Identifying the prefect as the same man who had let Caratacus through the line just two days previously, he resolved to forgive him if he played his part well. ‘Prefect Galeo, take your men through the Hamians and link up with the first and second cohorts.’
‘Yes, sir! Do you want—’
‘Don’t talk about it, do it!’
The prefect swallowed and crashed a salute. He bellowed the order to advance and the eight hundred Gauls moved forward at the double. Within a few moments they were filtering through the Hamians’ formation; the archers ceased their volleys as they passed and then turned towards the fort once they were clear.
As the Gauls reached the open ground they broke into a charge, preventing the Britons from encroaching too far forward now that the arrows had stopped flying. Roaring the battle cry of their forefathers they threw themselves at the Britons’ shield-wall with a mighty clash of iron.
The gap had been plugged but as Vespasian looked along the Roman line he saw that, in the centre, it had started to buckle and the reserve cohorts were retreating.
Once again digging his heels into the bruised flanks of his mount, Vespasian forced the tiring beast into action; speeding past the depleted legionary cavalry now rallying next to their Gallic comrades he caught sight of his prefect of the camp. ‘Maximus! With me!’
The veteran spun his horse and accelerated it after his commander.
Within a hundred pounding heartbeats, Vespasian reached the first reserve legionary cohort as the bulge in the line deepened and the clamour from the Britannic host intensified. ‘What the fuck are you doing marching away?’ he roared at the primus pilus. ‘Get your cohort in to support the centre with its weight.’
‘But you just sent a legionary cavalry messenger with orders for us to fall back, sir.’
‘Fall back? With the line threatening to break? I gave no such order; now, get forward before we’re all dead.’
The centurion saluted and bellowed the order to turn and advance. Vespasian rode on up the reserve line of a further retreating two cohorts, halting them. ‘You stay here with these cohorts, Maximus. We’re holding a defensive position. Hold the line at all costs, understand?’
Maximus nodded and grinned. ‘How long do you expect us to hold?’
Vespasian offered a quick prayer to Mars to guide him in the art of war as he turned his horse. ‘Until I hear from Valens and can contrive a counter-attack that will break the Britons’ will.’
CHAPTER IIII
VESPASIAN BROUGHT HIS mount to a violent halt next to Cogidubnus, who was waiting with the young tribunes, Marcius and Vibius; behind them stood the Britannic auxiliaries with the Gallic cavalry and the now rallied remnants of the legionary cavalry, fewer than eighty troopers in total. Blassius arrived moments later.
‘I left the other Gallic auxiliaries with Valens and the second cohort as you ordered, sir,’ the tribune reported, shouting against the din of combat along the third of a mile front. ‘The Batavians were just arriving with him as I left. He said that there was no one in the fort.’
‘I know there was no one in the fort,’ Vespasian replied, trying to keep his voice level but failing. ‘What about a flank attack? Were the Britons trying to force a way around behind the fort?’
‘No, sir, not by the time I left. Valens had begun to move around the hill; he reckoned that, provided he doesn’t encounter opposition, it would take a quarter of an hour before he would be in position for a flank attack.’
Vespasian ran a hand through his hair, his face taut. ‘Yes, that’s what I thought.’ He glanced up the Roman line; the reinforced centre had pushed back but the Britons’ assault showed no signs of abating. ‘We need to break them before they wear us down. Are your men ready to be blooded, Cogidubnus?’
The King held his look. ‘They will prove their loyalty to Rome and reap their revenge on Caratacus for his years of subjugation of the Atrebates and the Regni.’
‘I’m sure they will. Have some men collect the ladders left up by the gate and then take your lads down into the outermost ditch. I’ll meet you there; we can use it to work our way behind the Britons’ line.’
‘The rebel tribes’ line,’ Cogidubnus corrected.
‘Indeed, the rebels’ line.’ Vespasian turned back to Blassius. ‘Go up to the Hamians …’ Vespasian faltered, looking over the tribune’s shoulder; there were no archers lining the fort’s palisade silhouetted by the fires within. ‘The Hamians! Where in Hades are they?’
