The Helvetian Affair

by Ray Gleason

  But, the fight wasn’t over yet. We were still engaged with the Boii fiurd across our entire front. Off to my right, I could also see the dust of our desperate fight with the attacking Helvetii.

  “Let’s remount the troop!” I said to Athauhnu.

  We remounted the two alae. I posted Ci’s men back in the gap to remind the Krauts that we were still there. Athauhnu and I rode back to the center of the battle line, displacing Guithiru’s troop back to the left flank.

  Our line was no longer advancing against the Germans, but it seemed to be holding its own. Labienus had had to relieve his first rank and bring the second forward. We were only eight men deep, four pairs of gemini. The first line was recovering its strength and reorganizing itself for its expected redeployment. From the look of things, they had lost about a quarter of their strength, killed or wounded.

  The legionary slaves, distinctive in their brown tunics and with their small handcarts, were hard at work carrying water to the men in the battle line. From the dead or badly wounded, they were also collecting the equipment, which they dragged back to a collection point located somewhere behind our lines.

  The capsarii, the legionary medical orderlies, were also up on the line, carrying their capsae, boxes of bandages and medical equipment. They were bandaging and stitching up the slightly injured muli so that they could stay in the fight.

  The more seriously wounded were being triaged. Those who had a chance of surviving were taken directly back to the medici, who had established a medical station about fifty passus behind us. Some of the capsarii were riding horses with a double saddle. The wounded man was lifted up on the saddle in front of the orderly, and they rode back to the aid station.

  Those who had little chance of survival waited. Sometimes, if the wound was hopeless and a man was in great pain, the capsarius would help the soldier on his journey.

  Other slaves were loading the bodies of the dead onto their handcarts and taking them back so the medici could confirm that they had indeed crossed the river.

  The capsarii wore black tunics. I imagined this was to hide some of the blood. As they worked, their hands, arms, and faces became covered with the blood of the dead, dying, and wounded. The muli called them cornices, crows. They referred to evacuation back to the medical station as ad cornices ire, “to go to the crows,” or sometimes, cornices pascere, “to feed the crows.”

  I shivered, thinking of these images: the Mawr Riganu, the great crow, drinking the blood of the dead; the Wal Ciurige, the black carrion goddesses of the Germans; the black-clad capsarii, scurrying around the dead and dying on the battlefield.

  Where was Madog?

  “Medduhg,” I called. “Medduhg! To me!”

  The man rode over from Guithiru’s troop. “What is it, Arth Bek?” he asked.

  “The king!” I demanded. “Where is Madog?”

  He shrugged, “Uh brana dua . . . the black crows didn’t want to take him, so I brought him back myself.”

  I looked over to the Roman medical station. I had a bad feeling.

  “Athauhnu!” I said. “I am checking on Madog. If anything happens, send a rider!”

  I rode back to the medical station. The place smelled and sounded like an abattoir in the depths of Tartarus. It reeked with the stench of blood and freshcut meat. The wounded moaned, some screamed, many cried.

  Clamriu reared back from the place. I have since learned that, in many ways, horses are smarter than men. I dismounted and approached on foot.

  To my left, I saw the medici working. A man was being held down on a bloodstained wooden table by two burly attendants. A doctor was cutting on the man’s abdomen. The soldier screamed, arching his back. The medicus jumped back, removing his hands and scalpel from the man’s gut.

  “Hold him still, damn you!” he yelled at the attendants.

  In front of me were three groupings of men. To the left, farthest from where the medicus was working, were the dead. Their only companions were two slaves, who were busy chasing the carrion birds away from an inviting feast. I watched as a slave returned from the battle lines with his handcart and dumped three fresh bodies on the pile. Cornices pascit, I thought. He is feeding the crows.

  Next were the badly wounded, men not expected to survive. A couple of black-clad attendants walked among them. Some seemed to be treating wounds; others were checking to see if a man had crossed over. I watched as an attendant called over one of the dead-pile slaves and indicated a body for removal.

