and their lances, and with a war cry that had struck fear into the hearts of half of Europe, kicked his horse into a fast trot on to what remained of a roadway, for the town which overlooked the beach. The folk lived by the sun and not the lamp, so most were still asleep, so he caught the whole town unawares. Certainly half-dressed men emerged to fight, but on foot, faced with lances and swords from men mounted, they were cut down in their doorways.
William wanted to control the beach, to ensure that no boat, not even the smallest used for fishing, got away, and that required they dismount. Shouting his commands, he formed his men up into an unbroken line, then began to march back up towards the line of buildings through which they had just charged. Like every tiny Sicilian town, Bausu was a maze of narrow alleys into which he did not want to go, for in such constrained areas a mailed knight lost the value of his sword and became at the mercy of the knife.
The locals either slammed their doors in the hope of being ignored or fled in panic up the surrounding hills looking for safety, and some Saracens joined them. The latter ran into the Normans blocking the trails and if they were unarmed they were merely herded. The odd one, armed, was not and they, on the orders of William de Hauteville, were in receipt of no mercy. They suffered the same fate as any caught still in the town; he had too few men to think of leniency.
The remnants of the Saracens made for the mosque, the only substantial building they felt they could defend, and there they died either fighting or pleading for mercy as William and his men cut them down. That complete, the bodies were collected and placed inside before they fired the building. Remounted, men were sent to bring in the pack animals, a strong party to attack the watchtower — now with a flaming, smoking beacon on the crenellated roof — to take it if they could, to ensure no one got away if they could not.
Before the sun was fully up, the Normans had complete control and the destruction of the town could begin: houses, storerooms, the small warehouses. The only building not torched after being plundered was the Orthodox church in which the remaining Sicilians had taken refuge. Inside, William de Hauteville, in a halting combination of Latin and Greek, was questioning the locals as to what they knew of the surrounding countryside and how they carried out the smuggling into Messina, and he was not gentle, time being short.
He was not naive enough to think that no enemy had got clear, nor that he would get back to Messina without incurring danger. News would spread that a Norman force held Bausu, and the tocsin would sound to gather a force to retake it, but how far away would they be, how much time did he have?
Some of the men he questioned owned the boats on the beach and they were the ones who made their living smuggling. Faced with a sharp knife at their throats they were only too willing to tell him what he needed to know. When he felt he had exhausted the chances of more information, he could calculate what he had to do. First, every boat on the beach must be put to the torch. Next he must get his men and animals together, then fed and watered. That done they must be off on the shortest route back to the safety of the siege line.
The town was smouldering by the time they departed, each man leading a horse weighed down with any booty they could carry, everything else having been destroyed. At the top of every rise they could see beacons burning on the hillsides and they had to assume that the whole countryside was alerted. The temptation to push the mounts without mercy had to be avoided, given a blown animal was useless if they needed to fight.
They were walking through rows of vines when the first horsemen appeared, not enough to trouble them, a mere six riders, but it was worrying that on every hilltop over which they rode they stopped to wave the pennant on their lances; a bluff possibly, but also they might be signalling to a superior force heading for a place where they knew they could cut them off. Though the horses were far from rested, William had his men remount and set off at a trot to see what those trailing them would do and, when nothing changed, he began to look for a clear field in which to fight.
Tancred had always told him, ‘If you can’t avoid a fight, choose the ground on which to have it. Never let your enemy do that.’ What he needed was an area in which he could properly deploy, one where he could stand and force the enemy to come to him, but at the same time he had to ensure that by doing so he was not allowing his opponents time to bring up overwhelming force.
It was a calculation with which William was comfortable, relying as it did on the same mental processes he had used at Bessancourt. Nothing in war is certain, that was another one of his father’s doctrines. You had to make judgements based on what you knew and what you suspected, and William de Hauteville was working on two assumptions: the first that, given the time, only so much force could be gathered to range against him, the second being that they would be Saracens who had never faced Normans. They would not know what to expect.
‘Tie up the packhorses,’ he ordered as they emerged from an orchard into a broad valley of green fields left fallow, not very long, but bounded on both sides by quite steep hillsides. Then he dismounted himself, but hauled hard on his horse’s head to stop him grazing. No horse works well on a full belly and the last thing he wanted was his mount thinking of pasture when he should be thinking of that for which he had been trained.
Whoever he was going to have to fight would now come to him, and since he intended to give battle straight away it would be their horses that would be fatigued. If the force was too numerous it would be necessary to break through them; let the Saracens have the booty. If the force was less or equal he would seek to destroy them. Having sent two men up each side of the valley as lookouts he addressed the rest, all of whom were making sure their horses’ heads never got to the tempting grass at their hooves.
‘It’s about time these Saracens saw what Normans can do, and if they are better than we, then say goodbye to everything we have plundered today.’
That set up a growl; these men would fight doubly hard to keep their booty. William went to his own pack animal and rummaged in the pannier, pulling out the blue and white pennant his father had given him which, when opened, showed a chequer set across it.
‘These are my family colours. Today, these are the ones you will follow.’
The shout from above made them all look up to a soldier with his arms spread wide, so lots of men were coming. He made a reins sign to tell William they were mounted and started to flash his five fingers four times. It could only be an estimate, but it seemed they were outnumbered two to one. Everyone had seen it, and it pleased William that none reacted.
‘Check your girths.’
It was, in a sense, an unnecessary command: every man present knew to do that, and to ease the swords in their scabbards once or twice to ensure they would not stick from dried blood. Each would remove his helmet and dry his head before replacing it and tug at a friend’s mail to make sure all was secure. These were habits, good ones.
‘Mount up.’
That done, he led them out at a slow walk to the middle of the valley, which cut down the amount of room his opponents would have to gain momentum, their red and black pennants fluttering in a warm breeze. Each wing was elevated by the rising ground so he called them back to take station to the rear until they saw what their enemy intended.
And suddenly they were there, black-clad Saracen horsemen. Even at a distance William could admire the lines of their fine horses, but they were built for speed, not battle, which is why he would have been overtaken anyway. He felt vindicated by his halt, all the more so when he saw the sweat of the flanks of the enemy mounts; they had been pushed hard.
He tried to imagine what they were seeing: a line of men and horses, red and black shields, the tall lances and the fact that they were stationary, with one man out front, him. The man in command had also halted his horsemen and was riding back and forth on a spirited animal, the words of his exhortations floating across the grass, not clear, but obvious as encouragement.
William dipped his lance and the line began to move forward at a walk, each Norman making sure his thigh was near to touching that of his neighbours. The two men behind him opened a gap into which he fitted and the effect on the enemy leader was clear; seeing the Normans standing he had assumed they were waiting for him to attack, but their movement meant if he was going to control the action he must move now and, to William’s satisfaction, he did, raising a round sword designed for slashing and pointing it forward, that followed by a high- pitched yell.
Immediately his men kicked their mounts into motion, and it was obvious that some reacted quicker than others. Already there were gaps in his line and that only increased as the pace of their charge did likewise. William knew he had no need even to canter; let them come to him, because their line was disorganised and his was not. On his flanks, the men who had taken station to the rear began to move back up the hillsides. They would not need
