‘Shit!’ Macro hissed, thrusting his way through his men towards the threatened area. ‘Stop them! Get those bastards now!’
The legionaries turned their attention on the men grasping the stake, desperately thrusting at their exposed arms. The warriors charged with defending these men were equally determined and shoved forward into the barricade, stabbing the broad iron spearheads at the defenders. The intensity of the struggle was such that both sides fought in teeth-gritting silence, straining with the effort to push the enemy back. Suddenly there came the sharp cracking of wood and with a lurch the stake came free, sending half a dozen of the warriors flying back into the ford. Around them the Britons roared with triumph and pressed forward into the gap.
‘Hold them back!’ Macro cried out, hurriedly throwing his javelin into the enemy ranks. ‘Hold them back!’
He snatched his sword from its scabbard, crouched low and threw his weight behind his shield as he rushed forward to meet the enemy, the nearest legionaries piling in on either side, and behind him. The two sides crunched together, shield to shield, close enough to hear the panted breath of the enemy and the sound of straining in their throats. Crushed inside the curve of his shield Macro worked his sword arm free and stabbed it at any expanse of barbarian cloth, or flesh that came within range. The spears and long swords of the Britons were now useless in the kind of fight the shorter blades of the legions had been expressly designed for. In the press of bodies more and more of the enemy were cut down. Unable to pull back through their ranks, or even collapse, they suffered on their feet or simply bled to death, heads lolling beside the desperate expressions of their still-living comrades.
The Romans had the advantage of height on the river bank, and more solid footing, and managed to hold off the greater weight of enemy numbers. Macro had no idea how long the contest lasted. His mind was simply fixed on defying his enemy, to hold his ground. All around were the grunts and cries of men, the splashing of the red-hued river and the glitter and glare of the harsh sunlight reflecting off raised sword blades and polished helmets, now spattered with gore and mud.
He never heard the harsh bray of the enemy war horns. He became aware only that the Britons were pulling back when the pressure against his shield abruptly eased and he had space to work his sword forward again.
‘They’re going!’ someone shouted with disbelief. A ragged chorus of elated cheers from the Romans echoed across the ford as the Britons withdrew. Macro kept silent, quickly taking the chance to glance around and appraise the situation. One of his men brushed past him, dropping down into the current and taking a pace towards the retreating enemy.
‘YOU!’ Macro bellowed, and the man glanced back, afraid. ‘You are on a fucking charge, my son. Get back up here!’
The legionary backstepped and climbed up the bank to his furious centurion.
‘What the hell are you thinking? Going to take on the whole of bloody Caratacus’ army on your own, were you?’
‘Sorry, sir. I—’
‘You’re sorry, all right! As sorry an excuse for a bloody legionary as I’ve ever met. Do that again and I’ll ram this sword right up your arse. Understand me, boy?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Get back in line.’
The man backed away, merging into the ranks as his comrades mocked him with shakes of the head and muttered tutting noises.
Macro ignored them as he stared across the ford to see what the enemy would try next. Most likely they would simply regroup and attempt to force the gap in the barricade in a more ordered fashion. A movement at his feet drew Macro’s eyes and he saw an enemy warrior trying to rise up from the river bank. All along the edge of the ford the enemy dead and injured were piled on the churned-up shore and in the pebbled shallows. With hardly a thought Macro leaned down to the man and thrust the point of his sword into the warrior’s neck. With a gasp the Briton slumped back down amongst the bodies of his comrades, blood pumping from the wound. His eyes fixed on Macro, wild and desperate. Then they glazed over and he was dead. Macro shook his head and looked up. One down, another twenty-nine thousand to go.
On the far side of the ford the chieftain in charge of the diminished assault group was re-forming his men into a crude testudo, a bristling hedge of spears to the front. As soon as he was satisfied with the formation he shouted an order and the warriors splashed back into the ford.
‘I thought we’d taught the bastards a lesson,’ muttered a soldier close to Macro.
The centurion made a wry smile. ‘I think we’ve taught them one lesson too many.’