Cogidubnus pointed south; the rear of the eastern archers’ column could just be seen, a few hundred paces away, disappearing into the night. ‘They turned around and marched off south soon after you left.’
‘I gave no such order.’
‘I saw a legionary cavalry messenger ride up to them and then they turned and left. I assumed that he must have come from you.’
‘That’s the second false message.’ He paused, suddenly realising what was happening. ‘Alienus! It must be him. Which way did he go?’
‘I didn’t notice.’
Blassius frowned with recollection. ‘One passed me just now heading around the fort towards Valens’ position.’
‘Gods below! Blassius, take a half turma of the Gauls and get after him; capture him before he stops Valens with another false message. I want him alive.’
Blassius saluted and hurried off, and Vespasian turned his attention to Marcius and Vibius. ‘Marcius, take another half turma of the Gauls and get those Hamians back to the fort as fast as they can run; and I mean run. I want them on the palisade shooting down into the flank of that hairy horde now! Vibius, we’re going to force a gap between the ditch and the left flank of the line; when we do, take the rest of the cavalry through and take the long-hairs in the rear.’
The young man saluted, determination written on his face but with anxiety in his eyes. Vespasian prayed that the former would overcome the latter as he turned back to Cogidubnus. ‘Let’s get this done; we don’t have much time.’
‘It looks like we’ll have to get out of that ditch without archer support,’ Cogidubnus observed.
‘I’m afraid so, my friend.’
‘Then it’s just as well that a quarter of my lads have slings.’
‘What are you doing here?’ Vespasian asked, seeing Magnus walking down from the fort’s gates; behind him a party of Britannic auxiliaries collected up the discarded ladders used in the abortive assault while the rest of the cohort clambered down into the outermost defensive ditch just behind the first cohort’s line.
‘Ah! Watching the shambles I think is the nicest way I can put it. What the fuck’s going on?’
‘Alienus has been riding around the field posing as my messenger, giving false orders; but despite that, we’ve just managed to hold off a surprise night attack for the last quarter of an hour in what I would describe as a desperate scramble to stay alive, not a shambles. Now if you’ve got nothing better to do than criticise then I would suggest that you piss off back to bed and wait to see whether you wake up in the morning with a Briton’s spear up your arse or not.’
Magnus looked out over the battle raging below. ‘No, I’ll stay. What made you guess they were coming?’
Vespasian turned towards the ditch. ‘There’s no time for that now.’
‘Where’re you going?’
‘Down into that ditch with a whole load of Britons who promise me that they would rather kill other Britons than Romans.’
‘Then I’d better come along and make sure that they keep that promise.’
The cacophony of ringing metallic clashes and human cries of pain, encouragement, fear and despair grew deafening as Vespasian weaved his way through the sharpened stakes embedded in the bottom of the ditch; the Britannic auxiliaries followed behind. They were level with the line of combat but the rampart on the front lip of the ditch hid them from the combatants’ sight.
Vespasian raised an arm, halting the auxiliaries. He looked up to his left; the silhouetted pal
isade was still devoid of archers. ‘Shit!’ he hissed under his breath, turning to Cogidubnus next to him. ‘We can’t afford to wait. We’ll have to do this with your slingers; how many have you got?’
‘The front rank of each century, so two hundred.’
‘They’ll be spread out along the column; how do we sort them out to send them forward first?’
‘I’ve already done it; they’re all at the front. I’ll take them forward with five of the ladders to about fifty paces behind the rebels’ line and get them into position. As soon as we’re there I’ll give a signal of a repeated short note on the cornu and we’ll start shooting into their rear.’
Vespasian waited until the slingers were clear before ordering the cohort’s primus pilus to lean the remaining ten ladders at intervals along the side of the ditch with the remains of the centuries, each headed by its centurion, waiting in readiness at the bottom. He took his place at the foot of the first.
As he watched the cohort get into position in the gloom of the ditch, Vespasian caught his breath and tried to steady himself after the frenetic race to save the legion. It had been less than half an hour since he had stepped out of the first cohort’s formation realising that there was an unseen danger approaching from the north; his pulse quickened again as he contemplated what would have happened had he not made the connection in time. He looked at Magnus next to him. ‘If it hadn’t been for Hormus we could well be dead by now.’
