Marius' Mules VI: Caesar's Vow

by S. J. A. Turney

  ‘How long, sir?’ Vorenus queried

  ‘At this rate another three or four hours.’

  ‘By then it’ll be starting to get dark. We’ll have to protect the bloody ramp ‘til morning, and then launch the assault. Can’t do it in the dark.’

  Pullo nodded his agreement. He was itching to get stuck into the cowardly Menapii, but the idea of running through this treacherous terrain in pitch black under attack by arrows didn’t bear thinking about. But then they’d already lost so many men to stray hits, and would lose a number more during the night protecting the finished causeway.

  ‘Tell me you’re not thinking what I’m thinking, sir,’ Vorenus smiled wickedly.

  ‘Legatus Cicero was quite plain. Finish the causeway. Let him examine it and the island and decide on the plan of action, consult with Legatus Roscius, and then give the order. Then we take the Menapii.’

  ‘So you’re not thinking what I’m thinking?’ grinned Vorenus.

  ‘Of course I am. I’m just weighing it up against the possibility of being broken for disobeying orders.’

  ‘We’ve both served long enough, sir, to know that that only happens when you lose. If you succeed, no one will break you.’

  Pullo took a deep breath and craned his neck to look over the shield wall. An arrow whicked past him for his efforts, plunging into the water nearby.

  ‘Get those bloody shields higher. I know your arms are tiring, but men are relying on you.’

  He turned back to Vorenus. ‘We don’t know how deep it is in the reeds. The amount of muck we’ve dumped means we’ll get to the greenery without getting our balls wet, but those reeds could be sat in twelve feet of water.’

  ‘They look like the reeds in the lagoon near Altinum. I’d put money on there being only a few feet of water at most, and some nasty, silty muck.’

  Pullo narrowed his eyes. ‘You want the honours?’

  ‘If there’s a wager on it?’

  Pullo shrugged. ‘Jar of wine. Only if you lose no one to the water, though.’

  ‘And Cicero?’

  ‘You said it yourself: only losers get disciplined. Win for me.’

  Vorenus grinned and turned to the cornicen a few paces back. ‘Sound the advance.’

  Pullo raised his eyebrows. ‘You’re ready?’

  ‘Knew what you’d say.’ Behind him, four centuries of men were busy tramping along the causeway before even the call went up from the curved horn. ‘Best clear the way, sir.’

  Pullo shook his head in exasperation at his incorrigible second and started yelling orders to down tools and pull back. Last of all, as the men ran back along the causeway, sidestepping around the advancing centuries, he gave the call to the shieldwall, who broke up, keeping their shields presented to the enemy as they withdrew.

  A moment later, ignoring the missiles coming surprisingly close to him, Pullo stepped away from the end of the causeway, nodding as he passed Vorenus. ‘Be safe, Lucius.’ Walking until he decided he was out of immediate missile danger, he stopped, the advancing centuries shuffling aside as they passed him like water round an island.

  Vorenus paused only long enough to fall in at the head of his century, the musician moving to the rear. ‘Fast and hard. Shields up. Don’t stop at dry land, but keep going until there’s room for a legion behind you.’

  The men laughed and Vorenus took a deep breath. ‘Alright men, at the signal… Charge!’

  Three hundred men broke into a run as they neared the end of the causeway. Not a few faces fell in dismay as they reached the tip of the wood-framed, compacted-earth causeway, looking out over some twenty feet or more of water to the reeds beyond.

  With a war-cry to Mars, Vorenus plunged into the torrent, hoping he was right. His feet touched sucking dirt just beneath the surface where the buckets of mud had already been dumped. He had been fairly sure that the slope the man made ramp had caused ahead would meet up with the natural slope afforded by the island’s shore and leave nowhere on the run more than a few feet deep. His heart lurched for a moment as he sank quickly to his thighs in the icy torrent, but then his feet found higher purchase once again. The muck was sucking and deadly, trying to pull him to his doom, but sheer speed and momentum kept him on the surface of the treacherous submerged dirt.

