‘You still expect to be able to resolve this quickly, then?’
Fronto shrugged.
‘A lot of that depends on factors outside our control, Caesar, but we hope so. Tetricus has the artillery of four legions finding their range right now. If you listen hard, you can hear them.’
‘I thought that was just my head’ the general said with a small laugh.
‘Tetricus reckons that he can topple those towers and flatten that gate in about half a day with the full weight of the artillery. And there’s free stone knocking around here for ammunition, so that’s no worry.’
The general nodded.
‘So by the next low tide, we might be able to manage?’
Fronto nodded.
‘I’d have hated to be down there when the tide came in. It’s not like standing on the beach at Antium and watching the line slowly licking toward you. With the storms and the choppy sea, the tide came in here in about quarter of an hour. It was like watching a dam burst.’
Caesar nodded wearily.
‘We might need to repair the morale damage of that first attack. Perhaps if I march with the men? Always boosts morale when the officers take a risk.’
Fronto nodded.
‘And you’ll also be pleased to hear that our scouts have reported sighting Brutus’ fleet a few miles away. Looks like he’s taken advantage of the lull and come out to meet us.’
‘Very good. That could give us an edge.’
‘Perhaps’. Fronto looked less certain.
The general sighed.
* * * * *
Fronto strode up the slope at the head of the army in the gentle drizzle. The Tenth, having led the first, abortive attack, had been given the honour of being the first legion through the breach. The walls had crumbled swiftly under Tetricus’ constant deadly barrage, and the Gauls lining it had fled after the first few shots found their range. Despite the stone, timber and packed earth of the ramparts, the artillery of four legions made swift work of them, reducing the gate to rubble and toppling the towers more than an hour before the tide had receded enough to allow troops to cross the causeway.
As soon as the water level dropped, the general gave the order and the legions marched before even the artillery had ceased. The general, resplendent in his red cloak and gleaming cuirass, joined the vanguard as they crossed the gap and began to climb the incline toward the shattered walls.
The broken defences reached toward the boiling clouds like stumps of sawn trees, small sections of wall at full height, interspersed with rubble, spreading down the hill. As the legion approached the walls, Fronto glanced across in the other direction to Carbo, marching strong at the head of the Tenth. The man was already looking at him and, as the two men’s eyes met, Carbo nodded, sharing an unspoken thought, and addressed the legion in a steady voice.
‘Be prepared, now, lads. Anything could await us up here.’
Fronto nodded quietly to himself, imagining the traps the Veneti could have set up behind the broken walls. It had been many hours now since the last figure had dared climb the walls to look at the attackers, and the quiet was eerie. He hefted his sword.
‘Secure the walls’ Carbo barked as they crossed the rubble, slowing their pace accordingly. Two centurions began shouting out orders, and a century peeled off the column in either direction as they reached the line of the defences, rounding the shattered wall carefully, not knowing what to expect. Fronto and Caesar continued alongside Carbo and the front line of the First Cohort and passed between the remains of the gate and into the fortress of the Veneti. As the two centuries rushed along the line and into position, checking the defences for any traps or lurking Gauls, the bulk of the army marched on up the slope and into the centre of the large headland stronghold.
This was far from the usual Gaulish oppidum or settlement with which Fronto was familiar. Rather than the unplanned, rambling streets of a Gaulish town, with trees rising from the roadside for summer shade and gardens in front of each house, this was a utilitarian arrangement, designed purely to protect a people from harm. There was no subtlety or joy in the layout, with squat, dark buildings for shelter all gathered close around a square at the highest point, with bare, windowless facades facing the outside, one end of the central square given over to granaries and storehouses.
‘So where the hell are they?’ Fronto asked no one in particular as they crested the hill and approached the silent, strangely deserted-looking buildings.
The general, beside him, bore a puzzled frown.
‘Perhaps they hide within?’
Fronto shook his head.
‘I don’t think so, general. These people aren’t the sort to cower without even trying to fight. But the question does remain: where are they?’
