by R. W. Peake
“Actually, Primus Pilus,” I tried not to sound belligerent or defiant, “nobody gave us the order. We decided…”
“Exactly!” Sacrovir snapped, cutting me off. Then he started jabbing his finger, although not just at me. “Nobody gave the order, because the only appropriate authority would have been me, and I gave no such order! Instead, some of you took it upon yourselves to decide that we needed to behave like a bunch of scared tiros, worried about a bunch of fucking rabble!”
The only reason I did not get angry was because I was so astonished, and a quick glance of the faces of my comrades told me I was not alone. Whether or not they had to fight the urge to point out that the “rabble” he was talking about contained some of the same men that had slaughtered three Legions, and who we had been involved in trying to crush, without success, for several years, I have no idea, but I certainly did. Somehow, I managed to refrain, and a heavy silence descended as, one by one, Sacrovir glared at each of us in a silent but unmistakable message.
Finally, he gave a snort, then waved a hand as if he was shooing a fly. “Very well, that’s all that we’ll talk about this. But,” he warned, “just remember who commands this Legion!”
By silent consent, none of us said anything as we walked away, but once we were a safe distance, Pompilius muttered, “What was that about? He’s never behaved like that before.”
It was a valid question, but one that none of us had the answer to, so nobody said anything, and we dispersed to our Cohorts; frankly, I forgot all about what I had been about to do in trying to determine what lay in our immediate future.
“The word is that the Primus Pilus is being considered for Camp Prefect when Crescens retires next year,” Alex informed me as he handed me my meal that night, and not for the first time, I marveled at his ability to find out crucial information so quickly, and he continued, “So right now, he’s nervous that any kind of…misstep or some sort of trouble with the Legion is going to be held against him by Germanicus.”
“But, how on Gaia’s Earth could four or five of his Cohorts unlashing their shields be considered a misstep?” I asked, tacitly accepting his explanation.
“That,” Alex admitted, “I don’t know. All I do know is that Lucco is friendly with Melander, and he told Lucco that Sacrovir has been as raw as he’s ever seen him, even more so than during the revolt.”
Melander was the chief clerk of the Legion, and more importantly, had been with Sacrovir back when Crescens had been Primus Pilus, and Sacrovir had been the Primus Pilus Posterior, which meant that he would know. Perhaps it was because of my regard for Germanicus, and while I was certainly not as familiar with him as my father had been, I felt confident enough in my knowledge that it would never enter his mind to hold something as trivial as the non-event that had enraged the Primus Pilus against him in his consideration for such an important post. As was our practice, we ate in silence, which allowed me to think over the possible reasons why Sacrovir was so sensitive, because it just did not seem like he would be this way on his own. Someone, I concluded, had to be giving him the impression that these insignificant events would play a much larger role. Not, I thought moodily as I shoved a spoonful of lentils in my mouth, that there’s anything any of the Pili Priores can do about it, aside from trying to cope with any future outbursts as well as we could manage. Once we finished eating, Alex chose this moment to broach another subject that, in the ways that counted, had more of an impact on not just me but my Cohort.
“You do know,” he said casually, which should have warned me, “where we’re heading from here, don’t you?”
For once, I actually stopped to think before I spoke, putting up the map inside my head, thinking about the possible routes we could take.
“Fuck me,” I tossed the spoon down. “We’re heading for Varus’ camp next, aren’t we?”
Alex gave a grim nod.
“It looks that way,” he replied. “I talked to Lysander when I dropped off the nightly report, and he saw that Germanicus was studying the map of this area, and Varus’ camp is in almost a straight line east.”
I cannot say I was surprised; many of us had suspected that, once we made the turn to come to Caedicius’ Camp that it was possible that we would proceed to Varus’ camp, but it was still disappointing to have it confirmed. We broke camp the next morning to learn that the 1st would be second in the column, behind the 21st, and it was instantly clear that, as we all learn early on, there are no secrets in the army.
“Why does he want to take us there?”
“That fucking camp is cursed! We’ve got no business going back there!”
If this had been just two or three rankers, and in just my Century, I would not have hesitated to thrash them, but this sentiment was so widespread that even my arm would have worn out, and I would have been obliged to apply the vitus to men who were officers, namely my Tesseraurius, Gnaeus Mus, and he was far from alone in the Cohort. Instead, I resigned myself to being satisfied that, when the cornu sounded the command to begin the day’s march, there was no hesitation, and I felt better when the complaining had mostly died out by the first third of a watch on the move. Just in the years since the disaster, and during my time under the standard, the Legions of Rome had made sufficient inroads into the lands east of the Rhenus that we were not required to move at a pace slow enough to allow the pioneers to chop a path. It helped that Germanicus did not order us into the quadratum, which substantially increases the front of the march but also slows down the pace, and I did wonder why this was so. Probably, I finally decided, because, aside from not being happy at the prospect of visiting Varus’ camp, overall the men were eager for a fight, and I know that I shared the common belief that, at last, this would be the year that we finally ended the threat posed by Arminius and his confederation. We had proven that he could be defeated the year before at the Long Bridges; yes, it had been a bloody, costly fight, but as we reminded our men, and ourselves, throughout that winter, we had forced Arminius to flee for his life. Once we got through whatever ordeal awaited us at Varus’ camp, we would then be free to reach Drusus’ Camp and, as we had at Caedicius’, relieve the auxiliaries there. The fact that there were five Cohorts there, mainly because it was the farthest Roman camp east of the Rhenus, meant that they would be a formidable obstacle; that, at least, was the hope. First, however, we had to confront whatever might be waiting at Varus’ camp. There was some hope that the Chatti would be occupied, because Germanicus had sent Stertinius and a combined force of cavalry and auxiliaries, numbering come forty thousand men, against them, both to occupy them, and to punish them yet again for the assistance they gave Arminius the season before. Stertinius’ column had departed from Mogontiacum, the idea being that approaching from the south in this manner would draw them away from those of us with Germanicus.
