Thomas nods. He still has arrows to loose and the guns by the town gate keep firing. One of the bombard barrels is sighted across the hard and Thomas can see men crouched over it, blowing on the wick to set the fire going. Then they all step back and clap their hands over their ears as the gun goes off with a jump. It belches a great spike of smoke and the noise itself is enough to drive a man mad.

The stone passes through a rank of men at the front; four of them are instantly cored. Bodies drop and sprawl. A mist of blood drifts in the air. Men wail. They try to turn and run but the vintenars are there with their pollaxes, driving them on with jabs and thrusts.

Then the second gun fires. But it explodes. Chunks of iron and oak hurtle into the gathered defenders, scattering them in a cloud of smoke and blood, ripping them to pieces. The invaders cheer. They take new courage and storm forward across the blood-slicked hard. More ships’ companies debouch and join the assault; fresh numbers begin to tell and soon it looks as if they’ll do what they came to do.

They move up into the town, one pace at a time, seeking the shelter of walls, barrels and coils of rope and carts, but the arrows still find them out, heavy bodkin heads landing with a distinct chunk, thumping into wood and daub, stone and flesh.

Thomas’s muscles go on working without him thinking, until he is out of arrows. With his bag hanging limp at his belt and sweat in his eyes, he turns and pushes his way back through the press of men, twisting to let other archers take his place.

Walter is there, paused by a foul-smelling alleyway between two new-built cottages.

‘We need to get around behind the guns,’ he shouts. ‘Bring that bloody pollaxe and come with me.’

Thomas sets off after him, but they are too late. The defenders have run out of arrows too, and now they throw aside their bows and draw their side weapons – the mauls, the daggers, the falchions, the pimp cleavers – and they swarm forward over their wall to engage with their attackers. Fauconberg’s billmen move forward to meet them and so begins the mêlée, the cutting and hacking hand-to-hand fighting that will be decided not by skill but by the fear of being driven back into the sea.

For a moment it looks to be in doubt. The press of the defenders seems heavier than that of the attackers, but the drums are beating and trumpets are sounding and men are shouting for Fauconberg. The left flank gives under the pressure, and the axis of the fight pivots. But a knot of armoured men-at-arms under Fauconberg’s banner surge forward and already the left flank is rallying, and then the right is turning the enemy.