This time the enemy had a clear route to the Roman defenders. The testudo would rise up from the river, push through the gap in the barricade and crush the men behind. This was the moment of decision, Macro realised. He strode back up the small hump of the island and looked toward the south bank of the river, searching for sign of Maximius. Nothing. Then he saw a flash, and another, half a mile away, downriver. Macro squinted and made out a tiny silvered mass, like a slender centipede, crawling towards him. For an instant his heart lifted. Then he realised they were still too far off to render any help in time. The decision remained. He could obey his orders and stay and fight, even though there was no hope of keeping the enemy at bay, or he would have to stomach the order to withdraw and try to save his men, even at the cost of his reputation.
Macro turned round and looked towards the enemy shield wall, already a third of the way across the ford, and they were still retaining the formation. It was obvious what he must do. There was simply nothing else for it now and he walked briskly back to his exhausted men leaning on their shields.
Chapter Twelve
As his men marched along in the dust kicked up by those ahead, Centurion Cato was continually scanning the far bank of the Tamesis. The approaches to the ford were choked with men, horses and chariots as the enemy sought to escape the Roman army pursuing them. The trap should have been closed by the Second Legion at the two main crossing points, but it was now clear that General Plautius had failed to catch the Britons between the jaws of his legions and the main blocking forces of Vespasian. Somehow Caratacus had managed to slip out from between them and make for the third crossing, defended by the small covering force of the Third Cohort.
Only the cohort wasn’t in position. The crossing was being held by the eighty men of Macro’s command. Despite all the careful preparation and concentration of forces, the plan was failing. Although he had thirty thousand soldiers under his command, General Plautius would have the issue decided by the actions of a mere eighty. On their shoulders lay the responsibility for the success or failure of the general’s grand scheme to end organised native resistance once and for all. If Caratacus could be crushed before the day was ended then countless lives would be saved in the long run — Roman lives at least.
With a sickening dread Cato feared that Macro would see it the same way and be determined to do everything he could to stop the Britons crossing the river, even if that meant the death of himself and every man in his century. His sacrifice might just delay the Britons long enough for Plautius to fall upon them from behind, and maybe even for Maximius to stall them on the south bank and deny them any escape route.
As he marched beside his men Cato tried to put himself in Macro’s position and as he quickly weighed up the options he realised that he would have accepted the need to stay and fight it out. The stakes were too great to do anything else. He turned to his men.
‘Keep moving! Keep moving, damn you!’
Some of the legionaries in the Sixth Century exchanged surprised looks at this needless outburst and a bitter voice called out, ‘We’re going as fast as we fucking well can!’
Figulus jumped to one side of the column and turned on the men. ‘Shut your mouths! I’ll personally take the head off the next bastard to breathe a word! Save it for the Celts.’
Cato turned his eyes back to the enemy. The far bank was almost covered with men and horses now. They must be close to the fo
rd. Ahead, the river curved away from him and appeared to narrow abruptly. Then, as the gleaming river seemed to cut into the north bank, Cato realised that he was seeing the island that lay in the middle of the ford. His pulse quickened as he squinted his eyes to catch the distant details. The far side of the island was a mass of tiny figures. Sunlight flashed off polished equipment and the spray in the water at the men’s feet. The trees on the small island hid Macro’s legionaries from view and there was no telling how the defenders fared.
As Cato watched, the enemy in the ford began to pull back, scurrying antlike towards their comrades massing on the far bank. His spirits rose as he knew that Macro and his men had repulsed the attack and still lived. Only half a mile now separated the cohort from Macro’s century, and from the front of the column Maximius could be heard bellowing at his men, urging them on with every vile imprecation available to him.
The width of the river was in full view now and Cato could see the enemy forming up for another assault on the island defences. But this time there was something altogether more organised about the attempt to force the crossing. Instead of the shapeless mob rushing towards the Roman lines, Cato saw a dense mass moving across the ford at a steady pace. By the time the enemy reached the far side of the island the cohort was no more than a few hundred yards from the entrance to the ford and Maximius sent the mounted scouts ahead to reinforce Centurion Macro.
