The Belgae

by S. J. A. Turney

  Looking around urgently for a marker, he reached out to the warrior at the chief’s shoulder and grasped his spear. The man gave him a growl. Without a word, Fronto irritably ripped the spear from his grasp and, walking back to the parapet, he carefully examined the ground and located the entrance to the tunnel outside. Tracing it across the wall with his finger, he jumped down the inside and jammed the spear in the ground there, point first.

  “Listen, Iccy. We’re going to mark out the three tunnels and then I’m going to send you on a little scavenger hunt. We’re going to arrange a little surprise for your countrymen in the morning.”

  “Eh?”

  Chapter 6

  (The Remi Oppidum of Bibrax)

  “Testudo: Lit- Tortoise. Military formation in which a century of men closes up in a rectangle and creates four walls and a roof for the unit with their shields.”

  “Miles: the Roman name for a soldier, from which we derive the words military and militia among others.”

  The early morning light was eerie. Fronto stood on the wall of Bibrax under the shade of a particularly bushy beech tree and tried to make out details of the Belgae on the plain below. The majority of the Belgic army lay encamped to the east of the oppidum and it was on that side that their main siege works were being carried out. With the sun about to climb, watery and pale, above that horizon, the mass of enemy warriors below was hard to make out in the shadowy gloom.

  Clicking his tongue in irritation, he reminded himself that the longer his own men got to rest before the inevitable, the better, so long as it wasn’t more than an hour. Then the timing would be really tight. He turned and looked down inside the walls. Here shade cast by the buildings and trees left the defenders still sitting in virtual darkness, lit by burning torches spaced periodically around the circumference of the oppidum.

  “Enjoying breakfast?”

  A number of blank uncomprehending faces looked up at him from the gathering behind the wall. While one man in each section remained on watch, the rest of the defenders, whether they be Belgae, Cretan, Spanish, African or Roman, were all gathered in small groups around fires tucking into boars that had been roasting since not long after midnight. An army always fought better with a full belly than an empty one, so long as there was time for it to settle… and Fronto knew how this morning would begin.

  There would be a few forays and tests of the new defences but no serious fighting until later, once the Belgae were sure there was no better way and that they could win. Likely, though, the first move would be the continuation of the undermining that had been begun the night before. He smiled.

  As soon as things had settled last night, the Belgae back in their camps and drinking, the defenders dry and warm and in position, Fronto had climbed down outside the wall and examined the three tunnels. At first it had struck him as strange that they should have left the tunnels so open to investigation, but then any warriors they had left behind would have been in danger overnight and would have been easily picked off from the walls. The defenders could hardly collapse the tunnels, as they would likely finish the enemy’s job for them that way. Briefly, he’d given thought to filling them in from the spoil heaps the Belgae had left nearby, but in truth it would not have taken them long to clear it back out with such loose earth. No; he had his idea and it should work. He’d looked carefully at the tunnels and nodded appreciatively at the effort that had gone into them.

  Groups of warriors had dug the three tunnels and transported the dirt out to the mounds. A long line of warriors protected by wicker shields had carried timbers up the slope, probably under enemy fire in the early stages of the siege, and these had been used to bolster the mine. The tunnels were well worked. Currently, the Belgae had actually reached the level of the wall itself, the tunnel sloping gradually upward so as to avoid the need to dig into the bedrock of the hill.

  Without a great deal of knowledge of Belgic siege tactics, Fronto had assumed that they followed much the same system as the civilised peoples to the south. Certainly they had no intention of merely digging tunnels for ingress to the oppidum. Any warriors emerging from the tunnel would be in single file and would be cut to pieces; so the tunnels were there to collapse the wall. The tunnel would have to go another three or four feet beneath the wall itself and then open out slightly to either side. Then, during the first assault of the day, grapple lines would be thrown over the defences. A hefty tug from the Belgae and the wood and dirt-packed walls would crumble and collapse into the holes.

  With a grin, Fronto dropped down the inner face of the wall and walked over to the spot where he’d marked the location of a tunnel with a spear. Since late last night, teams of auxiliary soldiers and Remi locals had worked under the directions of Roman officers, throughout the hours of darkness, to complete the tunnels from within the walls. Now there were three clear passageways under the walls, shored up with strong timber. Mounds of spoil sat next to the tunnel entrances both inside and outside the walls.

  He smiled again and, wandering over to the fire, gathered a plate full of meat cuts and a few chunks of fresh bread. Returning to the wall, he settled down to wait, watching the enemy below while eating the tasty meal.

  The Belgae finally came once the sun was fully above the horizon. At first they came with great care, some warriors holding large screens constructed of several layers of woven wicker backed by leather and light wooden spars to protect their companions from arrow fire, the rest gathered into three groups, heading for the tunnels.

  Fronto heaved a sigh of relief as missiles began to drop down towards the attackers, but only occasional pot-shots as the opportunity presented itself. Satisfying. It had taken quite some time last night to explain through his officers to the multinational assembly that was his army, that they needed to take enough shots at the enemy so that the Belgae would be lulled into a false sense of security, but not enough to actually stop them reaching the tunnels or frighten them off. An arrow whizzed past him and landed one of the wicker shields below with a dull thud.