‘So even the humblest of slaves can save a legion.’
‘Indirectly, yes. I realised what I had overlooked: the significance of Cogidubnus’ scouts in the north not sending any message: they were all dead. Then I put together two things that we’d talked about the other night and realised that we had been drawn into a trap. Caratacus put himself up as bait and sacrificed those people in the last hill-fort to draw me here; he’d arranged to meet up with all those horsemen after he’d escaped to make his tracks obvious. He wanted me to know where he was going. But to make absolutely sure I followed, Alienus gave his name to the auxiliary prefect knowing that I would have found out by now that it was he who had betrayed Sabinus – and to find Sabinus I need Alienus; so I had to come.’
‘I suppose when you look at it that way it was all too neat.’
‘Exactly; and then when there was no alarm raised in the fort and I remembered those condemned men shouting so urgently I knew that there was no one in there; it was a trap and we’d been goaded into a night attack.’
‘And the savages were just waiting out there to the north and they very nearly got us.’
‘They still might.’
Magnus felt the weight of his gladius, contemplating the honed blade. ‘Not if I have any say in the matter.’
Vespasian looked along the ditch; the centuries were in position. ‘Come on, Cogidubnus, what’s keeping you?’
After a few more thumped heartbeats that added to the tension racking his body, Vespasian heard the low call of a cornu from behind the Britons’ line. With a nod to the primus pilus he pushed the ladder upright so that its head appeared over the top of the rampart and scaled its twenty-foot height with a speed that reflected the desperation of the situation. Propelling himself onto the top of the rampart he found himself level with the third rank of the Roman defence, who were struggling to keep their footing on the steep slope, hunched down behind their shields as they pushed them into the backs of the men in front in a desperate attempt to hold back the horde that had pressed them for so long. Unlike the Romans, the Britons were not tightly packed but rather in loose formation to best utilise their long slashing-swords; they flowed back and forth hacking and cutting at the rectangular semi-cylindrical shields and iron helmets of the rigid front rank of the II Augusta’s élite cohort, braving the blood-dripping blades that punched out from between the gaps in the shields.
With a quick glance to his right to assure himself that Vibius had brought the cavalry into position, Vespasian swept his sword from its scabbard and pelted along the crown of the earthwork, Magnus and the primus pilus following, as slingshots cannoned into the exposed backs of the rearmost Britannic warriors, felling many and causing consternation to spread through their haphazard, loose ranks. Taken by surprise, the Britons looked up to see Roman soldiers, with long hair flowing from beneath their helms and drooping moustaches framing their bellowing mouths, appearing above them; for many the lapse in concentration meant that it was the last thing they saw.
‘Second Augusta! Second Augusta!’ Vespasian roared in warning to the legionaries below, hurling himself into the midst of their foes, punching his shield boss into the upturned face of a startled warrior and taking him crashing to the ground underneath him as all around the unblooded auxiliaries of Cogidubnus’ cohort leapt down onto their fellow countrymen in the name of Rome.
Raising himself to his knees, Vespasian jabbed his sword tip under the ribs of the concussed man beneath him whilst raising his shield over his head, deflecting a downward cut from his left. Bellowing obscenities, Magnus barrelled past, body-checking the perpetrator as behind them more and more auxiliaries piled down from the earthworks, crashing into the Britons’ flank, using their downhill momentum to great advantage. Without order in their attack they had no formation but careered on regardless of lack of support to either side, creating a melee of individual combats as they inveigled their way deep into the Britons’ fracturing flank. The aim of the slingers adjusted with the auxiliaries’ progress, thinning out the rearmost warriors so that the push through them was becoming oblique. But then came the sound that Vespasian had been hoping for: the wet hollow thuds of arrows thumping into chests close by.
