King Alfred's Viking: A Story of the First English Fleet, Charles W. Whistler [hardest books to read .txt] 📗

gathering of Devon might be greater yet. So it was, indeed; but Odda had not a thousand men. Perhaps, too, the Danes feared some sally from the fens; but however it was, they made not the mistake which destroyed Hubba by despising us rashly, for Guthrum drew his whole force together, and left the hills for a march towards the town which he heard was threatened.

So when we came to Edington, Guthrum's hill fort was empty, save for a camp guard to keep the country folk who lurked in wood and fen from pillaging it. These men fled, and we stood on the ridge without striking one blow; and King Alfred turned to us, and cried that surely his plan was working out well.

Then our host lined the ridge, and a mighty Saxon cheer from ten thousand throats went pealing across the valley below us, and they say that shout was heard even in Bridgwater. Guthrum heard it as he rode with his host across the long causeway, and his men heard it and halted, and saw in their rear the blaze of war gear that shone from their own lines, and knew that they were pent in between fens and hills, with an unknown force ready to fall on them.

Whereon a panic very nearly seized them. Hubba's end was fresh in their minds, and it needed all that Guthrum could say to prevent them making for the town. But he minded them of old victories, and bade them not fear to face the despised Saxons once again, and they rallied. But it was noon before he could lead them to attack us, and by that time he learned that Odda had halted above the town, and need not be feared. But by that time also every post of vantage along the hills was in our hands, and if Edington height was to be held by Danes again, it must be won by hard fighting. That is a thing that no Dane shrinks from, and now for Guthrum there was nought else to be done, for he was surrounded, as it were.

No man saw the whole of that fight, for it began at noon, as I have said, when Guthrum turned to find the hillward road blocked behind him. And from that time on it raged from spur to spur and point to point, as step by step the Danes won back to the hillsides. But the crest of the hill they never gained, save where for a time they might set foot and be driven headlong in turn by those who had given way before them at first. And so the fight swept on to the base of Edington hill and along its sides, for there Alfred had held his best men in reserve. Already the Danes had made for themselves some shallow lines of earthworks along the crest, and now these were manned against their own attack.

Men who looked on from afar tell strange tales of the shouts and cries that rang among the quiet Polden hills and woodlands that day for long hours. It was very still, as it chanced, and the noise of battle went far and wide from the place where Saxon and Dane fought their greatest fight for mastery.

Ever rode Alfred with the light of battle on his face, confident and joyous, among his men from post to post. Ever where the tide of battle seemed to set against us his arm brought victory again, until at last Guthrum drew his men together for one final attack that should end the day.

On Edington hillside he massed them, and steadily they came on under shield in a dense column to where, in their own camp, we waited under the Dragon banner. Half our men, the best spearmen of the force, were lying down resting, but along the little ridges of the earthworks the archers stood, each knowing that he fought under the eye of the king he loved.

"This is the end," said Alfred, as the Danes came on. "Be ready, spearmen, when I give the word."

And they lay clutching their weapons, with their eyes fixed on him as he stood on the hilltop, surrounded by his thanes, gazing on the last assault of the Danes, whose archers from the wings were already at work, so that the men of the shield wall closed in around him.

I think that the Danes had no knowledge of what force was hidden by the hill brow. For when they were within half arrow shot, and Alfred gave the word, and the long ranks of spearmen leaped from the ground and closed up for their charge, a waver went along the shielded line, and they almost halted, though it passed, and they came on even more swiftly.

Then Alfred lifted his sword and shouted, and, with that awful roar that I had heard before on the Combwich meadows, over the hill crest and down upon the Danes the spearmen rushed. The lines met with a mighty crash of steel on steel, and while one might count two score they swayed in deadly hand-to-hand strife. Then Guthrum's men gave back one pace, and howled, and won their place again, and again lost it.

Then forward went Alfred and his shield wall, and I was on one side of him and Ethered of Mercia on the other, while after him came Heregar, bearing the banner. The Danes in the centre closed up as they saw us come, and there were shouts in which Guthrum's name was plain to be heard, and I saw him across a four-deep rank of his men.

Straight for him went Alfred, and the Danish line grew thin before us. But as their king went forward our Saxons cheered again and pressed their attack home, and right and left the Danish line fell back and broke. At that a wild shout and charge with levelled spears swept them down the hillside in full rout, and the end had come. His courtmen closed round Guthrum and bore him from before us, and the full tide of pursuit swept him away before we reached him.