They urged their horses on and pounded into the shallows with a great shower of white, sparkling spray. But before they were a third of the way across a legionary burst into sight from between the willows that lined the banks of the island. More men appeared, thrashing through the water. As they caught sight of the scouts they paused a moment, then continued fleeing towards the south bank. This was no rout, Cato realised as he saw that every man still carried his cumbersome shield and bronze and iron helmet. The scouts paused midstream and Cato could see the decurion angrily addressing the legionaries and stabbing his hand towards the island. They ignored him, filing between the flanks of the horses before rushing back towards the near bank. From the island a small tight knot of men emerged and plunged down into the crossing, keeping their shields towards the enemy. A short distance behind them, a handful of Britons followed the Romans into the ford, then more and more joined them, surging after the tiny rearguard covering the retreat of their comrades in the Third Century.
Maximius threw his arm forward along the track and shouted the order to advance. The sweating and panting legionaries broke into a run behind him, boots thudding down on the baked earth. Ahead, Macro’s rearguard and the scouts fought a desperate withdrawal back across the ford, pursued all the way by growing numbers of the enemy. The men who had already reached the near bank were forming up, two deep, across the entrance to the ford. Even so, that thin scarlet line would not hold the bloodthirsty flood of Britons back for more than a brief moment.
The men of the cohort streamed along the track towards their comrades and soon the fittest and fastest of them began to join the Third Century, bolstering their small formation. Cato was close enough to the ford to make out more details of the unequal struggle being fought out midstream, and his heart rose at the sight of the transverse red crest of a centurion’s helmet bobbing about above the heaving figures locked in bloody conflict. Macro still lived then. Even in the face of almost certain annihilation that thought was of some comfort to Cato as he charged down the last slope towards the legionaries hastily being thrust into position at the edge of the ford. Massively outnumbered as they were, they still enjoyed the tactical advantage of occupying a position that could only be assaulted on a narrow front. There was some hope, Cato told himself. Some hope that they might hold Caratacus back.
‘Sixth Century!’ Cato called out. ‘Form up to the right of the line!’
His shattered men shuffled into place at the end of the cohort and could barely stand, coughing and gasping for breath as they leaned on their grounded shields. There was not much fight left in them, and wouldn’t be until they recovered from the forced march under a blistering sun. But the enemy was almost upon them and in a moment they would be fighting for their lives.
The survivors of Macro’s rearguard and the squadron of scouts fought their way back into the shallows, shields locked together as they thrust their short swords at any enemy body or limb that tried to force a gap through the Roman line. Maximius turned to men waiting on the river bank.
‘Fourth Century! Give way!’
A gap opened up in the cohort behind Macro to allow him passage into the line and he bellowed an order to the decurion. ‘Scouts first! Go!’
The mounted men disengaged and urged their horses towards the narrow gap. One rider was too slow, and as his horse struggled round a figure leaped up, grabbed him by the arm and wrenched him to the side. Attacker and scout crashed down into the water together and in an instant the enemy warriors closed round the scout with cries of triumph. A gurgling scream rent the air, then it was cut short as spears and swords thrust into the man’s chest, driving the air from his lungs under the crushing impact of so many weapons. The brief distraction allowed Macro and his men to pull back safely into the ranks of the cohort, soaked by the spray from the river and spattered with the blood of comrades and enemies.
Maximius, standing behind the centre of the cohort, met Macro’s wild-eyed gaze with a look of intense and bitter hatred. ‘You’ve lost the ford.’ There was no time for any exchange of words, and Macro turned round and formed up with his men, facing the endless tide of barbarians surging across the ford towards the cohort. They piled into the shields lining the edge of the ford and hacked and thrust at the Romans behind.
At first the legionaries held their ground, exhausted as they were. The relentless years of training paid off in the steady one-two rhythm of punching the shield boss forward, then withdrawing it as the short sword stabbed at the enemy; a pause for the counterstroke and then the sequence was repeated. As long as the line held. If it broke then all the advantages of tight formation and strict training that made them so ruthlessly effective in battle would be lost in an artless test of strength and violent savagery.