Again, Carbo barked out orders to his men and two centuries split off the main group as they approached the square and began to check out the buildings surrounding it. Behind the Tenth, the Eighth crested the hill, Balbus leading his men fast to catch up with the front line. Farther back, Crispus had split the Eleventh and sent them in two groups around the lower edges of the headland, above the cliffs, to meet up at the far end. The Fourteenth had played rearguard, remaining with the artillery for their protection.
Fronto and the general watched with growing unease as the legionaries of the First Cohort entered and exited the buildings, shrugging, nonplussed at the strangely deserted fortress.
‘Is it possible that we were mistaken?’ Caesar frowned. ‘That this is not a principal fortress, and there were only a few dozen men here on the walls after all and they’re hiding somewhere. A distraction? A decoy?’
Again Fronto shook his head.
‘No. This is a major fortress, and if you look at the mud here you can see hundreds of tracks. The ground’s been churned up recently by a lot of people. They’ve got to be here somewhere. Perhaps there’s something down near the cliffs? A cave system or something? I’ve heard tell that they do that in the east; occupy cave systems. If so, Crispus’ men will find them soon enough.’
They suddenly became aware of shouting. Squinting into the fine mist of rain, Fronto spotted an optio waving from the edge of the grassy slope ahead, toward the sea; one of Crispus’ men from the Eleventh. The man waved both arms above his head and then pointed out to sea. Fronto felt his heart sink. Somehow, he knew what had happened. Gesturing at Carbo, he beckoned the general and the three men strode speedily between the storehouses and across the grassy headland toward the man.
They saw it before they caught up with the optio, as soon as they reached the area where the ground began to fall away down toward the cliffs. Ships. Dozens of dark, heavy ships, their huge rectangular sails unfurling as they watched, were making their way out toward the open sea, hundreds of jeering Gauls lining the rails and gesturing up at the Romans in the empty fortress.
Caesar, next to Fronto, stopped in his tracks, grinding his teeth in angry frustration.
‘No.’
Fronto looked across at him.
‘Brutus and the fleet can get them. Look… the triremes are already moving.’
The three men watched intently as other officers joined them at their vantage point. Behind them, three legions spread out across the stronghold, searching every inch.
Fronto found that he, too, had his teeth clenched as he watched the sea below. Despite the fact that the storm had died to a gentle drizzle, the sea still rose and fell dangerously, huge waves crashing against the rocks where they breached the surface. The Veneti galleys were moving slowly as yet, a mere hundred paces from the cliffs, their sails only just beginning to catch the wind, whereas Brutus’ ships, powered by banks of oars, were already tearing at high speed toward them.
‘They can’t get away’ Fronto noted as he watched. ‘There’s not enough time.’
Caesar nodded as he continued to peer down into the roiling waves in intent silence. Beside them, Carbo made a strange rumbling noise. Fronto turned, frowning, to look at his primus pilus.
The man was shaking his head.
‘What’s up?’
Carbo unstrapped his helmet and, removing it, mopped his brow.
‘It’s not going to work. If the commander doesn’t pull his fleet back, they’re in trouble.’
‘What?’
But instead of explaining, Carbo merely pointed to the lead trireme as it put on an extra burst of speed, bearing down on the escaping Veneti fleet. Fronto turned back to it and peered down.
‘I don’t see…’
He fell silent as he watched the trireme meet the submerged rock shelf that surrounded the headland. There was a series of cracks and crunches as the oars hit rocks and shattered, followed by an almighty bang as the hull connected with the undulating shelf beneath the jagged pinnacles.
He watched in horror as the trireme foundered on the rocks, water rushing in through the broken hull. The crew panicked and began to abandon the ship, some diving blindly onto the rocks. Behind them, the rest of the fleet veered away sharply.
Fronto stared. ‘How is that possible?’
Carbo shrugged.