Alfred stayed his horse and let the men go on. His face was good to see as he glanced round at the hills to our right; but when it fell on the slain, who lay thickly where the lines had met, he bared his head and looked silently on them for a space, while his lips moved as if he prayed.

Then he said:

"These have given their lives not in vain, for they have helped to bring peace, and have died to set an English king over the English land."

He put on his crown-circled helm again, and as he did so, among the fallen there was a stir and movement, and the wounded rose up on arms and knees and turned on their sides, and raised their hands, waving broken weapons, and crying in a strange, wearied voice that yet had a ring of victory in it:

"Waeshael to Alfred the king!"

For the silence that had fallen, and the lessening shouts of the pursuers, told them that they had won, and they were content.

Thereat Alfred flushed red, and I think that he almost wept, for he turned from us. And then he spoke to the men who yet stood round him, and said:

"Let every man who has any knowledge of care for the wounded, or who has known a wound of his own and the way it was cared for, go among these brave ones and help them."

Nor would he leave the place till he saw men going up and down among the hurt, tending them as well as they could; and he was the more content when he saw Bishop Sigehelm and many other clergy come on the field from the rear, where he had bidden them stay. The bishop had mail under his robes, having been eager to join in the fight, as would Eahlstan, his great forerunner, have certainly joined; but Alfred would not suffer him to do so.

Once more Guthrum tried to rally his men, when the flight bore him to his camp at the hill foot, on the way across the fens to the town. There was a sharp fight there, and Ethelnoth was wounded as he led on his men; and thence the Danes fled to Bridgwater, making no more delay. So close on them were our men that Guthrum's housecarls closed the gates after their king on many of their comrades, who fell under the Saxon spear in sight of safety. Nor did we give them time to drive in the cattle that were gathered from all the countryside to the meadows round the place.

Then came Thord to me and put me in mind of somewhat.

"Now is our work to be done, king. These Danes will take Hubba's ships and be gone down the river next. We must stop them in some way, for the king's plan is to starve them out, as it seems."

We had left the king at that time, for we would not suffer him to join in pursuit, which has its dangers, if men turn desperate and make a stand, as many did, dying like brave warriors that they were. So I rode on quickly with my followers, and came to the river bank below the bridge. The Danes were swarming on the ramparts of the fortress like angry bees, and in the ships, which lay beneath the walls, men were busy, even as Thord had guessed they would be, making ready to sail when tide served. We could not reach them by any means, for every boat had been taken from this side long ago, when the first news of defeat was brought back by flying horsemen.

Then Thord's face glowered under his helm, and he pointed to the ship that was farthest from the bridge, and therefore likely to be the first to start away when the tide was full. It was my own ship, which they had got afloat.

"Thor's hammer smite them!" he growled; "they have launched the old keel without finishing her painting--just as I left her. How are we to stay their going off with her?"

"Is there a chain cable anywhere?" I asked.

"Not one in the place," he said; "and if we did get one across the river, we should have to fight to keep the far end of it."

The tide was rising fast, and I thought we should surely lose every ship, while Guthrum and his chiefs would escape us at the same time. One might line the banks with archers, certainly, but that would not stay the going. Evening was closing in, moreover. By midnight they would be gone, and I was in a difficulty out of which I could not see my way.

Suddenly Thord smote his hands together, and his face grew brighter.

"I have it," he cried. "There is an old vessel that lies in a creek a mile down the river. A great buss {xvi} she is, and worth nothing; but she will float, and maybe will be afloat now. If we can sink her across the channel in a place that I know, not one of these ships will get away till she is raised."

Then I called every man to me whom I could see, and we went quickly to the place where this buss was, and she was just afloat. Thord knew where her tackle was kept, and he had the oars out--what there were of them at least, for they were old and rotten enough. Then we had to shove her off and get her boat into the water, and the vessel itself floated up on the tide towards the narrow place where she might best be sunk to block the channel against ships that came from the town.

We had not gone far when there came a sound at which I started, for it was nothing more or less than the quick beat of oars coming down the river against the tide. Thord and I and eight men of my own crew were in the buss, while I had maybe thirty men ashore who were keeping pace with us along the bank. The rest of my own men were with these, and one shouted that he could see the ship, and that it was our own, crammed with men too.

Now at first it seemed as if the only thing for us to do was to go ashore in the boat as quickly as we could and get away; but Thord cried to me:

"Then will the Danes take our ship to sea, and we have lost her for good. It should not be said of us that we let her go without a blow struck to save her."

"Sink this hulk straightway, then," I said, falling to work, with the axe I had in thy hand, on the lowest strakes.