With a scream of horror they saw the mast
cracking beneath them. Over it went, slowly at first, then
faster, until with a crash it came down on its side, sending them
flying like stones from a sling far out into the sea. A swath of
crushed bodies lay across the deck where the mast had fallen. But
the English ship had not escaped unscathed. Her mast held, it is
true, but the mighty shock not only stretched every man flat upon
the deck, but had shaken a score of those who lined her sides into
the sea. One bowman was hurled from the top, and his body fell
with a dreadful crash at the very side of the prostrate King upon
the forecastle. Many were thrown down with broken arms and legs
from the high castles at either end into the waist of the ship.
Worst of all, the seams had been opened by the crash and the water
was gushing in at a dozen places.
But these were men of experience and of discipline, men who had
already fought together by sea and by land, so that each knew his
place and his duty. Those who could staggered to their feet and
helped up a score or more of knights who were rolling and clashing
in the scuppers unable to rise for the weight of their armor. The
bowmen formed up as before. The seamen ran to the gaping seams
with oakum and with tar. In ten minutes order had been restored
and the Philippa, though shaken and weakened, was ready for battle
once more.
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