  Fronto tapped his finger on his lower lip as he watched the approach. It was slow going. His men would have to show serious restraint, as he was sure that they could easily have picked most of them off before they reached the tunnel entrances. Finally the Belgae reached the spoil heaps and the screen-bearers peeled off, running around the entrance and planting the wicker shields heavily into the ground, supporting them with beams and creating an effective missile screen.

  As the first warriors reached the tunnel mouth, Fronto raised his arm and dropped it.

  “First team!”

  Despite the communication difficulties, plans had been drawn up during the night and set with appropriate groups. At his command, by the entrance to all three tunnels, a group of four Remi overturned a barrel into the entrance. The top of each barrel had been punctured with a hole around six inches across. Liquid glugged and gurgled from the holes, pouring into a carefully-angled drainage channel the Roman defenders had excavated in the floor of the tunnel.

  With another satisfied smile, Fronto watched the barbarians below enter the tunnel. He could hear them talking in their strange language and hoped against hope that they hadn’t realised their error. He took a deep breath. There was laughter. Likely the barbarians had smelled the roasted hog drifting down the long passageway. Hopefully it wouldn’t occur to them that the smells should not permeate a half-dug tunnel.

  Once more he raised and dropped his arm.

  “Second Team!”

  As the first groups of defenders rolled the barrels away to the side of the tunnel entrance, where they continued to issue a steady stream while remaining clear of any further activity, another group arrived, split into two groups of two men each. One group carried the remnants of the smouldering hog on a sharp wooden pole; the others bore torches.

  Without the need for further orders, the pig was dropped into the stream of oil in the tunnel entrance. The fat hissed and popped as the two men with torches leaned gingerl
y forward and ignited the bubbling carcasses. The charred remains burst into flame with fresh vigour and, working furiously in the face of searing heat and splashes of hot fat, the men heaved the pointed wooden poles out of the burning hogs and used them to set the flaming bundle rolling.

  By now shouts had gone up inside the tunnel. The lead warriors of the mining party had discovered that their passage had been completed. They were probably now aware of the small river of oil flowing beneath them and gathering in a small pool around the lower entrance to the tunnel. If they were bright, they might have connected that with the smell of roasted hog. If they were really clever, they had turned and were already running, but they had no hope. The tunnel was still fairly narrow and there were more than a dozen men in there. There would be chaos in the darkness as they tried to push back through their friends.

  Fronto chewed on his lower lip in vague irritation. He didn’t like doing something like this to people; even to enemies. A man could die in battle with a blade in his guts and go proud and happy, but this was horrible. There was an explosive, incendiary noise somewhere below him and he thought for a moment that he felt the ground shake.

  Then silence for a single heartbeat…

  And then screams; screams that issued from inside and outside of the walls, from the entrances of the tunnels. Those attackers that had not been ignited by the flow of burning oil that ran down the special gutter had found themselves face with a huge flaming carcass rolling down the slope in the enclosed space. There was no escape.

  Black roiling smoke rose from the tunnel entrance, carrying the scent of burned meat. The men among the wicker shields below were in a panic, unsure of what to do until the first blazing figure emerged from the dark maw, screaming and running in a blind panic until he tripped and tumbled down the slope toward the rest of the Belgae. Behind him, the half dozen men that had lived long enough to reach the exit burst out into the light, shrieking in agony and falling at the tunnel mouth, rolling down the hill. The slope failed to extinguish all of the flames, as the oil and fat had thoroughly soaked them now, and the figures, long dead by the time they rolled to a halt in front of their comrades, were still licked by flames.

  Glancing back and forth along the hill, Fronto nodded sadly as he saw the same sequence of events unfolding at each tunnel. Raising and lowering his arm once more, he shouted “Third Team!”

  Behind him, four more men lifted the oil barrel back upright and poured two open topped barrels of water into the passage to extinguish the flames and prevent the wooden supports from collapsing and bringing the wall down with them. Then a group of ten men grasped shovels, both manufactured and makeshift, and began to backfill the tunnels with earth, carrying them down into the passageway and starting below the wall itself to make sure the fire was no longer a threat to the defences.

  Fronto nodded with cold satisfaction. It would take several hours for the men to fill those tunnels enough to prevent them being of further use to the Belgae but, judging by the chaos below, his demonstration had had the desired effect. The wicker shield-bearers had dropped their screens and fled, only to fall to the archers on the walls, who were no longer restricted in their shots.

  He could imagine the conversations that were going on between the tribal leaders of the enemy below. Certainly plans were being redrafted. No one was going to be in a hurry to run up the hill again, so his men should have time to finish their work and be prepared for the next move.

  With one last look down the slope, he turned and walked away to the left along the wall, to the far tunnel, where Decius was ordering his men around.

  “Well that’s given them something to think about eh?”

  Decius grinned.

  “Did you see those bastards run? If we’d not shot ‘em down they’d have kept going ‘til they drowned in the Rhine!”

  Fronto laughed.

