Since we knew King Ine was massing troops to invade us, we were taking steps of our own. The information we had indicated he was assembling an army of ten thousand men. While we had the quality, he would have the quantity. We had to be careful, or we would get overrun.
Our spies reported he would be aiming for Dereham. This hadn't taken a lot of spycraft to work out. It was the talk in every tavern in his Capital, Worcester. There were even maps of his planned invasion route.
Our scouts confirmed this as he had parties out improving the roads for his army. Most streams in his path could be forded. Several bridges were needed along the route. We planned to blow them up before they got to them. The slower his army marched, the worse shape it would be in.
Dysentery would follow his army as they marched. The longer they took, the greater their losses. That would be in our favor.
We began setting up clean campsites for our Army. The Keep at Dereham could only contain one thousand troops. The other four thousand troops we could deploy would have to be stationed at camps below the battle line.
Our surveyors laid out a city. Advance troops prepared the land for the camp. Latrines were dug, and safe water supplies were established. Stables and headquarters built. A ten-foot-high concrete wall was poured and set up to contain the camp. It wouldn’t be a serious defense, but it would keep prying eyes at a distance.
I knew the enemy would have scouts out, and they would find us. But getting a good look would be another thing.
Roads were laid out along with tent sites inside the walls. A map was made of the Fort. It was a Fort in the sense it was our Army assembly point, not like a defensive Fort.
The water supply was the most difficult to set up. It took a lot of water daily for four thousand men and five hundred horses. We solved that by putting up four water towers and pumping water in from a stream two miles away. The water lines were buried so they couldn’t be casually broken. If it came to a siege, we would be in trouble.
Being held to a static position was the last thing I would allow to happen.
My troops, men and women, wouldn't be moved up until we were certain the invasion was on its way to Dereham. The different units were held at their local Keeps, undergoing extra training, especially marksmanship.
All the food and other supplies to support our army in the field were being prepositioned at Fort Dereham. It's not an original name, but it worked. If this battle gave us outstanding heroes, we could use their names in the future. We didn't have any of that nature yet.
Baroness Agnes had her MASH units set up inside Dereham Keep and Fort Dereham. Her people were as ready as they could be.
Radio communications were set up at both locations. When it would be time to move the troops in place, each unit would have a color-coded map showing where they were to go. It was a simple Green One unit go to the Green One campsite, Green Two to Green Two. Simple but effective.
There would also be Military Police units at all major intersections to give additional directions to the map challenged. There would even be guides for the hopeless. Yes, there would be those who couldn't find a wall inside a barn.
Our rail system has now reached Dereham. We had ten engines in use and one hundred cars. Theoretically, we could move our entire army in two trips in a single day. We planned on one trip a day for ten days, and that might be optimistic.
Fort Dereham was south of Dereham Keep. And it was only intended as an assembly point. We didn't intend to fight any battles there. If we had to fight at the Fort, we were in dire straits.
In preparing the battlefield, we cleared an area two miles wide before Dereham Keep. No houses had been allowed to be put up on that side of the Keep, so we didn’t have to tear any structures down.
All civilians in the village and Keep would be evacuated back into Cornwall. They would ride the trains returning from delivering our troops. Everyone was assigned a Keep to go to if they didn’t have a family to take them in.
We gave plenty of notice if they had animals or large items they wanted to take, they should move them now. When the evacuation started, it would be only what you could carry with you.
Since the railroad was up and running with stock and freight cars, there was a lot of movement. Many families didn’t wait for an evacuation order and left. That would put less stress on the system later.
After clearing what would be the main battlefield, we put up earthen berms and redoubts extending out at an angle on each side of the Keep. The berms had firing steps built in. There were also cannon emplacements along each line. The effect was a funnel in which King Ine and his men would be forced. He wouldn't be able to go around because trees were felled in a tangled mess for three miles on each side of the berms.
He could go around, but we would have plenty of warning. And it would tire and weaken his army if he tried.
So we set five cannons on each side of the funnel, with ten mounted in the Keep. Those alone would be devastating to his army. Add to it four thousand quick-firing rifles, and it would be a slaughter.
We had a wonderful battle plan. I wondered how it would go wrong. They always do.
