Béhuchet was a rough bourgeois who had served his naval apprenticeship in the king’s exchequer, and whom Philip had been foolish enough to associate with the admirals; this man actually tried to teach an old sea-dog like “Barbevaire.” Hugh Quiéret, the titular admiral, was hardly more skilful than Béhuchet. They massed the fleet in a narrow creek off the coast of Flanders, as if the great thing for a navy was to choose a “sure and easily defensible” position. King Edward and his men, who came along with a fair wind, looked and beheld before Sluys so large a number of vessels that the masts seemed like a wood. The king was very much astonished and asked whose they could be. “Sire,” they said, “it is the Norman army kept by the king of France at sea, and which has done you so much damage and burned the good town of Hantonne (Southampton), and conquered the _Christopher_, your large ship, and slain those who manned her.” “Oh,” said the king, “I have wanted to fight them for a long time, and please God and St. George, we will; for of a truth they have caused me so much vexation that I would avenge myself.” After so saying, he wisely and skilfully set out his ships, putting the strongest in front, and giving the best places to his soldiers and archers. And he manœuvred and wheeled about so as to get the wind and sun on the poop. The Normans thought he was tacking about so as to flee, but the leader of the Genoese auxiliaries was not so deceived. [Illustration: CHÂTEAU OF DIEPPE] “When ‘Barbevaire’ (Barbavara) saw the English ships approaching, he said to the admiral and Nicholas Béhuchet: ‘My lords, here is the king of England and all his navy coming upon us; if you take my advice you will steer for the open sea, for, if you stay here, while they have sun, wind, and wave in their favour, they will hem you in so closely that you will be helpless and unable to manœuvre.’ To this Nicholas Béhuchet, who understood accounts better than naval warfare, answered, ‘Let him be hanged who goes away, for here we will stay, and take our chance.’ ‘My lord,’ replied Barbevaire, ‘since you will not believe me, I will not stay to be destroyed and I shall get myself and my ships out of this hole’” [St. Denis.[h]] And he went off out of the creek with all his Italian galleys and gave all his care to his own fleet. Edward immediately attacked and began by boarding the great _Christopher_, the ship taken from him a year ago by the Normans. The crew were seized, killed, or thrown into the sea, while the fight became general all along the haven. “The battle was hard and fierce on both sides, archers and crossbow-men shot stubbornly at one another, while soldiers closed and fought hand to hand. That they might fight at better advantage they had large hooks with iron chains which they threw from one ship to another and attached them together.”