by R. W. Peake
~ ~ ~ ~
While taking the island was important, it was only a first step; next was seizing the rest of the Heptastadion. The Egyptians held the southern drawbridge, and had built a fort mirroring the one we constructed; an annoying habit of theirs, copying the things that we did. I do not know what was more infuriating, that they copied us, or that they did such a good job of it. Whatever the case, the Egyptians who were manning the fort had to be dislodged, and the day after the island was taken, Caesar gave the order for a total of three Cohorts to make the assault. Two of them would advance up the Heptastadion, while one would make a landing from ships. To provide support, Caesar filled a couple ships with the archers, sending his heavier vessels with their artillery as well. The small flotilla did its job very well, scouring the small fort of defenders, the bulk of whom simply fled back into the city rather than face such a ferocious and sustained barrage, leaving behind a number of dead and wounded. Seeing the defenders flee, the Cohorts from the northern fort left their own defenses, marching down the mole to take the fort without the loss of a single man. The seaborne Cohort landed without incident as well; all of this we were again watching from the rooftops, and Caesar put the men to work immediately tearing up some of the stone docks to use to build a wall and parapet on the western side of the mole, running lengthwise across the bridge.
“What’s he having them do that for?” Sertorius asked, clearly puzzled, but I could not help because I had no idea.
“Maybe he’s trying to screen the Egyptians from seeing what he has planned,” suggested Fuscus.
I bit back a sarcastic reply, chiding myself for letting my personal feelings for Fuscus color my opinion of the validity of his comment. The truth was that what he said was perfectly reasonable, although I did not think it was likely, because I was sure that the Egyptians knew exactly what his intentions were, to fill in the southern passageway the way he had the northern one. Consequently, I chose to remain silent, and we kept on watching as the work continued. One Cohort was given the task of carrying stones from the razed buildings on the island to use to fill in the passageway, earning our sympathy.
“That’s got to be a bastard of a job. They have to carry those rocks more than seven furlongs. That’s what, about a mile?” This came from Sertorius.
“Near enough,” I grunted, trying to disguise the fact that I could not do sums that rapidly in my head.
“In this heat? I’m just glad it’s not us,” he laughed and I had to agree.
Most of the men carrying the rocks appeared to have teamed up, stacking a number of stones on one of their shields, with each man carrying one end. Some of the men had grabbed the wooden boards that are used as stretchers for casualties, but most of the men appeared to be using the first method. I could not help wondering how long it was going to take for them to block up the southern passageway at this rate. Meanwhile, the Egyptians were not idle either, as Salvius called out, pointing to the western side of the harbor. We watched men begin boarding the ships moored there. In a few moments, the first of the Egyptian craft pushed off from the quay, the oars dipping into the water, glinting like silver when they were pulled out. There is something inherently graceful and beautiful in watching a vessel moving through the water under oar, the hull slicing through the water, leaving a steadily widening V behind it, the oars that power it moving in unison, each one powered by one, two or even more men, individuals acting as one unit. Who else but a Roman could appreciate such precision, such teamwork? The fact that the ship was filled with men who were going to try to kill my comrades was the only thing marring the beauty, and I had to force myself to remember exactly what was going on before us. Another ship pulled away, then in a few moments, the water in the harbor was roiling as more and more vessels made their way across to the mole. Then, something happened, and I do not know if it was part of the plan, or if one of the Egyptian commanders, perhaps Ganymede himself, saw an opportunity to put our men working on the mole into difficulty. Whatever the cause, suddenly a number of ships suddenly veered off their course to the southern end of the mole, instead moving quickly towards the opposite end, towards our northern fort. As is our custom, Caesar would allow only Legionaries to perform the labor for his engineering projects, so in order to keep a presence in the fort, he had ordered the seamen from a number of our ships to land and take up positions there. But seamen, foreign-born seamen at that, are not Legionaries, and now Ganymede or one of his commanders was going to put them to a test. In growing shock and dismay, we watched the Egyptian craft disgorge their passengers, who came swarming up the same rocks that we had been forced to climb the day before, although being more lightly armed they were able to ascend more quickly. We could not hear them, but we could just make out the men waving their weapons over their heads as they charged, and I imagine that they were screaming their heads off. Even if they were not, the effect the sight of the charging Egyptians had on the seamen was immediate and dramatic. As we moaned in disgust, the sailors in the fort simply turned to run without putting up even the pretense of a fight, dashing headlong across the mole to the eastern side, back to the ships from where they had come. Men went scrambling down the sides of the mole since there were no quays this close to the northern drawbridge. Naturally, they were forced to stop at the water’s edge and beckon their comrades still aboard ship to come closer so they could climb aboard. No more than a moment later, there was a confused mass of men jammed together at the shoreline, with the pursuing Egyptians beginning to catch the slower of the sailors. Even as all this was happening, the first of the enemy ships heading for the southern end had unloaded their respective contingents at the foot of the newly built rampart, while other ships ranged offshore firing missiles at our men at the wall in much the same way that our archers drove off the original occupants of the fort.
