I would that you had a few more men.

But that is a hard lot in the centre." And so he looked down our line with an unmoved face, and turned his horse and rode slowly back to his own men.

Olaf came back to us with a confident look enough.
"There is a man worth fighting," he said to me; "he is foster brother of Thorkel the High, who leads young Cnut, and he seems an honest warrior enough." Then all at once his face hardened, and he spoke in the sharp tone of command: "Get your spearmen forward--the horsemen are coming first." And I saw even before he spoke that this was so, for they were closing in across their line from the wings, and forming up for an attack that they maybe thought would break the grim ranks of Olaf's crew who were the strength of our centre.
So I gave the word, and my spearmen came quickly forward through the viking line, and there stood two deep, setting the butt ends of their spears firmly in the ground at their feet, and lowering the points to meet the horses breast high.

Olaf bade the front rank kneel on one knee and take both hands to the spear shaft, and then the thick hedge of glittering points was double.

I had never seen this plan before, but it was what Olaf had bidden us do if there was a charge of horsemen.