of the larger ships barons and knights and men-at-arms stood
arrayed in complete armour. The archers were ranged along the bulwarks, or
looked out from the crow's-nest-tops over the swelling sails.

Old Barbavera must have longed to cut lashings, slip cables, drift out on
the tide, and meet the English in the open, but he was in a minority of one
against two. And now the tide was dead slack and began to turn, and King
Edward's trumpets gave the expected signal for action. As their notes rang
over the sea the shouting sailors squared the yards and the fleet began to
scud before the wind for the river-mouth, where beyond the green dykes that
kept the entrance free a forest of masts bristled along the bank towards
Sluys.

The English came in with wind and tide helping them, several ships abreast,
the rest following each as quickly as she might, like a great flock of
sea-birds streaming towards the shore. There could be no long ranging fire
to prelude the close attack. At some sixty yards, when men could see each
other's faces across the gap, the English archers drew their bows, and the
cloth-yard arrows began to fly, their first target the "Great Cristopher"
on the flank of the line. Bolts from cross-bows came whizzing back in
reply. But, as at Crecy soon after, the long-bow with its rapid discharge
of arrows proved its superiority over the slower mechanical weapon of the
Genoese cross-bowmen.

But no time was lost in mere shooting. Two English ships crashed into the
bows and the port side of the "Cristopher," and with the cry of "St. George
for England!" a score of knights vied with each other for the honour of
being first on board of the enemy. The other ships of the English van swung
round bow to bow with the next of the French line, grappled and fought to
board them. King Edward himself climbed over the bows of a French ship,
risking his life as freely as the youngest of his esquires. Then for a
while on the French left it was a question of which could best handle the
long, heavy swords, made not for deft fencing work, but for sheer hard
hacking at helmet and breastplate.

Behind this fight on the flank, ship after ship slipped into the river, but
at first attacked only the left division closely, those that had pushed
furthest in opening with arrow fire on the centre and leaving the right to
look helplessly on. The English archers soon cleared the enemy's tops of
their bowmen, and then from the English masts shot coo