'Twas a Good Shock'

"Though our archers stood the first brunt, the day was not left all to them. Soon the french footmen, thirsting for vengeance, trampled down their genoese allies and came at us up the slope" "The crimson blood went smoking down to the rivulets and the savage scream of battle went up into the sky as that long front of ours, locked fast in the burnished arms of france, heaved and strove and bent," he said. 'And we piled knight and vassal serf and master sling and slave all into that ditch in front'