"Stand fast behind your stakes," shouted the company commander, realizing that once the heavy cavalry came within striking distance of the lightly armed archers the latter would be cut to pieces and scattered like chaff.
On came the French horse, knee to knee, plunging heavily in the thick tenacious clay, while unceasingly the hail of arrows was maintained till the line of stakes was faced by an almost insurmountable barrier of dead and dying steeds and their riders.
To add to the confusion the English archers in ambush delivered a raking fire, till, losing men both in the flanks and rear of their division, besides those who perished in the charge upon the palisades, the French began to give back.
"Forward—men-at-arms and archers!" shouted a ringing voice that all who heard recognized as the King's. Conspicuous by his gold-emblazoned helmet and the royal arms on his surcoat, Henry led the counter attack in person.
The deadly bows were dropped or slung across the archers' backs, and with axe, sword, spear and mace the dismounted men-at-arms and bowmen hurled themselves upon the swaying, demoralized mob of their enemies.
For a while the battle resolved itself into a series of desperate conflicts, all order being thrown to the winds. Often the combatants had no room to ply their weapons, the two-handed swords of the French men-at-arms being useless when opposed to the knives and daggers of the English archers. So thick did the press become that the King's brother, the Duke of York, was crushed to death betwixt two mailed Frenchmen.
Into the thickest of the mêlée plunged the Constable of Portchester, with Geoffrey, Oswald and Ratclyffe close at his heels as became their duties; but ere long the heir of Warblington, separated from his comrades, found himself confronted by a tall knight whose armour bore no device. In an instant they closed, Geoffrey's antagonist endeavouring to hurl the squire to the earth, while the young Englishman attempted to deliver a poniard stroke between the joints of the knight's armour.
As they fought an archer sprang upon the squire's foeman, and with a mighty heave wrenched his bascinet from his gorget, disclosing the features of the ex-monk Olandyne. The next instant the recreant had fallen with the archer's knife buried in his throat.
Suddenly a shout arose, "To me, Englishmen!" and Geoffrey perceived the Duke of Gloucester hard pressed by four or five French knights. Unable to make good his defence the Duke was already wounded, yet he stubbornly continued the unequal combat.
One of the foremost of his attackers was a broad-shouldered knight whose surcoat had been torn away during the earlier stages of the conflict. His shield, too, had been lost, but armed with a heavy battle-axe, he pressed the Duke with demoniacal fury.