Eagle in the Snow: The Classic Bestseller

by Wallace Breem

  “That must be Goar,” I said. “Why didn’t he attack before?”

  Quintus said, “He’s going for the baggage waggons.”

  Messages continued to come in. The commander at Borbetomagus had made a counter-attack with his cavalry and had destroyed the Alemanni in his rear; the enemy before Salisio and Boudobrigo had fallen back across the ice, but were still massed on the far bank; Bingium was still under attack and the native village there had been burned to the ground.

  We went on waiting, and then at last the enemy moved. The mass of men who had over-run the lower islands split into two. One half turned right and rolled towards the camp of the auxiliaries; the other half, the greater, moved towards the slopes where we stood.

  “Now,” I said, and the artillery opened fire. “Quintus, take the horse behind the camp and send two alae down to the help of those wretched auxiliaries. Wait with the rest of your men till I give the signal. Then hit them right-handed. Keep a tight control and don’t let any one over-ride.”

  He smiled savagely. “Trust Maharbal,” he said.

  They came up the snow towards us, in big wedges under their chiefs, and broke themselves against our thrown spears, our javelins and our arrows. They struggled on, but they could not close because of the ditches. Forced to stand there, helpless, they shouted obscenely till we shot them down; while those who tried to force the barriers lay broken in the snow, a hideous bundle of rag and bone. Quintus waited patiently. The alae, sent to help the auxiliaries, ran into a snow-drift and found the going difficult. By the time they had floundered out of it and re-grouped they were too late to catch the head of the column which had spread out and was trying to envelop the fort on three sides. They charged the tail of the column, however, and cut it in half, working outwards so that the two sections could not rejoin. I signalled to Quintus and he led a thousand men out and struck the enemy in the flank, just at the moment when they were beginning to tire. The snow was soft on top but firm underneath, and the enemy crumpled under the weight of his attack. I gave the order to advance and my cohorts moved out and descended the slope, shoulder to shoulder, their stabbing swords held low and their shields up. We had all the advantage; my men were fresh compared with theirs, and the ground was in our favour. The tribesmen fell back, fighting desperately, and then turned and broke and ran for the river. On the ground by the water they re-grouped, aided by more men who had crossed the ice; but though Quintus charged them twice more, his horses were blown, and the enemy held stubbornly to the settlement area by the harbour. We withdrew slowly back to our positions and I ordered the troops to fall out, by sections, to rest and to eat.

  When night fell an hour later there must have been thirty thousand men contained in the snow between the area of my four forts. The Vandals set up a rough shield wall to protect themselves and made shelters out of slats of timber and spare cloaks. There were waggons on the ice now, and camp fires sprang up everywhere; on the islands where, so I believe, their chiefs camped, upon the ground by the river, and upon the ice itself. As the moon rose I held a conference in my leather tent.

  “If we can hold them between these forts we shall win. All their food supplies are on the east bank and they will die of cold with no proper encampment.”

  “Can we trust the auxiliaries, sir? There are only two thousand of them.” Marius sounded worried.

  I said, “Fabianus is holding Moguntiacum with five hundred. Still—we can stiffen them with a couple of centuries if you like. Get Gallus out of the old fort to take over command. That will steady them. See to it, Aquila. Get them moved down while it is still dark. Now, what news from the other forts?”

  A cohort commander said tiredly, “All is well, sir. The attacks all failed in the end. Even the Alemanni fell back across the river at Borbetomagus.”

  A signaller came in. “There’s a man outside, sir, who says he has come from the east bank.”

  “Send him in. What other news is there?”

  Aquila said, “Scudilio at Bingium led a counter-attack across the river and has fortified the bridge-head. Barbatio is still in command of the bridge but has lost half his men and is short of missiles. Marius has sent half his men to give support to the auxiliaries in the town and has cleared the ground outside the north wall. I think—”

  At that moment a man came in. I recognised him as one of Goar’s bodyguard. He grinned and said cheerfully, “It is good fighting.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Very good. Why didn’t you stop the attacks on Bingium and Confluentes?”