As the weight of enemy numbers increased the cohort began to give ground. It was almost imperceptible, but Cato, positioned on the end of the line and not yet engaged, saw the Roman centre begin to bulge backwards. Maximius saw it too and turned to the decurion and the handful of survivors of his squadron.
‘Find the legate and report the situation to him. Go!’
The decurion saluted and turned his horse downriver, ordering his men to follow. He glanced back over his shoulder one last time at his comrades. ‘Good luck, lads!’
Then he was gone, the pounding of hoofs lost against the clatter of weapons and wild shouts of men locked in the desperate struggle.
‘Hold the line!’ Maximius roared, thrusting his sword in the air towards the enemy. ‘Hold the line, you bastards! Don’t give them an inch!’
The violence of his words was no match for the violent efforts of the enemy, and still the Romans gave ground, forced back step by step. Now some of the legionaries, mostly newer men not yet hardened to the savage reality of battle, began to look nervously over their shoulders. Even as Cato glanced towards the rear of the Roman line he saw a figure take a step back, out of formation. The cohort commander saw it too and ran down to the man, swiping at his head with the flat of his blade.
‘Get back in line!’ Maximius screamed. ‘Move again and I’ll take your fucking head off!’
The legionary jumped forward, the fear of his cohort commander briefly overcoming his terror of the enemy. But he was far from alone in his dread of being butchered by the Britons. As the Romans were steadily thrust back, more and more heads turned to look for a passage to safety.
At the opposite end of the line Cato saw one of the men from Maximius’ own century suddenly throw down his shield, turn and run. Maximius caught the rapid movement and snapped his head round.
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��Get back in line!’
The man turned towards the voice, then snatched at the thongs tying his helmet in place, fumbling to undo them. Then they came free and he wrenched the helmet from his head, threw it to one side and ran towards a small thicket of gorse and stunted trees a short way off.
Maximius slapped the flat of his sword against the side of his silvered greave in rage. He screamed after the fleeing figure. ‘All right then, you scum! You coward! RUN! I’ve got your number! When this is over I’ll fucking stone you to death myself!’
The damage had been done, Cato realised. Other men began to shuffle back, with guilty glances at their companions. The Roman line began to lose more ground and the Britons pressed home their advantage. They forced their enemies back from the ford, all the time broadening the bridgehead so that they could feed more and more men into the fight. Soon the wings of the cohort would be pushed away from the ford and once that happened the legionaries would be enveloped and annihilated.
Maximius saw the building danger and knew that he must act swiftly to save his command. It would require some adroit handling of the cohort; only the First and Sixth Centuries were not engaged in the fight.
‘First Century! Refuse the left flank!’
As his unit folded back to form a right angle with Tullius’ century Maximius turned to the other end of the line and bellowed towards Cato, ‘Sixth Century! Form up on the left!’
‘Come on!’ Cato called to his men. ‘At the double!’
They ran across the rear of the cohort and took position at the end of Maximius’ century, also at a right angle, parallel with the men still fighting the Britons. When all was ready Maximius cast a last eye over the situation and then took the decisive step.
‘Cohort! Disengage to the right!’
Step by step the cohort shifted its ground downriver, the men facing the Britons now concentrating on keeping tight formation rather than killing their enemies. As the Fifth Century moved out of the enemy’s reach it began to wheel round and joined with the end of Cato’s men. But now the cohort had shifted along the bank far enough to open a gap on the left flank and the Britons quickly rolled round it and began to engage the men of the First Century. As more and more of them poured out from the ford and flowed round the Roman formation Maximius glanced towards the right, anxious to complete the transformation of his cohort from line to rectangle. At last the Fourth Century cleared the ford and at once wheeled round to form the last face of the defensive formation. Slowly, with shields facing out on all sides the cohort edged away from the ford and back down the track towards the rest of the legion, their only chance of salvation now.
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