  Next to him, a legionary shrieked, disappearing backwards with an arrow protruding from his face.

  Something whipped against his legs and he peered down, half expecting to see a red line drawn by a near-miss, but instead he saw green reeds. They’d crossed the open water!

  The uneven wet ground in the reeds almost tripped him and he was forced to right himself more than once. A few of the legionaries next to him or following in his wake fell foul of the terrain and disappeared with a cry of pain, falling amongst the green forest of reeds. More were struck by arrows or sling stones, but dozens more were with him and solid ground was but a few paces away. He could see the pale figures of the Menapii in the trees, desperately loosing missiles at them. No defences. No ditch or mound because of the terrain, and no palisade. After all, who needed to defend an unreachable island from infantry?

  Vorenus laughed as he chose a target and ran, sword out and ready. Legionaries were now shouting their challenges at the enemy.

  On the causeway, Pullo laughed loud: a deep belly laugh.

  ‘Something amusing, centurion?’

  He turned to see Cicero and came to attention automatically, with a salute. The legate was livid, his face an unattractive puce colour. Behind him, legate Roscius looked considerably more appreciative, nodding his head as he watched the action out on the island.

  ‘Is there a reason my forces are launching an attack, despite my express orders?’

  ‘Expediency, sir. An opportunity suddenly arose, and a good officer does not allow such an opportunity for victory to pass ungrasped, sir. So I grasped it.’

  Cicero’s face changed colour again at the veiled insult. ‘There will be a reckoning for this, centurion.’

  ‘Yes sir. Shall I order them back, sir?’

  Roscius stifled a laugh behind Cicero.

  ‘Don’t be idiotic, centurion,’ Cicero snapped. ‘Sound the general advance. Since we’re committed, we might as well go the whole distance.’

  ‘My pleasure, sir,’ Pullo nodded at his commander, as Cicero turned and stomped angrily away back along the causeway. Roscius grinned. ‘Don’t worry, centurion. I’ll talk to him. He’ll calm down when he realises he’ll get the credit. Will you require the Thirteenth?’

  ‘I think a couple of cohorts will take the island convincingly, sir, but thank you.’

  Roscius nodded again and turned to leave. Pullo glanced once more at the island. Briefly he caught sight of Vorenus whooping as he leapt over a large rock, sword in hand, coming down on top of an archer who was desperately trying to nock another arrow.

  It would be over within the half hour.

  * * * * *

  ‘Almost two weeks into Menapii lands and still no sign of an end, each day up to the knees in water, mud, shit and blood, and yet every bloody group we take seems no less rabid than the last!’ Priscus grumbled as he watched the wounded being stretchered or helped back along the latest in a long list of causeways which led to the latest in a long line of pointless, unpleasant island havens.

  ‘Look on the bright side,’ Antonius rolled his shoulders wearily. ‘Every day we spend out here is another day for Fronto. I thought that was what you wanted?’

  ‘Happy to buy the old bugger time, but I’d rather not do it up to my knees in a barbarian latrine.’

  The enslaved Menapii were next to follow the wounded, escorted by a group of legionaries who looked as tired as Priscus felt. They were former Pompeians of the First Legion, their tunics no longer a plain off-white wool, but more of a drab brown-grey, the colour of damp silt. The colour of dysentery. The colour of Gaul, mused Priscus sourly. Every passing season made him wish this whole damned campaign was over and that the army could return
to the healthier, warmer climes around the Mare Nostrum.

