops, for fear the smoke might betray their exact position to the enemy.

The sun was about to rise when the leaders reached Saigneville. The village stood on a bluff thirty feet above the river. From the lip of the bank, Ralph looked over a formidable obstacle: a mile and a half of water and marshland. He could see the whitish stones on the bottom marking the ford. On the other side of the estuary was a green hill. As the sun appeared on his right, he saw on the far slope a glint of metal and a flash of colour, and his heart filled with dismay.

The strengthening light confirmed his suspicion: the enemy was waiting for them. The French knew where the ford was, of course, and a wise commander had provided for the possibility that the English might discover its location. So much for surprise.

Ralph looked at the water. It was flowing west, showing that the tide was going out; but it was still too deep for a man to wade. They would have to wait.

The English army continued to build up at the shore, hundreds more men arriving every minute. If the king had tried now to turn the army round and go back, the confusion would have been nightmarish.

A scout returned, and Ralph listened as the news was related to the prince of Wales. King Philippe’s army had left Abbeville and was approaching on this bank of the river.

The scout was sent to determine how fast the French army was moving.

There was no turning back, Ralph realized with fear in his heart: the English had to cross the water.

He studied the far side, trying to figure out how many French were on the north bank. More than a thousand, he thought. But the greater danger was the army of tens of thousands coming up from Abbeville. Ralph had learned, in many encounters with the French, that they were extraordinarily brave – foolhardy, sometimes – but they were also undisciplined. They marched in disarray, they disobeyed orders, and they sometimes attacked, to prove their valour, when they would have been wiser to wait. But if they could overcome their disorderly habits and get here in the next few hours, they would catch King Edward’s army in midstream. With the enemy on both banks, the English could be wiped out.

After the devastation they had wrought in the last six weeks, they could expect no mercy.

Ralph thought about armour. He had a fine suit of plate armour that he had taken from a French corpse at Cambrai seven years ago, but it was on a wagon in the baggage train. Furthermore, he was not sure he could wade through a mile and a half of water and mud so encumbered. He was wearing a steel cap and a short cape of chain-mail, which was all he could manage on the march. It would have to do. The others had similar light protection. Most of the infantry carried their helmets hanging from their belts, and they would put them on before coming within range of the enemy, but no one marched in full armour.

The sun rose high in the east. The water level fell until it was just knee deep. The noblemen came from the king’s entourage with orders to begin the crossing. Earl Roland’s son, William of Caster, brought the instructions to Ralph’s group. “The archers go first, and begin firing as soon as they are near enough to the other side,” William told them. Ralph looked at him stonily. He had not forgotten that William had tried to have him hanged for doing what half the English army had done in the last six weeks. “Then, when you get to the beach, the archers scatter left and right to let the knights and men-at-arms through.” It sounded simple, Ralph thought; orders always did. But it was going to be bloody. The enemy would be perfectly positioned, on the slope above the river, to pick off the English soldiers struggling unprotected through the water.

The men of Hugh Despenser led the advance, carrying his distinctive black-on-white banner. His archers waded in, holding their bows above the water line, and the knights and men-at-arms splashed along behind. Roland’s men followed, and soon Ralph and Alan were riding through the water.

A mile and a half was not far to walk but, Ralph now realized, it was a long way to wade, even for a horse. The depth varied: in some places they walked on swampy ground above the surface, in others the water came up to the waists of the infantry. Men and animals tired quickly. The August sun beat down on their heads while their wet feet grew numb with cold. And all the time, as they looked ahead, they could see, more and more clearly, the enemy waiting for them on the north bank.

Ralph studied the opposing force with growing trepidation. The front line, along the shore, consisted of crossbowmen. He knew that these were not Frenchmen but Italian mercenaries, always called Genoese but in fact coming from various parts of Italy. The crossbow had a slower rate of fire than the longbow, but the Genoese were going to have plenty of time to reload while their targets lumbered through the shallows. Behind the archers, on the green rise, stood foot soldiers and mounted knights ready to charge.

Looking back, Ralph saw thousands of English crossing the river behind him. Once again, turning back was not an option; in fact, those behind were pressing forward, crowding the leaders.