  Closest to the surgery were the slightly wounded. Some were lying on the grass, others sitting up. Most of the attendants worked with this group, checking wounds, bandaging others, giving the men water. I saw a medicus come over, wash his hands in a bucket, then indicate a wounded man to an attendant. The attendant stood the man up, walked him over to the open-air surgery, and sat him on a table for the doctor to treat.

  It was then that I noticed a man lying by himself off to one side, seemingly belonging to no group. I walked over to him. It was Madog. His eyes were half open; his face was greenish-white; his chest was not moving.

  I looked to my left and saw a capsarius walking among the badly wounded.

  “You!” I shouted at him.

  He looked over at me with a trace of curiosity.

  “Yes! You, soldier! Get over here! Now!” I ordered.

  He scrutinized me for a few heartbeats. From my sashes, he took in that I was a junior officer, a member of some nob’s praetorian detail. He decided that he should at least placate me. He sauntered over. His hands and arms were covered with blood, ranging from bright, wet red to crusted black. There were even streaks of gore on his left cheek and forehead.

  “Qui’ vis tu?” he asked with no great interest. “Whadda you want?”

  I was in no mood to be placated.

  “Quid vis tu, Decurio!” I insisted.

  He shrugged. “Si ti’ placet . . . if that’s what makes you happy … What do you want, sir?”

  “Why is this man not being treated?” I demanded.

  The crow looked at me as if I had lost my mind. “For one thing, he’s a bloody wog!”

  “I know he’s a wo . . . a Gah’el . . . He fights for Rome . . . He was wounded fighting for Rome. So why in the name of Dis isn’t he being treated?” I raged at the man.

  “Look around you . . . sir!” the capsarius came back at me. “We have our hands full treating Romans. We don’t have time for any of your bleedin’ wogs . . . Besides,” he said, nudging Madog’s unresponsive shoulder with the toe of his boot, “somebody made this one a good wog . . . He’s already dead!”

  That’s when I hit him.

  To this day, I don’t remember hitting him. One minute I was watching him kick my dead comrade; the next, he was sitting on the ground with blood pouring from the wreckage of his nose.

  Hands immediately grabbed me from behind. The capsarius’ buddies were trying to restrain me. A wounded officer waiting for treatment intervened.

  “Break this shit up!” he ordered. “What are you doing, stulti, you idiots? Don’t we have enough hairbags and Krauts to fight? Do we have to fight each other?”

  The attendant I punched was getting off the ground with the help of one of his friends. “This officer struck me!” he sprayed through the blood from his ruined nose. “I want to press charges!”

  “Shut your gob!” the wounded officer retorted, grabbing my elbow. “You deserved it . . . What I saw was an officer delivering a justified castigatio to an insubordinate gob-shite of a crow!”

  He steered me away from the gathering flock of crows. “What do you think you’re doing, Pagane?” he hissed at me.

  When he called me Pagane, I finally recognized him. “Bantus,” I answered, “are you hurt?”

  Bantus touched the bandages covering his neck and right shoulder. “A Kraut arrow got through our turtle,” he explained. “The capsarius up on the line couldn’t remove the arrowhead, so he sent me back here to feed these crows.”

 
“So, you were with us! You fought with Labienus?”

  “That who it is?” Bantus asked. “I was over on the left with the third-line cohorts from the Tenth.”

  “I’m with the Sequani cavalry,” I told him. “That was their dux whom that mentula kicked!”

  “The Sequani?” Bantus nodded. “You guys put up a hell of a fight in the gap. I saw it just before I went to the crows.”

  I spotted a rider galloping toward us. It was Emlun.

  “That’s one of mine,” I told Bantus. “I have to get back.”

  I quickly collected Clamriu.

  Bantus went on, “Most of your old mates are with the second line now. They’re catching shit up on the hill with the rest of the Tenth Legion. They sent Minutus all the way up to the first line because of his size. Strabo’s still with the tenth cohort, though. He was still on his feet when I was sent back—”

  Emlun rode up to us. “Arth Bek!” he called to me in Gah’el. “Athauhnu says you must return!”

