by Ray Gleason
Still, I ordered one of my troopers to sound assembly. Perhaps Manius would understand that he needed to withdraw . . . immediately!
As the hunting horn sent out its three blasts, the heads of the troopers below us in the valley – Romans and Aineduai alike – turned toward my position.
My assembly signal continued to sound.
Still, the Romans advanced toward the Hill of Flocks.
Ariovistus gestured with his staff. The solid cordan of Aeduan troopers split in the middle, moved back, and reassembled on the forward flanks of the slope. The Roman wedge entered the gap, which the Aineduai had made. Publicola, Troucillus, and Metius advanced behind them toward the hill.
They were entering into the maw of Ariovistus’ trap.
I turned to Duglos. “I am taking the fintai into the valley below to make contact with the Romans. When Rhodri, Drust, and Ewuhn get here, follow behind.”
“Uhr wuhf uhn dealch,” he nodded. “I understand.”
I grabbed him by the shoulder, “Come quickly!”
I ran and slid down the ridge to where we had left our horses. Slowly, much too slowly, my men assembled. I did a quick count. I had only twelve.
“Is this everyone?” I asked.
I got nods and affirmative grunts as my answer.
“The Almaenwuhr and their Aineduai lap-dogs plan to kill the Romans in the next valley!” I shouted. “We are riding down this trail to kill them! Follow me! Stay close!”
With that, I vaulted onto Clamriu’s back. She was a war horse. She knew she was going into battle. The narrow, dark, forested path that would have normally panicked her now had no effect. She galloped down the trail toward the battle.
In what seemed like no time at all, we broke out of the forest into the open river valley. I had to lead my men a few passus out onto the plain to get a visual contact with the Hill of Flocks.
Two things were immediately obvious.
First, Ariovistus had sprung his trap. I could see the Roman advanced party in a confused melee with the Suebii on the front slope of the hill. Below that, the Aineduai had closed the gap and were engaged with the Roman cavalry still in the valley.
Second, our mounts were winded from our dash down from the ridgeline. We needed to pause and give them time to get their wind, or they’d be clapped out by the time we made contact with the enemy.
My initial impulse was to try to force my way through the center of the Aineduai line and come to the aid of Troucillus and the Romans on the hill. I arranged my small detail into a cuneus wedge behind me and was about to start walking the horses toward the fight when I saw a rider galloping toward me from the rear of the Roman line.
It was Guithiru.
He galloped up to me. “A Pen! The Roman chief wants you to reinforce his left. The Aineduai are threatening to turn that flank.”
“But, we’re needed on the hill,” I began.
Then, I noticed that Manius’ assessment was correct. The Aineduai in the valley had the Romans fixed, engaged across the entire front of their battle line. I could see the Aineduai taking advantage of their superior numbers by shifting a force of riders around the Roman left, a point of contact where the swords of the defenders were masked by their shields and bodies. If the Aineduai pushed the Roman flank back and got in behind them, it would be a massacre.
This battle was not being fought as a typical cavalry engagement. The cavalry, as opposed to the infantry, normally does not stand up against an enemy attack. The strength of the cavalry is in its speed and maneuverability. Most cavalry fights are short, vicious brawls, after which both sides disengage.
The situation before me was different. The outnumbered Romans would ordinarily have disengaged, retreated up the valley toward my position, and found favorable terrain to continue the fight should the enemy pursue. But, these were Romans, and they refused to abandon their commander and their comrades trapped on the hill above them. So, they stayed engaged with the superior force and fought on unfavorable terrain, even if it meant they too would be annihilated.
For a Roman soldier, death is better than having to live knowing you abandoned your mates on the battlefield.
I realized that Troucillus and the rest of the turma on the hill would have to hold their own for a while. My point of attack needed to be directed where Manius wanted it, toward the Roman left, in order to turn back the enemy flanking movement.
But, there was yet another hope for us.
