For three long hours the battle raged from east to west, and men fought foot to foot and hand to hand, and ’twas stab and hack and thrust, and the pounding of ownerless horses and the wail of dying men, and the husky cries of captains, and the interminable clash of steel on steel, so that no man could see all the fight at once, save the good King alone, who sat back there at his vantage-point. It was all this, I say; and then, about seven in the afternoon, when the sun was near his setting, it seemed, all in a second, as though the whole west were in a glow, and there was Lord Alençon sweeping down upon our right with the splendid array of Philip’s chivalry, their pennons a-dance above and their endless ranks of spears in serried ranks below. There was no time to think, it seemed. A wild shout of fear and wonder went up from the English host. Our reserves were turned to meet the new danger; the archers poured their gray-goose shafts upon the thundering squadrons; princes and peers and knights were littered on the road that brilliant host was treading—and then they were among the English yeomen with a frightful crash of flesh and blood and horse and steel that drowned all other sound of battle with its cruel import! Jove! What strong stuff the English valor is! Those good Saxon countrymen, sure in the confidence of our great brotherhood, kept their line under that hideous shock as though each fought for a crown, and, shoulder to shoulder and hand to hand, an impenetrable living wall derided the terrors of the golden torrent that burst upon them. Happy King to yield such stuff—thrice-happy country that can rear it! In vain wave upon wave burst upon those hardy islanders, in vain the stern voice of Alençon sent rank after rank of proud lords and courtly gallants upon those rugged English husbandmen—they would not move, and when they would not the Frenchmen hesitated.
’Twas our moment! I had had my leave just then new from the King, and did not need it twice. I saw the great front of French cavalry heaving slow upon our hither face, galled by the arrow-rain that never ceased, and irresolute whether to come on once again or go back, and I turned to the cohort of my dear veterans. I do not know what I said, the voice came thick and husky in my throat, I could but wave my iron mace above my head and point to the Frenchmen. And then all those good gray spears went down as though ’twere one hand that lowered them, and all the chargers moved at once. I led them round the English front, and there, clapping spurs to our ready coursers’ flanks, five hundred of us, knit close together, with one heart beating one measure, shot out into array, and, sweeping across the slope, charged boldly ten thousand Frenchmen!
Five hundred of us charged boldly ten thousand Frenchmen!
We raced across the Crecy slope, drinking the fierce wine of expectant conflict with every breath, our straining chargers thundering in tumultuous rhythm over the short space between, and, in another minute, we broke upon the foemen. Bravely they met us. They turned when we were two hundred paces distant, and advancing with their silken fleur de lys, and pricking up their chargers, weary with pursuit and battle, they came at us as you will see a rock-thwarted wave run angry back to meet another strong incoming surge. And as those two waves meet, and toss and leap together, and dash their strength into each other, the while the white spume flies away behind them, and, with thunderous arrogance, the stronger bursts through the other and goes streaming on triumphant through all the white boil and litter of the fight, so fell we on those princelings. ’Twas just a blinding crash, the coming together of two great walls of steel! I felt I was being lifted like a dry leaf on the summit of that tremendous conjunction, and I could but ply my mace blindly on those glittering casques that shone all round me, and, I now remember, cracked under its meteor sweep like ripe nuts under an urchin’s hammer. So dense were the first moments of that shock of chivalry that even our horses fought. I saw my own charger rip open the glossy neck of another that bore a Frenchman; and near by—though I thought naught of it then—a great black Flemish stallion, mad with battle, had a wounded soldier in its teeth, and was worrying and shaking him as a lurcher worries a screaming leveret. So dense was the throng we scarce could ply our weapons, and one dead knight fell right athwart my saddle-bow; and a flying hand, lopped by some mighty blow, still grasping the hilt of a broken blade, struck me on the helm; the warm red blood spurting from a headless trunk half blinded me—and, all the time, overhead the French lilies kept stooping at the English lion, and now one went down and then the other, and the roar of the host went up into the sky, and the dust and turmoil, the savage uproar, the unheard, unpitied shriek of misery and the cruel exultation of the victor, and then—how soon I know not—we were traveling!
Ah! by the great God of battles, we were moving—and forward—the mottled ground was slipping by us—and the French were giving! I rose in my stirrups, and, hoarse as any raven that ever dipped a black wing in the crimson pools of battle, shouted to my veterans. It did not need! I had fought least well of any in that grim company, and now, with one accord, we pushed the foeman hard. We saw the great roan Flanders jennets slide back upon their haunches, and slip and plunge in the purple quagmire we had made, and then—each like a good ship well freighted—lurch and go down, and we stamped beribboned horse and jeweled rider alike into the red frothy marsh under our hoofs. And the fleur de lys sank, and the silver roe of Mayenne, proud Montereau’s azure falcon, and the white crescent of Donzenac went down, and Bernay’s yellow cornsheaf and Sarreburg’s golden blazon, with many another gaudy pennon, and then, somehow, the foemen broke and dissolved before our heavy, foam-streaked chargers, and, as we gasped hot breath through our close helmet-bars, there came a clear space before us, with flying horsemen scouring off on every hand.
The day was wellnigh won, and I could see that far to left the English yeomen were driving the scattered clouds of Philip’s footmen pell-mell down the hill, and then we went again after his horsemen, who were gathering sullenly upon the lower slopes. Over the grass we scoured like a brown whirlwind, and in a minute were all among the French lordlings. And down they went, horse and foot, riders and banners, crowding and crushing each other in a confusion terrible to behold, now suffering even more from their own chaos than from our lances. Jove! brother trod brother down that day, and comrade lay heaped on living comrade under that red confusion. The pennons—such as had outlived the storm so far—were all entangled sheaves, and sank, whole stocks at once, into the floundering sea below. And kings and princes, hinds and yeomen, gasped and choked and glowered at us, so fast-locked in the deadly wedge that went slowly roaring back before our fiery onsets, they could not move an arm or foot!
The tale is nearly told. Everywhere the English were victorious, and the Frenchmen fell in wild dismay before them. Many a bold attempt they made to turn the tide, and many a desperate sally and gallant stand the fading daylight witnessed. The old King of Bohemia, to whom daylight and night were all as one, with fifty knights, their reins knotted fast together, charged us, and died, one and all, like the good soldiers that they were. And Philip, over yonder, wrung his white hands and pawned his revenue in vows to the unmoved saints; and the soft, braggart peers that crowded round him gnawed their lips and frowned, and looked first at the ruined, smoldering fight, then back—far back—to where, in the south, friendly evening was already holding out to them the dusky cover of the coming night. It was a good day indeed, and may England at her need ever fight so well!
Would that I might in this truthful chronicle have turned to other things while the long roar of exultation goes up from famous Crecy and the strong wine of well-deserved victory filled my heart! Alas! there is that to tell which mars the tale and dims the shine of conquest.
Already thirty thousand Frenchmen were slain, and the long swathes lay all across the swelling ground like the black rims of weed when the sea goes back. Only here and there the battle still went on, where groups and knots of men were fighting, and I, with my good comrade Flamaucœur, now, at sunset, was in such a mêlée on the right. All through the day he had been like a shadow to me—and shame that I have said so little of it! Where I went there he was, flitting in his close gray armor close behind me; quick, watchful, faithful, all through the turmoil and dusty war-mist; escaping, Heaven knows how, a thousand dangers; riding his light war-horse down the bloody lanes of war as he ever rode it, as if they two were one; gentle, retiring, more expert in parrying thrust and blow than in giving—that dear friend of mine, with a heart made stout by consuming love against all its native fears, had followed me.