Then I asked again that I might go.
"If you must fall, it shall be at my side, cousin," said Olaf, laying his hand on my arm.

"Eadmund does not need you." For now he and his men were coming back to the ships, having won nought but knowledge of the strength of the fort.

The Danes would not leave their walls to follow the retreating English, though Eadmund halted just beyond bow shot, and waited as if to challenge them to fight in the open.
Now by this time the tide was almost full, and the stream of the flood was slackening.

And it seemed as if one might easily scale the bulwarks of the great low-timbered bridge from the foredeck of a ship.

Ethelred saw that, and as soon as his men were on board again the word was passed that attack on the bridge should be made by every vessel that could reach it.
As it fell out, we of Olaf's eight ships lay below the rest, and must have passed them to reach the bridge.