FitzStephen and the Normans were not impressed with what they saw.
‘I see no cavalry?’ he asked Donal as they watched the silent Norse ranks on the slope.
‘No,’ he replied. ‘They fight on foot. They are townsmen. Traders and craftsmen for the most part. They don’t willingly venture too far from behind their walls, and they can disappear behind them just as quick. I’m surprised they’ve ventured out to meet us today.’
The early afternoon sun had dulled behind a thin cloud bank. It would take some heat from the sweating men-at-arms and knights taking their positions in the battlelines. The layers of padded jerkins, heavy chain mail and body armour took its toll on strength in the midday sun. Worse still, the knights sat encased in their helmeted cauldron of the woollen arming cap covered with the chainmail aventail, topped with the weight of the heavy helmets. They spared themselves until the last, with their visors raised to release what heat they could from their reddened faces.
However, in a fight it was always better to have the sun on your back, in your enemies’ eyes. But today, hidden behind clouds, it would offer no help to the Normans or hindrance to the Norsemen who faced into it.
I watched as our battle formation quickly fell into place. It must have been chilling for the Norsemen to watch the minimalist efficiency of it all. What moments before had been an open grazed meadow, harmlessly sloping down a kindly hill, was now filled with an ominously silent, disciplined force of warriors who were wholly unfamiliar to the Norsemen. This was not what they had been expecting.
The soldiers drawn up in even ranks, covered in chain mail and helmeted to the last, their kite-shaped, brightly painted shields at the ready, were entirely new to them. The horsemen, their glistening armour draped with the coloured surcoats of their lords, held their lances skyward, their long swords, maces and flails at their sides. Such a body of archers, many hundreds, with the longbows of which they had heard so much, raining death from the sky. An ominous silence hung over the meadow.
‘No archers to speak of,’ FitzStephen observed. FitzGodebert’s reports had been correct. This army was simply a mass of men gathered in one spot. From what FitzStephen could see, their tactic would be to use their superiority in numbers and the slope to bludgeon a defeat on us. There was no order to their ranks, no archers or cavalry for combined arms use with their foot soldiers. They fought today as the Anglo-Saxons had fought at Hastings over a hundred years ago. The battle that had decided the fate of England in one single afternoon, when six thousand Normans, led by William the Conqueror, had defeated and killed their king, Harold Godwinson, despite facing an army of over forty thousand men. Likewise, these Norsemen today expected their enemies to fight as they had always done.
‘Well.’ He seemed to shrug his shoulders. ‘We will not oblige them. And the odds are far better today.’ Turning to the man on his right, he ordered him to tell Rob Smith to have the archers ready. He was to have each archer loose twenty arrows in a continuous volley into the Norsemen on his command.
‘Tell him to spare his bodkin arrowheads. They are unarmoured, from what I can see. So broadheads will serve adequately. He can recover the arrows from the bodies later.’
I shuddered at hearing this. The bodkin heads were narrow and heavy, designed for piercing armour. The broadheads, flat with swallow-tail shapes, were intended for tearing the flesh of men and animals. Once stuck, they were impossible to remove, ripping flesh and arteries if the victim survived and fled.
From watching them practice in the dell at Chepstow, I knew each archer could, at this distance, accurately unleash twenty arrows in the time it took to draw twenty breaths. So at twenty arrows a man, it would take these five hundred archers no time to rain ten thousand arrows into the two thousand Norsemen.
While they could scrape some protection from the round shields that many of them carried, particularly those in the front rank, FitzStephen told Donal he could confidently expect at least half the Norsemen to fall in the first volley.
Depending on the level of disarray in their ranks, he would order the mounted knights or the foot soldiers forward, but possibly another volley from the archers first. FitzStephen was chillingly casual in his manner.
While Rob prepared his archers, there was a shuffling in the ranks of the Norsemen. A rider passed repeatedly behind the ranks, bellowing orders we could not catch, the southerly breeze whisking his words to the north. A trickle of men in the rear ranks turned up the slope and began making their way over the low crest of the hill. Although it was not visible from this lower slope, I knew the town sat a short distance over the rise, stretching over the steeper slope that reached down to the shore of the estuary of the Slaney River.
Then their forward ranks began retreating quickly up the slope, keeping a watchful eye on us. They were soon out of bowshot; that advantage was lost to us. FitzStephen would not commit the cavalry, fearing the ruse of a feigned retreat, commonly used by the Normans to lure their opponents into an ambush. He flattered the Norsemen; they had no such plan.