‘It’s all about draft, sir. The hulls of the triremes are too deep beneath the surface to cross these rocks, and the oars are no use there.’
‘But how do the Veneti do it then?’
‘Their ships must be designed differently. A lower draft so that their ships can cross the rocks in safety. And if you look, sir, they’ve a much wider beam too.’
‘Beam?’ Fronto began to feel as though he was being toyed with.
‘Yes sir. The beam is the width of the ship. Ours are deeper underwater and narrower in the beam. Theirs have a shallow draft, which allows them to approach the coast easily, but that would make them less stable at sea, so they’ve counteracted that with a wide beam so that they remain the right way up even in strong waves. Quite clever really. They’ve adapted their shipbuilding style to the conditions they live in.’
As they watched, the Veneti fleet was already leaving the rocky area beyond the cliffs and making for open sea, their sails billowing.
‘It’s not over yet’ Caesar noted, watching as the Roman fleet, now carefully avoiding the rocks, began to head out to sea.
Again, Carbo shook his head sadly.
‘They’re actually moving faster than our ships at the moment. Once they get out into those heavy waves our triremes will be in extreme danger. They’ll capsize and break up in those conditions. If commander Brutus doesn’t turn them back before they’re half a mile out, we’ll lose the fleet.’
Fronto frowned at his senior centurion.
‘You seem to know a lot about this?’
‘I wasn’t always a soldier, sir. I grew up in Ancona. My dad was a shipbuilder, sir.’
Fronto raised his eyebrow. This man never failed to surprise him.
‘What’s the answer then, Carbo? How do we stop them?’
The primus pilus sighed, his shoulders drooping.
‘I’m not entirely sure that we can, sir. Catching them’s possible, but it’s a matter of surprising them and trapping them in a harbour with deep enough water that we can get our own ships to them, while they can’t escape past us.’
Fronto nodded and suddenly became aware that the general was at his shoulder, paying close attention.
‘Go on, centurion’ the general said. ‘You say we could catch them, but that is not enough?’
Carbo scratched his head. ‘I’m not sure, sir. The thing is, even from this far away you can see the difference in size and construction of the ships. Their hulls are much higher and thicker than ours; they have to be to withstand the conditions of the sea here.’
‘So?’ Fronto prodded.
‘Well sir... if their ships are, say, six feet higher at deck level than ours how would we get a boarding ramp across to them? There’s no realistic way of doing it, which renders boarding impossible. That, in turn, means the marines are useless and can’t get aboard the enemy.’
‘Then we sink them and pick them out of the water.’
Again, Carbo shook his head.
‘Solid oak. Very thick hull. I doubt our rams would go through it. If one of our fleet hit their ships at ramming speed, I would give even chances that it would be our trireme that sank and not them.’
Caesar’s teeth began to grind again.
‘Are you suggesting that the fleet is unlikely to catch the enemy and effectively powerless to deal with them even if they did?’
Carbo nodded.
‘Unless the commander can come up with something that helps turn the odds his way.’
The three men raised their eyes to the distance once more. The Veneti fleet were already out among the choppy waves, and Brutus’ fleet, having begun to buck and roll with the sea, had slowed their pursuit.
Caesar turned his angry gaze to Fronto.
‘Get the legions back to the mainland, dismantle the artillery and, when Brutus puts in an appearance, tell him to get out there and track them. I don’t care how he does it, but I want to know where that Veneti fleet goes, so that when they land we can deal with them properly.’
Fronto nodded and turned to Carbo.
‘You heard the general. Get the Tenth on the move.’
‘Yessir.’
Fronto gazed out once more at the distant, retreating sails of the Veneti. He had engaged defiant people before who had fought until the last man stood, and had dealt with tribes who had surrendered in order to preserve their culture. He’d never dealt with a tribe that refused to engage them and simply slipped out of the back door when the might of Rome came knocking. This was going to be problematical.
Chapter 7
(Maius: Off the coast of Gaul some five miles north of Corsicum)
Brutus pinched the bridge of his nose as the trierarch’s fierce gaze bored into him.