Punching his sword into the temple of a kneeling wounded warrior, Vespasian pulled back from the front rank of the advance and shouted at the auxiliary primus pilus, ‘Get some order into your lads, close them up!’ The officer acknowledged and drove forward roaring at his men to form up on him. Vespasian stood, breathing deeply, allowing the rest of the cohort to stream past, their rate of progress gradually increasing in line with the panic spreading along the Britons’ line.
But Vespasian knew that it was far from over. Looking behind him he saw that they had cleared about twenty paces of the first cohorts’ frontage; it was enough. ‘Pull your men back from the rampart, Livianus!’ he ordered, picking out the centurion from amongst the bloodied, exhausted front-rank legionaries by the transverse horsehair plume on his helmet. ‘Make a gap for the cavalry.’
Livianus nodded his understanding and immediately began shouting at his battle-weary men as Vespasian ran back to the rampart and scrambled up it. Looking down along the battle’s front from his high position on the hill his heart faltered: it was concave and the two cohorts that he had left in reserve with Maximus had been deployed; there were no reinforcements left. But worse still: there was now fire in the II Augusta’s camp; he could do nothing but pray that Caepio, with the last two Gallic cohorts, could deal with the incursion. ‘Valens, where are you?’ he muttered to himself as the gap between the first cohort and the ramparts finally opened. Vibius’ arrival at the head of the cavalry was as prompt as Vespasian could have wished for. The young tribune stopped by Vespasian to return his horse; Vespasian mounted and spoke to Vibius privately. ‘Our centre could break very soon if it’s not supported. Cause as much carnage to them there as you can, buy us time with your lives or we’re all dead; understand?’
Vibius swallowed hard and sucked in a lungful of air through his nose as he realised what was being asked of him and his men. ‘Yes, legate, I understand; trust me to do my duty.’
Vespasian reached over and grasped the young man’s shoulder. ‘Thank you. Now go.’
Vibius kicked his mount forward, looking dead ahead with blank eyes; the Gallic and legionary cavalry streamed through the gap behind him unaware of what their legate was expecting of them.
‘You look like you’ve just been told of a death in the family,’ Magnus said, walking over to Vespasian as the last o
f the cavalry sped out into the open; his forearms, chest and face were smeared with blood.
‘Not me,’ Vespasian replied, his face grim as he watched the troopers ride down the hill into the distance. ‘But I’ve just demanded that perhaps five hundred other families will get that news.’
‘Well, sir, it’s a lot better than eight thousand families.’
‘I know that, so I had no choice.’ Vespasian shook himself. He felt sick to his very core but he knew that there had been no alternative if he was to preserve the main body of his command, and also his career, intact. He forced himself to watch as Vibius and his cavalry thundered into the Britons’ centre, just grey silhouettes at that distance but each silhouette was a man whom, in all likelihood, he had sent to die.
Where was Valens?
Cogidubnus’ auxiliaries had cleared the Britons from the hill; the first cohort was now unopposed and the Hamians up on the palisade were too distant to be able to shoot with any effectiveness into the enemy. Still with no sign of Valens’ flanking move, Aulus Plautius’ advice came to Vespasian’s mind: In war you should never wish for what you don’t have, it takes your mind from using what you do have to its best effect. ‘Magnus, run up to the fort and tell Marcius to bring the Hamians down here. I want them to follow up the advance, just behind Cogidubnus’ left flank to ensure that none of the hairy bastards slip round.’
‘Oh, so I’m a messenger-boy still, am I?’
Vespasian looked over his shoulder as he urged his horse away down the slope. ‘Just do it!’ Galloping along the body-strewn frontage of the first cohort he came to Tatius’ position on its extreme right abutting the Gallic auxiliaries whose timely charge had plugged the gap in the Roman line, less than half an hour before. ‘I’m glad to see you still with us, primus pilus.’
‘A good few of my lads aren’t.’ Tatius looked down at the tangled corpses, both Briton and Roman, and spat a blood-tinged gobbet of saliva into the face of a gutted warrior at his feet; a slight twitch indicated that there was still life within. ‘They were fucking relentless; we only managed to rotate the ranks once.’ Tatius slammed his foot onto the man’s throat, crushing his windpipe.
Masters of Rome: VESPASIAN V (Vespasian 5) Page 9
