‘Report, centurion,’ Poppaeus ordered brusquely, shouting to make himself heard over the combined din of battle and rain.
‘Sir! They came out of nowhere about a half-hour ago. They must have ambushed our forward patrols as we received no warning.’ He flinched slightly as a slingshot fizzed past his ear. ‘They’ve filled in the trench with brushwood and corpses in six places and managed to get to the wall. They’ve torn down a couple of sections of it with grappling irons, and set a few more on fire with oil. We’ve been too thinly stretched to be able to do much more than contain them.’
Sheet lightning flashed across the sky, illuminating for an instant the damage done to the defences.
‘Well done,’ Poppaeus shouted, realising that they had mobilised just in time. ‘Get back to it; relief is on its way.’ He called down to Pomponius, who waited below him at the foot of the steps: ‘Legate, order four of your cohorts to reinforce the two on the wall to the right of the gate; then form two up here behind the gate, ready for a sortie under my command…’
A double crack of thunder burst above them, forcing him to pause as it reverberated around the mountains, its many echoes returning with diminishing vigour until he was able to continue.
‘The final two cohorts I want stationed behind the wall, just beyond the main attack. Have them issued with planks to get over the trench, and then loosen the stakes on an area of wall wide enough for twenty men to get through. Wait until we charge out of the gates on our sortie and then pull down the wall, cross the trench and take the fuckers in the flank. I’ll have the Fifth do the same on the other flank. We’ll crush them between us.’
‘My men will do everything necessary, they will be ready,’ Pomponius yelled, yanking his horse round. ‘Tribune Vespasian, ride back to the legion; tell Primus Pilus Faustus the third and fourth cohorts are to form up in column at the gate; fifth, sixth, eighth and tenth are to join the seventh and ninth on the wall, I shall see to their deployment personally. You and Faustus are to take the first and second cohorts, and any auxiliary cavalry you can muster, and to start preparing the flank attack. Report to me when it is ready.’
Vespasian galloped through the driving rain to convey the orders to Faustus. Within moments they were issued to each cohort by a system of cornu calls and hand signals. Watching the swift deployment of the legion, Vespasian realised that he had a lot to learn about the secret world of the centurions. Away to his left, just visible through the rain and the dim night, then lit up for an instant by a searing blaze of lightning, he could see the V Macedonica deploying to their section of the wall, the urgency to reinforce it growing with every new section torn down.
Vespasian rode at the head of the first cohort, which was the regulation double strength, nearly a thousand men. Faustus puffed along on foot at his side as they quick-marched along the rear of the wall. Behind them followed the second cohort and Paetus with a full ala or wing of 480 auxiliary cavalry. Legionaries from the other cohorts swarmed up the many sets of steps onto the ramparts. A quick succession of lightning flashes seemed to slow their ascent into a series of jerky movements. Another peal of thunder snapped over their heads, forcing some to duck involuntarily, as if there was more to be feared from the imagined wrath of Jupiter than the immediate danger of the enemy’s relentless missile barrage.
Eventually the cries and screams of conflict lessened; they had reached the limit of the Thracian attack. Vespasian leapt from his horse and beckoned Faustus to follow him. They scrambled up some deserted steps to the walkway that ran behind the wall. Behind them the two cohorts halted. The sodden legionaries waited for orders, no doubt wondering what they were doing so far from the main action.
Vespasian removed his helmet and inched his head over the parapet. The sight took his breath away; it was his first view of massed battle. Thousands upon thousands of Thracian warriors were hurling themselves towards the towering Roman defences across the wood and corpses piled in the trench. They flung ladders up the wall and scaled them, with the bravado of men who consider themselves already dead and therefore have nothing to lose. Archers and slingers concentrated their fire along the parapet at the apex of each ladder, forcing the defenders to stay down until the warriors reached the top, then the covering fire would stop for fear of hitting their own men. Bitter hand-to-hand struggles ensued, generally resulting in the attackers being hurled backwards off their ladders to disappear, screaming, into their comrades twenty feet below. As they fell volleys of missiles slammed into those defenders not quick enough to duck back down, cracking open skulls, piercing eyes, throats and arms and throwing men back to fall as lifeless dolls at the feet of their comrades, whose turn it would now be to replace them in the line.
