The Bow

THE BOW

by Bill
Sharrock

Copyright © 2009 Bill Sharrock. All Rights Reserved.

He found it where it had been left. Dropped. Abandoned.
Cast away. Lying among the reeds by the village stream, just where
the dark green waters turn and wind away into Turnham Woods.

It was a bowstave. How long it had been lying there he
could not tell, but it must have had some hidden flaw, because as he
lifted it up, and turned it over in his hands he could see that it
was barely finished. And neither end was nocked or set with horn
tips.

He grinned at his find, and held it against the sun, and
brushed the dirt from the rough yew grain. It was a boy’s bow. A
bow for a boy such as him. It was four feet long, no more, with a
narrow-fist grip, and scarcely a curve, where it had been cut from
the branch and tested in the tiller. And it was his.

Someone called, and he turned and looked to see who it
was. Across the meadow, in the dying light of the winter’s day, he
saw a tall, angular figure striding towards him. He knew that stride.
‘Simon,’ he said to himself, and waved in reply.

Simon came up to him, and flung down the knapsack he was
carrying. ‘Well met, little James,’ he said, rubbing the black
stubble on his chin, ‘And what’s my brother been up to today?’

‘
See here!’ replied James, holding up the bow. ‘I
found it.’

‘
Ah did you indeed,’ said Simon, and smiled as he
took the bow and looked at it. ‘Strange! Good Spanish yew. So well
made, and yet made for a whelp, and not for a real bowman.’

James didn’t reply, but snatched it back, and hugged
it to his chest. Then he began to walk away, turning as he reached
the headland of the south field: ‘Well, it’s mine!’ he said.
‘And I shall shoot with it. You see if I don’t! I will. I’ll
shoot with it!’

Simon laughed: ‘All right, little brother. Have your
own way then. Go shoot with your bow. Bend your back to that little
morsel. But, you’d better pray that it grows up with you, because
within a twelve month, it’ll be less use to you than a dried
bullrush.’

James shook his head, and hugged the bow even more.
‘It’s mine!’ he said. ‘I’ll get Samkin Petersfield to teach
me how to use it. You wait and see!’ He waved, and trotted off
across the field.

It was the year of Our Lord 1399.

The low sound of an army shuffling into position crept
across the muddy meadow, and moving shadows appeared in dense
clusters from out of the mist that hung about the scattered lines of
trees. James Fletcher ran his hand along the bow and stared towards
the French. So here they are! The dragons of his dreams. All of
France. The chevaliers of sword and shield, the masters of the lance.
Glittering in the mist. Cap a pieds in plate and mail, astride their
great warhorses or jostling forward on foot.

They were four hundred paces away, growing huge in the
sullen light of dawn, but still no threat to his practised eye. He
swallowed hard, rubbed his chin, then pushing back the leather cap
that scarcely crowned his head, he took a bow string of waxed linen,
fixed it at the lower horn tip then held it to the other end of the
bow. Bearing down, with a smooth twisting movement, one foot braced
against bow where it rested on the turf, he bent the polished grain
of yew until he could slip on the string.

‘
Twas done. He straightened up, eased his back, and
checked the draw strain of the bow. That done, he took four shafts
from his belt – three bodkin, one cloutheaded – and thrust them
head deep in a semi-circle in front of him.

His guts hurt, he was soaked through, hungry, tired and
trembling with a slight fever, but – he shrugged – no matter,
since over half the four thousand wretches that stood either side and
all around him shared just the same condition. Some had the dysentery
so bad, they stood with breeches down to give the colic free run.
Most had the look of scarecrows, leaning on bowstaves, and spear
shafts, threadbare cloaks and tunics hanging in limp tatters, and
dripping in the muddy ooze.

There was a clatter at his back, and someone tapped him
on the shoulder. He turned. A baggage boy had cast a bundle of war
arrows behind him, and slashed the leather straps that held them,
before scampering on to the next group of archers.

Good! He chose half a dozen shafts, checked the
fletchings, and drove them in around the other arrows. These would be
his first flights. After that . . .

The breath rose from his cracked lips in
grey-white clouds. This was it then. All those months on the reeking
roads between Calais,
Harfleur and Blanchetaque.
All those freezing nights sleeping in ditches,
or
standing to at the sound of hobelaars. And for what? For nothing but
the silly chance of fighting their way out of this rat trap valley
they call the Somme. No booty, no glory, just an aimless shambling
back and forth along a river bank, looking for a way of escape. They
were indentured men, signed for a year’s service ‘in our duchy of
Guyenne, or in our realm of France’, bearing in their wallets writs
sealed by the lords of England. And all because of King Harry. God
bless him! So here they were, beyond the bridge at Blangy, and there
the great host of France awaiting them on the plateau above the
river.

James smiled, and sharpened his eyes against the French
lines. If the sun broke through it would be low and smack in their
eyes: one advantage at least. Well, there was nothing for it now. Our
Harry had said as much, and Harry was a king who knew what was what.
This very morning he had steeled their souls with a call to arms that
reminded them of what and who they were fighting for: England and
their homes and families. As they listened to him, seated astride his
charger, his back to the enemy, their weariness and sickness of
spirit seemed to melt away. He spoke as a king who understood his
people, and a man who called his soldiers friends and brothers. He
was young and brave, with piercing blue eyes and a strong, easy
voice. James felt he could follow such a man to Hell itself. How he
had cheered, when young Henry breathless with his speech took hold of
a banner and shook it above his head: ‘For he today, who sheds his
blood with me shall be my brother’ – or somesuch. And then he had
paused: ‘Remember, lads’, he said, ‘Yon noblemen of France have
promised to take the string fingers of every archer when they have
beaten us this day. But you will have the glory of them, I doubt not,
as your forefathers and mine had in these same fields those many
years ago.’

