The big war galley slowed as it approached the end of the jetty and Atenos waited until he judged the timing to be right.
‘Come aboard!’
The legionaries looked at one another in surprise. The ship was still moving, and there was a gap of several feet between the jetty and the deck. The first man who jumped landed badly, falling to his knees and grazing them on the deck. Atenos tutted at him and beckoned to the rest.
‘Get aboard or you’re swimming after us!’
The men ran in a small knot and leapt aboard, some landing well, others falling as they hit the deck. As soon as they were safely on the ship, the captain picked up the pace as he made for the next jetty. Behind them, another Veneti ship had already begun to dock at the jetty they had left, yet more vessels closing in behind.
The whole procedure was repeated at the third jetty, though with greater ease, since they knew what was coming. After another shouted command in Gaulish, the huge centurion turned to his men.
‘Anyone here had experience of fighting as marines?’
There was a long, unbroken silence.
‘Me neither, but I’ve seen it done. No shield walls or testudos. As soon as we get near the first enemy ship I want everyone near the rail. On my command you run and jump for the enemy deck. When you get there, you come up fighting and don’t wait for orders or formations. Just kill anyone who isn’t one of us. If you miss the jump, you’ll fall between the hulls. I wouldn’t recommend that, so jump carefully. Everyone clear?’
The legionaries roared their understanding and saluted.
Atenos turned to look ahead as they broke clear of the many vessels trying to reach the docks and into the open water, heading toward the fleets, where the conflict was already underway. The Veneti ships outnumbered the Roman fleet by almost two vessels to one, but the Roman crews had adopted a peculiar tactic: they were sailing around the beleaguered Veneti, safe in the knowledge that the lack of strong winds left the enemy slow to manoeuvre. What they were hoping to achieve with this peculiar activity was beyond him until he saw, with a grin, two huge ropes give way on the nearest enemy vessel, allowing the sail to flap loosely over to one side, where it fell to the deck, useless.
Roman sailors and marines were hacking with some kind of polearm at anything available and were crippling the enemy ships with surprising speed and efficiency. Rather than boarding them there and then, they were leaving them, helpless and immobile, while they moved onto the next. Once they had the whole Veneti fleet becalmed and unable to move, they could deal with them at their leisure.
Atenos laughed. He had, given the navy’s record so far, presumed that the Roman fleet would be the ones desperately trying to outmanoeuvre the Veneti, but the situation seemed to have reversed this time. Commander Brutus had apparently identified a way to even the odds. Of course, there was still the issue of dealing with the aggravated, howling Veneti warriors on board the impotent vessels once they were stilled. The fight wasn’t over yet.
Shouting another order in Gaulish, he pointed at the near vessel that had now been abandoned by the Roman fleet, the trireme moving on to cripple another ship. The captain shifted the steering oar and Atenos’ heavy vessel swung toward the bestilled enemy.
The Veneti on board glanced at the healthy ship bearing toward them and cheered, yelling encouraging cries that turned only moments later into shouts of outrage and consternation as they realised that the warriors on board the new galley were the iron and crimson figures of Roman legionaries.
Atenos turned to the men beside him.
‘What do you say, Porcius? Do we offer them terms?’
The legionary grinned up at his centurion.
‘Be rude not to, sir?’
Atenos turned back to the captain, who was watching with deep regret as he steered his ship to deliver his tribe into the hands of their enemy. Stepping to the rail, the centurion bellowed an offer to the men on the helpless ship.
The answer was not immediate, as it took a moment for the Veneti warrior to drop his trousers and turn around. Atenos almost laughed at the audacity of the man, a warrior after his own heart, but that heart hardened and his face soured as he listened to the shouts and jeers and suggestions concerning possible animal stock in his lineage being issued defiantly from among the enemy.
‘That would be a ‘no’ to surrender then, sir?’
The huge centurion closed his ears to the increasingly brutal insults and turned to his men.
