And the Rest Is History(70)

It seemed to me that the hail of Saxon missiles was thinning. Harold’s army was running out of things to throw. Many of them were making do with simply clashing their axes against their shields and shouting, ‘Ut! Ut! Ut!‘ Well, why not? It had worked well for them so far.

The sun nearly gone. I could see mist rising from the marsh at the bottom of the hill. Where the day had been hot – now it was turning cold. If the Normans couldn’t break them now…

William responded by hurling everything he had. The archers never let up, unleashing volley after volley, high into the air. The blood-splattered cavalry charged again. Spearmen ran up the slope, dodging through the horses. I’d never seen anything like it. The entire Norman army was hacking at the Saxon shield wall.

The Saxons took a weary grip on their weapons, steadied their shields against their shoulders and braced themselves through onslaught after onslaught.

The Normans were equally exhausted. Their knights were right up against the shield wall. Many were on foot. Both sides were slugging it out, face to face, so tired they could hardly raise their arms. Horses fell because they simply couldn’t stand any longer.

It did the Normans no good at all. Horns sounded and William’s forces disengaged and trailed slowly back down the hill again.

The light was nearly gone.

Thousands and thousands of men were dead. Brutally, horribly, bloodily dead. The fyrd was nearly gone. A few thegns still surrounded Harold. The Fighting Man and the Red Dragon still flew, but there were so few of them left.

The last light was fading. Surely it must be over. I knew how this ended but looking at the state of play now … I had no idea it had been so close. If William couldn’t break the shield wall in the next few minutes, then he was finished. The northern levies would sweep down and between them and the survivors today, his exhausted army would be annihilated. I know – we all know – how Hastings ends, and yet I couldn’t help wondering if I hadn’t strayed into another universe somehow, and that in this one, Harold won. Or – always our main fear – by simply being here we had changed some tiny event which meant that William lost and Harold won. Which would be a bit of a bugger, not least because History would have something very terminal to say about that.

The sun was going. The Saxons were intact and the Normans finished. William would never get them up that hill again.

And then, unbelievably, a shout went up from the Saxon lines. A great groan of anguish and despair rippled outwards. The Fighting Man dipped.

Harold had fallen.

‘What?’ said Bashford in disbelief. ‘When did that happen?’

‘Close up,’ I said. ‘Find him. Quickly now.’

We focused on the milling confusion in the Saxon ranks.

‘I can’t find him,’ said Bashford, panning back and forth.

‘Me neither,’ said Sykes.

‘Concentrate on the area around the Fighting Man,’ I said.

There was no time.

Horns were sounding and Norman heads lifting.

Weary men turned their horses around to confront a hill that must have seemed like a mountain. To give him his due, William was right up there at the front. Somewhere along the way he’d lost his white horse and now rode a black one. His tattered banner followed at his shoulder.

The horses could only advance at a walk. There was no more strength for thundering charges.

They walked up the hill, the men at arms following on behind them.

Orders rang out. Whether Harold lived or was dead already, the Saxons drew together. Both sides knew that these were the deciding moments. If the shield wall held then the Normans were beaten. Wiped out. After today none of them would survive to make the voyage home to Normandy.

If the shield wall crumbled then the Normans would swarm over the top of them, obliterating every last one of them, and that would mean the end of Saxon England for ever. It was make-or-break time.

The shield wall did not hold.

Men fell like trees. Holes began to open up that could not be filled. With roars of exultation and triumph, the Normans forced their horses through, trampling men too exhausted to crawl away. The foot soldiers followed. For a few minutes, the whole thing was just a massive mêlée and then, suddenly, the famous shield wall disintegrated. Odd pockets of resistance lingered, but the Normans had the scent of victory now. They were unstoppable.

We could barely make out what was happening and in this strange half-light our night vision wasn’t much help.

I was simmering with frustration. Somehow, we’d missed Harold falling. I’d had every camera trained on that small area around the Fighting Man. If Sykes had got any closer she’d have been on the other side of the screen, but we’d missed it. And certainly no one was staggering around with an arrow poking out of their eye. Dusk was falling fast and there were just so many indistinguishable people – everyone was red with blood. All this time and effort and we were no nearer to establishing the cause of Harold’s death. I could only hope that once we got all this lot downloaded and had a chance to go through it, frame by frame, that we would be able to establish, once and for all, how Harold died at Hastings.

The Fighting Man banner went first, slowly toppling sideways until it disappeared, never to rise again. A moment later, the Red Dragon of Wessex swayed violently as a group of knights hacked at it, and then it was cut down and lost.

His thegns fought. Dear God, did they fight. They grouped themselves into a tight bunch and fought like madmen. One by one they fell, gushing blood, limbs missing, pierced by many wounds. The survivors simply closed up, gritted their teeth and fought on.