  “The Franks attacked us. That is why we were late in helping you. But they have lost much food from their waggons and dare not send any more men across the river for fear of us.”

  “Is Goar well?”

  “He is fine. I am to say that he sent the king, Guntiarus, a special present.”

  “What?”

  “The head of his son.” He grinned again. “Now he will know for certain that the boy is dead.” His teeth flashed in a smile. “He should be happy at being proved such a fine prophet.”

  Quintus frowned, and one of the officers, who was married, put his hands to his eyes.

  I said, “His treachery was well rewarded then.”

  Quintus said, “Who lit the fires on the first morning?”

  The man hesitated. “We did,” he said. “It was as you wished.”

  Quintus stared at him. “There was fighting then on the east bank while it was still dark. Was it your people?”

  The man said sullenly, “I know nothing about that. Perhaps the Vandals quarrelled amongst themselves.”

  “Perhaps.”

  A decurion entered, shaking the snow from his helmet. “The patrol you sent out, sir, made contact with the auxiliaries. They report that all is well in camp, but there is a lot of movement on the east bank.”

  I looked at the map. “If they are moving down-stream it means they must intend to cross at the big island just above Bingium. From there they can move on Bingium itself or cut the road behind us.”

  Quintus said, “We could move those auxiliaries up to block the crossing.”

  “No. I need them all to hold that camp.” I turned to the Alan. “There is work for your people in this thing.”

  Quintus said, “But, surely—”

  “Wait a moment. Where are Goar’s men now? Are there any blocking the track down the east bank?”

  The Alan nodded. “Surely. He has men everywhere.”

  “Not quite,” said Quintus drily.

  “Then how are the enemy getting along it?” I asked.

  The man seemed put out. He said, “I do not know. Perhaps they have broken through.”

  “Perhaps. Aquila, order up one cohort, with waggons to form a laagar, and send them down to the point opposite the lower island, to cover a possible crossing there. And get two centuries to these points along the Bingium road, here and here, to back them. They must move out in fifteen minutes.”

  Aquila said, “The men are tired out, sir.”

  “It is better to be tired than dead. Quintus, get some mounted infantry across the river to link up with Goar and hold the track between the river and the hills.”

  “How many?”

  “Two hundred should be enough. If they get into trouble they are to re-cross and join us. I don’t want them wiped out for no purpose at all.”

  “I’ll send Didius. He has a good head.”

  I looked at the map again, and fingered the east bank route up which I had led the legion only two months previously. “Goar should have held that road.” To his bodyguard, I said, “Tell your prince that this is where I want his men, not up in the hills.”

  A trumpet blew the alarm and an optio thrust his head round the tent flap. “They are moving up the slope again, sir.”

  “In strength?”

  He said, in a scared voice, “It looks as though the whole lot are coming.”

  “Why can’t they be civilised,” grumbled Quintus. “All decent soldiers fight in dayligh
t.”

  I watched the men forming up in their battle ranks, and a signaller from the camp behind ran up, breathing hard. “They are moving on the auxiliary fort as well, sir.”

  Night fighting was always their speciality and this was proved through the long hours that followed. They attacked Moguntiacum too, and all night long we could see the fireballs from the ballistae, arching outwards into the snow so that the camp below seemed to be a gigantic fire that spluttered furiously and would not be put out. When the fourth attack had failed, I mounted my horse and cantered along the road to the old camp from which Marius was just about to launch a counter-attack. Here, an attempt was being made to encircle the town; but the snow lay thick on the slopes, and there were many drifts, and it provided a natural barrier that we could not have improved upon. The majority of his garrison was now inside the town and only a handful of men were left to protect the camp and the aqueduct. After a quick consultation with Marius’ second-in-command, who told me that the tribune had the situation well in hand, I returned to my command. The fighting continued until well past dawn, and when daylight came the ditches were choked with the Vandal dead, so that I began to wish that I had dug them deeper. The men stood down; the wounded were taken to the rear, and the cooks prepared food over the spluttering fires. Fresh bundles of javelins were fetched from the waggons and the armourers were busy, sharpening swords and spears and repairing damaged armour. I went to my tent and lay down on a blanket, wrapped in my cloak.

