The sun was low in the western sky as Sven conned
Alan sat back and watched as the ship was tied up, aware that he had witnessed a virtuoso performance over the last few hours and that Lars was worth every shilling he received in pay, and more. The Norseman had driven the two ships fast downstream on the Ouse, using what late-autumn river flow existed, supplemented by the men at the oars. When the Ouse had joined the Humber, he’d used the outgoing tide and a westerly breeze to speed them along, resting the oarsmen as he knew they’d be needed later. The flat muddy banks of the river had sped by, then after passing the low sandy spit of the Spurn at the mouth of the river they had rowed north up Bridlington Bay with the ships rocking in an easterly swell that made it hard for the oarsmen to keep their beat and the landsmen to keep their stomachs in order. Alan had spent nearly two hours hanging over the lee side feeding the fish. He’d learned from past experience to avoid the weather side, so that the vomit wasn’t blown back in his face.
He took his pants and boots off before jumping over the low saxboard and onto the sandy ground to walk the few paces to dry land. Again, he’d leant in the past that a few moments of wind around the privates was better than hours spent wearing wet clothes. Boots took days to dry properly. You learn from past mistakes.
There was a small sandy beach inside the cave, now being lit by torches made of pitch-soaked moss held by the men. Beyond was a small area cut into the chalk walls of the cave. From what could be seen in the torchlight the cave appeared to be about sixty paces deep, twenty paces wide and thirty feet high. Just where sand met chalk, flame was being put to a pile of dried wood that had been left in place. Obviously the previous occupants had observed the usual local courtesies.
Supplies were being broached, meat being placed in pots with vegetables and put above the fire to cook. Smoke rose to the ceiling of the cave above their heads before trickling out of the cave mouth. A barrel of apples was broached along with a cask of ale. A table was set up and loaves of slightly stale bread from two days before, together with cheese and slices of smoked ham and jars of pickled vegetables, were placed on it for men to help themselves. Men were quickly claiming the sleeping places that had been cut into the chalk walls one above the other, three places high. Alan noted that Leof had appropriated two places and put their sleeping rolls in place, standing guard to ensure that none usurped them.
“Well done, Leof!” said Alan, giving the boy a gentle buffet on the shoulder.
The food was nearly cooked when Lars arrived and he and Sven spent considerable time talking quietly mouth to ear in Norwegian, with Alan only able to catch the occasional word- just enough to annoy him that he was being excluded from the conversation.
After they had finished eating Alan walked up to Sven and Lars and sat on a rock next to them, saying, “Right! The plan for tomorrow is we find where the Danes are. One ship goes north and one ship south. Rendezvous back here at night. When we know where they are we send a ship to sit and wait to hear from the spies. The idea is to have two ships, so that our ships aren’t hanging about like a bad smell and the spies aren’t seen talking to the same people all the time.”
“And who are these spies?” asked Lars.
Alan sighed. “Lars, you don’t need to know and you won’t know. If you knew we’d have to kill you! You’re ‘Transport’. I’m ‘Intelligence’- I hope. We’ll each do our own jobs, right? You and Sven put the ships in the right place at the right time. I’ll do the rest.”
Alan spent an uncomfortable night lying on a shelf cut into the cliff wall, which had several lumps in uncomfortable places. As he rose stiff and sore in the morning he promised to get himself a well-stuffed mattress and blanket that day. He chose to accompany Sven north to Hartlepool as he also thought that the Danes were unlikely to be at Skegness.
It was mid-tide and the ship had to be man-handled into the water using round logs of timber as rollers that were also apparently part of the fittings of the cave. With the ship safely afloat the twenty crewmen doubled up on the oars, using five oars a side, and followed Sven’s shouted instructions. Once out of the cave, even when still sheltered by the fingers of chalk that jutted out from the land and created a small natural harbour, the ship began to rise and fall in a heavy swell. As the southerly wind was trying to push the ship sideways some careful manoeuvring was needed to extract the ship from the narrow passage.
Despite the stiff breeze the air was heavy with the smell of bird-droppings and the sound of thousands of birdcalls. Looking at the cliff and the nearby rocks it was hard to tell what was chalk and what was guano. Whole sections of the cliff were absolutely smothered in birds, raucously pushing and shoving each other. Puffins, with their distinctive large red and orange beaks, could be seen hopping comically about on the rocks and flapping their short wings at a furious rate as they flew low over the water. Gannets, kittiwakes and guillemots were present in their thousands. The dark-plumaged adolescent gannets showed clearly against the white of the cliffs, while the adult birds dove from the air from surprising heights to plunge deep into the water to seize small fish. The puffins and guillemots were more circumspect, flying low over the water or floating before disappearing below the surface to use their short wings to ‘fly’ underwater as they chased their prey. High above the cliffs, riding the up-draughts, were several larger raptors waiting to swoop down and take the smaller birds. These were too far away for Alan to be able to make out their species. Skuas in their dark-brown plumage could be seen harassing other birds, trying to make them drop their catch, so that the skua or its mate could snatch an easy meal. Alan found the highly eroded cliffs quite remarkable with their stratified horizontal layers and pitted weathered appearance quite dissimilar to the chalk cliffs he had seen near Dover.
Just north of Flamborough Head, Filey Bay had a low coastline with a wide beach, open to the strong seas that swept in from the north-east, causing the coastline to erode westward year by year. Alan saw a small group of local people ‘bird fishing’ on the north side of the Flambourgh cliffs, standing on ledges below the cliff top and using hand nets a yard across and attached to stout poles to try to catch the low-flying birds.
Alan pointed them out to Sven who commented, “They’re catching puffins. Quite tasty and cook up well. They can be smoked, dried or salted for the winter. The gannets taste like shit- they’re too fishy.”
“Any risk of them locating our camp?”
“No. There’s a walkway along the top of the cliff, but we’re several miles from both Bridlington and Filey. There’s no reason for the villagers to go there. The only way anybody could get down the cliff would be on the end of a rope. The climb would be too dangerous. They know that there’s nothing there for them and that they may meet some men using the caves who prefer to have their presence unknown. No, we’re safe enough.”
The short voyage of about twenty miles north from Flamborough to Scarborough was quickly completed with a favourable wind filling the sail. As they sailed north they saw several
“It looks like we’ve found the Danes,” commented Alan.
Sven snorted derisively and replied, “Lad, if there are 3,000 Danes, that means probably 100 ships, maybe more. We’ve found some of them, but I expect most are at up at Hartlepool at the mouth of the Tees River, where there’s a good natural harbour. It’s close to the English earl’s base at Durham and the river gives them access by ship deep into Yorkshire. I think we’ve another sixty miles or so to sail yet, laddie.”
And so it proved. As they sailed further north they saw more and more of the Danish warships and transport ships, so many and on such constant courses that Alan was sure that they were wearing a track in the sea between Hartlepool and Jutland. At Hartlepool the large natural harbour, one of the best on the north-east coast, was crowded with probably close on 100 ships.
