by Jack Ludlow
The improvised phalanx was no triangle now, it was a knot of men jabbing and running at the same time, each one trying to fend off an attacking horseman. The Lusitani swung their great swords, lopping off arms with spears still in the hands, getting under the raised shields to decapitate those who had dropped their guard. Men stumbled and fell, bringing down the unwary to their rear, the heaps of bodies quickly surrounded, to be remorselessly speared by screaming tribesmen, but at the head of that mass they were through, though the earth beneath their feet worked against them as it turned to soft sand.
Marcellus, head down, sweat dripping from his forehead, watched as the mixture changed, losing the colour of burnt earth, until his feet, seemingly weighed down by heavy stones, rose and fell on the clinging fine sand of the golden beach. Lifting his eyes he saw his ships, bridges down, with the men who manned the oars rushing to their stations. Those marines left to guard the ships were armed and they rushed down the corvus and formed up in a defensive ‘V’ to receive their fleeing companions.
Marcellus, aware of his duty as much as he was of the knot of terror in his stomach, dashed to one side, hoarsely urging his men up the ramp. He could scarcely breathe from the heat and the weight of his helmet, so he tore it off his head and threw it into the ship, immediately feeling the welcome wind on his sweaty face. His sword was out, whipping the back of his men if they showed the slightest intention of delaying.
The Lusitani horsemen, several with Roman heads impaled on their spears, had formed up to charge the puny line of marines. Marcellus yelled an order, fearing that his voice would not work and the instructions would not carry, but a marine beside him, wiser than his fellows, bellowed out the instructions in a fresh, full voice as the Lusitani charged. From the line on the beach to every man on the ships who could find the space, a wall of javelins hit the charging horsemen. Animals went over, riders thrown forward into the sand. Those behind fared little better, their forelegs taken by the horses in front, struggling to rise in the sucking, awkward ground.
Marcellus ordered his men up the ramps at the double, waiting till all were aboard before himself walking slowly up. He gave the orders for the corvus to be raised, for the pole-men to fend off, and felt relieved as the oars bit and the ships began to move till they pulled away from the beach. A vast array of Lusitani infantry, all screaming at the departing Romans, mounted the ridge that formed the barrier between the valley and the beach.
‘Bring those poles,’ Marcellus called to the men who had pushed them off the beach. He called for ropes and ordered the sacred objects they had taken from the grove to be tied to the poles, and at his command they were all raised at once, these sacred symbols. A huge cry, more like a collective moan, filled the air as the Lusitani saw the ancient totems of their faith glinting and flashing in the hands of their enemies.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Marcellus was tired, with every bone aching from battle and lack of sleep. The Lusitani had overrun everything but the final wooden palisade that marked the boundary of his stockade. Most of his stores had been loaded overnight, between assaults, and after the last attack so had the majority of his surviving men, so it was only the rearguard who needed to get aboard before he fired the huts and barracks. Grimly he watched as the sun rose, knowing his enemies would attack again with that behind them, as they always did, but this time they only had one wall to scale in order to get to and massacre the garrison. They would kill them all, and painfully, for the tribesmen were fired by an almost desperate determination, seemingly oblivious to any fear of death. He had held them for three weeks, which, given the odds, was a remarkable achievement, yet he was being driven out of his base, so he could not dispel the gloom that filled his heart. If he established another, they would boot him out of that too, and all because he had removed the tribal symbols of their religion, something their chiefs and shamans seemed to be prepared to pay any price to recover.
Should he wait, blunt the first attack, and then retire to his ships? Or was he just sustaining casualties for the sake of his honour? Enough of his men had died to keep this fort in existence, so really it was time to go, before the sun rose just high enough to make the attackers nearly invisible against the glare. Marcellus issued the orders and the last of his men filed off the walls and streamed towards the boats. He waited till the last designated man was aboard, waited till he heard the first of the war cries that signalled a new attack, then indicated to those with the torches to set everything alight.
It burnt merrily, their stockade, sending a cloud of smoke into the still morning air, swirling round the few warriors who now stood silently on the beach, watching as the Roman galleys drifted out of the bay. No shout, no imprecations came from their throats; they merely stared long and hard, before the horns blew and they turned and left the beach.
‘We could land somewhere else,’ said Regimus, in a vain attempt to cheer him up.
‘Not without more men,’ replied Marcellus.
His losses amounted to half of the force with which he had set out from Portus Albus, and there was no point in attempting what might be an opposed landing with what he had left. Nor did he really have enough soldiers, or the time, to build the kind of defences he had erected on this shore even if he could land unopposed, and the idea that he could return south and get reinforcements was not possible, for the province of Outer Hispania could not provide them without being denuded of any prospect of defence. He would have to go south, but only to warn them to man their outposts, before heading round to New Carthage. If Titus was still besieging Numantia, he would have trouble raising more soldiers there, though that would point to the consul’s success, but even that thought brought more grief. He had failed, for while he was gone, the Lusitani were free to go east and fall on the rear of the besieging force.
