This is the third instalment of my letters from France, where I’m spending a week and a bit filming a documentary about the real history behind my novel Essex Dogs. The film will be released next month. Please consider pre-ordering a signed copy of the book! Pre-orders really help authors.
International delivery here. UK delivery with a 50% discount on rrp here.
It’s Saturday night, and I’m too hot, dusty, stinky, sunbeaten, sore-footed and bleary-eyed to speak. So this is just a quick note to say I’ve been at the actual site of the battle of Crécy today. With none other than Professor Michael Livingston, one of the greatest living battlefield historians, the author of a superb new factual account of 1346, and a super nice guy to boot.
Here we are:
Mike’s new book has radically transformed scholarship about Crécy, not least because he has relocated the battle-site by a couple of miles. It was an unbelievable pleasure and privilege to walk the field with him today. And when it appears in the documentary film, I think you’re going to love it.
We also visited the proposed site of the Blanchetaque, where Edward III’s men pulled off a supremely daring crossing of the Somme a few days before Crécy. There we managed to fly a drone into a tree and break it. But that’s a tale for another day.
Too tired to say anything else. Here’s a snippet from Essex Dogs, set at Crécy itself, to see you through the weekend. Have a good one.
Feet.
All he could see was feet. Some clad in leather. Some in iron or steel.
Shifting, stamping, slipping. Kicking.
Feet trod on him. Heels with sharp spurs dug into his sides. He tried to get away by crawling forward. But wherever he went there were more feet.
He tried to clamber on to all fours so that he might get up and away from them. But feet kicked him back down. A stray heel caught him hard in the mouth. He tasted blood and knew his lip was split. He spat out a tooth.
Again he tried to scramble up.
Fell.
Two feet stepped on his hands. He yelped. Drooled blood. Another set of feet walked heavily across his gut, winding him.
He tried to roll left. He found himself face to face with a dead man-at-arms. The man had a dagger buried up its hilt in his eye socket. The other eye was wide open in disbelief.
Romford yelled for help. Once more he struggled to get up, and this time in desperation he grabbed one of the legs near him. It was covered in plate armour, which was slick with sweat and mud and spit and puke and piss and blood. His hands slipped, but he found a joint in the armour and pulled himself harder upwards.
He was on his feet, bent over almost double. But as he rose he had smelled, just briefly, fresher air.
Then the leg stumbled backwards. Romford was jolted back with it, and then he was crushed between two sets of armour and the bodies heaving inside and all around them. He heard muffled screams and yelps of pain. He was not sure if they were his someone else’s.
The press became harder. And harder. The air was being emptied from his lungs.
The world started to go black again.
Feet up, shower & beer & you'll be back on form!
Looking forward to receiving my pre-ordered copy of Essex Dogs. Will this project be aired in the US?