Marine 2: A Very Unusual Roman (The Agent of time)

by Tanya Allan

The tall one in the middle was ever so familiar – I knew him. Jane had killed him more than once in the nineteenth century! Then he’d used the name Armes. What his real name was, I have no idea, but he was here now, and looking almost the same as he had in Paris, London and the young United States.

  He wore contemporary clothing, or I assume he did. The long cloak covered a multitude of things. His hair was longer and he had a beard, but I’d know him anywhere. He must have managed to kill his old self in the States in order to go back to square one. Now their ploy failed to raise Napoleon in that era, here he was trying again to twist history to someone else’s advantage. I wondered who and why.

  I knew that Jane did not look like Layla in anyway. I was now taller and leaner, and facially very different to Jane. He would not recognise me, but anyone showing any interest in them would be suspect.

  They were permitted entry to the camp. Interesting to note that there was another regiment to the south. If it and others were the same size as this one, then the Romans would be in serious trouble.

  They say discretion is the better part of valour. This lot was about to move out, I was serving no good purpose here, so left as quietly as I had come. Now I had to get the intelligence back to our people.

  Gaius was pleased to see us. So too were the rest of his men, as most of the girls had formed relationships with many of the men.

  I’d returned to the agreed rendezvous spot to find all the girls were accounted for. They were eager to do something more constructive than creeping about spying. Many were stressed with the tension, so were relieved when I informed the girls that we had done all that was required. We then moved swiftly to meet up with our people who were several days march away.

  While we had been busy gathering intelligence and passing it back by using a handful of girls on fast ponies, Trajan and his fourteen legions had moved against the invasion, pushing quickly into the spear-shaped region and were besieging the fortified towns, one by one.

  It was now early 106, and Decebalus was retreating slowly. The mass of Roman troops gave them no room to manoeuvre, so it now came down to set pieces of the Romans laying siege to one town after another.

  The end was near.

  After greeting me in a highly unprofessional and unmilitary fashion, Gaius wanted to know the news.

  “I’ve found the archers and they are due to move to try to take down the legions after they have finished Decebalus.”

  “How many are we talking about?”

  “More than any of us imagined, perhaps over five thousand. They’ve been recruiting and training for this moment for over eight years.”

  “The men are ready. They’ve been training for this ever since Britain.”

  “Does anyone else know?”

  “Only Trajan.”

  “Good, so we had better move to intercept. Don’t want to miss them.”

  “How long do we have?”

  “I don’t know for certain, I think they will wait for Decebalus to kill himself, and then strike while Trajan is rejoicing.”

  “When will that happen?”

  “I honestly don’t know, perhaps a month, perhaps less.”

  He nodded.

  “The equipment is working. We have had a few teething problems with the new horses, but I think we’re past that stage. It will be good to see if it all works.”

  We looked at the map of the area.

  “Do we know where Trajan is now? I have been out of circulation for too long,” I asked.

  “Here, at Sarmizegetusa Regia; the king’s stronghold,” Gaius said, pointing at a spot on the map. It was a crude map, showing major rivers, towns and some hills, but omitting more than it showed.

  “Then the end is close. Do you know that area?”

  “No, but one of my men has been there and surveyed it for the emperor. He wanted to know if it was suitable for cavalry.”

  “Why?”

  “He doesn’t want Decebalus to run away, so has told the cavalry that their job is to hunt him down and take him; alive if possible, but dead if not.”

  “How long to get there?” I asked.

  “Five days, if we push it. The army has built a road for some of the way, so it won’t be a rough trek.”

  “I will take the girls in front, we can scout to locate the enemy and then wait for you. They won’t strike until Decebalus is dead.”

  Gaius regarded me.

  “So he dies then?”

  “He flees with the cavalry hot on his heels. He kills himself to deny Trajan the glory and a cavalryman called Tiberius Claudius Maximus brings his severed head back to Trajan as proof.”

  “It must be strange knowing things before they happen. Do we wed?”

  I smiled sadly.

  “Gaius, you know there are somethings I cannot know.”

  “Or will not tell?”

  “Perhaps. Shall we deal with the present before we get on to the future?”

  Now we were all mounted on horses, it took my unit just four days to get within striking distance of Sarmizegetusa Regia. Looking down on the valley, we could see the hill fortress town in the distance, with the river on the right hand side. In the foreground were the legions, having broken camp and moving inexorably towards their final goal.

  Vast siege engines and towers had been constructed and were in the throes of being deployed alongside the lines of legionaries. Vast troops of cavalry wheeled and rode out to encircle the town, out of range of the arrows and other missiles the besieged possessed.

  I had to admire the discipline of the Romans. They were efficiency personified, moving quickly and in ordered ranks where their commander wanted them to be.

  To look at this valley with a strategist’s eye was hard, for it was many things to many people. Trajan would see it from an offensive eye, whereas Decebalus would be on the back foot and defending. The problem was that the archers would turn the tables on an army that believed it had just won the war.

