skirted exposed mudflats, where tiny brown and white sandpipers darted about and the larger black and white oystercatchers wandered slowly, using their large red beaks to dig for worms and crustaceans. White herons stalked carefully in the shallows, occasionally stabbing their beaks to catch small fish. Overhead seagulls wheeled and screamed loud protest at this invasion of their usually quiet estuary home. Alan stood with his elbows on the ship's rail, cheerfully exchanging comments with Robert and Hugh.
William had ordered the fleet to assemble around his flagship Mora in the bay beyond the river mouth, which would show a stern light on the overnight voyage. With so many ships there was no question of keeping any formation other than the ships moving en mass behind William’s large flagship. With the call for 600 ships had come a need for over 2,000 experienced sailors- which again Normandy didn’t have and which, unlike ships, couldn’t be obtained in a few weeks.
The fleet, the soldiers and sailors having attended a special Mass to beseech God’s mercy in their endeavour to sail such a large fleet late in the season, commended their souls to the Lord and set sail, heading north.
The boat on which Alan and Robert were travelling was ‘captained’, if that was the correct word, by a Fleming, with the assistance of two youths whom the Fleming had to instruct which ropes to pull. As darkness fell they couldn’t see the stern light of the Mora, so the captain, muttering all the time about the lateness of the season and the risk of storms, simply headed due north looking for the high white cliffs of Beachy Head, intending to then make a turn to the east to land at the instructed disembarkation point of Bulverhythe harbour, a large harbour just to the west of the smaller harbour of Hastings proper.
They spent an uncomfortable night. The strong southerly wind, while filling the single sail and pushing them north, also caused choppy seas. This, together with a swell from the east, caused the small cog to both pitch and roll. Almost as soon as the ship had reached open water most of the men were lining the ship’s side and vomiting. Robert was badly affected by seasickness, Alan less so. The horses, in their temporary stalls athwart-ships, were clearly unhappy; they stamped their feet, snorted and tried to kick or bite anybody who came in range at either end.
Sunrise was a little after 6.00am and the rising sun revealed them to be several miles from land, with Beachy Head off to the left. The ship was surrounded by a veritable forest of masts and sails all heading north, most apparently setting a course for Pevensey. High tide was due about noon and the tidal ebb of both Pevensey and Bulverhythe harbours dictated a quick disembarkation if ships were not to be swept back out to sea by the ebb of the tide. A few of the ships entered the harbour itself; most simply drew up and beached themselves bow-first at low water on the shingle beach or the mudflats to the east, disembarking as quickly as possible and then using the incoming tide to refloat and proceed back to sea.
With so many ships arriving almost at the same time, Alan’s boat had to wait for a patch of shingle beach to become free before the captain carefully manoeuvred between other boats and gently ran bow-forward onto the beach. The men-at-arms aboard disembarked immediately, jumping over the bow of the boat into the thigh-deep water and splashed their way ashore, leaving the knights and their retainers to unload the horses.
Unloading the horses was no easy task. Waves three feet high were rolling from astern, causing the ship to rise and fall and its bottom to thump onto the hard-packed stones of the beach. The planks that were placed amidships for the horses to walk down were repeatedly dislodged by the waves. With the typical perversity of their kind, several of the horses now decided that they didn’t want to leave their stalls. The captain and crew, standing back and providing no assistance, repeatedly shouted abuse and instructed the knights to, “Get the damn nags off this ship before we spring a plank. If you don’t do it quick, I’ll cut their damn throats and throw them overboard.” Robert detailed a man with drawn sword to detain the crew near the steering oar, and a blow to the mouth stopped the captain’s stream of abuse.
Eventually all six horses were coaxed down the narrow plank walkway, most with a blanket over their heads to prevent them being frightened and unmanageable. The sea where the horses were being unloaded was chest- deep and nearly an hour passed before the last horse was led wet and shivering up the beach.
