The Belgae

by S. J. A. Turney

  “Hold it just a little longer, lads… Fronto and the Tenth are on the way.”

  Lucius Vorenus, pilus prior of the Second Cohort in the Thirteenth Legion, growled. A long-serving veteran who had been pulled in to the command structure of the newly-raised Gallic legion, Vorenus was sick to death of his men being sent to nursemaid the baggage, or left to guard the camp. It was clear that the rest of the army saw the two new legions are inferior, and that prejudice extended even to the centurions such as himself, who had more experience than many of the taunting bastards. Vorenus had been there under the elder Crassus fifteen years ago when they’d put Spartacus and his slaves down and now he was leading a unit that weren’t even expected to truly take part in anything.

  And almost ten minutes ago, the Thirteenth and Fourteenth had received word that the battle was already happening; that the other legions were in the shit. The staff officers Sabinus and Cicero had immediately ridden off ahead at breakneck pace to see what they could do and to confirm that the reserves were on the way.

  And what had ‘commander’ Plancus done about it? Kept them at a steady march so that they were fresh when they got there.

  His growl deepened in intensity. The bloody battle would be over when they got there at this rate. The legate of the Fourteenth, currently the only commander in the rearguard and leading both legions, was so concerned over looking good when he arrived that the reserves would be too late. Taking a deep breath, he ran forward to where the primus pilus strode ahead.

  “Pullo?”

  As he fell in alongside, he noted an equally sour look on his peer’s face.

  “We’re going to have to do something.”

  Pullo nodded.

  “I know. But you’re suggesting we disobey the direct orders of a legate.”

  Vorenus grimaced.

  “I’m suggesting we disobey the direct orders of an arsehole. You’re the Primus Pilus. I’m just the Pilus Prior. It’s up to you to give the order.”

  Pullo sighed.

  “I was enjoying being back in service. Seems a shame to end my career so quickly."

  He took a deep breath.

  "But you're right. We've got to pick up the pace. Get back to your men."

  Vorenus nodded and, as he jogged back along the lines of the First Cohort to the Second, he heard Pullo shout "Time to get into action lads. Triple pace, now!"

  The Thirteenth Legion surged forward with a rhythmic crashing of arms and armour and thudding of feet.

  Somewhere back with the Fourteenth, legate Plancus would be having a fit.

  Chapter 17

  (Battle of the Selle)

  “Contubernium (pl. Contubernia): the smallest division of unit in the Roman legion, numbering eight men who shared a tent.”

  Baculus staggered under another blow and swung wildly with the enemy blade he’d ripped from the hands of one of the dying barbarians. Lifting the heavy sword with a bone-weary arm, he used the sleeve of his tunic to wipe away the stream of blood flowing from the wound on his now-unprotected head and blinding his right eye with a crimson veil. He staggered slightly, his leg cut in four places and now with barely enough strength to hold him up.

  “We have to do something. There can’t be more than eight or nine hundred of us left.”

  Caesar, having fallen back from the front line and landing occasional blows between the shoulders of his men while supported by another legionary, nodded and glanced at Galba. The legate was as hard-pressed as anyone else here, fighting for his life alongside the common soldiery. It occurred to the general that the greatest leveller among men was a life-threatening situation. In any other circumstance, even in the thick of battle, he would have been required by propriety to haul Baculus over the coals for addressing him in such a manner. In the situation in which the two men currently found themselves, even the idea was laughable.

  And, of course, Baculus had fought like a titan.

  “You’re right, of course. Step back from the line…”

  Baculus did as he was bade, dragging his leg and barely able to stand. As the man breathed in ragged rasps and used the great Belgic broadsword as best he could to support himself, the general collared Galba and hauled him back from the front line.

  Legionaries fell forward to replace the two men immediately, desperately defending the diminishing line.

  “I need suggestions” the general said. “We’ve lost three quarters of the legion, most of the officers and standard bearers. With enemies on all sides, the Twelfth is just shrinking and will shortly disappear, with us in the middle.”

  Galba shrugged.

  “We need support. But the problem is that even if the reserves show up and attack the Belgae, unless the enemy actually break and run for it, they won’t be able to get to us. We’ll still be gone by the time the relief reaches us.”

  Baculus pointed.

  “Looks like the Tenth are coming back across. The Ninth must be in control over there. We’ve got the cavalry trying to help us, the support staff and the Tenth, and the reserves must be nearly here by now. They must have been told ages ago now.”

  “Yes,” Galba said, “but none of them can actually reach us. They can attack the Nervii on another front, but that might not help us at all.”

  Caesar frowned.

  “Then we must move the world around us.”

  “Sir?”

  The general smiled.

  “If the relief cannot reach our position, we have to move the entire legion mid-fight; find a different position.”

  “But sir…” Galba said, “We’re completely surrounded.”

  “Then we’ll just have to push hard. This is my plan: It appears that the Eighth and Eleventh have the enemy pinned against the river. They cannot afford to stop that push, or their own opposition could regroup. But the Eleventh are at this end of the field. If we can link up with them, they can give us support and we will be the flank rather than on our own.”