  “I’m coming!” I responded, mounting Clamriu.

  Then, to Bantus, “Vale, contubernalis! Be well, mate! I have to get back to the party!”

  “Vale, Pagane!” Bantus responded. “Try to stay off the pyre!”

  Emlun and I rode quickly back to the battle line. Athauhnu met us about ten passus behind our line.

  “Madog’s dead,” I told him.

  Athauhnu didn’t as much as blink at the news. “I expected it,” he said. “No man could have lived long with such a wound. He feasts with the heroes, and we may soon join him. The Germans are massing the dugath for an attack.”

  I looked across the field. The German thegn and his gedricht had come down off the ridge. He was massing a division of the dugath against our center. I tried to count, but it was impossible. The Germans kept no order, no formation. I estimated that the Krauts were massing over two cohorts—about a thousand warriors about seventy passus to our front. Fresh troops, well-armed. They should rip through our thin, exhausted cohorts like wolves through sheep.

  On each of our flanks, the thegn had also assembled about a cohort of the dugath, around five hundred warriors, to prevent us from shifting men to the center.

  Across our entire line, our men were nearing exhaustion. They had been engaged with the German fiurd, the muster-men, for over two hours. Each fighting pair of muli, each gemini, had been in the front rank at least twice. One in three were down, dead, or wounded. The rest were trying to martial their last vestiges of strength.

  The German muster-men were not pressing hard. They were also exhausted, and they knew that the dugath was about to take over the fight. They had done their job. Our ranks were exhausted and whittled to the bone. It was time for their warriors to finish the job—not a time to get killed uselessly.

  Suddenly, Agrippa was at my side.

  “Didn’t you hear officers’ call, Decurio?” he announced. “Labienus is summoning us.”

  I rode off after Agrippa, with Athauhnu trailing behind. We met Labienus just behind our right flank cohort, a Seventh Legion unit. He had also assembled the senior centurions from each legionary group.

  Labienus wasted no time.

  “I assume you men have seen the Krauts massing in our center,” he began. “They obviously plan to attack at that point. Our line is six men deep, at the most, and on its last legs. If we let them hit us, we’re through.”

  There was no demurring from the officers. Even the centurions did not baulk. We were looking at a looming disaster.

  “I plan to form maniples with the centuries of the Ninth and Eighth Legions at the expected point of enemy contact,” Labienus announced.

  Labienus could have caused no more surprise with that statement than if he had announced the god Mars was on his way, with a troop of unicorns, to rescue us. No Roman legion formed maniples in combat; Marius had obsoleted the tactic over fifty years ago.

  A maniple was a formation of two massed centuries, closed ranks, one behind the other. It was a tactic used to achieve tactical mass back in the days when the phalanx was the state-of-the-art combat maneuver. Basically, two armies would run straight into each other and keep pushing and shoving in a scrum until one broke. But, the maniple formation was rigid; it had no flexibility. The enemy could run right around its flank, or if they had elephants, stomp it flat. The Roman army hadn’t seriously employed massed maniples since they were massacred by Hannibal and the Carthaginians at Cannae.

  Marius had reorganized the Roman legion into ten cohorts of six separate centuries each. This was possible because all Roman legionaries were trained and equipped to the same standard. The three unequal divisions of legionary infantry—triarii, heavy infantry; principes, spearmen; and hastati, light infantry— were a thing of the ancient past. Also, the cohort-based organization allowed a commander the flexibility to deploy his troops according to the terrain and the nature of the threat on the battlefield, a principle that Labienus himself had demonstrated when he peeled off twelve cohorts from the rear of four advancing legions to meet an enemy threat on their left flank.

  Curiously, vestiges of the old manipular system still existed in the training and traditions of the army. Within the cohorts, the first, second and third centuries were known as the prior, or front-line centuries, based on what their positions would have been in the maniple. The remaining centuries—the fourth, fifth, and sixth—were called the posterior centuries because in the maniple, they would have stood behind the forward centuries in the phalanx. What’s more, the prestige of the centurions commanding any cohort is based on whether they are prior or posterior centurions.