“Guithiru,” I said. “Ride back up the valley . . . Find Athauhnu . . . He should be no more than a thousand passus back . . . Bring him here quickly!”
“But, a Pen—” he began. No Gah’el with his blood up wants to abandon a fight.
“Go quickly, a Pen,” I told him. “Or none of us will survive this fight!”
If I could stabilize the Roman line on the left, then Athauhnu could break through the center to the hill above us when he arrived.
Reluctantly, Guithiru nodded, then turned his horse up the valley to find Athauhnu.
My troop was still in a cuneus wedge. We shrugged our shields off our backs and drew our spathae, our cavalry sabers. Then, we began to trot our horses toward the Roman left flank. I could see the end of the Roman line and the movement of the Aineduai toward it. Judging the distance and the potential speed of our attack, I targeted a point of contact with the enemy.
I ordered my fintai to the canter. Once the horses were moving comfortably, I ordered my cornicen to signal our approach with his hunting horn. After a couple of blasts, I could see the heads of the Roman troopers on the left turn toward us. They were veterans and immediately understood my intent. They began to fold back their line to give me a clean shot at the flank of the advancing Aineduai.
As the Roman flank folded back, I ordered my troop to the gallop. My men started whooping and screaming the battle cries of their clans.
Despite the clamor, the Aineduai were so intent on turning the Roman flank that they didn’t see us until it was too late for them. We tore through them as easily as a sword plunges into water. As we swept through, I got a flashing impression of a shocked face under a helmet on my right, too far away to reach with my spatha. An Aineduai on my shield side made an ineffectual swipe at me with his sword before he was ridden down by one of my troopers.
Then we were through. We were in their rear!
I immediately realized that I had a clear path to the top of the hill a few hundred passus to my front!
I have since learned that battles are not won by the leader with the best plan; battles are won by the leader who takes advantage of the opportunities that present themselves on the battlefield. Once combat is joined, decisions made solely according to predetermined strategies are useless the moment the boot of the first soldier steps out toward the enemy. The battle plan is rendered useless by the unexpected and unpredictable dynamics of the battlefield; decisions made during the battle must be based on the immediate prospects at hand. A seasoned combat leader makes these opportunistic decisions immediately and instinctually, based on experience, audacity, and confidence.
And, that is where I proved fatally inadequate in that fight.
Given our position between the Aineduai cavalry and the Hill of Flocks, we could either continue our advance up the hill to reinforce our trapped mates, or we could turn and attack the rear of the Aineduai who were still engaged with Manius.
My gut urged me to attack the hill, despite the need to attack uphill across open ground against a superior force with the enemy both in front and to the rear.
An experienced combat leader would have immediately seized on the second option: attack downhill and cut through the backs of the unsuspecting enemy.
Instead, I did the worst thing any leader could do in combat. I froze!
Almost immediately, I saw two riders gallop toward me from the hill. They were Romans. I recognized the second rider as a senior officer. It had to be Publicola. He was bent over his saddle horns and could barely keep his mount.
The lead rider was a Roman trooper. He was leading Publicola’s horse.
The trooper was Crocius.
“Decurio,” he panted, “get the tribune to safety . . . He’s badly wounded . . . Refused to leave his men . . . Can’t do a thing for them . . . a trap.”
He tried to hand me the reins. I could see Publicola sagging forward over his saddle horns; under his helmet, his face was pasty, greenish white. I was immediately reminded of Madog at Bibracte.
“Stay with him, Croci!” I ordered. “Get him back to safety!”
“No, Decurio!” Crocius shook his head. “My contubernales on the hill . . . my mates . . . they need me.”
I was about to order him to stay when the Suebii on the hill stole the option from me. About twenty of their light cavalry charged down the hill. Instead of engaging my troop, they pulled up about halfway down the slope. Then, I saw that each rider was dragging a foot soldier who was hanging on to a saddle horn. As soon as the infantry detached itself from the cavalry, the riders tossed down wicked-looking long spears to the foot soldiers. The infantry formed a line facing us. They locked their shields and raised their pikes to form a contra equitatum, a counter-cavalry picket line, between us and the Hill of Flocks.