  “I can see that, general, but how can we get to them?”

  Caesar smiled.

  “The plebeian way… brute force and ignorance.”

  Baculus wiped the free-flowing blood from his eyes again.

  “We send all the standards in that direction and reorganise. The northern edge takes the lead and actually pushes through the Nervii until we reach the Eleventh. At the same time, the other three directions go as defensive as possible, almost a testudo, and pull back so that the whole legion gradually moves north until we join up with the others.”

  Caesar gave a rare, very genuine grin.

  “That’s the sort of thing.”

  Baculus saluted, almost collapsing as he lost the support of his arm.

  “I’ll start moving the standards forward now, sir.”

  He turned, but his leg, so pale from blood loss it had taken on a blue tint, buckled and gave way beneath him, causing him to collapse to the floor. He grasped the baldric of a nearby legionary and used it to haul himself up.

  Caesar looked him up and down and shook his head, smiling.

  “I don’t think you will.”

  He rapped a nearby second-line legionary on the shoulder. The man turned irritably and, as he saw who it was, came to a cramped salute in the press of men.

  “What’s your name, soldier?”

  “Naevius, sir!”

  “Well, Naevius… I’m putting you in charge of your primus pilus. He fights like a lion, but he’s so badly wounded he can hardly move. Your task is to make sure he stays calm, away from the action, and alive long enough for me to be able to decorate him when this is over. Got that?”

  The legionary saluted again and then grasped the centurion to support his weight. Baculus glared at both he and the general and then sighed and gave up, just before his legs did. Caesar turned to Galba.

  “This will need every ounce of courage and pride your men have, legate. I need you in the middle of things, shouting encouragement. I, on the other hand, will be at the front, with the standards.”


  “Sir…” Galba shook his head. “You can’t do that. You’re the only person on this field that we really cannot afford to lose.”

  “That, legate, is very charming and a little sycophantic. Given our circumstances, if we don’t do something big, it will make no difference how important any of us are.”

  Galba nodded. If the slight put-down in the general offended him, he showed no sign.

  “Very well, sir. I shall head to the rear of the column and try to hold the legion together as we move.”

  Caesar smiled.

  “Signifers? To me… Rally on me!”

  As the general turned and began to push his way through the rapidly-diminishing unit, the standards of various centuries bobbed through the crowd, converging on the northern area of the struggling unit. Once the general had reached a position in the third line of men, he waited for the signifers to arrive. There should have been fifty nine standards throughout the full legion. A quick count and he could see twenty four… no, twenty five. Taking a deep breath, he called out.

  “Call out if you are a signifer for the First Cohort!”

  Seven voices replied.

  “And the Second?”

  Four men.

  “Third?”

  Six voices.

  “Fourth?”

  Not a voice was raised above the background din of battle.

  “The Fourth Cohort is gone?”

  He sighed. What he’d thought he could turn to a rousing speech was, instead, drawing attention to the losses they’d encountered and the danger that none of them would live to see the sun go down. Change of tactic…

  “The Twelfth has valiantly held a flank against overwhelming odds on its own!”

  Rousing… it had to be rousing.

  “The Gods themselves would tremble before the spirit and might of this legion, who I have been proud to fight alongside.”

  There was a chorus of low cheers.

  “But now, it is time to save ourselves; to preserve what remains of this glorious unit. We must push aside this sea of unwashed and bloodthirsty apes as a stable hand sweeps aside the excretions of a horse, and we must join with the Eleventh. I will lead this push, alongside the signifers of the Twelfth. We will show the Nervii that they may throw a million barbarians at us, but we are Rome, and we will not be snuffed out!”

  A massive cheer went up as he finished. In a final, defiant gesture, he jabbed his gladius high in the air, turned and pushed his way into the frontline. The gens Iulia could disappear into obscurity with the death of its greatest son on this bloody field, but if the great Caesar was to die in battle, it would be in the thick of it where he would be remembered. The wound in his leg throbbed and, if he held his leg at certain angles, threatened to collapse him, but he gritted his teeth. Baculus had been fighting with far worse.

  “Push! Make for the Eleventh!”

  With no apparent regard to his personal safety, the general gritted his teeth, raised his shield, and threw himself into the fray. To either side, the men of the legion renewed their attacks, heaving with their shields, no longer holding them as steady as possible to fend off blows, but rather to bodily push the lines of the Nervii back away from them. Slowly, almost interminably, the wave of frothing barbarians gave slightly, and the men of the Twelfth managed a single step forward.

  “Again!”

  As the men heaved and pushed, slashing and stabbing as room allowed, there was another shift, like the collapse of sections of a cliff into the sea. The Legion surged forward a few steps, taking advantage of the opportunity. Caesar stepped forth himself, carefully, aware of the wound in his leg that threatened to fell him with every pace, in line with the front wall of men, ducking and stabbing at a barbarian who lunged for his face. The man howled as the general’s sword slid deep into his chest, grating slightly between the ribs. As Caesar tried to pull the blade back, the front mass of Nervii shifted again and the warrior fell backwards behind his fellows, taking the officer’s very fine blade with him.

