While the rest of the fleet stayed safely out in mid-channel, we leapt down warily onto the narrow beach with our swords drawn. As we stood at the foot of the steps uncertain what to do, a raven, roosting on the parapet above, gave out a sudden squawk and flapped away. Where it had strutted a solitary face peered cautiously down. Next moment there were shouts from within and the postern gate swung out. Haggard men in battle-stained clothes ran down to meet us. With Harald in the lead, we climbed the steps and entered the village. Inside, a jumble of tiny cottages crowded right up to the wall. Most were blackened by fire and open to the sky where their thatched roofs had been burnt away. In the lane leading from the postern a raggedy mob of women and children, and even some men of fighting age, reached out bony hands to us. They were as sad a lot of human beings as ever I’d seen. Along every path and in every doorway lay wounded men with hollow, haunted eyes. Such few farm animals as could be seen were skeletons, hardly worth the boiling, though even they would go into the pot soon enough.