The battlefield was staked with distance markers, tree trunks left in place and color-coded. My biggest concern was fire from the angled lines near the Keep hitting troops on the other line. As they say, friendly fire isn't friendly.
We put a stake near the archers and another on the ground at each firing position at a calculated angle. Firing from the left side of the stake and not to the right of the stake lying on the ground, you wouldn't be aimed at troops on the other side.
The angle of the stakes gradually changed the further you went from the Keep, so if you used the stakes correctly, you would never be aimed at troops across from you. Even so, some idiot would fire off angle and shoot high, hitting one of his fellow troops. It was a fact of war.
In small firefights, friendly fire was noticeable. In large, pitched battles with bullets everywhere, no one knew who killed who. If an officer had a bullet in the back, it roused suspicion, but with all that was happening, no investigation would find out where the fire came from.
We received word King Ine started moving his forces toward Dereham. It was 186 miles from Worcester to Dereham, so at five to seven miles a day, it would take the better part of a month for the trip.
Unless he had a supply train set up, his men would have to forage for food. They would be like locusts eating everything in sight. I decided to help him by sending troops to harry his supply train. We wanted his troops to arrive hungry and demoralized.
I knew it was hoping too much, but I didn’t want to kill any more of his men than needed. We always needed more people.
That was my hope. The reality was we were about to kill a whole bunch of people.
Knowing Ine's army was on the move allowed us to set some timetables. We wouldn't bring the bulk of our forces until a week before his arrival.
In the meantime, our reservists who had been called up were allowed to go home with an understanding that they would return in three weeks. All our regular soldiers were on site in the Dereham area.
It had taken us a month to plan and prepare for King Ine's invasion; now, we had to wait another month for his troops to arrive. The waiting was driving me nuts. I now have a small taste of how the planners of the D-day invasion must have felt. Their planning took years.
Though it seemed like years, King Ine’s Saxon-Angle army finally arrived. As predicted, they lost men on the way due to dysentery, accidents, and other ills. They started with an army of ten thousand. They were down to about seventy-five hundred.
They were tired, hungry, and demoralized. Just like we wanted them. Any hopes of an easy victory fell by the wayside when King Ine didn't come to the front lines with his troops. We were ready for him if he did. I had manufactured ten fifty caliber rifles with bull barrels to contain the powerful shot.
He was either a coward, knew the power of our rifles, or was too smart to be on the front lines. I hoped for a coward and feared too smart.
They set up their camp outside of our killing ground. I expected them to spend several days resting up from the march, but they must have been really hungry. They attacked the day after their arrival.
The unsuspecting army marched into our funnel. My troops had set up in the early dawn, so they were ready.
I fired a red flare when the opposing army was in position. Ten cannons firing almost at once make a lot of noise. They also kill a lot of soldiers.
I had to give the Angles credit. They didn’t panic. They held their ground.
As instructed, our riflemen fired at the furthest back ranks. We wanted to block them from leaving the field. King Ine's army was in two groups: conscripts and regulars. The conscripts were up front. In this case, cannon fodder was the correct description of them. They turned and tried to run.
The regular troops were made of sterner stuff and held their ground. This had the conscripts trying to get through the ranks of the regulars. It threw all of them into disarray. About that time, the cannons had been reloaded and fired again.
Now, there was no cohesion in King Ine's army. It was every man for himself. My soldiers were firing shot after shot, killing them in windrows.
The sight was sickening. It reminded me of tin types I had seen from the Civil War.
The funnel was the bottle in my battle plan. Now, it was time to put the stopper in.
Five hundred of my troops, two hundred and fifty a side, had held back from the angled firing line. Their job was to block the enemy from leaving the funnel. I signaled them to advance with a green flare.
They closed off the killing ground. Another fifty mounted troops chased the fleeing King Ine and his generals. They rode them down. I had given the order he was not to survive the battle.
He didn't.
The troops in the funnel started to throw down their weapons. I ordered a cease-fire with two green flares. Over three thousand lay dead on the ground. Another thousand or so were wounded, with many of them dying soon.
As Wellington said about his friends and troops killed at Waterloo, "Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won.”