  “Damn it!”

  The general raised his shield slightly. He could reach round and take a sword from one of the men behind him, but the action might leave him open to attack. Instead, he braced his legs, grunting at the pain as the wound on his calf pumped out his precious lifeblood. Ignoring the pain and discomfort, he leaned in against his shield, keeping his head down enough that he could only just see over the bronze edging strip of the scutum below the guard of his helmet. Taking a deep breath, he bellowed “Push!”

  Trusting to the men beside him to achieve a similar force, the general put every ounce of his weight against the shield, planting his legs behind him and heaving against the turf. Behind him, a quick-thinking signifer took advantage of the fact that the general was ducked and low, and raised the standard with its ornamental spear-point, stabbing with it over his commander’s head and impaling the face of one of the barbarians.

  “Good man! Keep going!”

  The general, down in the darkness behind his shield where no one could see him, suddenly realised that he was grinning like an ecstatic boy. There was something truly refreshing about the prosecution of a battle when you were one of many compatriots with a simple, straightforward task, no matter how hard that task might be. His mind found a clarity it rarely managed in the knowledge that, right now, all that was required of him was to push and survive until he found there were Romans in front of him instead of barbarians. No plans, no treachery, no bureaucracy or argument. Just men relying on each other and all pushing the same way.

  Briefly, for one moment in the heat of battle, Caesar found that he understood men like Fronto and Labienus. There was a simplicity and a purity in battle that held a lure when compared with the thorny complexities of politics and was not always any more dangerous.

  “Come on, men. Just a little further.”

  Of course, he had no idea how far they must go; possibly further than was realistically possible, but something had to be done.

  Once again there was a roar and the Roman line heaved forward, stepping forward once… twice… three… even four paces. The general risked looking up for a moment, ducking back urgently as a great blade swung past, almost removing the top of his head.

  He could see the standards of the Eleventh ahead. Straining, he listened over the roaring of his men and the general sounds of battle. Crispus and his officers were bellowing out commands and the two legions were slowly converging as the Eleventh tried to push far enough to join with them.

  He ducked once more and heaved, pushing at his shield, noting with concern that so much damage had now befallen the great wooden cover that he could actually see points of daylight through it. That could not be good.

  Above him, the signum lanced out once more and stabbed into another barbarian.

  Just a few more minutes…

  * * * * *

  Labienus grimaced. It looked very much like they wouldn’t make it. The Twelfth were so seriously depleted, perhaps down to a quarter of their number, and still surrounded by a veritable sea of Belgae. Even if the Tenth ran like racehorses they would still have to fight their way through the Nervii to relieve Caesar’s legion.

  He fretted as he ran with the Tenth, still in good formation, down the slick and bloody slope of the north bank and began once again to wade across the river. Despite the trouble the Twelfth were experiencing on the flank, the day looked hopeful for Rome now. Rufus could deal with the Atrebates, even if it meant just chasing them off. Balbus and Crispus were still heavily embroiled in combat, but things were going enough their way that the Belgae had committed every man they had, with no reserves to be seen across the field. With the Roman reserves surely only moments away, the battle would be theirs.

  But unless they did something quickly, the Twelfth would be gone by then, along with Caesar and any hope for a glorious end to the campaign. Without the general, a new governor would be selected for Cisalpine Gaul, the legions would be withdrawn, possible no longer funded, and
everyone would go home, probably without much in the way of booty either. Sad, really, that so many men and their families’ futures relied on the one patrician busy fighting for his own life.

  Clambering up the opposite bank, he waved his cornicen over.

  “Sound the muster. I need to think.”

  The musician put out the call and the Tenth and, as they returned to the south bank and began to form into their contubernia, centuries and cohorts, Labienus found a low natural mound and stepped onto it for the best view he could manage. What would Fronto do?

  He could just make out a crest in the midst of the fighting that would be either Balbus or one of his tribunes, or perhaps one of the staff fighting alongside them. Up by the furthest end of the fighting he could make out a small unit who seemed very irregularly organised, being led by a couple of officers. No sign yet of Plancus and the reserves.

  He fretted again. What to do? Labienus was a career soldier. Oh, he’d dabbled in politics far more than Fronto, but only to secure military positions for himself. He had almost as much command experience in the field as Fronto and Balbus, so he damn well should be able to think of something.

  He sighed as he realised the Tenth were almost formed behind him, and he’d have to have an answer in a few seconds. It looked bad for soldiers to have to wait while an officer faffed and dallied.

  He needed to see this from an objective view. He tried to imagine how an eagle would see the scene. The corner of the camp where the action was going on was like a disjoined ‘L’ where the long side was the strung-out line of the Twelfth, surrounded by the Nervii on all sides. The short side was the compact Eighth and Eleventh, fighting only on the one side.

  He frowned and squinted at the legions in combat. He knew what he’d be doing if he was in command of the Twelfth or the Eleventh. Surely they must have figured it out. Caesar and Crispus between them could outthink Minerva. They had to close up and form a solid ‘L’ with no gap. Then he had a plan.