  “It’s certainly bought us some time. I’d say we’re safe at least until the afternoon now. What I expect for the rest of the day is a few small pushes to test our defences. They knew they’d cleared most of the Remi’s original missile defences from the walls, but now they also know there’s a new threat. I don’t think they’ll send more than a hundred at a time, and probably not even that. And they’ll come from a different direction each time.”

  He sighed wearily.

  “I’m just hoping they stick to that and don’t come en-masse. If they do, we’re done for wherever they come from. No matter how clever we are, we just can’t withstand those kind of odds.”

  Decius nodded and smiled.

  “If they do it probably won’t be until tomorrow.”

  “Don’t be too sure. They won’t want to give us another night here, having seen what we managed with the first one. I think they’ll keep testing us all day until late afternoon. Then they’ll just ‘all-in’ to get rid of us before nightfall.”

  Fronto dropped to a crouch and started to tap the wall top absently with a stick.

  “What we need to do is to get every man here with a brain thinking of ways to take down large groups of them and bolster our defences.”

  Decius nodded.

  “I’ve a few ideas, particularly for the northern sector. You haven’t been round there yet, have you?”

  Fronto shook his head.

  “That’s going to be the weak spot for missiles. The slope is covered with woods. The only bonus is it’s going to be a bastard of an ascent for the enemy too.”

  Fronto frowned.

  “But you’ve got ideas?”

  “Sort of. Need to work on them a bit and perhaps try and speak to Iccius about it. Mostly I don’t want to do anything about it while we’re only expecting little forays. It’d be a shame to waste a good surprise on a few men.”

  Fronto nodded.

  “Try and get everything ready so you can put any plans into action quickly. When they start to gather for a big assault, we might not get more than half an hour’s warning.”

  Decius laughed.

  “I must say that serving with you is certainly an adventure, sir.”

  “Indeed. Go to it, Decius. I’m going to go speak to the others and see what ideas we can rustle up.”

  Just as he’d expected, there was little activity from the Belgae for some time. It was later morning before the first assaults began. Small pockets of Belgic warriors bravely tried the ascent from all sides, not a single man managing to survive within forty feet of the wall.

  The fourth such attempt, as the sun rose high, involved what appeared to be a testudo formed of those wicker shields they had used to protect the miners. For a moment the defenders were nonplussed and fired a few random stones and arrows at the approaching block, which bounced harmlessly from the protective surround.

  Then, irritably, Decius had appeared on the scene and accosted one of his archers. Grumbling, he had snatched an arrow from the man’s quiver, dipped the head in the oil barrel stationed at the rear of the wall, lit it with one of the torches that had been kept burning throughout the day, and then passed the flaming missile back to the man. The Cretan smiled with comprehension and, aiming, sent the burning arrow in a tight arc, where it landed in the wicker with a thud. The dry screen caught light instantly and the warrior was forced to discard it hurriedly to one side. Barely had he let go of it before two arrows plunged into his chest and a heavy lead sling bullet broke his temple.

  The plan had quickly passed down the line of archers and the wicker assault screen was left a flaming mass, surrounded by the bodies of the warriors that had borne it.

  The morning wore on with regular small attempts to scale the hill. Those coming up the southern slope above the river found themselves easy targets for the defenders, who saved their missiles and dropped rocks down the steep escarpment. The brave few who took either east or west slope in full view of the walls on open ground learned quickly what Rome already knew about the quality of the slingers bred on the Balearic islands, and those who picked their way carefully through the wood
ed northern slope struggled as they reached the top only to be met with arrows.

  As the sun began its lazy arc down toward the rear of the oppidum, Fronto once again found Decius, standing at the edge of the woods on the northern slope, where he could still make out the hordes of Belgae on the eastern plain.

  “Afternoon, Decius.”

  “Sir.”

  “I think it might be time to start putting together your surprise. We’ve not had an assault from any side in an hour and there’s a lot of movement and organisation going on down below.”

  “You think the big push is coming?”

  Fronto nodded.

  “I don’t know how big, but as big as we’re likely to see. That’s only a tenth of the whole Belgic army down there but, when you think about it, Bibrax is a relatively small target. I don’t think it can be that important to the Belgae or they’d have come here in all their glory. If it was only worth a small vexillation of their army, then I doubt their leaders will commit all thirty thousand or so. We’ll probably see half of them at most. If the cost of this place is too steep, they won’t buy.”

  Decius nodded.

  “Still… that’s going to be about five to one. We’ll have to work to make the price too high.”

  “It’s all about keeping them at arm’s length. Up close these auxilia will be pretty useless. It’ll be down to the Remi to save the day then. Right!”

  He took a deep breath.

  “Let’s get to work.”

  * * * * *

  In retrospect, Fronto had to express admiration for the timing of the Belgae’s attacks. They had estimated the time taken to assault all four slopes of the oppidum and had adjusted accordingly, so that the defenders could not draw men from one sector to help defend another. The first assault to be launched was the northern offensive, hampered by the thick woods and undergrowth of that slope. The second, perhaps fifteen minutes later, was the steep incline above the river. Finally, the east and west assaults, the easiest terrain, began simultaneously five minutes later.