Most of the breaches in the wall had been plugged by the timely arrival of the main Roman force. Those attackers who had made it through were now either lying dead in the churned mud or fighting to the last man, in ever-decreasing pockets of defiance. Surrender was not an option, they had come here to kill and be killed.
In a few places, closer to the gates, fires still burned, fed by skins of oil hurled into their midst. Their flames lit up a large tent-like construction, pushed by hundreds of tiny figures, which was slowly moving forward towards the gates.
‘They’ve got a battering ram,’ Faustus said, joining Vespasian. ‘We’d better get a move on.’
Vespasian ducked back down. ‘This will do,’ he said to Faustus as he slipped his helmet back on. ‘The nearest fighting’s a good hundred and fifty paces away. Get ropes secured over the top of each stake and start digging around the bases to loosen them. Once that’s done get the men dismantling the walkway; they can use the planks to cross the trench.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Faustus turned to go.
‘Faustus, tell the men to keep their heads down. We don’t want the enemy to know we’re here.’
‘Of course not. We wouldn’t want to spoil their surprise, would we?’ Faustus grinned and hurried back to his men.
The legionaries of the first and second cohorts set about their work with enthusiasm, relishing the prospect of a surprise flank attack that would roll up the Thracian line. Within a quarter of an hour, ropes were in place around the tops of the stakes along a sixty-foot length of wall, and the walkway behind it lay in ruins.
Vespasian raced off to report to Pomponius, whom he found with a couple of centuries of the eighth cohort, sealing up the last breach of the defences with a human wall. Thracian missiles were taking their toll on the defenders, who were finding it hard to keep a solid testudo formation on the uneven muddy ground. The numerous Roman dead and wounded littered around the breach bore witness to the close-range accuracy of the Thracian archers and slingers, only thirty paces away.
‘The flank attack is set, sir!’ Vespasian yelled at his commanding officer.
‘About fucking time too.’ Pomponius looked relieved. ‘These bastards aren’t going to give up until they’re all dead, so let’s oblige them before they kill too many more of our lads. Report to Poppaeus at the gates and then join me on the flank.’
‘Sir!’ Vespasian saluted as he kicked his horse on.
The gates now trembled from the repeated blows of the iron-headed ram. Four cohorts stood behind them ready for the sortie. Poppaeus was pouring all his auxiliary archers up onto the walkways on either side in an effort to dislodge the warriors manning the ram and the scores of men waiting behind it, ready to burst through once it had done its work. Vespasian shoved his way past the lines of archers towards the diminutive general who, despite his size, was easily recognisable in his high plumed helmet. The archers were sending volley after volley into the massed ranks of enemy below, who had begun to waver under the onslaught. The ram, though, was covered with a tent of thick hide that completely protected the men toiling inside. It continued beating relentlessly at the gates, each resounding knell weakening the structure and making the walkway shake beneath Vespasian’s feet.
‘That bastard priest must have kn
own they had a ram up in their fort when he came in this afternoon.’ Poppaeus spat as Vespasian approached him on the walkway. ‘The little cunt said nothing; I’ll have his tongue out when I find him. This had better be good news, tribune.’
‘Yes, sir, we’re ready on the right flank.’ Vespasian stepped back as an archer crumpled at his feet, gurgling blood, with an arrow protruding from his throat. Poppaeus kicked him off the walkway.
‘Good. Get back to your position and tell Pomponius that as soon as our archers force the bastards to withdraw far enough away we’ll open the gates and deal to them what they planned to give us. It’ll be the last thing they expect, us opening the gates when they’re trying to batter them down.’ He rubbed his hands together and then turned to exhort the archers into more rapid fire, seemingly impervious to the hail of missiles being returned. Despite all Poppaeus’ treachery Vespasian couldn’t help but respect his composure under fire. Cowering in the rear and issuing orders that would get men killed was not for him: he led from the front, as should any Roman general who expected his men to fight and die for him.
