After a long while, as the sun was setting and the confused mass of men continued to surge and push on Caldbec Hill, Alan walked to the large tent that he recognised as belonging to Geoffrey de Mandeville. As he expected, it was overflowing with wounded. Roger of Caen, de Mandeville’s private churgeon, together with a monk and several assistants, were working on the wounded. The medical staff were all covered from head to foot in blood. Alan noticed Hugh de Berniers in the line awaiting attention, the small axe still buried in his thigh.
Removing his helm, mail hauberk and gambeson Alan stood in his sweat-drenched and rust-stained tunic. Placing his equipment where he could see it, including his shield and the two swords he now possessed, he poured a bucket of clean water over his head to refresh himself before moving to one of the tables to provide what assistance he could. Roger of Caen noticed him and nodded his appreciation for the assistance.
It was soon dark and they continued work by the light of rush torches. Word was brought to the tent that Harold had been killed, leaving the English leaderless- but still the thegns and huscarles fought on and refused to surrender or run. Later came news that the English line had been destroyed, but a band still stood firm around the body of their dead king.
The churgeon and his assistants were still working steadily through the range of wounds and cases of trauma when there was a stir at the entrance to the tent near midnight. Duke William walked in, striding alongside a blanket on which the recumbent Eustace of Boulogne was being carried. Alan called them over, “Vacant table here, this poor fellow just gave up the Ghost as Roger was removing his leg. What’s the problem?” he asked as he washed the blood off his hands.
“Blow to the back of the head, bleeding from the mouth and nose- and he hasn’t recovered consciousness,” said William, who then looked more carefully at Alan. “You again!”
“Yes, I thought that after I’d lost my horse I’d do better helping here,” said Alan as Eustace was deposited on the table. “I think you got your half-shilling’s worth from me today!”
After a few minutes of examination of the back of Eustace’s head, pupils and pulse Roger said, “Well, obviously he’s suffered blunt trauma to the head. The skull is probably fractured, but certainly isn’t crushed. He’s likely to be in a coma for some time, perhaps two or three days. After that his wits are likely to be muddled for some days, but he should recover from that well enough, in time. Firstly, he needs to lie quietly abed for a few days.”
William nodded solemnly and said to Alan, “Come and see me tomorrow at Sext at the abbey at Hastings. I’m likely to be busy so it may be some time during the afternoon before I can see you. I’ll have Eustace sent back to Hastings now.”
After William departed Alan decided that he’d also had enough, collected his gear and found his tent, which Gillard had pitched nearby. Robert de Aumale was asleep inside, wrapped up in his cloak. Hugh was lying unconscious on a straw mattress, his leg thickly bandaged. Gillard was just leaving the tent and admitted that he was dropping off a load of goods that he’d looted from the battlefield and asked Alan if he wanted to join him. Although somewhat repelled by the idea, Alan did have to admit that his purse was empty and as Gillard had urged, ‘if he didn’t do it somebody else would’.
A pale moon was rising as they walked back to the battlefield, Alan wearing his new sword. There were hundreds of men walking the battlefield, many working in pairs to strip the coats of mail off the dead. Gillard was disappointed that Alan wouldn’t help him remove coats of mail, but Alan pointed out the amount of time required and the weight of the resulting booty. Gillard was quite happy to rob any body, Norman, French, allied or English.
Alan restricted his activities to the English bodies and, working along the line of the shield-wall, was surprised at how many coins the English thegns and Royal Huscarles carried in their purses and how much gold jewellery they wore. Most wore gold torques, gold brooches to close their cloaks, gold belt buckles, gold arm rings and gold and jewel rings. Within half an hour Alan had collected a small sack of coins and jewellery and, feeling discouraged by his own wickedness, he decided that enough was enough and returned back to the tent where he then hid his hoard.
The next day hundreds thronged the battlefield. Edith Swan-Neck, Harold’s lover, had requested permission to inspect the battlefield near where Harold’s banner had flown, to locate and identify his body. Harold had fought in a hauberk of plain chain-mail and the many bodies around where the banner of ‘The Fighting Man’ had flown were much hacked-about- to the extent that Duke William had been unable to identify the body of his former friend.
Those Englishmen or women who came to the battlefield were allowed to take away their dead, most of whom by now had been stripped naked. Gytha, Harold’s mother, offered Duke William the weight of the body in gold for its return. William declined and after the body was located he handed it over to William Malet, a half-English knight, for burial- although much later William agreed with Gytha for her to receive the body for no payment and to bury it at Harold’s own church of Holy Cross at Waltham in Essex.
Alan spent part of the morning walking the battlefield picking up twenty swords and scabbards which lay around discarded by the dead and wounded in their hundreds, if not thousands.
The Norman dead were being placed in piles for honourable burial. The English dead lay where they had fallen, although William was allowing access by the families of the English warriors to the battlefield to collect and bury their dead. Dozens of English women and unarmed servants roamed the battlefield looking for lost loved ones.
Already the crows were busily picking at the corpses and the stench of corruption hung over the battlefield. At midmorning Alan took his bundle of weapons, armour, goods and possessions and loaded his mule. As he now had no riding horse, he walked beside the mule to Hastings along the dirt track that was busy with traffic proceeding in both directions.
CHAPTER FOUR
HASTINGS OCTOBER 1066
After arriving at the small abbey building at Hastings Alan washed himself briefly in a trough of cold water and changed into his best tunic and hose before he sought out the duke’s steward. This was a harassed looking individual called Corbett, who arranged for Alan’s goods and mule to be taken care of, told him where food and drink were available and directed him to a large waiting-room thronged with people. After eating his first decent meal in six weeks and downing several cups of reasonable wine, Alan returned to the waiting-room, made sure that he notified his presence to the flunky who appeared to be in charge and sat down to wait. It was, as William had indicated it would be, a long wait; after the exertions of the previous day and night Alan was satisfied to lean against the stone wall and doze.
One thing that did surprise him was the lack of monks moving about the abbey. In chatting with others in the waiting-room Alan found that the land and much of the village belonged to the Abbey of Fecamp, but had been seized by Edward the Confessor some years before and the monks had been expelled, some returning with William’s expedition.
Eventually, and before a surprising number of well-dressed and important-looking individuals in the waiting- room, Corbett summoned Alan into the small and sparsely furnished room which William was using as an office. The duke was sitting in a chair with a cup of wine on a small table next to him, well-dressed in a green tunic and hose. Apart from a slightly weary look about the eyes there was no indication that he had been awake for nearly all of the previous thirty-six hours, although he did look every one of his thirty-eight years.
William abruptly said, “It appears that I owe you thanks for several reasons. I assume you are the same Alan de Gauville who de Mandeville named to me as the man who charged the flank of the English when the Bretons broke?”
Alan shrugged. “It seemed a good idea at the time, and the obvious thing to do. If the second rank of horsemen had followed me we might have been able to have forced the shield-wall on that flank, weakened as it was.”
“If you’d tried that you’d be dead- rather than a live hero who stopped the rout,” replied William sardonically. “Not everybody can see the obvious. Fewer still are prepared to take a decision that involves risk, even those who have been soldiers for most of their lives. I assume this was your first battle? I thought so. Secondly, you saved my