For reasons that I can only guess at, even while all of this chaos was happening, a number of boats from our side pulled up to the mole, with men spilling onto the causeway. However, this group chose to land farther south than where their comrades near the island were being slaughtered, but north of where our Legionaries were battling the Egyptians for the southern drawbridge, landing effectively in between the two battles. It was only later that we were told that this particular group of idiots, having never seen a land battle up close, got the idea into their collective heads that it would be fun to watch the action from close up, and they commandeered a number of small boats to row over to watch the fun. I will say that some of them seemed to get in the spirit of things, as we watched them pick up stones to hurl at the Egyptians onboard the support ships. The sailors at the far northern end had either managed to clamber back onboard their respective ships, or been cut down, although in doing the former they caused a number of the smaller vessels to capsize when trying to climb onboard. Now the enemy on the northern end turned their attention towards this hapless band in the middle, falling down on their completely unprotected rear. For their part, our sailors were so engrossed in watching the battle for the southern drawbridge that they did not become aware that their doom was fast approaching until the enemy was just a matter of a hundred paces or so away. Not surprisingly, another panic ensued with the second group of sailors, their arms waving wildly above their heads in terror, rushing back towards their boats, the Egyptians hot on their heels.
~ ~ ~ ~
Even now, after reading Caesar’s account of what happened, I do not know what was in his mind when he chose this same moment to leave the mole and board his flagship. I do not know if he had planned to do so at that moment or if, seeing a fair number of Egyptians pounding down the causeway from an unexpected direction, he decided that it was prudent for him to remove himself. What I do know is that it is from seemingly random events, when they occur in the right order, that the outcome of a battle can turn. Such was the case now, while we stood on the roof watching all of Caesar’s plans starting to unravel, started by those Egyptian ships landing on the island to swing down on first ou
r northern fort, then on the idiots, many of whom were now dead, either from wounds or drowning. If things had stopped there, it would have still been a salvageable situation, but now the Legionaries on the far right of the rampart guarding the drawbridge, nearest to the island and the northern fort, first seeing the disaster farther up the mole, then witnessing Caesar remove himself, began to think about their own skins. I must admit that they were subjected to murderous fire from the ships supporting the Egyptian attack on the rampart; we clearly saw a number of bodies lying at the feet of the men still fighting. First, the men on the far right, those closest to the advancing Egyptians coming down the mole, jumped down from the rampart to run across the causeway towards the eastern side, begging the men safe offshore to steer their boats closer so that they could escape to safety. Just like what happened on the opposite end of the causeway, the idiots in the middle had caused several of the boats they tried to board to capsize as well, so that now the harbor was littered with the upside down hulls of what looked like almost a dozen boats of varying size. Floating among them were a fair number of smaller shapes, the bodies of men who were either the cause of a boat capsizing as they tried to pull themselves aboard, or a victim.
“This is a fucking disaster,” I muttered, and the shock was such that none of the others could even answer me, only grunting at my words in what I took to be agreement.
What had begun with just a few men on the far right now became a complete collapse, as one by one men peeled away from their position to follow their comrade, usually the man to his right, towards what they hoped was safety. First one, then another ship, their captains either moved by the plight of the men on the mole, or forced to do so by the stranded men’s comrades, moved towards the causeway, pulling alongside to throw up their ladders. Perhaps if the men still on the mole had kept their heads, forming a perimeter to keep the Egyptians at bay while their comrades loaded onto the boats in an orderly fashion, disaster could have been averted, but the men were obviously gripped by panic. Just like the seamen earlier, they now pushed and shoved each other, fighting for a spot to descend the ladders of the ships. At first, men were content just to push each other, but it was not long before we saw the flash of a blade as a man struck down one of his own comrades. There was an audible gasp from the men around me, and I suspect from me as well.
“By the gods, is that a Centurion stabbing his own men?” Fuscus exclaimed, pointing down to the second ship, where the scene was more or less identical.
I had been paying attention to the ship closest to us, while Fuscus was pointing at the farthest ship, but when I looked, I saw that he was right. My stomach lurched at the sight of the familiar transverse crest on the head of a man, chopping down his own men. As sickening a sight as that was, I squinted at the ship, and my mouth went dry with fear.
“That’s Caesar’s ship!”
He had obviously decided to try to rescue some of his men, but they were so consumed with fear that they were now trying to climb over the side of the ship, and we could see it start to lean dangerously, the water just inches from the side.