The cry from the lookout made him spin round and run from the stern to the bows. Every free eye was straining forward, towards the line of ships that blocked the exit to the bay. The foreshore, the twin sandbars that narrowed the entrance on either side were thick with men, silently waiting for their quarry, for the tide was out and much of the sandbar lay exposed. Marcellus cursed under his breath, then ordered the oars to be shipped so he could examine the situation. They had known he had chosen this day to leave; indeed, if he had waited for that assault, instead of taking to the ships at sunrise, he would have realised how few men were left before him.
‘And I thought they’d given up on the idea of fighting with ships,’ said Regimus, who was standing by his shoulder.
‘No, friend. They have waited for this. In these confined waters, with the tide low, we’ll lose a great deal of our advantage.’
‘Do we fight?’ asked the older man.
‘We certainly won’t surrender!’ snapped Marcellus. ‘Feed the men, Regimus, and call the masters aboard. I think we’re in for a long day.’
‘They will seek to drive us into shallow water,’ said Marcellus, as all the other masters fingered the copies of their charts, knowing what that meant. Once beached, they would be at the mercy of the Lusitani on the shore. ‘We must seek to avoid that, to spin out the battle. Time is on our side if we can just hold them off. Remember the tide. It is making now, and once it is full the entrance will be that much wider and they will not have enough ships to block our escape.’
‘Do we run all the way to Portus Albus?’ asked one of the men.
‘No. Once we are out of the bay, and if they follow us, we will sink every one of the Lusitani ships that have survived, something that will be a lot easier once we have plenty of sea room. They can’t stand against a quinquereme at ramming speed and they know that as well as we do.’
It was plain that they did not believe him; they suspected that they were going to die in this bay.
‘We have three hours before the tide is full,’ said Regimus, in a voice that left it open as to whether he thought that was too much time or too little.
Marcellus spoke again, repeating the orders
he had already given. ‘Once we’ve undertaken the original manoeuvre and inflicted some damage, back off. Keep moving, ram them if you have to, but just hard enough to make them sheer off. Don’t get stuck in their planking, and protect your oars. If they snap those, you’re dead. Use your charts. Let them chase us all round the bay if they wish, but survive to get to open water.’
The masters went back to their own ships, each deck emitting smoke from the cauldrons of charcoal, while leather buckets were over the side, ready to be used for fire fighting, for the Romans intended to shoot flaming arrows at their enemies and without doubt the Lusitani would do the same in reply. The quinqueremes got under way as soon as their opponents weighed, their oars striking the water in a steady tattoo. Marcellus knew the odds were against them in such confined waters, for the enemy would seek to pit several of their ships against each one of his.
They would make no attempt, initially, to board or ram, being too light, individually, in both construction and manpower, but if they could disable one of his quinqueremes enough so that several could attack at once, they would have a chance of taking a Roman ship and there was always the prospect of driving them aground on those warrior-filled sandbars. Their smaller galleys were just coming on, with no seeming plan, but everyone suspected that they had already decided on their targets, and once they were closer they would split into groups. They would expect the Roman ships to stick together, just as they were now, relying on mutual support to nullify their numerical advantage. Marcellus intended to surprise them.
The horn sounded and each ship adopted a different course. Some went left, others right. Some increased their rowing, the rest shipped their oars, then spun to head back the way they had come. Those who kept on fanned out towards the shore on either side, forcing the enemy to split up, creating the impression that if they had a plan, it was one they abandoned by going for the nearest ships. Once they were committed, Marcellus showed them why they had made a mistake, for the horns blew again and the ships that had been heading back for the ruined stockade spun in their own length, their oars biting into the water at an increasing rate, propelling them forward. The other quinqueremes did likewise, their pace taking them past the outside of the attackers. They now spun on the oars and the Lusitani ships, for all their numerical superiority, found themselves assailed on all sides.
‘It’s a matter of discipline,’ Marcellus had said to the masters, time and again. ‘We know we can evolve a plan and stick to it, and if our enemy can’t, then we will win our way out of this trap.’
Nothing should have been proved to be more correct. Once they had abandoned their original intention, the Lusitani lacked the kind of central direction or an overall tactic that would allow those manning the ships to combine. All were individuals and they reacted as such, and having selected their targets they went after them, but Marcellus had split his fleet so that the ships were in totally different positions, causing their opponents to ram each other and sheer friendly oars in an attempt to go after their personal quarry — all this while the enemy was bearing down on them in heavy quinqueremes that could smash through these lightly built vessels two at a time.
Panic added to the confusion as some of the Lusitani masters tried to get away, but the Roman attack was a bluff. They had no intention of becoming embroiled in a melee; Marcellus wanted sea room to fight and the furthest he was prepared to go was a swift descent, a quick hail of flaming shafts, then it was back to working the oars to get out of danger. The Romans fired their arrows together, sending hundreds of burning pinpoints into the Lusitani fleet to keep them busy, then they were round, heading away quickly so that their enemy could not return the compliment.
‘Now, Regimus, we’ll see how good your charts are,’ said Marcellus, turning to his ship’s master.