  Where then would be the ideal place to attack the Romans without them being able to mount an immediate and effective counter-attack?

  Given that Decebalus was reputed to have fled the city, away from the advancing Romans, into open country where the cavalry were able to reach him so rapidly that he was forced to kill himself to avoid capture, the ideal scenario would be to attack the Romans from the unguarded rear.

  To the rear, was a narrow part of the valley, through which the Romans had already come. The cavalry would be ahead, dealing with the fleeing enemy. The infantry would be in the town, taking captives and doing what victorious armies did in these barbaric days.

  That would be when I’d attack into the rear of the army when they’d least expected it.

  Taking Iona and two others, we scouted that area. The legions had passed through, and so their passing was obvious, but they were not here now. There were the supply units, and camped support units; cooks, engineers and other artisans, together with the camp-followers, but no soldiers save the wounded in the hospital.

  With steep slopes up the valley, with trees on both sides, it was not good country to mount an offensive uphill against archers in well dug-in positions.

  As we scouted, we saw some horsemen among the trees. There were around half a dozen, at first, with the sound of more coming. They were all dressed in long cloaks, as Armes and his companions had been, so not like the Dacian soldiers.

  “The advance party!” Iona said, astute as ever.

  “I think you are right, let’s get out of here in case we are observed.”

  We retired up the valley towards our unit and observed as the horsemen – now some twenty in number, appeared to be also checking the lie of the land.

  Gaius and the rest of the men would be with us soon, so we settled down to watch what these men would do.

  The twenty became a hundred, and they immediately started preparing the ground. Several wagons and more men appeared, and the wagons produced many ready-made stakes and wicker woven shields. They hack
ed bushes for camouflage and wood to create more sharp stakes upon which advancing cavalry would be impaled.

  This was the place all right.

  More men arrived all night. I split the girls into six groups to scout exactly where their positions were placed, and also to take a count of how many archers there were.

  It started to sleet, showing us that winter had not yet retreated. It was bitterly cold, and I had decreed no fires, as I didn’t want anyone to shine out. The men digging in had the same rule, but they stopped digging to take some form of shelter. Crude tents were erected in the trees, under which the men huddled.

  The girls returned with alarming news, we were up against around six thousand men, the bulk of which were archers.

  I tried to imagine the legionaries having to link shields and advance up steep hills against archers who could easily penetrate the standard shields and kill or maim those carrying them. It could be a slaughter.

  What was their aim?

  With Trajan defeated, the victors could sweep into the Empire and take over. This would change history entirely, taking out of the line the Emperor Constantine, who had legitimised the Christian faith and thereby given birth to the Roman and Orthodox Churches.

  This enormously powerful and influential organisation would be missing when Mohammed rose in another eight hundred years; was this the key?

  I had no way of knowing, but it seemed logical. At this time Christians were still being persecuted, so had yet to establish any form of official recognition in any state. By perpetuating this state of affairs, and possibly increasing the pressure, it was conceivable that those responsible saw their target the end of the Christian influence in the world.

  It wasn’t my place to deal with that. I had to deal with the here and now. These archers were out of their zone, so that was my problem.

  “Get the girls back, out of harm’s way. Make sure they get some food and water and find somewhere dry. I am going to meet Gaius and let him know what we’re up against,” I said to Iona.

  “How can we fight them up these slopes?” she asked.

  “We don’t. We come from above them.”

  She looked down the valley at their positions and then at the crest of the hill. The top of the hills were just above the tree line, so we could turn the tables very nicely.

  “Will the horses manage going downhill?” she asked.

  “We won’t know until we try, but it will be less effort as gravity will assist us.”

  “Gravity?”

  “Don’t worry about it. See to the girls.”

  I rode like the wind, not knowing exactly how far away our men were. The rain turned to snow, which would make life equally difficult for everyone. Archers needed dry strings, so this might just be in our favour. Swords and pila work in the dry as well as the wet.

  The wet going had hampered our wagons and equipment, so I met them further away than I had expected.

  “Six thousand!” Gaius exclaimed. “How do we fight that many?”

  “We use our equipment and training and we use the element of surprise coupled with the terrain.”

  Pushing the men on, we didn’t stop as they wanted to. Trajan was already laying siege to the town, so we were close to the wire.

  We pushed through the night, in the snow and cold, arriving as dawn broke. Fortunately, the snow had stopped any attacks during the night, so the town was still firmly in enemy hands when we finally arrived.

  Iona had pulled the girls back even further, so had a good fire going in a deserted village. Apparently some enemy riders came through and as there were just a few women in the village, thought nothing of it. Iona had started fires in all the empty hoses and slaughtered some cattle. The men were only too delighted to have a hot meal and somewhere to rest out of the cold and damp.

  Once having eaten and rested, they started assembling the apparatus.

  The basis was a chariot, but pushed instead of pulled, as per my original idea. However, the men had come with variants involving foldable wings, behind which infantry could advance under cover from arrows. They were very basically horse pushed tanks, giving protection to the crew and around forty foot soldiers at the same time.

