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 Page A
Authors: Martin Archer
Tags: Historical fiction
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until they impale one of their hooves or feet where upon they almost inevitably scream and fall down.
The first archer in each file line is the file’s sergeant and the last archer in the file is his chosen man. And each file stands shoulder to shoulder with the men in the files standing next to them.
Together the men standing in a file line form a company square with pike men three deep and shoulder to shoulder all along its front. Most of the file sergeants, but not all, have been through Henry’s pike training on Cyprus and have experience using it in one or more of our battles.
Altogether we now have just over four hundred battle-ready archers with more dribbling in every day. We also have about thirty crossbowmen in a special company and about twenty mounted archers with mostly longbows in another special company.
I’ve sent out messengers to all the farms and manors throughout Cornwall that every horse except pregnant and nursing mares is to be brought to Restormel as soon as the harvest is in. We’ve now got more than twenty archers who can sit a horse without falling off; it is useful horses we’re short.
Once our three battle companies are formed up and inspected each morning by Henry and all three of the company master sergeants. They watch and comment as the three companies move around and assume various battle positions according to the various commands shouted out by their master sergeants - such as would be given, for example, if the company is to advance or if an attack by mounted knights comes straight at the company or from the side or rear.
When the companies change position the men walk in step to the beat of a rowing drum taken from one of our galleys. The required walking together in step is one of the hardest things for the men to learn. Henry in Cyprus came up with something that seems to work – each new recruit has a part of an old bow string tied around the big toe of his left foot.
So the sergeants walk the men to the beat of the drum shouting “string .. string …string” so all the men’s left feet stomp down at the same time until the sergeants call “stop.” It works.
Our use of three pike men in each file instead of the two we used in the battles at Trematon and Nicosia is intended to make it even more difficult for knights on horseback to break through our pike lines to get to the archers. The same for the sharpened stakes which are hammered into the ground wherever the sergeants want them and then quickly re-sharpened.
The sharpened stakes are something new that Henry wants us to use. He thinks they’ll raise merry hell on the knights’ horses who manage to get through our storm of arrows. That’s because the horses of charging knights typically wear blinders and are ridden by knights with their helms down. Henry thinks the horses will impale themselves on the stakes just as they do on the pikes - because neither the horses nor their riders can see well enough to avoid them once the knights drop their helms and charge.
If the horses of the semi-blind knights get past the stakes and caltrops and the leg breaking holes, they’ll run themselves on to the long Swiss pikes with their points aimed by the pike men with the butts of their pikes placed firmly in hastily dug shallow holes.
It is from behind all that frontal protection of scattered caltrops and hastily dug holes to break horses’ legs and the stakes and pike men kneeling behind their shields that our archers will stand and shoot their armor piercing arrows straight into any charging or advancing horses and men.
The basic plan is for the pikes to be a surprise to the men who are charging them – to only come up at the last minute after the semi-blind Knights get past the piles of downed horses and men and through the
The first archer in each file line is the file’s sergeant and the last archer in the file is his chosen man. And each file stands shoulder to shoulder with the men in the files standing next to them.
Together the men standing in a file line form a company square with pike men three deep and shoulder to shoulder all along its front. Most of the file sergeants, but not all, have been through Henry’s pike training on Cyprus and have experience using it in one or more of our battles.
Altogether we now have just over four hundred battle-ready archers with more dribbling in every day. We also have about thirty crossbowmen in a special company and about twenty mounted archers with mostly longbows in another special company.
I’ve sent out messengers to all the farms and manors throughout Cornwall that every horse except pregnant and nursing mares is to be brought to Restormel as soon as the harvest is in. We’ve now got more than twenty archers who can sit a horse without falling off; it is useful horses we’re short.
Once our three battle companies are formed up and inspected each morning by Henry and all three of the company master sergeants. They watch and comment as the three companies move around and assume various battle positions according to the various commands shouted out by their master sergeants - such as would be given, for example, if the company is to advance or if an attack by mounted knights comes straight at the company or from the side or rear.
When the companies change position the men walk in step to the beat of a rowing drum taken from one of our galleys. The required walking together in step is one of the hardest things for the men to learn. Henry in Cyprus came up with something that seems to work – each new recruit has a part of an old bow string tied around the big toe of his left foot.
So the sergeants walk the men to the beat of the drum shouting “string .. string …string” so all the men’s left feet stomp down at the same time until the sergeants call “stop.” It works.
Our use of three pike men in each file instead of the two we used in the battles at Trematon and Nicosia is intended to make it even more difficult for knights on horseback to break through our pike lines to get to the archers. The same for the sharpened stakes which are hammered into the ground wherever the sergeants want them and then quickly re-sharpened.
The sharpened stakes are something new that Henry wants us to use. He thinks they’ll raise merry hell on the knights’ horses who manage to get through our storm of arrows. That’s because the horses of charging knights typically wear blinders and are ridden by knights with their helms down. Henry thinks the horses will impale themselves on the stakes just as they do on the pikes - because neither the horses nor their riders can see well enough to avoid them once the knights drop their helms and charge.
If the horses of the semi-blind knights get past the stakes and caltrops and the leg breaking holes, they’ll run themselves on to the long Swiss pikes with their points aimed by the pike men with the butts of their pikes placed firmly in hastily dug shallow holes.
It is from behind all that frontal protection of scattered caltrops and hastily dug holes to break horses’ legs and the stakes and pike men kneeling behind their shields that our archers will stand and shoot their armor piercing arrows straight into any charging or advancing horses and men.
The basic plan is for the pikes to be a surprise to the men who are charging them – to only come up at the last minute after the semi-blind Knights get past the piles of downed horses and men and through the
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