could see that the yellow line of underwater sandbanks was the other side of the hull. Crewmen exploded from the deck and the planks where they had been lying, ran furiously up and down, grabbing sweeps, thrusting them over the side, trying to pole their ship off and gain a few extra moments of life.
Too late. A cry of despair rang thinly across the water as the Vikings saw it, echoed by a hum of excitement from the Englishmen on the shore: the wave, the big wave, the seventh wave that always rolls farthest up the beach. Suddenly the knorr was up on it, lifted and tilted sideways in a cascade of boxes and barrels and men sliding from the windward into the leeward scuppers. Then the wave was gone and the knorr smashed down, landing with a thump on the hard sand and gravel of the bank. Planks flew, the mast was over the side in a tangle of cordage; for an instant a man could be seen grasping desperately to the ornamented dragon-prow. Then another wave covered everything, and when it passed there were only bobbing fragments.
The fishermen nodded. A few crossed themselves. If the good God spared them from the Vikings, that was the way they expected to go one day—like men, with the cold salt in their mouths, and rings in their ears to pay kindly strangers to bury them. Now, there was one more thing for a skillful captain to try.
The remaining Viking was going to try it, to scud south with the wind abeam and all the easting he could get, rather than wait passively for death like his consort had. A man appeared suddenly at the steering oar. Even from two furlongs' distance the watchers could see his red beard wagging as he bellowed orders, could hear the echo of his urgency rolling across the water. There were men at the ropes, waiting, heaving together. A scrap of sail leapt free from the yard, caught instantly by the wind and tugged out. As the ship shot urgently towards shore another volley of orders swung the yard round and the boat heeled downwind. Within seconds she was steady on a new course, picking up speed, throwing water wide from her bow-wave as she raced away from the Head down toward the Spurn.
“They're getting away!” yelled Godwin. “Get the horses!” He cuffed his groom out of the way, scrambled astride, and set off at a gallop in pursuit, Wulfgar, the stranger thane, only a pace or two behind, and the rest of their retinues following in strung-out, disorderly lines. Only the dark boy who had come with Wulfgar hesitated.
“You're not hurrying,” he said to the motionless reeve. “Why not? Don't you want to catch up with them?”
The reeve grinned, stooped, picked a pinch of sand from the beach and threw it in the air. “They've got to try it,” he remarked. “Nothing else to do. But they're not going to get far.”
Turning on his heel he indicated a score of men to stay where they were and watch the beach for wreckage or survivors. Another score of mounted men set off along the path behind the thanes. The rest, bunched together, began to trot purposefully but deliberately along the beach after the racing ship.
As the minutes passed even the landsmen realized what the reeve had seen straight away. The Viking skipper was not going to win his gamble. Twice already he had tried to force his ship's head out to sea, two men joining the red-bearded one as he strained at the steering oar, the rest of the crew bracing the yard round till the ropes sang iron-hand in the wind. Both times the waves had heaved, heaved remorselessly at the prow till it wavered, swung back, the ship's hull shuddering with the forces contending on it. And again the skipper had tried, turning back parallel with the coastline and building up speed for another dash to the safety of the open sea.
But was he parallel with the coastline this time? Even to the inexperienced eyes of Godwin and Wulfgar it looked this time as if something was different: stronger wind, heavier sea, the grip of the inshore current dragging at the bottom. The red-bearded man was still by the oar, still shouting orders for some other maneuver, the ship was still racing along, as the poets said, like a foamy-necked floater, but her prow was turning in inch by inch or foot by foot; the yellow line was perilously close to her bow-wave, it was clear she was going to—
Strike. One instant the ship was running full tilt, the next her prow had slammed into unyielding gravel. The mast snapped off instantly and hurled itself forward, taking half the crew with it. The planks of the clinker-built boat sprang outward from their settings, letting in the onrushing sea. In a heartbeat the whole ship had opened up like a flower. And then vanished, leaving only cordage streaming in the wind for a moment to show where she had been. And, once again, bobbing fragments in the water.