“They’re going to capsize him!” someone said in horror.
It was one of the worst feelings I have ever experienced, watching what appeared to be the inevitable capsizing of our general’s ship, but completely helpless to do anything about it. Despite the obvious danger, men continued adding their own weight as they tried to leap down into the ship. The entire side, what little of it was still above water, was now completely obscured by the bodies of men attempting to pull themselves aboard. Then, we saw a number of figures on the opposite side of the ship leap into the water, and for a moment, I could not understand what they were doing. I wondered if the men who dived into the water had simply decided that they would rather drown on their own than be dragged under by men they had thought of as friends. Then my eyes caught something that seemed to be coming from one of the men, and at first, I thought it was blood because it seemed to be a pool of red surrounding his head, the only part of him visible above the surface. Squinting, I saw that the man did not appear to be struggling in the water the way a man who is wounded is likely to, and that pool of blood did not seem right. It did not seem to be growing, despite the man being clearly alive, meaning his heart was still pumping, but it did seem to be changing in size as I watched.
“That’s Caesar!” I exclaimed, pointing to the man, “and he’s swimming away and taking his paludamentum with him!”
~ ~ ~ ~
Indeed it was our general, who chose to abandon the ship, which he recognized was doomed to capsize, and take his chances swimming to safety, dragging his paludamentum with him in his teeth so that it would not be captured. Unfortunately, it became so waterlogged that even as strong a swimmer as Caesar could not continue dragging it without running a real risk of drowning, so he discarded it, where it was fished out by the Egyptians the next day and put on display like they had captured Caesar himself. Caesar swam to a small boat that pulled him aboard, then transferred him to one of the thirty’s. It was from this ship that Caesar tried to salvage something from the disaster. Directing some of the small boats that had not taken part in the debacle at the mole to go back to the causeway to pull as many men out of the water as they could, Caesar did everything in his power to rescue as many men as possible. These sailors, unlike their counterparts who climbed onto the causeway, behaved with great courage, braving savage missile fire from the Egyptians on the mole, their numbers continuing to swell as men jumped in ships to be rowed to the Heptastadion. Our sailors fished a couple hundred men from the water, some more dead than alive, yet the damage was done, and it was horrific. We continued to hold the island, but we had lost control of the entire length of the Heptastadion. Additionally, the work done in blocking the two passageways was reversed in a matter of a couple thirds of a watch, the enemy clearing the passages of the stone we had dumped there, thereby providing the Egyptians free access to the Great Harbor and giving them the ability to attack our fleet once again. More than 400 Legionaries died, most of them from drowning, although a fair number were cut down by their own comrades, making me wonder how the survivors would find trying to sleep at night with the deaths of friends on their conscience. Only one Century’s worth of men actually kept their heads enough to form square, trying to make a stand, led by a Centurion. Tragically, they were wiped out to the last man. At least as many sailors died as well, if not more, from identical causes as the Legionaries. No amount of honey would sweeten this bitter drink; we were soundly defeated, and had failed in our objectives. The fact that it was the men of the 37th who behaved so shamefully was not lost on any of us, but it was particularly hard on my men, because there were friends and in one or two cases, relatives who died in the mess. The 37th was composed of Pompey’s veterans, from a number of different Legions. While I understood why the men had such mixed feelings, what I was not prepared for is how it added to the hostility and hard feelings between us and the 28th. For the men of the 28th, what happened on the mole was something of a blessing sent by the gods, for they no longer were the only Legion in disgrace. What made it worse was that it was Pompey’s men who failed so miserably, a fact that the rankers in the 28th were never shy about pointing out to my men. The men of the 6th were in a tough spot; while they understood that the 37th had performed poorly, they still felt compelled out of loyalty to both the memory of Pompey and to their former comrades to offer a defense of their actions. Less than a day passed before I was called on by Serenus, who was the commander of the guard, informing me that there had been a killing down in Hump Alley, which was what the men called the side street where the whores plied their trade. He was accompanied by one of Cartufenus’ Centurions who was Serenus’ counterpart for the 28th guard shift; his name was Flaccus, as I recall. I sighed, shaking my head, because it was not unexpected, but it was still something that none of us needed.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Well of course there are two different
versions,” said Serenus.
I saw Flaccus shoot him an angry glance, although I did not know why; the very presence of Flaccus told me that there was a dispute about what happened.
Continuing, Serenus gave his report. “Gregarius Immunes Lucius Verres of the Second of the 10th was off duty and was spending some time in Hump Alley. According to Verres and his witnesses, a man from the 28th started an altercation with Verres.”
“He did no such thing,” Flaccus interjected, his face flushed with indignation I suppose.