I realized then that I couldn’t go forward. I had broken the momentum of the attack and now had a solid wall of Suebii infantry to my front. In fact, with the Aidenuai to my rear and flank, I was effectively trapped.
No sooner had I realized my predicament than a Sequani hunting horn sounded from the south. It was immediately answered by a Roman cornu.
Athauhnu had arrived!
The Aineduai immediately disengaged from the Romans and began to melt back toward the Hill of Flocks. In no time Manius was up to my position.
“Insubrece Decurio,” he began, “we are pullin’ back to the Sequani line to reorganize.”
Then, he spotted Publicola slouched forward over his saddle horns. “Verpa Martis! Excuse me . . . I mean . . . Tribune! What are your orders?”
“I don’t think Publicola’s in any condition to give orders, Mani Decurio,” I answered him. “Let’s get him back to the troop.”
I looked up over the heads of the Suebii pickets toward the Hill of Flocks. The fight up there was now over. I could see no sign of further struggle. But, Ariovistus, on his white stallion, was surveying the battlefield below with that gobshite of an Aineduai traitor, Deluuhnu mab Clethguuhno, mounted next to him.
There was nothing I could do for the Roman troopers who had gone up that hill, nothing I could do for Troucillus.
Although the Aineduai had withdrawn, the Suebii infantry on the front slope of the hill were becoming aggressive. I could see more foot soldiers descending the hill to reinforce their mates along the shield wall. As soon as their battle line was strong enough, I was sure they would sweep down on us.
So, we withdrew up the valley, toward the position where Athauhnu had established his picket line. As we moved back, we used the opportunity to recover our dead and wounded.
The Romans believe that without the proper burial rites, the limures of the dead are doomed to wander the middle worlds forever. To leave the bodies of mates unburied, to allow them to be stripped and abused by the enemy, would be a dreadful failing, a violation of contubernium, comradery, as culpable as cowardice. So, our dead were recovered, and our wounded helped to retreat as we withdrew.
I could only imagine how the Roman troopers felt about the bodies of the mates they had to leave behind on the Hill of Flocks. The thought that Troucillus was among them only exacerbated my feelings of failure; I had failed to carry out my officium obligatum, my pledged duty.
We reached the relative safety of Athauhnu’s line. The Suebii did not yet seem inclined to pursue, but had moved their shield wall down to the base of the hill and halted. We took stock of our situation. Manius had lost eight and four were wounded. Nine of his troopers were missing on the hill, along with Troucillus and Metius. I counted two dead and three wounded from my Sequani. Some of our wounded needed to be helped on their journey across the river with a single downward thrust of a pugio in the hallow between throat and collarbone. The rest were mounted as best they could for the march back to the Gate.
Publicola would have been a candidate for a merciful dispatch, except no one in the troop would strike a patrician. He had taken a spear thrust just below the right armpit, where his plate armor didn’t protect him when he raised his sword. He was having difficulty breathing, and the wound in his side bubbled with every breath he took. He was fading in and out of the somnis vulneris, the “wound sleep,” a stupor that the gods sometimes send as a mercy to badly injured soldiers. The Sequani medduhg, our only medic, packed Publicola’s wound with his sudarium, his military scarf, and tied his right arm down to his side to seal it. We secured Publicola to his horse the best we could.
The Suebii advanced about fifty passus toward our line. They tried to be threatening, but kept a healthy distance. They began to taunt us. The expected stuff: screaming insults in languages we didn’t understand, baring their bottocks. It had little effect on the men. But, when they began flaunting the body parts of our dead mates at us—heads, limbs, and even penises—Manius decided it was time to get out of there before our boys did something stupid.
The retreat back to the Gate was a short journey, but a nightmare nonetheless.
