By Friedrich Bargideon
Arrival in Normandy — The Re-Dispatch
I woke to the sound of gulls and the salt of the Channel wind. The air stung cold, yet the earth beneath me was not the steppes of Russia. It was Normandy. The year was 1415. Providence had sent me again. I no longer ask how such translation occurs. The manner is God’s; the purpose is mine to obey. Each time He sets me down among men preparing for war, and each time the smell of mud and fear is the same.
Henry’s host sprawled along the estuary near the mouth of the Seine, banners flapping damp against grey sky. I walked through lines of tents sewn from coarse sailcloth, past bowmen stringing their yew and men-at-arms cleaning rust from harness and plate. They called me “the chronicler,” believing me a clerk from some foreign court. I let them. The truth of my commission was beyond their reckoning. I was there to watch, to record, and to remember.
Source: BritishBattles.com
Encirclement — The Siege Begins
On the nineteenth of August the king’s order went out. We advanced on Harfleur. The town sat behind strong walls, stone and pride in equal measure, with the river lapping its moat. Henry meant to take it quickly, but sieges have a rhythm of their own—first the shouting, then the digging, then the dying. His gunners dragged bombards through the mud, their iron throats fed with powder and stone. When they fired, the ground trembled. I had felt such tremors once before, when German shells cracked open the steppe outside Kursk. Time folds where men kill.
Source: BritishBattles.com
Days blurred into nights lit by the red pulse of artillery. The English tunneled toward the walls, the French counter-mined, and beneath us the earth became a web of smoke and shouts. I crouched in one such passage when the timbers above gave way. The air filled with dust and prayer. A man beside me whispered that St. George himself held the ceiling; I knew better. It was Providence again, sparing me for reasons still unclear.
The Plague Within the Camp
Then came the sickness. Dysentery ran through the camp faster than any French charge could have done. The ditches overflowed; the very air turned sour. Men who had stormed the breaches now fell helpless before a fever. I moved among them with quill and water-skin, listening to their muttered confessions. The mud clung to their boots the way Russian clay once clung to tank treads—hot then, cold now, but always red.
Henry rode the lines daily, his armor dulled by grime, his eyes bright with something between faith and exhaustion. I spoke with him once at dawn. He asked if I thought the town would yield. I told him every wall falls eventually—some by stone, some by plague, most by pride. He nodded, not understanding the full weight of it. Kings seldom do.
Assault and Breach
The bombardment continued for weeks. The roar of iron against stone became the heartbeat of the siege. When the breach finally opened, the king ordered the assault. I followed close behind the vanguard. Arrows hissed, ladders splintered, men screamed in the narrow gap. The defenders fought with the desperation of those who know surrender means shame. I saw a boy no older than sixteen drive a pike through a knight’s visor, then drop his weapon and vomit. Courage and horror are twins born of the same mother.
Surrender and Silence
By mid-September the banners of Harfleur sagged. The town starved, its wells fouled. On the twenty-second the gates opened. The defenders marched out hollow-eyed, their captain Raoul de Gaucourt bowing stiffly to Henry. The king accepted the keys and offered terms. Behind him, the wounded moaned in the mud. I watched as the standard of England rose over the gate. Victory, they called it. I called it contagion given new ground.
BritishBattles.com
The Chronicler’s Prayer
When night fell I walked alone along the riverbank. The air carried both the sea and the stench of decay. I thought of other fields—Prokhorovka, Narva, places where men had sworn that God favored them. Always the same certainty before the same graves. I knelt and prayed as a soldier does: few words, all sincerity. “You’ve sent me again, Lord. The weapons change. The lesson never does.”
I slept little that night. In the flicker of campfires I saw faces from other wars, men I had known centuries hence, their eyes accusing and forgiving in the same breath. I understood then that my dispatch was not yet complete. Harfleur was only the prologue. North lay Calais, and beyond that a field whose name would be remembered for both glory and grief.
When Henry’s trumpet sounded the march, I took up my pen and followed. The mud clutched at my boots like a living thing, unwilling to release me. The siege was over; the war was not. Providence had turned another page, and I, its unwilling scribe, would read what came next.
Field Notes & Historical Sources
– Siege of Harfleur: 19 August – 22 September 1415.
– Henry V’s force landed with ~10,000; disease reduced the army by nearly half.
– Artillery and mining operations undermined the walls; dysentery crippled the besiegers.
– Commanders of Harfleur: Raoul de Gaucourt and Jean d’Estouteville.
– After surrender, Henry left a garrison and marched north, leading to Agincourt (25 October 1415).
End of Part I – Harfleur: The Fever Before Glory