The arrow took him high on the right shoulder, the wad of flame extinguished with a horrible hiss as it entered the soft flesh. Regimus let go of the sweep and leapt forward as Marcellus fell and in one swift movement he hauled the arrow out of his commander’s back, ignoring the pain it must have caused. He called for a bucket of seawater and threw the entire contents over the legate’s back.
‘Get me up,’ said Marcellus struggling to his knees.
‘Lie still, Marcellus Falerius.’
‘Damn you man, help me! Do you want everyone to think I’m dead?’
Regimus obeyed as others came forward to help, only to be pushed away. Even Regimus, once he was on his feet, was told to desist. Their leader’s face was grey, but only those close to him could see that, just as only they could see the way he swayed back and forth, fighting to keep his balance on the swaying deck. Regimus stepped forward again, to ensure he did not fall.
‘Leave me be,’ hissed Marcellus, slightly hunched, his fists clenched in determination.
He pulled himself upright, the pain of that simple action searing across his face, then, slowly, with deliberate steps, he walked all the way to the mast, and leant on that to recover some strength before making his way to the bows. On every ship they had seen him fall, and most had shipped their oars. If their leader was dead, the heart would go out of them.
Marcellus had brought them here, when most would have said it was impossible, made a land base against all the odds and raided the interior with seeming impunity, and that was before he found the Lusitani temple and brought out enough booty to make them all comfortable for the rest of their lives. He would have been angry if he had known how much they admired him, would have coldly reminded them that he was but a servant of the Republic, and that anyone of his class, given loyal troops and hard-rowing sailors, could have achieved precisely the same.
They cheered, on his ship as well as all the others, as he staggered along the deck. The oars bit the water again as he raised his arm in a triumphal salute, marching back down the ship to take station by the sweep. Only those close to him saw the agony, because that raised arm was from the shoulder that had taken the arrow.
In the open sea they could have out-rowed and out-manoeuvred their enemy, but in these confined waters numbers told. Only one galley ran aground, a tribute to the charts that Regimus had made, yet he would have happily burned them all to avoid seeing the slaughter that followed. The land-based Lusitani waded out by the hundreds to surround the ship. No amount of heroism could save the crew, and any galley going to its rescue would only suffer the same fate. Two of Marcellus’s quinqueremes had rammed Lusitani ships, and become locked to them in an embrace that could only end in death, while others were alight from end to end, with men jumping into the water to avoid the flames. Another pair, in desperation, had rowed straight at the ships still guarding the entrance to the bay. They were now surrounded by smaller galleys, like wasps around an empty wine goblet, selling their lives for as high a price as they could extract, since to surrender meant a worse death than a spear or a sword in the guts.
Marcellus’s ship, with the six remaining members of his fleet, used every trick they knew to avoid close entanglements, managing to ground some of their enemies, who did not know this bay, though not for long, given the numbers available to re-float them. What fires were started aboard the remaining quinqueremes by flaming arrows they put out before they became serious, this while they rowed in circles so tight that their attackers collided, all the time fighting off boarding parties without once allowing an oar to be snapped. The tide steadily rose, opening up the bottleneck at the end of the bay, until the remaining Roman vessels could attack it as one.
Those still in the line who had stuck to their orders and not engaged were too few and the quinqueremes sliced through them like a house slave cutting cheese with a wire. Marcellus, standing with his eyes tight shut, lashed by a rope to the side of the ship to keep him upright, felt the bows of his quinquereme lift and drop as they reached deep blue water and he managed a smile before he passed out. Regimus cut him down and had him carried below, then, turning his bow to the south, he gave the signal for what was left of the fleet to make a
ll speed for home.
The wound, once the surgeon had said it was on the mend, ceased to exist as far as the legate was concerned. No amount of pleading would persuade Marcellus that anyone else could carry the message to Titus; it was his responsibility alone. At least he travelled by sea to New Carthage, in good weather, which was a lot less tiring than a land journey, and that in itself went some way to restoring his health. He suffered a slight relapse once he transferred to a chariot, and had to endure the indignity of making a large part of his journey by litter, but Marcellus had made sure he had a horse along, determined he was not going to arrive in Titus’s encampment, before Numantia, like an invalid.
He made his report to his mentor alone, crisply and comprehensively, detailing his losses in men and ships, ending, his face sad, with an apology for having failed.
‘But you have not failed, Marcellus,’ said Titus.
‘If the Lusitani come…’
His general interrupted him. ‘They will be too late. We have so weakened the defence of Numantia that we can easily put an army in the field against them.’
Titus looked at his young protege, the lines of exhaustion clearly visible in his face. He needed rest, but he was young and would recover. ‘Despite what you say, Marcellus, you have succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. The truly wonderful thing is that you will be here to see Numantia fall.’
Aquila had left Titus with Marcellus Falerius, having listened as a far happier man had reprised his report for the assembled officers and, though he was reluctant to admit it, what he had heard of the legate’s exploits had impressed him — and not just because the idea of fighting on a ship was anathema to someone who loathed the motions of the sea. He smiled, suddenly conscious of the fact that he was guarding a fast-flowing river, standing in the pitch dark, listening to the sound of the water as it hurried by.