Just gather up and shoot the enemy’s arrows back at him.
the enemy would find that offensive
Pull ‘em out of the dead guy next to you
dear brad,
re: ‘Just gather up and shoot the enemy’s arrows back at him.’
The English used longbows, usually of six foot lengths.
The French used **crossbow bolts**, which were shorter in length, than the draw length of an English warbow, somewhere around 33-35 inches from foreknuckle of bow hand to just before the ear of the archer.
Those that hunted and were bowyers, would mark the distance from foreknuckle to the corner of their mouth, as touched by their 3-finger string grasp with their middle finger.
Which is where that salute came from ... the French, when capturing English bowmen, would cut ‘that’ finger off, as a means of ‘disarming’ the English archer. So... as a thumb in the eye, ‘that finger’ salute to French crossbowmen captured, became what it is today.