  In training and on parade, the command to form maniples was still given. But, this formation was used only to cross up tirones during training drills or to put on a show for some visiting nob—not while decisively engaged with an enemy force, as Labienus was about to attempt.

  To make matters worse, the only viable way of forming maniples from acies formata, the linear battle line formation in which we were currently deployed, was by first forming the quincunx, the “five dots.”

  According to legend, the great Scipio Africanus innovated this maneuver at the battle of Zama. When Hannibal sent his elephants in to destroy the Roman phalanxes, Scipio opened gaps in his front by having his centuries displace and shift behind one another, thus allowing the elephants to pass through the Roman lines.

  The only time the quincunx was employed in modern warfare was well before contact was made with the enemy, and it was only used in order to allow support troops and cavalry to pass easily through legionary lines. Once the enemy was proximate, the three “posterior” centuries of each cohort were moved forward on line, and the ranks were closed.

  No one would conceive of forming the quincunx while in contact. In our current deployment, since the posterior centuries were grouped together, this would open two ninety-foot gaps in the middle of our line!

  “This will double our depth at the point of attack. I believe with a front sixty-men wide and sixteen deep, we can hold the Krauts main attack back,” Labienus concluded. “Any questions?”

  “Legate, what about our flanks?” Agrippa asked.

  “Good question, Agrippa!” Labienus answered. “The Krauts did us a favor there. In fact, they’ve done us two favors. The first is that they have exposed their plans. They see no point in stealth. They think they can just walk right over us. The second is to your point. Except for their earlier attempt on our right flank, they have not pressured our flanks at all. In fact, we now overlap them on both flanks. You and I will continue to command the flanks. Our mission is to ensure that, when their spoiling attacks hit, they do not turn us. If they do, we’re in danger of being enveloped. So we have to hold on the flank. Centurion?”

  A centurion I didn’t recognize from the Ninth Legion spoke. “Legate, when we form the quincunx, what’s to keep those verpae from charging into the gaps?”

  “Good question!” Labienus nodded. “Insubrecus Decurio, that’s where
you and the Sequani come in. Split your command into two divisions. When the quincunx opens, you deploy a division into each of the gaps. I don’t think the Kraut muster-men have the heart to attack. But, if they try, you stop them. And, you need to protect the flanks of the exposed prior centuries when the posterior centuries pull back from the line. Just make sure you get your men back before the door closes . . . Compre’endis tu?”

  “Compre’endo, Legate!” I affirmed.

  “Bene!” Labienus concluded. When we reestablish the line of battle, we will align on the Eighth Legion. That’s all! Return to your commands! Listen for the signals!”

  I translated what was being said to Athauhnu. I doubt he understood much about maniples and quincunces; there weren’t even words in Gah’el to express such formations. But, he did understand that we were intentionally opening gaps in our lines to pull off some obscure Roman battlefield dance routine, and it didn’t please him. What pleased him less was that we were expected to ride into the gaps and throw ourselves in front of German infantry.

  We rode back to our position behind the Roman lines. Athauhnu assembled the Sequani riders and quickly briefed them on what to expect. He then separated them into two divisions: one under me and Guithiru, the other under Ci and himself. I noticed he didn’t mention anything about Madog. Each of our divisions assumed a ready position, mine behind the Ninth Legion, Athauhnu behind the Eighth.

  Time was running out for us. A gap had formed between our front line and the German fiurd; they were starting to disengage. But, the Kraut dugath, massing for the attack, were not moving. They were chanting their strange mantra to their god, Woden: “Wo . . . wo . . . wo.”

  Then, from our right, a Roman bugle sounded, “Attention!”

  Then, came a signal for the Eighth and Ninth Legions, quickly followed by, “Quincuncem . . . formata!”

  Immediately, the posterior centuries of the two legions executed an about-face and began to march in quick time to the rear.