‘Just do it.’
‘As you say, commander.’
The ship’s captain turned his piercing blue eyes away from the staff officer back to his second on deck, periodically calling out the timing for the oarsmen.
‘Signal the fleet to move into bull horns formation and as soon as the ships are in position, give me attack speed.’
‘Aye, sir’
The trierarch turned back to Brutus and glared. The young officer had chosen the Aurora as his flagship solely because it had been the first trireme to be completed and the first he had sailed on. He was beginning to regret choosing one with such a headstrong and outspoken captain and, while he knew that he had the authority to shut the man up, remove him from command, or even have him disciplined, he had not the heart, since he knew with every ounce of his being that the man was absolutely right.
‘You are aware, commander, that this is inviting disaster?’
Brutus nodded unhappily.
‘Sadly, captain, I have my orders and therefore so do you. Whatever else we do and whatever the result, we have to try.’
The comment did nothing to lift the disapproval from the man’s gaze as the other ships in the fleet pulled into a flattened crescent shape some three or four vessels deep.
‘Execute the plan.’
Brutus took a deep breath. It was a long shot, for certain. In fact, it was several long shots and made him nervous just thinking about it, particularly given that it was a plan of his own devising. Still, none of the experienced naval officers could come up with a better solution.
The ‘horns’ of the bull on the outer points of the crescents were formed of the quinqueremes, the heaviest warships in the fleet. Their initial task was to sweep in as pincers and to take the edge of the Veneti fleet, effectively sealing them in and, hopefully, given their size and weight, to sink a few with the rams. While this happened, the rest of the fleet would close, the rear lines spreading out to encircle the enemy.
Brutus found that he was uttering a silent prayer to Juno, the family’s patron deity. The Veneti fleet, almost twice as many vessels as his own, drifted along at a gentle speed as though they had not a care in the wo
rld, and it was both frustrating and worrying. The Veneti were clearly a clever and resourceful people and to let Brutus’ fleet descend on them was extremely out of character. Was it a trap somehow? He could not see how. They were too far from the headlands for the Veneti to have hidden surprises, while trying to stay close enough to land to avoid the worst of the seas, even in this soggy lull in the weather.
It was foolish and worrying.
During his last meeting with Caesar, which had not gone well, he’d managed to argue himself into a corner. When Fronto had passed on his orders to track the Veneti, he’d been to see the general to point out that the job could be done just as effectively by scouts on the cliffs without endangering the ships. Caesar had rounded on him angrily, asking what use the ships were then, and by the time he’d left the tent, his new orders were to launch an attack.
The fleet closed on the Veneti, and he swallowed nervously. If they could get the Veneti pinned they might stand a chance, the crews had spent the previous evening constructing platforms at the prow in order to raise the height of the ‘corvus’ boarding bridge and therefore overcome the difference in deck height. It looked uncomfortably precarious to Brutus, but no other solution had leapt to mind.
Glancing to left and right from his commanding position, he watched the horns of the bull closing on the Veneti and something caught his attention. The enemy fleet had thinned out at the periphery. In fact, as he scanned the Gaulish mass, the entire fleet had thinned. A huge proportion of the fleet of ships had begun to break away, altering their huge leather sails to fill with the billowing wind and picking up speed, heading for the coast.
Even as he watched, more and more clumps of vessels began to pick up speed and move away. It was like watching patches of ice breaking away in a fast stream, and the truly irritating thing was that, despite the Roman ships moving at attack speed, the Veneti vessels were fleeing the scene even faster.
He frowned.
Why, then, had they clearly left a few of their fleet at the mercy of the Romans. As more and more of the enemy broke away, it became obvious that they had left six… no… eight ships with their sails sagging, waiting to be overcome. What strange trap was this? Could the vessels be about to be fired? Disease ridden by design? Something was wrong.
Marius' Mules Anthology Volume 1 Page 114