  An hour later they attacked again.

  Late the next afternoon a messenger came from Goar. He had crawled across the ice, playing dead, from one pile of bodies to the next. He told me the Alans had suffered fearful losses but had temporarily checked the advance of the column on the east bank. They were grateful for the help I had sent them.

  Quintus said wearily, “We are holding them, but that is all. They are too many for us. We cannot beat them without fresh troops.”

  I said, “I agree. If they had let us rest last night I would have attacked at dawn, and I think we could have pushed them back across the ice. But our men can only fight for so long without rest; they can keep the pressure up by sending in fresh men all the time.”

  He said, “Why not re-site the ballistae so as to enfilade them?”

  I blew on my cold hands. “Yes, they don’t like being caught on the flanks; I noticed that. We’ll try it then and see if it works.”

  That night I altered my dispositions, moved the main body of my men onto the flanks and left the centre only lightly held. I was determined to try a counter-attack if I could. They came against us for the hundredth time and died horribly between the stakes and the ditches. I waited till I judged that the great mass were pressing in upon the centre where the arrow-fire from the palisade was weaker than formerly—and then struck. The cohorts on the wings, flanked by all the horse I could muster, moved out and swept round to take them on the flanks. We moved in the old formation, shoulder to shoulder, a wave of men throwing javelins and then working in with their swords, to be followed by a succession of waves, as each rank tired and fell back to rest. The snow was packed hard by now, frozen lightly on top and slippery in patches where the dead had left their mark. Everything was in our favour, if we could only keep the pressure up long enough. Their line began to bend and writhe as they tried to contain us, and then it wavered as I threw in the last of my reserves. The noise was deafening and the shouting turned to cries of alarm and rage as they broke and fled. Our trumpets sounded and the cavalry, from the two camps below us, burst from the hurriedly opened gates and rode through the Vandal camp, scattering tents and fires and tossing lighted torches onto the waggons that had come up during the day. It was a more successful repeat of our battle on the east bank and, as before, we came within a dicer’s throw of victory. They were broken and confused and in a panic; and the panic was spreading swiftly as it always did. We herded them back onto the ice, and they withdrew to form a ragged line between the islands. Had we had more men we could have followed them further and swept them back onto the east bank; and, once there, I do not think they would have tried to cross again. But our men were exhausted and their impetus was gone by the time they reached the river bank. They had driven the enemy off but they could do no more, and so the fighting ended without my having achieved the success I dreamed of. I put more men into Moguntiacum, sent a further stiffening of auxiliaries into the camp by the river, told Marius to re-fortify the harbour area, and cleared the enemy from their positions around the broken bridge where Barbatio, bearded and deathly tired, still held out. Then I withdrew the cavalry back to the road.

  At least our success gave us some much needed rest. They did not attack again for seven hours and during that time my men slept for the first time since the old year died.

  Quintus said, “How much longer can they keep it up? Their losses are tremendous. How much longer can we keep it up? We are still only just holding them.”

  “We must hold them,” I said. There was nothing else for me to say.

  Just before midday they moved off the ice, pushed my patrols off the bank and assaulted the harbour settlement, coming in upon it fast from three sides in their great wedge shaped formations, like migrating birds driven before a gale. Marius refused to surrender or retreat. The settlement went up in fire and smoke and the legionaries died upon the walls and in the ditch. They fought in the smoke filled streets and in the doorways of burning homes. They fought with broken swords and blunted spears, with stones and bricks and with their bare hands, until all were overwhelmed. By late afternoon the barbarians had re-taken all the ground from which we had driven them with such difficulty; and then, once more, they began to move up the slope.

