“It will not be easy to do that,” he said. “Thrice already my army has tried it, but the Danish soldiers are thick on London Bridge. We cannot get near enough to attack the fort, because whenever the ships start up the river arrows and spears and stones come down upon them and they are driven back.”
King Olaf stood thinking and did not answer. Finally he said, “Then we must tear down the bridge.”
Ethelred looked at him as if he thought him crazy. “Tear down the bridge!” he repeated in amazement. “That is impossible. London Bridge is strong, and neither of us has an army of giants.”
Young Olaf looked at him and smiled, thinking how little this man knew of warfare.
“Do as I bid you,” he said, “and you shall see it fall.”
Ethelred had little faith in the viking’s words, but he was in so terrible a plight that he was willing to do anything that might pull him out of it. Who wouldn’t be, with a Danish general sleeping in his bed?
King Olaf gave some orders to his men. Then he said to Ethelred, “Bring your ships alongside mine, and we will get them ready.”
He ordered the men to make broad, flat roofs for every vessel, for he knew they could not tear down London Bridge unless protected from the spears and arrows of the Danes. The enemy had seized so much of King Ethelred’s lumber that he hadn’t half enough to make the roofs, so they tore down houses that the command might be carried out.
Finally everything was ready, and the fleet of England and the fleet of Norway moved side by side up the Thames. The Danish soldiers laughed as they saw the queer-looking vessels coming toward them, thinking what fun it would be to drive back the boats of Ethelred the Unready, as they had done several times before. But the Danes didn’t know as much as they thought they knew, and although their spears and arrows flew fast, the lumbering warships came on.
Then the soldiers on the bridge shot their bows and threw their javelins as they had not done before. They hurled great rocks down upon the vessels, damaging some of them so much that they had to turn back. But they did not harm or frighten Olaf the viking. He called to his men and cheered them on, and nearer, nearer these good ships came, until they were close to the piles of London Bridge.