Vespasian gave an unnoticed salute, turned and walked steadily back along the walkway, emulating, he hoped, Poppaeus’ example of sang-froid amidst the chaos of battle all around him.
The men of the first and second cohorts stood ready. Another flash of lightning ripped from the sky, turning their highly polished iron armour momentarily golden and causing a myriad of reflections to sparkle through the ranks. Rain poured off the legionaries’ helmets and down their necks, chilling them as they waited motionless for the order to attack. Despite the unpleasant conditions their morale was high. They replied with good humour to the encouragement of their centurions as they walked up and down the files inspecting equipment, praising their courage and reminding them of previous battles and exploits in which they had all shared.
Just behind the wall a century waited, with ropes in hand, for the order to pull it down. Behind them another century, with the planks ripped from the walkway, stood ready to span the trench beyond the wall. A lone sentry stationed up on the parapet peered across the battlefield, watching for the main gates, clearly visible in the fires surrounding them, to be opened and for Poppaeus’ sortie to storm out.
Vespasian stood next to Pomponius in the front rank of the leading century. Over to his right he could just make out Paetus’ cavalry. Adrenalin pumped through his body as he mentally prepared himself to kill without hesitation or pity. He flexed the muscles in his shield arm to prevent them from stiffening and checked, yet again, that his gladius was loose in its sheath.
‘When we go through it must be quick,’ Pomponius told him for the third or fourth time. ‘But not so quick that we trip on any stakes left lying around.’
Vespasian glanced at his commander, who was thirty years his senior, and felt reassured by the look of tension on his jowly face; the waiting was evidently playing on Poppaeus’ nerves as much as on his own.
A sudden shout came from the sentry above them. ‘They’re through, sir.’
Pomponius glanced at Faustus. ‘Give the order, centurion,’ he shouted.
‘Make ready, lads,’ Faustus bellowed.
The ropes went taut.
‘On the count of three pull like you’d pull a Nubian off your mother. One, two, three!’
With a massive simultaneous heave sixty feet of wall stakes crashed to the ground as one. The men carried on pulling on the ropes, dragging most of the stakes clear from the path of the waiting legionaries. As the century with the planks rushed through the opening Pomponius gave the order to advance. The cornu blared out the deep notes of command and the cohorts broke into a slow jog, up and over the rough ground disturbed by the uprooted stakes and down across the newly laid, wooden bridge over the trench.
Before the majority of Thracians had registered the new threat away in the darkness on their flank, the first cohort had covered two hundred paces and the second had cleared the wall. Behind them the ala of auxiliary cavalry streamed past to form up on their extreme right.
Pomponius gave the orders to halt and then to form up two centuries deep to the left. Fifteen hundred men turned as one to face the enemy.
A wave of panic swept through the Thracian masses. They were already aware of the sortie at the gates; now this new threat meant that they would be fighting on two fronts, as well as having to endure the barrage of missiles from the wall. Then, from further up the hill, came the prolonged shrill cry of hundreds of female voices. A flash of lightning lit up the hillside and, for a couple of moments, the source of that cry was plainly visible. The Thracians’ women had come, bringing their children with them, to live or die with their men.
The sight breathed fire into the hearts of the warriors. They abandoned their efforts to scale the wall and with a swirling, chaotic manoeuvre turned and faced the new foe.
‘Forward!’ Pomponius cried, excitement causing his voice to rise an octave.
The rumbling cornu notes resonated over the Roman line, the standards dipped and, with a crash of pila against shields, it moved forward.
A hundred paces away, just visible as darker shadows against the lighter fire-flecked background, the Thracians let out a soul-shivering howl and stampeded towards the Romans. A new series of lightning flashes revealed them brandishing rhomphaiai, spears and javelins wildly above their heads, splashing through the pools of water and mud that caused many of their number to lose their footing and disappear beneath the tide of trampling boots surging after them.
