At any rate, before the great bulk of the train could have got upon the ford, the first horse of the King of France's scouts and vanguard appeared upon the sky-line of the heights above Saigneville, and immediately a considerable force of the enemy were upon the English wagons with their insufficient rearguard. The King of France himself, following upon Edward's track mile by mile, had reached Mons, had learnt that Edward had doubled back from Boismont, and had detached a body to cut across country to the ford on the chance of preventing Edward from crossing. He had not been quick enough to achieve this, but the French appeared in time, as I have said, to catch the wheeled vehicles behind the English army before they had got into line upon the causeway. Edward, with that good military head, which always seized immediate things upon a field, had stayed somewhat to the rear of the main body to watch for such an accident. He was not able to save the bulk of his train, but he saved his army. Much of the booty and of the provision fell to the French. This mishap, which shows how close a chance permitted the safety of Edward's fighting force, had no little effect upon the succeeding two days, for it left the English army in part without food. I say "in part," because for some of them the defect was remedied, as we shall see, by the capture of Crotoy. So the English army passed with the loss of some of its train, but with very little loss of men. Pursuit was impossible; the tide now rising forbade even the thought of it, and somewhere about noon the entire host was marshalled upon the northern bank of the river, and was safe. The whole story forms one of the most striking details in the history of medieval warfare.