CHAPTER XXVIII.
HOW THEY FOUGHT AT ALDRETH.
When William heard that the Danes were gone, he marched on Ely, as on aneasy prey.
Ivo Taillebois came with him, hungry after those Spalding lands, therents whereof Hereward had been taking for his men for now twelvemonths. William de Warrenne was there, vowed to revenge the death of SirFrederic, his brother. Ralph Guader was there, flushed with his successat Norwich. And with them all the Frenchmen of the east, who had beeneither expelled from their lands, or were in fear of expulsion.
With them, too, was a great army of mercenaries, ruffians from allFrance and Flanders, hired to fight for a certain term, on the chance ofplunder or of fiefs in land. Their brains were all aflame with the talesof inestimable riches hidden in Ely. There were there the jewels ofall the monasteries round; there were the treasures of all the fugitiveEnglish nobles; there were there--what was there not? And they grumbled,when William halted them and hutted them at Cambridge, and began to feelcautiously the strength of the place,--which must be strong, or Herewardand the English would not have made it their camp of refuge.
Perhaps he rode up to Madingley windmill, and saw fifteen miles away,clear against the sky, the long line of what seemed naught but a lowupland park, with the minster tower among the trees; and between him andthem, a rich champaign of grass, over which it was easy enough to marchall the armies of Europe; and thought Ely an easy place to take. But mentold him that between him and those trees lay a black abyss of mud andpeat and reeds, Haddenham fen and Smithy fen, with the deep sullen Westwater or "Ald-reche" of the Ouse winding through them. The old Romanroad was sunk and gone long since under the bog, whether by Englishneglect, or whether (as some think) by actual and bodily sinking of thewhole land. The narrowest space between dry land and dry land was a fullhalf-mile; and how to cross that half-mile, no man knew.
What were the approaches on the west? There were none. Beyond Earith,where now run the great washes of the Bedford Level, was a howlingwilderness of meres, seas, reed-ronds, and floating alder-beds, throughwhich only the fen-men wandered, with leaping-pole and log canoe.
What in the east? The dry land neared the island on that side. And itmay be that William rowed round by Burwell to Fordham and Soham, andthought of attempting the island by way of Barraway, and saw beneath hima labyrinth of islands, meres, fens, with the Ouse, now increased bythe volume of the Cam, lying deep and broad between Barraway andThetford-in-the-Isle; and saw, too, that a disaster in that labyrinthmight be a destruction.
So he determined on the near and straight path, through Long Strattonand Willingham, down the old bridle-way from Willingham ploughedfield,--every village there, and in the isle likewise, had and has stillits "field," or ancient clearing of ploughed land,--and then to try thatterrible half-mile, with the courage and wit of a general to whom humanlives were as those of the gnats under the hedge.
So all his host camped themselves in Willingham field, by the oldearthwork which men now call Belsar's Hills; and down the bridle-waypoured countless men, bearing timber and fagots cut from all the hills,that they might bridge the black half-mile.
They made a narrow, firm path through the reeds, and down to the brinkof the Ouse, if brink it could be called, where the water, rising andfalling a foot or two each tide, covered the floating peat for manyyards before it sunk into a brown depth of bottomless slime. They wouldmake a bottom for themselves by driving piles.
The piles would not hold; and they began to make a floating bridge withlong beams, says Leofric, and blown-up cattle-hides to float them.
Soon they made a floating sow, and thrust it on before them as theyworked across the stream; for they were getting under shot from theisland.
Meanwhile the besieged had not been idle. They had thrown up, saysLeofric, a turf rampart on the island shore, and _antemuralia etpropugnacula,_--doubtless overhanging "hoardings," or scaffolds, throughthe floor of which they could shower down missiles. And so they awaitedthe attack, contenting themselves with gliding in and out of the reedsin their canoes, and annoying the builders with arrows and cross-bowbolts.
At last the bridge was finished, and the sow safe across the West water,and thrust in, as far as it would float, among the reeds on the hightide. They in the fort could touch it with a pole.
The English would have destroyed it if they could. But Hereward badethem leave it alone. He had watched all their work, and made up his mindto the event.
"The rats have set a trap for themselves," he said to his men, "and weshall be fools to break it up till the rats are safe inside."
So there the huge sow lay, black and silent, showing nothing to theenemy but a side of strong plank, covered with hide to prevent its beingburned. It lay there for three hours, and Hereward let it lie.
He had never been so cheerful, so confident. "Play the man this day,every one of you, and ere nightfall you will have taught the Norman oncemore the lesson of York. He seems to have forgotten that. It is me toremind him of it."
And he looked to his bow and to his arrows, and prepared to play the manhimself,--as was the fashion in those old days, when a general provedhis worth by hitting harder and more surely than any of his men.
At last the army was in motion, and Willingham field opposite was like acrawling ants' nest. Brigade after brigade moved down to the reed beds,and the assault began.
And now advanced along the causeway and along the bridge a dark columnof men, surmounted by glittering steel. Knights in complete mail,footmen in leather coats and quilted jerkins; at first orderly enough,each under the banner of his lord; but more and more mingled andcrowded as they hurried forward, each eager for his selfish share ofthe inestimable treasures of Ely. They pushed along the bridge. The massbecame more and more crowded; men stumbled over each other, and felloff into the mire and the water, calling vainly for help, while theircomrades hurried on unheeding, in the mad thirst for spoil.