  ‘I know you think this is going to go on forever,’ Antonius muttered into the face of Priscus’ bleakness, ‘but they’re breaking. They still fight as hard, but there’s something in the atmosphere now. I’ve felt it before, on campaign in the east. When that supercilious prick Aristobulus caused trouble in Aegyptus, and Gabinius and I went down to Judea and beyond to kick ten shades of shit out of him, we had to take fortress after fortress. They were all big brown places with big brown walls built on big brown hills, and if you think Gauls are rabid, you should see the Jews and the Nabateans and the rest of those desert-dwelling lunatics. But gradually, as we razed the places and enslaved them, you could see the fight begin to go out of them, even while they struggled on. They knew they’d lost, but wouldn’t admit it. This Menapii lot are the same. Sometime soon, a chief or a holy man is going to decide that their lot is better served coming to terms with us than fighting on.

  ‘Perhaps. Though it looks more like they intend to fight to the last man to me. But if they offer terms, you know what Caesar will do?’

  ‘He’ll accept the terms, so long as they’re favourable - which they will be.’

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ Priscus grumbled. ‘I’ve seen him press on in the face of utter madness just because his blood’s up.’

  ‘You forget his overriding desire to punish Ambiorix, though. He only sees the Menapii as a tool of Ambiorix and if he can break the link between them, and they bow to him, he’ll leave them alone so he can concentrate on the rebel.’

  ‘You’re probably right. Let’s go get a drink.’

  Behind the two officers as they turned to leave, a hundred Menapii were herded off the causeway and roped up for transport.

  * * * * *

  Lucius Fabius, Tribune of the Tenth Legion, turned to his long-time compatriot, Tullus Furius, and sighed as they watched the legates of both the Tenth and Eighth giving the orders for the disposition of the men.

  ‘Every time someone shouts ‘Fabius’, I look around. It’s starting to piss me off. I’ll be glad when the Eighth depart.’

  Furius grinned. Lucius Fabius: Tribune and son of a grizzled centurion who’d died in the siege of Aesernia and a whore from that same city who’d passed of the flux a few years later. Lucius Fabius: dyed-in-the-wool soldier and rough countryman. And not ten paces from him stood Gaius Fabius Pictor, descendant of one of Rome’s most illustrious lines, former magistrate, patron of many and commander of a legion. The two could hardly be less alike if they tried, and yet any time either of their names were called, they both turned and then shared a despairing glance. It was infuriating for them, for certain, but it gave Furius plenty of laugh-fodder. No one, of course, called the legate ‘Pictor’ - ‘the painter’ hardly did his nobility justice, no matter the name’s illustrious origins.

  ‘You only half look around,’ Furius grinned, gesturing at the external, painted-clay false eye than never moved or blinked on Fabius’ face. ‘Anyway, perhaps we need to assign you a cognomen? Something truly individual? How about ‘Porculus’?’

  He ducked the slap just before it struck, Fabius’ enraged face suddenly distracted as his namesake gave the last command and the standards began to dip and wave, the musicians honking their calls for the men to move. The eagles of the two legions stuttered into life and then bounced along at the front, a few paces from where the two tribunes stood. Crassus had tried to persuade them that the place for tribunes was at the rear with the rest of the command. Such was probably sensible for those tribunes who were still barely in the toga virilis and whose voice had only just broken. For veterans in the most unlikely of roles, Fabius and Furius knew their place was in the thick of it, near the front. Fronto would have been there with them, though the young Crassus was more cautious in his role. Furius laughed at himself. Before associating with Fronto he would have thought such a thing the right and proper way for a legate to conduct himself.

  In deference to Carbo’s wishes, they had settled to one side of the column, close to the first century but not quite at the front. The Primus Pilus had his system, and they did not quite figure in it. And despite the senior centurion’s smiling, pink, boyish face, he was a man with an iron will and brooked no argument, even from his supposed superiors, when it came to his command.

  As the two legions moved off in columns eight men wide, the Tenth on the left and the Eighth on the right, the two legates, most of their tribunes and the musicians and various hangers-on remained motionless, letting the army progress before falling into position some way back along the line, away from the ‘business end’.

