Agincourt - Bernard Cornwell [107]
It all had to be done again. Another assault, this time on the wreckage of the Leure Gate and, to make sure the defenders could not concentrate their men on that southwestern corner of the ramparts, the forces of the Duke of Clarence would assault the Montivilliers Gate on the town’s far side.
This time, Sir John said, they were going into the town. “The goddam bastards won’t surrender! So you know what you can do with the bastards! If it’s got a prick, you kill it, if it’s got tits, you hump it! Everything in that town is yours! Every coin, every ale-pot, every woman! They’re yours! Now go and get them!”
And so the twin assaults streamed across the filled-in ditches and the arrows rained from the sky and the trumpets blared a challenge to the uncaring sun and the killing began again. And again it was Sir John Holland who led, which meant that Sir John Cornewaille’s men were in the front of the attack that swiftly captured the ruins of the Leure Gate and there, abruptly, were stopped.
The gate had once led into a closely-packed street of overhanging houses, but the garrison had pulled those buildings down to clear a killing space, behind which they had made a new barricade that had been mostly protected from the English gun-stones by the remnants of the old wall and gate. The Messenger, mounted on the barbican’s summit, had managed to shoot some stones at the fresh work, but it could only manage three shots a day and the French repaired the damage between each shot. The new wall was built from masonry blocks, roof timbers, and rubble-filled baskets, and behind it were crossbowmen, and as soon as the English men-at-arms appeared across the ruin of the Leure Gate the bolts began to fly.
Archers shot back, but the French had been cunning. The new wall had been made with chinks and holes through which the crossbowmen could shoot, and which were small enough to defeat the aim of most arrows. Hook, crouching in the rubble of the old gate, reckoned that for every crossbowman shooting there were another three or four men spanning spare bows so that the bolts never stopped. Most crossbowmen were lucky to shoot two bolts a minute, but the bolts were coming from the loopholes far more frequently and still more missiles spat from the high windows of the half-ruined houses behind the wall. This, Hook knew, was how Soissons should have been defended.
“We’ll have to bring up a gun,” Sir John snarled from another place in the ruined wall, but instead led a charge against the barricade, shouting at his archers to smother it in arrows. They did, but the crossbow bolts kept coming and even if the bolts failed to pierce armor they threw a man back by sheer force and when, at last, a half-dozen men managed to reach the wall and tried to pull down its timbers and stones, a cauldron was tipped over its coping and a stream of boiling fish oil spilled down onto the attackers. They ran and limped back, some gasping from the pain of the scalding, and Sir John, his armor slick with the oil, came back with them and dropped into the gate’s rubble and let loose a stream of impotent curses. The French were cheering. They waved taunting flags above their new low wall. A smoky haze shimmered behind the new rampart, promising that more heated oil would greet any new attack. The English catapults were trying to drop stones on the new wall, but most of the missiles flew long to crash down among the already shattered houses.
The sun climbed. The late summer’s heat had returned and both attackers and defenders roasted in their armor. Boys brought water and ale. Men-at-arms, resting in the shelter of the Leure Gate’s ruins, took off their helmets. Their hair was matted flat and their faces running with sweat. The archers crouched in the stones, sometimes shooting if a man showed himself, but for long periods neither side would loose an arrow or a bolt, but just wait for a target.
“Bastards,” Sir John spat at the enemy.
Hook saw two defenders struggling to remove an earth-filled basket from a section of the new wall. He half stood and loosed