All around them was a scene of total confusion. Men were struggling onboard ships; men were struggling though the water and men milling about on the beach with no idea of what to do. Horses stood on the beach and in groups closer to the town. Hundreds of ships were drawn up on the beach, with their sterns still in the water. Dozens of ships had lost control, some crashing into and running afoul of other ships, locked together. Others were side-on to the waves and rolling viciously as the waves pounded them against the stony beach. Those ships that had unloaded were struggling to get off the beach and get a reasonable distance off-shore- which was no easy task when they were on a lee-shore with the wind trying to blow them back to the beach.
Fortunately there was no interference from the English navy. Even a dozen Saxon longboats, propelled by oars, would have wreaked devastation amongst the invasion fleet. There was also no sign of the English army; again even a small force would have been able to have mounted an effective defence against the disorganized rabble who were landing. Alan was please to find that the rumours of the English fleet and the native militia fyrd being dispersed because of the lateness of the season appeared to be accurate. After all, nobody in their right mind would start an invasion in late September.
By God’s good grace the Normans and their allies had received the one day of good weather and southerly winds that the expedition had required, and their leaders had held the army together long enough to make a crossing almost impossibly late in the season.
The few residents of Pevensey, a small town little more than a village, did their best to make themselves invisible.
The next day was 29th September- Michaelmas, the feast of St Michael. There was little in the way of feasting, although most of the contingent still had a few supplies that they had brought with them. Almost the whole army attended a series of outdoor Masses held that day- there was no shortage of Bishops and their entourages, as many had contributed armed forces towards the army.
Several days were spent by the men raising an earthen motte and erecting a castle by installing prefabricated wooden sections that had been brought to make the walls and keep. The tents of the army were erected on the high ground to the west of the town.
It was soon clear that the choice of landing place had been a poor one. Marshes dominated the landscape to the north and east. There was no usable road and the army stripped the countryside bare of fresh food within days. Perishable food had not been brought with the supplies on the ships, which were limited mainly to sacks of dried peas and beans, root vegetables, flour and oats- the latter for the horses.
Word passed around the army that they were to move further east along the coast to Hastings. While Hastings was only ten miles away ‘as the crow flies’, the journey would entail thirty miles of difficult slogging across swamps, sluggish tidal rivers and around Bulverhythe harbour. The foot-soldiers were ferried by boat around the worst of the land and marched along the coast; the cavalry rode the long way around. Nobody wanted to load and unload horses from ships ever again.
Hallisham and Hooe were laid waste by the cavalry. Ninefield and Catsfield were badly damaged and stripped bare. On the more southerly route the foot-soldiers devastated the four villages in their path; Bexhill, Crowhurst, Wilting and Filsham. Leaving two paths of death and destruction behind it, the army entered the land at Hastings belonging to the Abbey of Fecamp. There William and much of his army took Mass on 1st October and then spent several days constructing another pre-fabricated fort.
Alan was less than happy with the actions of the army. He’d marched with most of the cavalry on the northern route to Hastings. The devastation that an army on the march wreaked was distasteful to him. Any army, even if on friendly soil and well managed, wrought devastation and pillage as it moved. In enemy territory, even if unresisting, the situation was worse. Alan was sick to the stomach of seeing burnt-out farms, the dead bodies of men whose only crime was to seek to protect what was theirs, and the violated and dead corpses of their womenfolk.
“I may be inexperienced, but I like not the actions of our men towards the local populace,” commented Alan as they rode through the burnt ruin of the village of Wilting. A few trees were decorated with the bodies of those soldiers caught in flagrant breach of the ban imposed by William on such activities, but this had done little to control the excesses of many in the army, particularly the mercenaries.
The equally inexperience Robert sighed his agreement, but Hugh replied, “Mercenaries and foot-soldiers fight in the expectation of loot to supplement their meagre pay.”
“That may well be the case, but at least one of those bodies swinging in the breeze wore a tunic of reasonable quality- I would guess that man to have been a knight, although now stripped of his armour and
