between swordsmen and spearmen. All Alan’s fyrdmen were reasonably well-trained despite their part-time status and he was sure they would give a good account of themselves. Many of the men from the other manors, in particular the sons of the ruling thegns, were also well-trained as Alan had been more than happy to provide training to the sergeants and section-leaders of the thegns in the Hundred, in anticipation of just this eventuality.
Alan also had 50 full-time infantry, 20 being professional huscarles, and 30 cavalrymen. A number of the sons of the local thegns had been through Alan’s cavalry training school and knew that horses were more than just a means of transport to the battlefield. Including the small detachment brought by Gerard de Cholet from Elmstead Alan expected to have 50 reasonably competent horsemen. He thought that these, together with the longbowmen and the proper use of the battlefield itself, should tip the balance in his favour.
Unusually, the muster of the fyrdmen of the Hundred provided men who almost without exception were properly equipped for battle, instead of the more usual peasantry carrying hay-forks and sickles. This was because Alan’s distribution of the booty from the attack by the Danes on Wivenhoe two years previously had provided a wealth of swords, armour and helmets- as well as the trading contents of the ships seized by Alan which formed the basis of the current wealth enjoyed by himself and Anne.
Alan set the villagers to work digging pits in front of the defensive position which would be occupied by his men, each pit eight feet deep and with short sharpened stakes driven into the mud which quickly accumulated at the bottom of each pit. The land was flat and the enemy had clear sight of the preparations. With no surprise to be achieved Alan didn’t order the pits camouflaged. The fact that the enemy could see and know about the pits did not mean that they would not be effective. Their main function was to channel the movement of the Danes when they attacked.
It took the Danish leader some time to retrieve the men he had dispatched to St Osyth and get the remainder of his men ready to meet the challenge to their north. He appeared to be in no hurry and the Danes ate a leisurely lunch before starting to form up.
Without a hill or rise to use to mask his intentions, Alan placed his men fifty paces behind the last of the defensive pits. As Danes traditionally fought only as heavy infantry, with no archers or cavalry, this made planning relatively easy- although it necessarily didn’t make any battle easy as the Danes were excellent fighters in their traditional Northern-European manner. The English had over 200 men placed in six groups, with a small gap between each group. Each group was three ranks deep, swordsmen at the front and spearmen in the second rank, with two groups for each of the three exits from the pattern of defensive ditches. Ten archers were placed on the right, or western, flank. The flat nature of the battlefield would make vision and shooting difficult for the archers, but they were stationed just to the west of the defensive line, standing knee-deep in the mud of the marsh, giving them a clear shot almost until the lines engaged. Another 10 archers were positioned in view on the left flank, next to the tree line. Twenty more were hidden in the trees on the eastern flank, along with 30 of Alan’s swordsmen to provide them with close protection, positioned out of sight 75 paces
An area had been cleared of trees inside the tree line, 50 paces ahead of the main line of resistance and just behind the archers, 20 paces inside the trees and 40 wide by 10 paces deep, with the undergrowth between the clearing and the battlefield being cleared. Here stood the 50 strong cavalry, out of sight and divided into two groups, each man carrying a short lance.
A reserve of 100 men, half carrying Alan’s green shields, stood to the rear of the main body of troops, together with ten archers.
Alan had never recovered from his distress at the effects of his use of Wildfire at Wivenhoe two years before when he had taken information contained in ancient texts and the chemistry experiments of a student friend from his youth to produce a self-igniting incendiary mixture. Containers of incendiary material, each holding about one gallon had proven totally devastating at that battle. The mixture burned fiercely, adhering to any surface and could not be put out with water. He has seen a dozen or more men immolated with every shot, screaming as they beat at the flames, rolled on the ground or threw themselves in pits of water to try unsuccessfully to douse the flames. This vision, and dealing with the wounded to whom a small splash of Wildfire had meant the loss of a limb and a single drop meant a hole the size of a silver penny burnt clear through the body, had resulted in a resolution not to use the fearsome weapon again if it could be avoided. However, he had four onagers set up in the fortified bailey at Thorrington and charcoal braziers on hand if the Danes broke through and threatened his family and his village. He now viewed this as a weapon of last resort- but one which would be used if required.
As the Danes took their time readying themselves, Alan’s men lounged about in their positions, eating a cold meal of dried beef jerky, bread and cheese washed down with water from the small skin that each man carried as part of his equipment.
Eventually, at about two in the afternoon, the Danes approached. Alan estimated their numbers at about 800, with probably about another 50 holding the ships and village. Alan turned and spoke to his servant Leof, who leaped onto a horse and with two guards galloped away with instructions to be given to Alan’s ships standing off the coast to the west.
The small Danish army slowly moved en masse and on foot, with no apparent formation, towards the large band of Englishmen. The Englishmen rose and took their places in line, chatting to each other and making encouraging comments to bolster themselves and their compatriots. Shoulders were slapped and arms grasped. Wagers were made between men as to who would kill the most Danes, while the men tried to ignore the empty feeling of fear in their stomachs.
The Danes paused close to the first line of defensive pits, about 150 paces from the English line. The pits were arrayed over a depth of about 100 paces and, although carefully planned, seemed haphazard and inconsequential. The Danes would soon learn otherwise.
A tall bearded man in a gilded helmet which shone brilliantly in the sun stepped clear in front of the Danes, turned and began to shout exhortations to his men, waving his arms.
“Kill him!” Alan quietly instructed Owain the Welsh master-bowman who stood at his side. Owain already had an arrow in hand and with a single fluid movement notched the arrow, raised the bow and loosed. A moment later the bodkin-tipped arrow smashed into the back of the Dane between the shoulders, pierced the chain-mail byrnie and threw the man forward onto his face with more than two feet of arrow showing between his shoulder- blades.
After a moment of blank stupefaction the Danes gave a wild hoarse battle-cry and leaped forward. Alan turned first to the archers on the west flank, and then those on the east flank, in each case raising a clenched fist above his head in a pumping motion. No instructions were yet given to the men hiding in the forest to the east. Twenty longbowmen began to rain a hail of arrows into the Danes, each delivering an aimed arrow every four or five seconds. At such short range the trajectory was flat and more than half of the arrows struck shields. When they did not, the sheer power of the longbow drove the bodkin-tipped armour-piercing arrow through whatever it hit, be it chain-mail, helmet or flesh.
Danes were falling, disrupting those who followed behind. Then the Danes reached the main part of the seemingly useless defensive pits. Seeing them, the men skirted around them, but they were slowed- and more particularly were forced into three narrow channels. This made the job of the archers easier. They simply had to select a target from the mass of armoured men. From their advanced positions, with the natural protection offered by the mudflat, the archers on the right flank were now able to mainly avoid the shields, smashing arrows into the sides of the foe, while those on the left flank still had to carefully chose their target.
Alan faced the men hidden in the woods to the east and again raised a fist, punching the sky. Twenty more archers began to rain death on the Danes from the trees
The Danes had been channeled by the seemingly-innocuous pits into three areas each 25 paces wide, jostling each other and slowing their progress. As the first of the Danes burst out of the bottle-necks and surged forward, the 10 archers behind the shield-wall joined the fray, shooting point-blank into the faces and throats of the Danes running towards them. Each loosed 4 or 5 arrows at close range into the Danes, the arrows smashing through armour and flesh. Men dropped, some quietly and others screaming with pain from chest or belly wounds.
The English were deployed in chevron-shaped formations in front of each of the three openings in the line of pits. The Danes burst out of the confined areas, spreading slightly as they charged. Danes fell left and right from