What we did not count on, simply because there was no way to do so, was the weather; it was shortly before the midday break the day after Caedicius’ Camp that the rain began, and it did not let up for the rest of the day. If that was all, it would have been bad enough, but it was an intense storm, with high sustained winds that, inevitably, caused us delays because of trees blowing down across the track. If we had known that this would be what the next several days would be like, there is no way to tell if things would have turned out differently. As it was, it took us a day longer to reach Varus’ camp than we had expected, and the collective mood of the army was foul enough to begin with; what we found at the camp did not help. Unlike the camp of the Prefect, there was never any plan or intention to man the camp, nor to repair it, and the only thing that took place was the building of the tumulus as directed by Germanicus the year before. It might seem odd, but it was not until I saw the camp wall with my own eyes that it hit me that it had been a full year since we had come here, once again early in the season. And, I confess, I should have been prepared for the sight that greeted us when the Centurions from all six Legions were summoned to attend to Germanicus inside the camp
walls. Once I thought about it, I realized that the pouring rain was appropriate as we stood there, looking at the desecrated remains of the tumulus, which was what Germanicus wanted us to see.
I was close enough to hear him say over the sound of the rain splashing on my sagum, “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that Arminius and his dogs would do something like this.” He was dismounted, and while he had his helmet on, he had the hood of his own cloak pulled up over it, shadowing his face, but the anger was obvious.
“Are we going to rebuild it, Germanicus?”
The Propraetor turned to Gaius Silius, who was nominally the second in command, something that had supposedly enraged Caecina, but knowing the high opinion my father held of the man from their time together with the Legio Germanicus, while I never heard as much, my assumption that the snub to the older Legate was intentional, as a way to either punish or warn him that his heavy-handed discipline with the Legions in Ubiorum had been noticed.
I could only see the hood, but I saw Germanicus shake his head as he answered Silius, “No, we’re not. Not only can we not spare the time, but we both know that as soon as we leave, those savages will come skulking back and destroy it again. No,” he repeated, “we’re not going to give them that satisfaction.”
Since we had cleared the area next to Varus’ camp the year before, the outline of the ditch and wall were still visible, making it a relatively simple matter to excavate the ditch and create the wall from the spoil again, although one wall was extended to account for the larger army. It would have been straightforward, I should say, except for the rain, which created a morass of mud and small lakes of standing water. Naturally, since the Fourth had drawn the duty of shaking out the picket stakes at Caedicius’ Camp, it meant that it was our turn to be down in the ditch. And, as the other officers and I quickly learned, pointing out that at least this time the ditch was not filled with rotting carcasses and just with water was not appreciated much by the men. Although, it must be said, that the men packing the spoil to make the wall actually had it worse, because once exposed to such heavy rain, the dirt turned to watery, shifting mud, even when the squares of sod were placed on top of it. If we had been in place for more than a day, I am not sure what we would have done because the wall was so unstable, and by the time the bucina sounded to start the next day, a substantial part of it had slid back down into the ditch, which was about half full of water. All in all, it was another messy business, but Germanicus did allow the men of the Legions who destroyed the camp to stand, naked and shivering, in the rain after they were finished and allowed some sort of bath. Personally, I was not sanguine about this, wondering what the sick list would look like the next day, but since it was not us, I did not give it more than a passing thought. The only real consequence was that we got a later start on the day’s march than normal, which, when combined with the difficulties posed by the weather, meant that our projected arrival at Drusus’ Camp was extended yet another day. As it turned out, it did not matter; similarly to what had occurred at Caedicius’ Camp, the Germans fled, whereupon Germanicus took the time to rededicate the altar that he had ordered erected to his father the year before. For the men of the Fourth Cohort, our return to Drusus’ camp was something of a novelty, since it was the birthplace of one of the first camp fables about me, and I will admit that I enjoyed the banter with the men who were present the day I singlehandedly flung a ranker from the 15th over his tent. For some reason, our comrades in the 15th were not quite as amused hearing about it from the men of not just the 1st, but the other Legions in the army who had learned the tale during those moments when there is inevitable interaction between rankers. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on one’s viewpoint, the Propraetor suddenly shifted the arrangement inside our marching camp, placing the 1st on the opposite side of the camp from the 15th. This was somewhat unusual, but certainly not unheard of, but it was during the meeting of the Pili Priores the night we built the camp next to Drusus’ Camp that we learned I was the cause.