On they came in thousands; and fresh thousands streamed out of thefields, as if the whole army intended to pour itself into the isle atonce.
"They are numberless," said Torfrida, in a serious and astonished voice,as she stood by Hereward's side.
"Would they were!" said Hereward. "Let them come on, thick andthreefold. The more their numbers the fatter will the fish below bebefore to-morrow morning. Look there, already!"
And already the bridge was swaying, and sinking beneath their weight.The men in places were ankle deep in water. They rushed on all the moreeagerly, and filled the sow, and swarmed up to its roof.
Then, what with its own weight, what with the weight of the ladenbridge,--which dragged upon it from behind,--the huge sow began to tiltbackwards, and slide down the slimy bank.
The men on the top tried vainly to keep their footing, to hurl grapnelsinto the rampart, to shoot off their quarrels and arrows.
"You must be quick, Frenchmen," shouted Hereward in derision, "if youmean to come on board here."
The Normans knew that well; and as Hereward spoke two panels in thefront of the sow creaked on their hinges, and dropped landward, formingtwo draw-bridges, over which reeled to the attack a close body ofknights, mingled with soldiers bearing scaling ladders.
They recoiled. Between the ends of the draw-bridges and the foot of therampart was some two fathoms' depth of black ooze. The catastrophe whichHereward had foreseen was come, and a shout of derision arose from theunseen defenders above.
"Come on,--leap it like men! Send back for your horses, knights, andride them at it like bold huntsmen!"
The front rank could not but rush on: for the pressure behind forcedthem forward, whether they would or not. In a moment they were wallowingwaist deep, trampled on, and disappearing under their strugglingcomrades, who disappeared in their turn.
"Look, Torfrida! If they plant their scaling ladders, it will be on afoundation of their comrades' corpses."
Torfrida gave one glance through the openings of the hoarding, uponthe writhing mass below, and turned awa
y in horror. The men were notso merciful. Down between the hoarding-beams rained stones, javelins,arrows, increasing the agony and death. The scaling ladders would notstand in the mire. If they had stood a moment, the struggles of thedying would have thrown them down; and still fresh victims pressed onfrom behind, shouting "Dex Aie! On to the gold of Ely!" And still thesow, under the weight, slipped further and further back into the stream,and the foul gulf widened between besiegers and besieged.
At last one scaling ladder was planted upon the bodies of the dead, andhooked firmly on the gunwale of the hoarding. Ere it could be hurled offagain by the English, it was so crowded with men that even Hereward'sstrength was insufficient to lift it off. He stood at the top, ready tohew down the first comer; and he hewed him down.
But the Normans were not to be daunted. Man after man dropped dead fromthe ladder top,--man after man took his place; sometimes two at a time;sometimes scrambling over each other's backs.
The English, even in the insolence of victory, cheered them with honestadmiration. "You are fellows worth fighting, you French!"
"So we are," shouted a knight, the first and last who crossed thatparapet; for, thrusting Hereward back with a blow of his sword-hilt, hestaggered past him over the hoarding, and fell on his knees.
A dozen men were upon him; but he was up again and shouting,--
"To me, men-at-arms! A Dade! a Dade!" But no man answered.
"Yield!" quoth Hereward.
Sir Dade answered by a blow on Hereward's helmet, which felled the chiefto his knees, and broke the sword into twenty splinters.
"Well hit," said Hereward, as he rose. "Don't touch him, men! this ismy quarrel now. Yield, sir! you have done enough for your honor. It ismadness to throw away your life."
The knight looked round on the fierce ring of faces, in the midst ofwhich he stood alone.
"To none but Hereward."
"Hereward am I."
"Ah," said the knight, "had I but hit a little harder!"
"You would have broke your sword into more splinters. My armor isenchanted. So yield like a reasonable and valiant man."
"What care I?" said the knight, stepping on to the earthwork, andsitting down quietly. "I vowed to St. Mary and King William that intoEly I would get this day; and in Ely I am; so I have done my work."
"And now you shall taste--as such a gallant knight deserves--thehospitality of Ely."
It was Torfrida who spoke.
"My husband's prisoners are mine; and I, when I find them such_prudhommes_ as you are, have no lighter chains for them than that whicha lady's bower can afford."
Sir Dade was going to make an equally courteous answer, when over andabove the shouts and curses of the combatants rose a yell so keen, sodreadful, as made all hurry forward to the rampart.
That which Hereward had foreseen was come at last. The bridge, strainedmore and more by its living burden, and by the falling tide, hadparted,--not at the Ely end, where the sliding of the sow took off thepressure,--but at the end nearest the camp. One sideway roll it gave,and then, turning over, engulfed in that foul stream the flower ofNorman chivalry; leaving a line--a full quarter of a mile in length--ofwretches drowning in the dark water, or, more hideous still, in thebottomless slime of peat and mud.
Thousands are said to have perished. Their armor and weapons were foundat times, by delvers and dikers, for centuries after; are found at timesunto this day, beneath the rich drained cornfields which now fill upthat black half-mile, or in the bed of the narrow brook to which theWestwater, robbed of its streams by the Bedford Level, has dwindled downat last.
William, they say, struck his tents and departed forthwith, "groaningfrom deep grief of heart;" and so ended the first battle of Aldreth.