Archers and Crusaders: Historical fiction: Novel of Medieval Warfare by Marines, Navy sailors, and Templar knights in the Middle Ages during England's ... (The English Archers Saga Book 6) Read Online Free PDF Page B

do you and Peter have anyone in mind for our agent in London?”
    @@@@@
           Peter and his Marines will stay here to supervise the work on our new depot and guard the place until a galley from Cornwall returns with whatever men are needed to take their places and complete the work.  When the replacements arrive Peter will lead his men to Hathersage and then on through Devon to Cornwall with our new brood mares, fillies, and wagons. 
           We’ve now got an entire company of what William and the men are starting to call our “Horse Marines.”  Many and perhaps all of Peter’s men and his two sergeants are from that company.  Several dozen of them and a smith came with us; they are the Marines Peter will lead overland to Cornwall. 
           Having companies of highly trained Marines capable of moving quickly from place to place on horseback and in wagons is part of our long term plan for George’s future - and the reason we’ve been buying brood mares and fillies. Most men on horseback these days are either lightly armored cavalry who ride their horses into battle waving swords or heavily armored knights who ride into battle on the great huge warhorses called destriers, the horses the knights ride in their tournaments.  Neither is much of a match for our Marines carrying long bows, pikes, and daggers, and certainly not when our Marines fight and walk in step together as heavy infantry.
           The problem, of course, is getting heavy infantry and their weapons to where they are needed most for the fighting – and that’s why we are acquiring horses and beginning to train some of our Marines to ride and care for them as well as to fight on both land and sea. We’re not old fashioned and stuck in the past like the King and his knights and lords - our horses are for transportation, not for riding into battle.
           Keep a couple of steps ahead of the bastards by being better armed and better prepared when we fight is what William always says - and that’s what George and the boys are being learned in addition to their sums and scribing.
     
                                         Chapter Four
           It’s time to leave.  Peter and those of his men who are going on to Cornwall with the horses stand on the dock and wave as the fog begins to lift and Harold’s galley with William and the boys on board slowly rows off - to thread its way through the mass of anchored ships in the harbor and begin its long run down the channel to Cornwall. 
           We’re not taking any chances in case the weather turns and it takes them longer than expected to reach Cornwall and we to reach Lisbon – both holds are filled with water skins and flour barrels and both decks are covered with livestock and firewood.  The decks are so covered with supplies that until some are eaten away the men will have to climb over a struggling and noisy mass of chickens and living and dead sheep to get to the shite nests hanging over the very rear of each galley. 
           Every inch of available deck is covered because we have to spread the supplies out; if we stack them too high the galley will be top heavy and might go over in a storm.  The heaviest supplies, such as the barrels filled with water and flour, of course, go in the deepest part of our not very deep cargo hold to help hold the ship down in the water so it doesn’t roll over.
           Jeffrey orders our galley to cast off its lines and begin moving at the same time as Harold’s galley.  We’ll follow William and Harold and the boys part of the way down the channel but then veer off for my annual long spring voyage to Rome to pay the Pope via Lisbon, Palma, and Corsica.     
           I’m now in Jeffrey’s galley because Harold is always the captain whenever George is traveling.  That’s why I traveled here on Harold’s galley with George and the boys and why, as soon as we