‘No quarter. They’ve been given the option to surrender and declined it, so I don’t want to see you stop just because somebody waves their arms at you.’
There was an affirmative murmur among the men and Atenos turned back to the rail. The two ships were closing rapidly.
‘Alright. To the rail. Prepare to board.’
The legionaries moved into position, twenty seven men, along with their officer, each professional and eager for the fight. Atenos nodded with satisfaction. It was men like this that made the Roman army the force that would eventually conquer the world, the sky, and possibly even the Gods themselves.
He watched as the gap narrowed, taking a deep breath. The Veneti warriors howled and bellowed, banging their swords on the rail, encouraging their enemy to make the first move. ‘Well,’ Atenos thought, ‘let’s not disappoint them.’
‘Board!’
The two ships had closed to a distance of perhaps three or four feet when the first man jumped and was caught midflight by a Veneti spear thrust out in defence. The blow was far from fatal, catching him in the hip, but arrested his momentum and caused the man, screaming, to plummet into the cold water between the two ships. A second man joined him midjump as a swung sword blow scythed a jagged wound across his chest.
The rest of the men began to land on the enemy deck and come up fighting just as the ships finally met with a deep, resounding thump that mercifully drowned out the crack of bones and stifled screams of the two men caught between the grinding oak hulls.
Atenos leapt, not waiting for the last of his men to cross first.
Landing heavily, but allowing his knees and ankles to bend and take the strain, the huge centurion came up facing a group of Veneti warriors, his sword gripped in his right hand, the broken shield long-since discarded back on the jetty.
Three men leapt at him, shouting, and Atenos lashed out with his left fist, delivering a punch that would have floored an ox, the force of the blow knocking the leftmost man clean from his feet and sending him tumbling into the press of men behind. At the same time, his gladius parried the first lunge from another man, barely sidestepping an attack from the third in time. A legionary appeared to his right, trying to help push the enemy back from his beleaguered centurion, but was felled by a heavy blow from a man Atenos could not even see.
Sidestepping to his left, the centurion slashed out with his gladius, feeling it bite into flesh, though unable to identify whose in the mass of howling Veneti. The other man stabbed out with his spear, his blow restricted due to lack of room, but good enough to connect. Atenos grunted as the point of the spear dug into his chest close to his armpit, and ducked to the side before the man had the opportunity to drive the blow home, wincing instead as the blade came free, tearing out a chunk of flesh, which fell away amid the fragments of ruptured mail from his ruined shirt.
As he ducked down and grasped the fallen enemy’s sword with his free hand, he heard a metallic clunk and realised that the blow had severed two of the leather straps on his harness, allowing the phalera he had won by the Selle River last year to roll away across the boards and disappear over the edge into the waters of the bay.
He growled angrily and stood, the long Celtic blade in his left hand too large to be wielded so by most men. He flexed his muscles, ignoring the pulsing pain in his armpit, and grinned through his crimson, streaked face at the man with the spear.
For a moment the man flinched, and then recovered himself, desperately gripping his spear and waving it defensively at the
centurion.
Atenos rolled his shoulders and shouted something in Gaulish before leaping forward into the press of enemies, both swords slashing out as he attacked.
Behind him, legionary Porcius, back to back with a companion, fought off a howling warrior and realised a space had opened up before him. Glancing over at his centurion, he shook his head.
Last year, Porcius and four other men had caught one of the wretched Gallic recruits from the fledgling Thirteenth Legion in the latrines and had taken out their frustration on him, beating him half to death before they saw sense and fled. All because he was a Gaul and had not belonged in a Roman uniform. Hard to believe they had done that, given the Gaulish-born centurion before him now, carrying the pride of Rome into a screaming enemy with no thought for his own safety.
At that moment, Porcius would not have been the Veneti for all the gold in Rome. A fresh wave of shame for his past actions washed over him and he ground his teeth, turning to the man behind him.
‘We’re clear. Let’s go help the centurion!’
* * * * *
Brutus pointed past the rigging.