  For three days and three nights more they kept up a series of attacks, one after one, always using fresh men and never giving us time to rest or recover. We had too little sleep, it was iron cold and the wind blew from the east the whole time. Huddled in a blanket I would doze, shivering inside my tent until the trumpets blew the next alarm, and then I would stagger out, tired, aching and sick, to stand at my post beside the Eagle and direct the fighting once more. After the second day Quintus dismounted his cavalry and they joined ranks with the cohorts. He had used too many of his spare horses and all the animals were blown and needed rest. The loose snow on the slopes slowed his charges and tired both man and beast, so that he could achieve only a limited success each time that he took the offensive. On the fourth night it began to snow and the blizzard blinded us so that we could barely see. The bow strings of the archers got wet and two of the ballistae broke because the damp had rotted the cords. Soldiers who were careless, and many were through tiredness, forgot to dry their swords and awoke after sleeping to find the blades heavily rusted. But many died in their sleep from cold and exhaustion, and these, I think, were the happy ones. It snowed steadily for eight hours during that last day and then the wind got up and a blizzard howled across the plain and they attacked us once more with the ferocity born of despair. They could not reach us across the ditches, but their axes could and men who had been holding shields all day grew tired, till they could hold them no longer; and then had no need to. During that time much happened that I cannot remember. There was no night and there was no day; only a long grey twilight when sleeping and waking were one. I remember a figure on a horse cantering across the snow from the river and riding into our camp, and learning without surprise that it was Marius, who had been wounded and left for dead, who had stolen a horse and escaped. And I remember Quintus holding the wounded boy in his arms and saying, with great pride in his voice, “I told you my cavalry were hard to kill.” I remember messages coming in from the fort commanders, and they were always messages that were full of hope and courage, never of despair. Scudilio had led a counter-attack across the ice and broken the enemy, but had failed to link up with any of Goar’s Alans; Borbetomagus was still holding out, and though Sunno had offered the commander terms, he refused to surrender; Barbatio, the
bridge set on fire beneath him, had withdrawn into the town, only ten of his original garrison surviving; Boudobrigo and Salisio had pushed patrols out into the surrounding countryside, and, though all was quiet, were keeping their men under arms, for the heights across the river were held in strength by the Burgundians of Guntiarus. Only from Gallus in the auxiliary camp did I detect a note of strain. He sent me a short note when the blizzard was at its height, scrawled laboriously on a wax tablet. “We are just holding them, but the attacks are coming from the rear now as well as from across the ice. The auxiliaries are splendid and the seamen fight well. It feels strange fighting on land again. We are all very tired.”’

  On the morning of the seventh day, when the wind had dropped a little, the Chief Centurion came up to me where I was talking to a group of wounded men. He was unshaven and his eyes were rimmed with black. He said in a low voice, “We have been trying to signal the auxiliary camp, sir, but there is no reply.”

  “Keep trying,” I said.

  He shook his head. “They have been over-run, sir.”

  I walked with him out to the north-east corner of the camp and shaded my eyes. As far as I could judge, the camp still stood but it was half concealed now by a thick pall of black smoke. The ground all round it was dark with men, the living and the dead; but they were not ours. We walked back through a litter of tents, horses, stores and men, to my headquarters. I did not know what to say.

  Aquila said, “They are all round Moguntiacum too, sir. They’ve got a big camp to the south of the town. They must have made a fresh crossing higher up, during the night.”

  I looked at the map while Quintus played with his sword belt and Aquila chewed at a dry biscuit. “My first meal to-day,” he said, apologetically. My armour bearer squatted in a corner, rubbing the straps of my breast-plate with a greasy rag, and the oil lamp flickered in the cold air. I looked at the map again. The word that the camp had fallen must have spread, for the cohort commanders, Marius among them, came into my tent without waiting to be ordered.