  The protection was to the front and overhead, so reducing any archer’s advantage as the ‘tank’ closed the distance between them and allowed the infantrymen to then undertake close-quarter combat with archers who wore little or no armour and possessed only the minimal of back-up weapons. They were not swordsmen as they hoped never to be that close to a determined and well-trained man with a sword.

  A great cry from the Roman ranks drew our attention to the fact the city defences had fallen. Rapid deployment of cavalry indicated that Decebalus was probably in flight, so I knew the end was imminent, which meant the beginning was as imminent.

  Gaius ordered his people into position. We rose on the hill behind the enemy and crested the ridge still under cover of the trees.

  As we got to the best possible position, we could see the surge of the legions as they advanced up the now undefended slopes and into the town.

  Gaius and I sat on our horses looking down.

  “When will they start?” he asked.

  “Your guess is as good as mine. I think as the legions start to make their way back to their supply lines just below. They will not be expecting an attack.”

  He nodded.

  “So, do we attack them or wait for them to start firing?”

  “If we wait for them, they will be so concentrating on what they are doing that they will be taken completely by surprise.”

  He nodded again.

  “Sounds good. I agree.”

  We waited.

  Two hours or so went by. The legions started to return to their lines in dribs and drabs. The precision discipline we’d seen earlier was now relaxed.

  The first arrows surprised me. In fact, it was the cries of the dying and injured that alerted me to the fact they’d started. In Ed’s life time, gunfire was easy to hear and so we knew when things were heating up. These bows were entirely silent and deadly.

  “There’s no time like the present,” I said to Gaius.

  He looked at me sharply and then grinned. He drew his sword and waved his commanders to initiate the attack.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Looking back, I am still uncertain exactly how long our little conflagration took to complete.

  They say that those who seek to ambush others are always the most surprised when they are ambushed themselves. That was certainly the case here.

  We had twenty of the armoured ‘tanks’, each driven by two strong work-horses and shielding both the two ‘crew’ and roughly twenty to forty legionaries, depending on terrain and conditions.

  The enemy were using this side of the valley only, as it was steeper and the lower portion offered less cover in the form of trees and boulders.

  They were deployed in three lines, or terraces, with stakes and the wicker shields to give them protection and cover. The Roman archers were out of range initially, and the angle of the slope ensured that those who could throw their javelins or pila would never get either the distance or power.

  To give the Romans due credit, once they realised they were under attack, they reacted well, but predictably. Due to the bulk of the forces being still at the town, those below were simply massacred; or would have been had we not intervened.

  The horses were great and simply walked down the slope with their burdens in the front. We’d introduced simple braking systems to the heavy wheels that was sufficient to stop the ‘tanks’ from running away and out of control.

  We reached the first line before they knew we were there, as they were so concentrating their attention on picking targets down below.

  Over 400 well armoured legionaries arrived and set to the first line of archers. It was a one-sided fight. The archers had their bows and a small half-assed sword that I do not suspect any thought that they’d ever have to use. They were up against traine
d and experienced Romans with short swords and pila, with which they were able to use effectively.

  Many of Gaius’ men were trained archers, so picked the bows that the fallen archers had dropped and started using them against the men below.

  This caused great confusion and obvious consternation to the archers who had no expected attack from the rear. The tanks were now being readied for the next line, as more legionaries swarmed down the sloped to the first line, using the enemy’s cover as protection from the archers who were now having to fire uphill at their old line.

  To the right, I saw a group of men, possibly those in command. They were trying to redirect their forces to face this unexpected attack. I gathered my girls, and we rode back over the crest and headed to meet them.

  It had been a long time since we had rode together in a combat situation. For this and previous campaigns, we had been employed as scattered agents, purely gathering intelligence, so this was refreshing.

  There were four hundred of us, all lightly armoured, but equipped with swords, pila and bows. When we reached a spot close to where I thought the enemy were, only on the other side of the hill. I dismounted and with Iona and two others, we went forward on foot the see where they were.

  Below us, some one hundred paces away was a group of fifty men. They had horses tethered and guarded down the slope by another hundred paces, so were ready to escape if threatened.

  They were all regarding the new developments with some concern, if their raised voices and gesticulations were anything to go by. None were looking our way.

  I formulated a simple plan.

  We returned to the group. I split them in half, instructed Iona to take the main group on a frontal attack, over the top and directly at the group, I would take the other group round the back and wait for those who would try to escape down the hill on the rough track that was evidently their escape route.

  Iona’s group would give us twenty minutes to get in position and then attack.

  It took us slightly longer than I anticipated, so heard the attack just as we arrived at the position I wanted.

  Clearly the fifty were not inclined to hang about and face the horde of cavalry that bore down on them, for they all ran to their horses with a view to escape. There were some who were too slow, as I heard their screams. I lined the girls on their mounts across the path and up each side in the trees. We were four rows of forty, all with swords drawn and pila at the ready.