‘That one.’
The trierarch nodded and gestured to his men. The Roman fleet had worked systematically over the last quarter hour and more, shredding the sails and severing the cables on the Veneti ships and now, with most of the enemy floundering and waiting to be boarded under the watchful eye of a number of triremes and quinqueremes, the last eight Veneti ships were attempting to flee the engagement.
The Aurora, along with nine other Roman ships, bore down on the desperately fleeing Veneti, granted a higher speed by the lack of wind and determined to put an end finally to the attritive warfare of this tenacious coastal people.
What hope could they have of avoiding the inevitable at this point?
Brutus frowned as he squinted into the distance and slowly the reason for the Veneti flight became clear. What looked like the coastal undulations common along this region was, upon closer examination, the entrance to a river, wide at the mouth, but rapidly narrowing. The Gallic ships with their shallow draft and intimate knowledge of the area would know exactly where they could safely sail, while the Romans would be at a considerable disadvantage. The lack of wind would no longer be the deciding factor then.
They would simply have to stop the Veneti before they could reach the safety of the river. He realised as he stood, fuming at the situation, that the trierarch was watching him with concern.
‘We need to stop them getting as far as that river, or we’ll end up beached for certain.’
The trierarch nodded, though there was a smile on his face.
‘I don’t think that’ll be a problem, sir.’
He turned, ignoring the look of confusion on the staff officer’s face, and pointed to the celeusta at his goatskin drum, busy beating out a backbreaking rhythm for the oarsmen.
‘Slow us right down.’
As Brutus watched in disbelief, the oarsmen settled into a relaxed mode, following the now-ponderous beat of the hammer, while the trierarch had the signal sent to the other ships to follow suit.
‘What are you doing?’
The trierarch turned his grin on the commander.
‘Listen, sir.’
Brutus cocked his head to the side and concentrated. He could hear the noises of the ship, the splashing of the waves, the distant shouts of the Veneti on their ships…
… and the onagers.
He grinned.
The artillery emplacements on the fort above, under the control of the Eighth legion, had begun to loose once more, gradually finding their range on the fleeing ships. The trierarch had slowed the Roman squadron to keep them clear of danger.
Brutus watched with relief as the range was quickly adjusted. Moments passed and then the first blow hit home. A massive boulder struck one of the central ships of the group, ripping through the ropes, wrecking the deck, smashing the mast and causing general devastation.
Shouts of alarm went up from the Veneti. The ships at the head of the group strained to try and get ahead, though there was little they could do, too reliant on a failing wind as they were.
The artillerists of the Eighth made their mark once more as the latest adjustments in range brought a group of five shots to the very head of the group of vessels. Two of the shots disappeared into the water harmlessly, overshooting slightly, while the other three hit the two lead vessels, all but crippling them immediately.
The Veneti fleet foundered and, with signals sent by the trierarch of the Aurora, their accompanying vessels spread out, each marking a target, leaving the flagship at the centre, following up on the rear of the fleeing vessels.
Chaos ensued among the Veneti.
After a further volley of deadly rocks had fallen among the lead vessels of the escaping flotilla, Balbus’ men settled into a steady rate of attack that brought their missiles down ahead of the enemy bows, deterring them from proceeding into the river mouth.
Brutus grinned. He would have to buy Balbus and his men enough wine to float a trireme when this was over.
Three of the eight vessels were already beginning to disappear beneath the waves, the damage from the repeated artillery attack too much for them. Three others had come to a full stop, the artillery shots dangerously close ahead and realising that their fight was over.
The nearest two vessels, at the rear of the Veneti flotilla, however, seemed to have other ideas. Their steering oars moved, and the vessels began to turn, much more sharply than Brutus could have expected.
‘I don’t believe it. They’re coming for us!’
The trierarch nodded.
‘Your orders?’
Brutus shook his head. What could they do other than engage?