“Thanks to Pullus’ exploits last year, the Propraetor decided it was best to separate us from the 15th by more than usual.”
For once, Sacrovir seemed in a good mood, and he even allowed my counterparts to recount all the various versions of the event that they had heard, and as I had already learned, with every passing month from the incident itself, my feat became more superhuman, the ranker flying farther and higher with seemingly every telling. I can only guess at the reasons that the Primus Pilus was content to let the Centurions have their fun, and while I found it somewhat embarrassing, I will not be a hypocrite and say that I did not enjoy hearing these versions, some of which I had not heard before. Finally, he held up a hand, and his expression returned to its normal scowling countenance, although we quieted down quickly enough.
“Also, now that we’ve secured this camp, we’re going to be returning towards Caedicius’ Camp, but the purpose now is to erect a series of smaller camps along the Lupia, which was the original plan before we marched. We’ll be working our way back in the direction of the Amisia, because word has arrived that the fleet has reached the mouth of the river and is sailing to meet us. They’re bringing the rest of the supplies and the 16th and 21st, and we’ll be beginning our hunt for Arminius in earnest. We,” he gave us a fierce smile, “are finally going to finish what we started last year.”
Chapter Eleven
There was much to commend about Germanicus’ plan for the campaign, and we spent the next few weeks creating a line of defenses along the Lupia that hemmed the Germans in to territory north of the river. With Stertinius occupying the Chatti, our flank and rear were protected, making our position secure for what would come next. This is not to say there were not mistakes, and we learned of one, made by Germanicus himself, when the reinforcements and supplies from the fleet did not arrive when we had been told to expect them. Somewhat unusually, however, the cause for the delay was something that eluded those of us with an interest in such matters; the clerks in the praetorium were being very tightlipped about it and finally, in desperation, I handed Alex a bag of coins with the admonition to use however much of it he needed to determine the cause for the delay. It actually took him two more days, which we occupied by building another semi-permanent camp, designed to hold one auxiliary Cohort, when he came and found me after midday, with an expression that was, if not grim, at least sober.
“The reason,” he explained once we had walked far enough away to keep from being overheard, “for the delay is because someone made a mistake.”
“A mistake?” I tried to think of what kind of error could possibly cause something of this magnitude, but I could not conjure anything up. “What kind of mistake? And,” I put in before he could answer, “who made it?”
“The second answer is that nobody’s saying,” he replied immediately. “Which tells me that it was probably Germanicus himself. As far as what the mistake was?”
He paused to take another glance over his shoulder, and it made me realize that he was correct to do so, because a pair of rankers from my own Century had managed to drift closer as they returned from a water break instead of taking the most direct route back to work. Fortunately, all it took was a glare from me over Alex’s head, and once they changed course, I nodded for him to continue.
“For whatever reason, the fleet didn’t sail all the way upriver. They landed and unloaded everything on the riverbank just a mile from the mouth of the river.”
“Gerrae!” It was not that I disbelieved him, but I could not think of anything else to say, although it was about to get worse, which Alex confirmed by saying, “Not only that, but they unloaded on the far bank, and the two Legions had to build two bridges to get the supplies to us.”
“Well,” I finally managed to say, “if Germanicus did make the decision, there has to be a reason for it.”
I did try to say it with conviction, but I could not fathom exactly why he would decide not to bring the fleet farther upstream, and while di
sembarking on the opposite bank was somewhat puzzling as well, I could at least see an argument that having a river in between our supplies and Arminius made them more secure. Happily, this turned out not to be an egregious error that cost us anything more than time, and in reality served mostly as fodder for much speculation during the days we waited for the rest of the army to arrive, but I say this because the 1st was not materially affected. We never learned why, exactly, but once again, the treacherous conditions that are a feature of the coastal area to the north around the mouth of the Amisia came into play, because apparently, there was a miscalculation about the tides and some men were once again swept away, although this time, it was some of the infantry auxiliaries from the Batavians. As harsh as it sounds, this was not a matter of much concern to any of us, both because the losses were sustained by the Batavians and we were far more worried about the train of supplies that we at least learned were finally headed our way, guarded by the 16th and 21st. Whether it was superior planning or divine providence, the part of the army with Germanicus was not idle all that long; first, two days after the last of the fortified encampments was constructed and manned, the Bucinator, who is always present at the gate of a marching camp, sounded the call that friendly forces were approaching, which turned out to be Stertinius and his force of auxiliaries, fresh from their subjugation of the Chatti. Not that this was unusual; in fact, the call of friendly forces approaching was sounded several times a day as dispatch riders and both mounted and foot patrols returned from wherever they had been sent by Germanicus or one of his Legates.