Read Online The Archer's War: Exciting good read - adventure fiction about fighting and combat during medieval times in feudal England with archers, longbows, knights, ... (The Company of English Archers Book 4) by Martin Archer - Free Book Online
Authors: Martin Archer
Tags: Historical fiction
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battle formation.
Our forces are constantly getting stronger. Horses and men are coming in from all over the county and galleys and cogs with new recruits, including a number of archers with long bows and crossbows, have arrived from Cardiff and London - and the galleys that brought them have turned around and gone right back to get more.
There have also been a number of “walk-ins,” including a couple of men who are so starved they are almost dead by the time they arrive. And, of course, the lure of food and coins has brought many of the local men, mostly serfs and farm laborers, into our camp to sign on as fetchers and carriers and to work in the smithy making pike blades and arrowheads. Several of them, men who seem to have strong arms, make their marks to be apprentice archers.
It’s all hands on deck as the excitement and anxiety about a being on the receiving end of a possible attack suddenly seems to grip everyone.
Thomas is still in London trying to hire mercenaries and recruit archers but Peter Sergeant and Evan are back and we seem to be making good progress: sacks of grain and other foodstuffs are pouring into Restormel’s siege reserves in response to the generous coins we are offering in payment.
Others are useful as well - the shipwrights have turned their wood turning talents to the making of pike staffs; and the local women, such as they are, are helping with the fletching of arrows and the increased cooking required for our additional men.
In a nutshell, our capacity to wage war is rapidly increasing. Even Helen is helping tie goose feathers on arrows under the watchful and all too admiring eye of old Issac, our head fletcher.
I don’t trust that old man; he’d hump a frog if it stopped jumping.
@@@@@
Rain or shine every day starts right after dawn with two or three hours of battle practice for everyone including even the newest of our recruits and all the helpers and fetchers. My personal fetcher and helper, Peter Sergeant, and I are usually there waiting for them when they begin to assemble. Peter did well in London according to the parchment message I received from Thomas and he is now one of our master sergeants and my principal assistant.
Roger the miner from Yorkshire replaced Peter in London as Thomas’s second; Peter says he thinks Roger is quite reliable.
Our battle practice conforms to the way Henry, the master sergeant of our archers, trains our men to fight on our Cyprus training field. It starts when a horn blows to call the men into their assigned positions around a chosen man carrying the flag of one of our three battle companies.
Each of the three master sergeants commanding the companies is a steady English or Welsh archer trained by Henry in Cyprus and a veteran of either Trematon or Nicosia or both. Inevitably each shouts and rages as he works to get his men properly positioned.
When they finish, the men in each of the company’s eleven-man squads are stand in a file in a straight line from front to back.
Standing in the first three place in each file are the shield and arrow carrying pike men from among our steadiest non-archers. The three pike men are followed in the line by four or five archers. The archers, in turn are followed by three or four fetchers and carriers with extra arrows slung over their shoulders and pulling hand carts piled high with the file’s supplies and equipment.
Each file’s supplies and equipment includes stakes sharpened on both ends and even more bales of arrows, spades to dig holes to break horses’ legs, and sacks of caltrops for the horses and charging men to step on.
Those caltrops are damn dangerous because charging horses and running men aren’t looking at the ground to see their sharp points sticking up –
Our forces are constantly getting stronger. Horses and men are coming in from all over the county and galleys and cogs with new recruits, including a number of archers with long bows and crossbows, have arrived from Cardiff and London - and the galleys that brought them have turned around and gone right back to get more.
There have also been a number of “walk-ins,” including a couple of men who are so starved they are almost dead by the time they arrive. And, of course, the lure of food and coins has brought many of the local men, mostly serfs and farm laborers, into our camp to sign on as fetchers and carriers and to work in the smithy making pike blades and arrowheads. Several of them, men who seem to have strong arms, make their marks to be apprentice archers.
It’s all hands on deck as the excitement and anxiety about a being on the receiving end of a possible attack suddenly seems to grip everyone.
Thomas is still in London trying to hire mercenaries and recruit archers but Peter Sergeant and Evan are back and we seem to be making good progress: sacks of grain and other foodstuffs are pouring into Restormel’s siege reserves in response to the generous coins we are offering in payment.
Others are useful as well - the shipwrights have turned their wood turning talents to the making of pike staffs; and the local women, such as they are, are helping with the fletching of arrows and the increased cooking required for our additional men.
In a nutshell, our capacity to wage war is rapidly increasing. Even Helen is helping tie goose feathers on arrows under the watchful and all too admiring eye of old Issac, our head fletcher.
I don’t trust that old man; he’d hump a frog if it stopped jumping.
@@@@@
Rain or shine every day starts right after dawn with two or three hours of battle practice for everyone including even the newest of our recruits and all the helpers and fetchers. My personal fetcher and helper, Peter Sergeant, and I are usually there waiting for them when they begin to assemble. Peter did well in London according to the parchment message I received from Thomas and he is now one of our master sergeants and my principal assistant.
Roger the miner from Yorkshire replaced Peter in London as Thomas’s second; Peter says he thinks Roger is quite reliable.
Our battle practice conforms to the way Henry, the master sergeant of our archers, trains our men to fight on our Cyprus training field. It starts when a horn blows to call the men into their assigned positions around a chosen man carrying the flag of one of our three battle companies.
Each of the three master sergeants commanding the companies is a steady English or Welsh archer trained by Henry in Cyprus and a veteran of either Trematon or Nicosia or both. Inevitably each shouts and rages as he works to get his men properly positioned.
When they finish, the men in each of the company’s eleven-man squads are stand in a file in a straight line from front to back.
Standing in the first three place in each file are the shield and arrow carrying pike men from among our steadiest non-archers. The three pike men are followed in the line by four or five archers. The archers, in turn are followed by three or four fetchers and carriers with extra arrows slung over their shoulders and pulling hand carts piled high with the file’s supplies and equipment.
Each file’s supplies and equipment includes stakes sharpened on both ends and even more bales of arrows, spades to dig holes to break horses’ legs, and sacks of caltrops for the horses and charging men to step on.
Those caltrops are damn dangerous because charging horses and running men aren’t looking at the ground to see their sharp points sticking up –
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