Though small in numbers, it was no mean force which Edward had despatched to succour the hard-pressed English garrisons in Brittany. There was scarce a man among them who was not an old soldier, and their leaders were men of note in council and in war. Knolles flew his flag of the black raven aboard the Basilisk. With him were Nigel and his own squire, John Hawthorn. Of his hundred men, forty were Yorkshire Dalesmen and forty were men of Lincoln, all noted archers, with old Wat of Carlisle, a grizzled veteran of border warfare, to lead them.
Already Aylward by his skill and strength had won his way to an under-officership amongst them, and shared with Long Ned Widdington, a huge north countryman, the reputation of coming next to famous Wat Carlisle in all that makes an archer. The men-at-arms, too, were war-hardened soldiers, with Black Simon of Norwich, the same who had sailed from Winchelsea, to lead them. With his heart filled with hatred for the French who had slain all who were dear to him, he followed like a bloodhound over land and sea to any spot where he might glut his vengeance. Such also were the men who sailed in the other ships—Cheshire men from the Welsh borders in the cog Thomas, and Cumberland men, used to Scottish warfare, in the Grace Dieu.
Sir James Astley hung his shield of cinquefoil ermine over the quarter of the Thomas. Lord Thomas Percy, a cadet of Alnwick, famous already for the high spirit of that house which for ages was the bar upon the landward gate of England, showed his blue lion rampant as leader of the Grace Dieu. Such was the goodly company Saint Malo bound, who warped from Calais harbour to plunge into the thick reek of a Channel mist.
A slight breeze blew from the eastward, and the high-ended, round-bodied craft rolled slowly down the Channel. The mist rose a little at times, so that they had sight of each other dipping and rising upon a sleek, oily sea, but again it would sink down, settling over the top, shrouding the great yard, and finally frothing over the deck until even the water alongside had vanished from their view and they were afloat on a little raft in an ocean of vapour. A thin cold rain was falling, and the archers were crowded under the shelter of the overhanging poop and forecastle where some spent the hours at dice, some in sleep, and many in trimming their arrows or polishing their weapons.
At the farther end, seated on a barrel as a throne of honour, with trays and boxes of feathers around him, was Bartholomew the bowyer and fletcher, a fat, bald-headed man, whose task it was to see that every man’s tackle was as it should be, and who had the privilege of selling such extras as they might need. A group of archers with their staves and quivers filed before him with complaints or requests, while half a dozen of the seniors gathered at his back and listened with grinning faces to his comments and rebukes.
“Canst not string it?” he was saying to a young bowman. “Then surely the string is overshort or the stave overlong. It could not by chance be the fault of thy own baby arms more fit to draw on thy hosen than to dress a war-bow. Thou lazy lurdan, thus is it strung!” He seized the stave by the centre in his right hand, leaned the end on the inside of his right foot, and then, pulling the upper nock down with the left hand, slid the eye of the string easily into place. “Now I pray thee to unstring it again,” handing it to the bowman.
The youth, with an effort, did so; but he was too slow in disengaging his fingers, and the string sliding down with a snap from the upper nock caught and pinched them sorely against the stave. A roar of laughter, like the clap of a wave, swept down the deck as the luckless bowman danced and wrung his hand.
“Serve thee well right, thou redeless fool!” growled the old bowyer. “So fine a bow is wasted in such hands. How now, Samkin? I can teach you little of your trade, I trow. Here is a bow dressed as it should be; but it would, as you say, be the better for a white band to mark the true nocking point in the centre of this red wrapping of silk. Leave it and I will tend to it anon. And you, Wat? A fresh head on yonder stele? Lord, that a man should carry four trades under one hat, and be bowyer, fletcher, stringer, and head-maker! Four men’s work for old Bartholomew and one man’s pay!”
“Nay, say no more about that,” growled an old wizened bowman, with a brown parchment skin and little beady eyes. “It is better in these days to mend a bow than to bend one. You who never looked a Frenchman in the face are pricked off for ninepence a day, and I who have fought five stricken fields, can earn but fourpence.”
“It is in my mind, John of Tuxford, that you have looked in the face more pots of