Bobbing fragments, the fishermen noticed interestedly as they panted up, this time rather closer to shore. One of them a head. A red head.
“Is he going to make it, do you think?” asked Wulfgar. They could see the man clearly now, fifty yards out in the water, hanging still and making no effort to swim farther as he eyed the great waves pounding in to destroy themselves on the shore.
“He's going to try,” replied Godwin, motioning men forward to the watermark. “If he does, we'll grab him.”
Redbeard had made his mind up and started to swim forward, hurling the water aside with great strokes of his arms. He had seen the great wave coming behind him. It lifted him, he was swept forward, straining to keep himself on top of the wave as if he could propel himself up the beach and land as weightlessly as the white foam that crawled almost to the soles of the thanes' leather shoes. For ten strokes he was there, the watchers turning their heads up to look at him as he swung to the crest of the wave. Then the wave in front, retreating, checked his progress in a great swirl of sand and stone, the crest broke, dissolved. Smashed him down with a grunt and a snap. Rolled him helplessly forward. Dragged him back with the undertow.
“Go in and get him,” yelled Godwin. “Move, you hare-hearts! He can't hurt you.”
Two of the fishermen darted forward between the waves, grabbed an arm each and hauled him back, for a moment waist-deep amid the smother but then out, the redbeard braced between them.
“He's still alive,” muttered Wulfgar in astonishment. “I thought that wave was enough to break his spine.”
The redbeard's feet touched the shore, he looked round at the eighty men confronting him, his teeth showed suddenly in a flashing grin.
“What welcome,” he remarked.
He turned in the grip of his two rescuers, placed the outside of his foot on one man's shin, raked it down with full weight onto the instep. The man howled and let go the brawny arm he was clutching. Instantly the arm swept across, two fingers extended, driving deep into the eyes of the man still holding on. He, too, shrieked and fell to his knees, blood starting from between his fingers. The Viking plucked the gutting-knife from his belt, stepped forward, seized the nearest Englishman with one hand and stabbed savagely upwards with the other. As the fisherman's mates leapt back, shouting in alarm, he snatched a spear, whipped the knife back and hurled it, grabbed a sax from the hand of the fallen man. Ten heartbeats after his feet touched the shore he was the center of a semicircle of men, all backing away from him, except the two still lying at his feet.
His teeth showed again as he threw his head back in a wild guffaw. “Come now,” he shouted gutturally. “I one, you many. Come to fight with Ragnar. Who is great one who comes first? You. Or you.” He flourished his spear at Godwin and Wulfgar, now isolated, mouths gaping, by the fishermen still drawing respectfully back.
“We'll have to take him,” muttered Godwin, drawing his broadsword with a wheep. “I wish I had my shield.”
Wulfgar followed suit, stepping sideways, pushing back the fair-haired boy who stood a pace behind him. “Go back, Alfgar. If we can disarm him the churls will finish it for us.”
The two Englishmen edged forward, swords drawn, facing the bearlike figure which stood grinning, waiting for them, the blood and water still surging round his feet.
Then he was in motion, heading straight for Wulfgar, moving with the speed and ferocity of a charging boar. Wulfgar sprang back in shock, landed awkwardly, a foot twisting under him. The Viking missed with a lefthand slash, poised the right arm for a downward killing thrust.
Something jerked the redbeard off his feet, hurled him backward, struggling helplessly to free an arm, twisted him round and threw him heavily into the wet sand. A net. A fisherman's net. The reeve and two more jumped forward, seized handfuls of tarry cordage, jerked the net tighter. One twitched the sax from an enmeshed hand, another stamped savagely on the fingers holding the spear, breaking shaft and bones in the same movement. They rolled the helpless man quickly, expertly, like a dangerous dogfish or herring-shark. They straightened, looking down, and waited for orders.
Wulfgar limped over, exchanging glances with Godwin. “What have we caught here?” he muttered. “Something tells me this is no two-ship chieftain out of luck.”
He eyed the garments of the netted man, reached down and felt them.
“Goatskin,” he said. “Goatskin with pitch on. He called himself Ragnar. We've caught Lothbrok himself.