Not liking what they saw arrayed before them, wiser heads had prevailed. They had decided to withdraw behind the proven barrier of their tall stone walls. They were quickly over the crest, and as we advanced slowly in formation up the slope, we could see plumes of smoke rising over the hill. When we reached the flat summit, the Norsemen were setting fire to the thatched roofs of the remaining timber buildings not yet ablaze in the suburb outside the town walls. They would destroy any cover the buildings might afford to us in an attack. With the fire raging, they withdrew over the wooden bridges that spanned the deep ditch beneath the high castellated stone walls. The bridges were destroyed; the heavy gates closed and barred.
‘I don’t know why they came out in the first place,’ Donal said, a while later as we rode along the walls out of bowshot. FitzStephen nodded his head in agreement. This was a formidable fortress. The walls were teeming with warriors, confident now in their security behind them. Long built, of cut stone at the height of three or four men in places, with turrets interspaced and well-protected gates, it would not be easily taken if they defended well.
The shock force of mounted knights was of no use against stone walls; chain mail, armour and heavy weapons were a lot heavier when a man is struggling out of a muddy ditch to a sheer wall under a hail of fire from above. In addition, the men on the walls could easily shelter from archers when not under attack from an infantry. Our task had just become a whole lot harder.
The army FitzStephen had brought to Ireland was best suited to the open field, where they could use their heavy cavalry, their archers and the well-honed tactics I had seen them rehearse exhaustively at Chepstow. They had brought none of their siege weapons: the catapult, the trebuchet or the ballista, the bolt thrower. Regardless, we did not have time for a siege. We needed the momentum of victory. More importantly, I thought, each moment we were delayed in Wexford would further endanger Eanna. Hours mattered.
Knowing Donal had not long previously contested the town with the Norsemen, FitzStephen asked him to tell him what he knew of its layout and defences. He could tell from what he could see that as long as the town retained access to the sea with their fleet of boats, we could not starve them into submission. We must find a way to defeat them in an assault or to force their surrender.
Donal told FitzStephen the town had never been taken by force. The Norsemen had chosen the site well. Completely enclosed by the high walls, it was narrow and long. He had walked it at five hundred paces along the shore and the opposite wall, which faced us now. It was approximately two hundred paces deep, stretching down a steep slope from this wall to the quays. A small stream ran into the town, and it had ample freshwater wells to sustain the inhabitants in a siege. The ground on which we now stood was on a level with the south-westerly wall and offered no advantage in overlooking the town.
A larger stream ran to the southeast of the walls into a marshy basin beside the shoreline. Any approach from that side of the town was impossible in the soft ground. Likewise, the ground to the northwest was not favourable; the shorter stretch of wall there would be more easily defended by concentrating their fire from the walls on the narrow approach. He had been of the view that if an attack was necessary, it would be costly in the lives of his men, but it would best be made from where we now stood, from the southwest. FitzStephen nodded. He favoured an assault as opposed to putting the town to fire. He would do so if necessary, but he would be destroying the town and people who were to be the source of his wealth, as promised to him by my father. A successful assault would encourage the surrender of the town with minimal damage to property and his army.
Listening to Donal, FitzStephen rode with the rest of the Norman leaders around the walls. The defenders watched, throwing nothing more than the occasional insult. They were ignored by the Normans. They concentrated on the defences, maintaining a constant stream of questions at Donal and my father. I helped when I could, knowing the layout of the town well enough.
‘You are a wise general, Donal. I see no better way,’ FitzStephen said finally.
While it would be difficult, I was pleased to see them agree that an immediate assault was preferable. It would not only demonstrate our intent to the Norsemen, but it would also test their resolve.
The entire army was put to work gathering stone and soil, which was to be used to form two causeways four-men wide that would span the ditch beneath the walls. The material was placed just out of bowshot from the walls and carried forward and dumped into the ditch by the foot soldiers, who had some protection from their chain mail and helmets. Some carried shields to protect the others, and the task was completed remarkably quickly. The defenders held their fire for the most part, doubtless aware of the attack that was coming. To quell their enthusiasm, Rob positioned a few archers to ensure that the men on the walls would be reluctant to show their heads for fear of their accurate fire.
‘Rob, I need you to keep a lot of arrows pouring onto the wall above us when we get across,’ Myler said, as I helped him strap the shoulder buckles on his breast plate.
‘When!’ Rob looked sceptical. ‘If you get across!’ He said before continuing, ‘And if you do, what then? You’ve no cover, and they’ll have bowmen in those turrets on either side shooting at you.’ Rob was not convinced at all by this plan.