  Even over the squelching of thousands of boots and the jingle and rustle of armour and equipment, the pair could just hear all the crashes, thumps, splashes and cursing of the engineers who had tried to transport a ballista and an onager across the causeway and had ended up sinking into the mire near the island-end, damaging the walkway in the process. A tremendous splosh announced the demise of one of the war engines as it disappeared into the swampy fens that formed part of the great Rhenus delta.

  Still, two thirds of the two legions had made it across before the pig-headed engineers had blocked the route, and four scorpion bolt throwers had reached the large island.

  It would have been nice to be able to name the island. Furius felt curiously lost and disconnected in a place where they didn’t even have the names of most of the settlements, let alone the natural features.

  Two weeks into the campaign against the Menapii, captured and enslaved warriors had revealed under ‘coercion’ the location of a particularly large island in one of the most unpleasant swampy areas, where the leaders and the most senior druids had taken shelter. Upon learning of this, Caesar had shifted the focus of his campaign to that area of swamp, ignoring the endless small hideaways and preparing to strike at the heart of the tribe. It had taken four days to build the enormous causeway out across the sucking bogs and squelching fens to the long, low, ship-like island.

  The legions had then mustered on the open ground at the causeway’s end. It had seemed odd that no missiles had been cast at them while they built, but the plumes of smoke rising from the forested island centre confirmed that the place was home to a sizeable population, and carefully-placed lookouts and patrols from the First legion kept an eye out for any attempts to flee the island by boat, which had not occurred.

  The first scouts sent into the island centre woodlands had not returned, and so second forays had been ordered with heavier-armoured scouts in larger parties. They had also come under attack, but had confirmed that the island’s population were protected by a strange hedge-and-palisade arrangement that would be difficult to assault in force, especially within the trees.

  Caesar was in no way deterred, of course. His other two legions were recuperating from the business of constructing the causeway, leaving the Eighth and Tenth to make the main assault. ‘Should be more than enough,’ was the common opinion, shared by both tribunes.

  The men squished through the wet grass and silty earth towards the defences within the woods.

  ‘Feels good to be launching a proper attack again, eh?’

  Fabius sucked in moist, fetid air and nodded. ‘Make the most of it, though. I overheard the legates this morning. They reckon Caesar’s thinking of heading south to flatten the Treveri after the Menapii cave in.’

  ‘So we get to fight endless little actions south of the great forest, then?’

  ‘Sounds like it.’

  ‘Then we’d best kick the shit out of this lot quickly, eh?’

  A squawk announced the first casualty. As the legions approached the trees an arrow whipped out of the foliage and struck a standard bearer from the Eighth, who fell, clutching his neck, a legionary behind leaping forward and grasping the standard from his falling hand, discarding his own blade in favour of the honour of the legion.

  ‘That came from the branches,’ Furius said sharply, then turned and raised his voice, be
llowing ‘they’re in the trees! Testudo! Testudo!’

  Carbo had apparently spotted the same thing, and the front ranks of the Tenth were forming into an armoured box of shields even as the tribune spoke. As the legions reformed for their better protection, more and more arrows and stones whipped and thrummed out of the green canopy and into the advancing army. Here and there a legionary who was too slow to react fell, an arrow jutting from his leg, his arm, or his torso. The sheer number of missiles was staggering, given their source. They must have been putting half the population up in those branches all the time they watched the legions crossing. That, of course, was why they had not been struck on the causeway.

  It was horribly effective against a column of men.

  Against a testudo of interlocked shields it was about as effective as a hail of beans. The Menapii had never had to field an army against Rome. They had supplied men to various revolts and attacks, but had responded to Roman incursions by simply retreating into their impregnable swamps. And now those swamps were no longer impregnable, and the unprepared Menapii had no idea what to do about it. They had responded with the best, most innovative method of defence they could manage. It would have served them well against a disorganised horde of other Belgae, but they had committed their bulk to the first attack, which had been quickly negated by the shield configuration.

  Unless they had more surprises at the palisade…