We moved across the open ground of the valley in an orbis, a hollow square formation. One of Manius’alae was the point element and the other, the right flank; that was all he had the manpower for. Ci was on the left and Guithiru the rear. We put the wounded in the center. Manius remained with the point element, while Athauhnu and I kept the flank and rear elements closed up and tight. It was a difficult formation to coordinate, and it moved slowly, but it provided us with security on all sides.
The Suebii took advantage of our slowness to dog our line of march. They didn’t attempt to attack our orbis directly. They mounted archers with their light cavalry and moved around our flanks, waiting in ambush along our route of withdrawal. They would find a covered position and strike uphill from us so that we could not get any momentum to counter attack. Since we were marching up the valley, they had many opportunities to attack us. Typically, the first indication we had of their presence was an arrow thudding into a man or a horse.
Luckily, our chainmail loricae defeated most of the blows from the Grunni’s arrows, which were poorly constructed and shot out of short hunting bows. But, sometimes they got lucky. Manius’ boys suffered wounds to their legs and arms; one lost an eye. I lost one of my Sequani troopers to an arrow in the throat; it severed one of his major blood tubes; he bled out before we could do anything to help him.
The real impact of these attacks was not from the casualties they inflicted, but from the torment of the constant harassment. When we were fortunate enough to catch one of those cunni, he didn’t die quickly.
As we climbed the valley toward the Gate, the forests closed in around us, and we could no longer maintain the orbis. Soon, we were marching in a column and the Suebii were concentrating on our flanks.
I imagined that I could hear the approach of the two arrows that were shot at me. One smashed into my upper-right chest, and the second hit Clamriu in her right shoulder. The arrow that hit me became wedged in the iron rings of my lorica. The arrow head buckled, and I was merely stung. But, Clamriu was lamed. The Sequani medduhg examined her wound while I covered his back with my shield. He assured me that he could remove the arrowhead from her once we got back to camp, but there was nothing he could do for her there. He clipped the arrow shaft, leaving only about an uncia protruding from her flank. He told me I should walk her, to relieve the pressure on her leg. Then, he moved down the column to examine his next patient. For the rest of the march, I remained near the front of our formation, just ahead of the wounded. Clamriu soldiered through her pain like a trooper.
My personal nightmare on that retreat was not the constant harassment, or even
the wounding of my horse, but it was the trauma of having lost Troucillus and the certainty that I had failed him and my mates.
My mission had been to prevent what had just happened. So, in my judgment, my mission had failed. If I had only arranged some sort of signal with Manius to warn the Romans away from the Hill of Flocks, I could have prevented the ambush in which Troucillus and the Roman troopers had died. Not only had I failed to warn them off, but I had also failed to detect the enemy advance until it was too late. Then, at a critical moment in the battle, I froze. I chastised myself for even considering an attack up onto the Hill of Flocks. If only I had reacted more quickly and turned around, I may have been able to change the outcome. I might have reached my mates in time.
As I write this memoir, I have been living with the memory of that fight for over twenty years. I know now that by the time I had arrived on that battlefield, it was already too late to do anything to influence events on the Hill of Flocks. Had I attacked up the hill, I would have only made matters worse by getting myself and all my troopers killed. My only reasonable option might have been to attack the Aineduai rear. But, even that would only have accelerated their disengagement from Manius’ troop, which, in the end, was caused not by anything I did–or could have done—but by the timely arrival of Athauhnu’s fintai on the battlefield.
But, as we limped back toward Caer Harth, I was seventeen and still a very green junior officer. I was guilty of that hubris that allows youths to believe that they, and they alone, are the sole cause of some significant event. So, I firmly resolved to resign my commission and request reassignment back to the legionary line of battle as a mulus.
We were, by my estimation, less than five hundred passus away from the Gate when instead of the hiss and thud of another Kraut arrow, I heard a voice ahead of us call out in Latin, “Cons’tit’ vos! Qu’estis? Halt! Who are you?”
Manius slipped down from his mount and responded, “Amici! Friends!”
The voice challenged him for the password. “Ursus! Bear!”