‘Prepare the marines. As soon as we get close enough, have the men at the front and back use the hooks to do what they can while the marines board from amidships. Have the platforms raised for the marines so they can cross.’
The trierarch saluted and strode across the deck to his second in command, where he began to give out the orders.
Brutus once more watched the two approaching ships.
The quinquereme Accipiter and trireme Excidium came alongside for support, the remaining vessels concentrating on the surrendering or floundering ships.
‘What are they hoping to do?’ Brutus asked the trierarch, eying the enemy carefully. ‘Two against three and we have better manoeuvrability. Our marines are trained legionaries. What can they possibly think to achieve?’
The trierarch frowned.
‘Not sure, sir. But whatever it is, they mean business. They’ve trimmed their sails just right. There’s not a lot of wind, but what there is, they’re using to the maximum. That man’s a good sailor.’
‘They’re coming surprisingly fast.’
The trierarch continued to watch, and a frown fell across his face. Brutus glanced across at him.
‘What?’
‘They seem to have no sense of self preservation. A sensible captain would be turning to concentrate on the Excidium first. Take the smaller ship down and then concentrate on the others. Or at least split off and send one ship around each flank: one against the Excidium and the other on the Accipiter. But they’re both running central, straight for us. They’ll be surrounded by the other ships, and then they’re doomed.’
Brutus watched the ships bearing down on them. The trierarch was right. In a few moments those two vessels would slide neatly into the gaps between the three Roman ships.
‘A symbolic victory!’
‘Sir?’ The trierarch furrowed his brow.
Brutus shook his head in disbelief.
‘They’re only doing what the general did. Caesar went for their capital. It was a grand gesture of Roman power; a symbolic victory to break the spirit of the tribes. The Veneti have lost the war, and they know it, but they’ve identified the flagship of the fleet. Two against one. A symbolic victory. They don’t care about the Accipiter or the Exc
idium at all, and they don’t expect to survive.’
The trierarch nodded.
‘Full speed! We need to outmanoeuvre them!’
But his calls were too late, and Brutus could see that already. The Veneti war galleys closed on the three Roman vessels. The trierarch of the Excidium was prepared and the oarsmen withdraw their oars, leaving a bare side to the approaching enemy. The Accipiter followed suit, but too slow, some of the complex five banks of oars failing to withdraw in time.
The Aurora, however, was still under orders to make full speed and the row upon row of oars remained in the water, pushing the vessel forward. The two Veneti vessels barged into the gaps between the Roman ships, smashing whatever oars remained protruding from the hull as they slid tightly into place.
The enemy captains were every bit the sailors that the trierarch had imagined. Their timing had been perfect. Rather than racing into the gaps, as they approached, their sails were loosened and luffed heavily, failing to catch the wind and slowing the ships rapidly. By the time the two hulls drew alongside the Aurora they were almost at a stop.
Sailors aboard the two high hulls threw out ropes and grapples, grabbing the Roman ship and pinning themselves to it, bring the three vessels to a virtual halt and dragging the hulls together. The Accipiter and the Excidium were unprepared for the manoeuvre and shot on forward, passing their targets and trying to pull to a stop urgently.
The oarsmen of the Aurora, already aware of the situation before the orders began to ring out, grasped swords, shattered oars, or whatever makeshift weapons they could find and rose from their seats to deal with the coming onslaught. The centurion in charge of the marines barked out an order and his men split into two units that stepped toward the rail at either side.
And suddenly the world was filled with deadly activity.
Not bothering waiting to lower boarding planks, knowing that their attack was virtual suicide, and they would not be sailing home, the Veneti leapt from the higher decks of their ships and down to the timber surface of the Roman flagship as soon as the vessels were close enough. The number of people that had been on board the enemy vessels was astounding, the ships having picked up as many refugees from the city as they could manage, and Brutus watched with fascinated horror as waves of Veneti poured over the edge of their vessels onto the Aurora’s deck, like violent, screaming waterfalls.
Marius' Mules Anthology Volume 1 Page 125