The archers shrugged and smiled, the men-at-arms
cheered, and Henry wheeled away accompanied by Lord Camoys, John
Cheney, his body- squire, and the Duke of York.

There was no doubt, this Henry had plenty of the madcap
about him, and was a bit too religious for James’ liking, but he
knew how to fight, and he knew the men he fought for. There was a
difference. Not like to be seen in his father, or the sulking Richard
who came before him. This king was flesh and blood. He marched beside
his men. Got off his horse and walked. Like a Welsh spearman. And
swapped jokes with the best of them. No wonder he chose Davy Gamm as
his right hand man. Davy! More ploughman than prince. A hard-talking
Welsh longbowman from the borders: Dafydd ap Llewellyn. That was his
real name. But all the archers, mounted or on foot, knew him as Davy
Gamm.

Davy had scouted for the king this very morning. That’s
what young Thomas Strickland, who bore the banner of St George, had
said and he should know. The king sent Davy out once the armies were
mustered to see the strength of the French Host. And what had he come
back with?

‘
Enough to be slain, enough to be ta’en, and enough
to be chivvied away!’

That’s what he said. So said the banner bearer, who
smiled and spat, and bit his lip, and said: ‘Must means there’s
three ten thousands of the blighters at least!’

A trumpet sounded. Lean and harsh against the morning.
It was French. A herald’s call, a call to arms on Crispin’s Day.
St Crispin’s Day! James shook his head. No day to fight. No
Englishman should be fighting during the last days of October. Better
off ploughing the fields for the Autumn sowing, or hunting rabbits
down in the high grass meadow. Back home.

That’s where he should be. Right now. Just as if he
were a young lad again, and all his poor, brave life stretched before
him, and there was time yet to avoid the bloody fields of France.

He had lost mates. Good mates. Too many good mates lost.
Some butchered by roving cavalry, some ambushed while foraging, but
most just choking up their guts in the trenches of Harfleur, or along
the Somme Valley roads. Lost his horse too. Stumbled and fell and
broke its leg outside the village of Harbonnnieres. Within moments it
had been slaughtered, gutted and cut up by the king’s provenders.
Meat was short. So too was mercy. It was on that same day that King
Harry had an archer hung for stealing a pyx of copper from a church.
Swung him from a tree in front of the whole army. No one laughed. No
one cheered. It was a warning, no more.

From somewhere down the line, near where the
three-crescent standard of Sir Robert Babthorp hung limp against the
morning mist, a master bowman called. Others replied, some with
shouts, some with whistles and not a few with grunts. They stirred
their men into little wedge formations, wooden stakes driven in all
along the line, where the land sloped away from Maisoncelles just as
the king had commanded. It was a waiting game. There were three
‘battles’ of heavily armed English knights: one on their left,
one in the centre, (James could see the king’s banner there), and
one on the right. They stood and waited in the cold and wet, while
the French shuffled about. Again and again, James tested his bow. It
drew one-fifty pounds. He sighed. There were some bowmen who could
draw one-sixty, and it was common enough to find a man from Cheshire
or Somerset who claimed a better stripe than that. It was said that
Mark the Hayward from Evesham carried a bow that took one-eighty
pounds of draw weight, though he was a bull of a man, and admitted in
his kindly way that he could only loose eight shafts a minute when he
held such a stave, instead of the usual twelve.

With the French still hesitating, James looked along the
grain of his bow, and held it against his cheek, just as he had
always done before a shoot. One-fifty pounds: enough to give a
Frenchman a smack and split his plate at eighty yards. With the right
arrow, and a breeze at his back. Pray God the yew grain held today:
the bow was older than it should be, and perhaps he should have
discarded it after Blanchtaque. But there was no sign of cracking –
he kept it well oiled – and good bowstaves were hard to find along
the line of march.

He looked up. The sun had risen beyond the trees, though
still shrouded in the clearing sky. When would they come? Why did
they hesitate? Every French noble and his retinue must be in that
heaving mass. The men either side of him began to mutter what he was
thinking. One or two sat down, and were cuffed to their feet by
sergeants.

Loosening his shoulders, James leant forward, drew a war
arrow from the turf and looked along its length. A king’s arrow.
Not bad. Not the best, but not bad. A birchwood shaft. Well, that
would do, though blackthorn or poplar would be better. Grey goose
feathers for the fletching of course, and broad-barbed iron for the
tips: heavy enough, and true enough to smash through mail and
brigandine anywhere in the killing zone. Still, he frowned, these
barbs were useless against plate armour unless the cavalry was almost
down your throat. Today it was the bodkins that would have to break
up the charge of these French aristocrats, and James was not sure
that he had enough of them.

Nevertheless, he had a clout-headed arrow or two, and
they could pack a punch. It was, as James’ father used to say, like
firing a blacksmith’s hammer when the range was long, and like an
anvil when it was short.