King Olaf's Kinsman / A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in the Days of Ironside and Cnut

by Charles W. Whistler

Then was a shout from forward of the ship, and Olaf's eyes brightened as he raised his hand. Instantly the rowers stayed, and the ships drifted away from the bridge more swiftly than they had come, while the Danish grappling irons ripped and tore along the roofs uselessly. There was no firm hold for them.

That made the Danes think that we were driven off, and their yells began afresh.

Then came a quick word from Olaf, and the oars took the water to ease the sharp check as the length of the cables was reached, while the ship astern of us swung to her tow line. The king glanced to right and left of him, and saw that the other three ships had fared as well as we, and that they too were dropping down from the bridge.

How the Danes roared and howled with joy, thinking that we were all in full retreat! Yet, as the last ship tightened her cable, I saw the jerk shake one of them from his perch on the bridge bulwarks and send him headlong into the water.

Olaf saw it, and raised his hand and shouted. And with one accord the oars of the eight great ships smote the water, and bent, and tore the waves into foam--and London Bridge was broken!

The memory of that sight will never pass from my mind or from the mind of any man of us who saw all that the lifted hand and shout of Olaf the king brought about.

There was a slow groaning of timbers and a cracking, and then a dead silence. Then the silence was broken by a wild yell of terror from the swarming Danes, and ere they could fly from the crowded towers and roadway where the bridge was steepest, the whole length of three spans bent and swayed towards us, and a wide gap sprang open across the roadway. Into that gap crumbled a great stone-laden tower, and men like bees from a shaken swarm. And then those three spans seemed to melt away with a great rush and roar, and howl of men in mortal terror--and down the freed tide swept our ships, dragging after them the timbers that the cables yet held.

Then into the Southwark fortress went Eadmund and his men like fire, while from the London side of the river came the roar of a fight, as the citizens fell on the Danes who were fleeing terror smitten from the weakened spans that were left of London Bridge.

Then Olaf swung our ships to either bank, and past us went in confusion, on the rush of pent-up water, the great timbers and piles of the bridge, as it broke up piece by piece in the current. The men on Ethelred's ships had all they could do to save their vessels from being stove in by the heavier woodwork when it was swept down among them.

That danger passed; and now was our turn come to join in the fighting, for there were none to prevent us from getting the ships up to the bridge. And so we scaled from our decks the bulwarks that had been so terrible, and fell on the Danes in the rear as Eadmund in Southwark and the citizens in London took them in the front. It must have been that few Danes were left on either bank, for the fighting lasted no long time, and when we had done with these men from off the bridge there was no other attack.