All around him Vespasian could hear the cries of the centurions exhorting their men to hold the line, and keep the steady advance under control. The first arrows and javelins had started to fall amongst them, bringing down an unlucky few. There was no order to raise shields, there was no time, the two sides were closing far too quickly. The next order would be ‘Release pila at the charge’. When it sounded the legionaries of the front three double-centuries of the first cohort and the front three standard centuries of the second pulled their right arms back, counted three paces, hurled their heavy pila skywards and immediately drew their swords without breaking step. Over seven hundred pila rained down into the oncoming mass of howling, hate-filled warriors, cracking through bronze or iron helmets as if they were no more than eggshells, slamming men to the ground in a welter of blood, throwing others backwards with the weight of impact, long razor-sharp pilum heads protruding out behind them and skewering the man following, leaving them obscenely coupled by shafts of iron, thrashing in the mud in the last throes of life.
Vespasian felt the cold air scrape down his throat as he pushed himself forward the last few paces. His shield was raised so that he could just see over the rim. Next to him, on his left, Pomponius was wheezing with the exertion of the charge, and, for a brief moment, he wondered how a man of Pomponius’ bulk could still find it within himself to fight in the front rank. That thought was pounded out of his mind by the shock of impact that shuddered through his body as the two sides collided. Though less numerous, the heavier and more densely packed Roman line punched the Thracians back, knocking their leading warriors off their feet, pushing on a couple of paces before coming to a grinding halt, their rigid wall of shields still intact.
Then the close-quarters killing began. The lethal stabbing blades of the Roman war machine began their mechanical work, flashing out from between the rectangular shields, blazoned with the crossed lightning bolts and goat’s head insignia of the IIII Scythica. Vespasian’s first sword thrust was a firm jab to the throat of a stunned Thracian at his feet, opening it in with a surge of blood that sprayed up his legs. He quickly turned his attention to the screaming horde in the darkness in front of him. Rhomphaia blades hissed through the night air, spear points thrust out of the gloom; it was almost impossible to know whom you were fighting. He held his shield firmly in line with those on either side and stabbed again and again, sometimes feeling the jolting rigidity of a wooden shield, sometimes the soft give of pierced flesh a
nd sometimes no contact at all. A close-by scream to his right suddenly distracted him: the legionary next in line collapsed, almost knocking Vespasian off balance; blood from a deep rhomphaia wound to the man’s neck sprayed over his sword arm and the side of his face. Vespasian just had the presence of mind to crouch low behind his shield and aim a wild stab into the belly of a Thracian pushing into the resulting gap. The man doubled up; his head was immediately punched back by the shield boss of a second-rank legionary, stepping over his fallen comrade to plug the breach in the line. Vespasian felt the replacement’s shoulder close to his and continued stabbing forward.
He kept at it as the Roman line inched forward, aware of nothing more than the need to survive. He parried blows coming out of the darkness with his shield, thrusting and grinding his sword, his whole being given over to the exhilarating terror of hand-to-hand conflict. Rain poured down, mixing with the blood on his face, clouding his eyes; he blinked incessantly as he worked his blade. Gradually he began to make fewer and fewer contacts; the Thracians were pulling back.
Pomponius took the opportunity to order ‘Relieve the line’. Every other file stepped to the right, integrating with the file next to it, creating gaps through which charged the relieving second-rank centuries of each cohort. Once they were clear of their tired comrades the fresh centuries formed up into another solid line of shields. The cornu boomed a new attack. They surged forward towards the retreating enemy, releasing their pila at the charge, ten paces from the disordered mob. Another hail of seven hundred and more lead-weighted iron spikes pummelled down on to the Thracians. It was too much for them. Those that could turned to flee; the rest lay sprawled on the gore-soaked mud of the field, pierced and bleeding. Those with any life still left within them moaned pitifully as it ebbed away into the earth of their homeland, whose freedom, like their lives, was now lost for ever.
Tribune of Rome v-1 Page 33