‘That’s why I need you to keep their heads down until we get up the ladders.’ Myler had volunteered to lead the attack over the causeway directly to the bottom of the wall. They had assembled a few ladders and would use them to surge across in an attempt to overwhelm the Norsemen. The second causeway led directly to a gate, where his cousin, Miles FitzDavid, would lead a group of knights and foot soldiers to try to force the gates. Rob’s archers were to concentrate their fire to pin the defenders back from the walls and prevent them, as much as was possible, from interfering with the attackers. Rob shook his head on hearing what they were to attempt.
‘Hold still,’ I told Myler as I attached the moulded epaulettes which would protect his shoulders. He was wearing his upper body armour, as the greatest threat would come from above their heads today. Needing to be nimble scrambling over the causeway and up the ladder, he dispensed with the greaves, which normally protected his lower legs. The chainmail chausses that covered them would suffice. He detached the visor from his helmet, saying he’d need to see the bastards coming, and left his scabbard behind. He would have no need for it for the rest of the day. He laughed, kissed me, and, after embracing Rob, picked up his large kite-shaped shield and strode to take his position in the front rank of attack.
Myler seemed invigorated by the prospect of battle. His eyes took on an intensity, matching the vivid alertness which overtook him. I was to learn in time that he was probably the bravest man I had ever known, bordering on reckless. It was not that he felt no fear; he did. Any man who claims otherwise is lying or drunk—most probably the latter, as it was how most men summoned the courage to face the horror of close combat. For a man whom I knew and loved as a caring, gentle man, he was transformed into an unfamiliar, fierce, efficient killer in battle, as I was to witness many times.
He had told me his fear was heightened in the moments before the fight started. You could not but think they could be your last, he said, as we lay in my bed early one morning in Chepstow. Sweating in his battledress, his mouth dry as sand, he admitted he would sometimes piss himself, as would most others around him, and worse. The smell of men waiting to fight was not pleasant. Many would vomit; that’s why it was best to leave your visor open till the last second. It was hard enough to breathe in them without a sea of your own sick splashing around.
‘There is not a lot to like before a battle starts, Aoife. It’s the worst time, the waiting,’ he told me. ‘But everything changes for me once it starts. I don’t understand it.’ He described how there was a flow, almost a rhythm, in combat. He moved without thinking, probably from the constant drilling. He could see what an opponent was thinking before he knew himself. Head up; watch the eyes, not the weapon. Hesitation was death; move forward with controlled aggression. Preserve your energy, use your enemies’ weight to unbalance and strike, move forward again. Gradually there came a joy in it, a battle joy. Some called it bloodlust; perhaps that’s all it was.
‘It’s the second most exhilarating feeling I have ever had, Aoife,’ he said with a smile. ‘Shall I show you the first?’ He laughed and rolled me on top of him.
I was learning much about men these days. In this they struck me as remarkably like horses, which I knew far better at that age, having ridden and handled them all my life. There was not one in ten horses who was truly brave. A horse who could not stay in the pack but would barge its way to the front, accepting no horse to be ahead. It would head into any jump or the widest ditch without hesitation once put to it. All other animals, more timid by nature, would follow this horse. Yet that horse could be the most docile lamb of an animal to handle in the stable or meadow.
So it was that I watched Myler jostle his way through the assembled men to the front rank, ready to lead the attack. They stood aside, willing to let him pass.
Rob stood beside me watching him go. ‘What a lad, Aoife,’ he said, shaking his head, and then he was gone too.
On a signal from FitzStephen, the two attacking groups surged forward. Myler was several paces in front of his men, leaping across the freshly placed loose soil. Some of the following men fell and brought down several others. By now the defenders were gathered densely on the walls above them. They were well prepared; they produced large wooden platforms, which several men held above the heads of those waiting to attack Myler as he reached the wall. I could see Rob’s archers pouring arrows onto the walls; they were useless. They thumped harmlessly into the platforms protecting the Norsemen. Myler was quickly joined at the base of the wall, the men pressing themselves against the stone for what little protection it gave. This also proved pointless. The defenders hoisted enormous oak timbers onto the wall and tipped them over, each large beam felling several men sheltering against the wall. It was hard to watch; armour was no protection against such weight.
I watched as Myler and Robert de Barry, hoisted a ladder against the wall. It was quickly thrown aside, and I was sickened to see an enormous Norseman hurl a heavy cut stone down on them. It caught de Barry square on the helmet; he tumbled back into the trench, motionless. I did not know if he could survive such a crushing blow. Dropping his sword, Myler jumped into the trench and, covering de Barry from the bowshots from the turrets with his shield, he and two other men dragged him from the trench and out of harm’s way.
