by R. W. Peake
“They have elephants, but not very many,” Caesar told Gundomir as he mounted his horse, knowing this had been a constant source of worry for the German, and he was far from alone, “and they’re working animals, not war elephants. I doubt they have many, and if they do, they’re going to be with the main body of their army. Which,” he favored the men around him with a smile that exposed a surprisingly good set of teeth, another reminder that he wasn’t like them, “isn’t here.” This elicited a couple of chuckles, although they were all smiling at the thought, but he turned serious as he admonished, “But we’re going to have to move swiftly if we want to take advantage of their error. Now,” he finished as he turned his horse, not Toes but a bay gelding he favored for moments such as this, “we have to return to the fleet as quickly as possible.”
“We’re going to break camp in the morning,” Pollio announced to his officers, which was greeted by mutters that this order should have been given the day before, which Pollio chose to ignore. “I want the 12th in the vanguard. And,” he paused, knowing how this would likely be received, “we’re marching in agmentum quadratum from this moment forward.”
Now the assembled officers didn’t bother to lower their voices, but despite the chorus of protests, Pollio was unmoved, nor did he make any further statement; once the others understood this was the case, they filed out of the large partition that served as conference room and officers’ mess. Only Hirtius remained, but it wasn’t to complain; from the first day they had marched from Pattala, the two men had agreed not to interfere with the others’ command, and besides that, Caesar had made it clear that Pollio was in overall command. The two men respected, and more importantly, liked each other; in many ways, they resembled Scribonius and Balbus in their relationship to Pullus, except the leader of their triumvirate was Caesar.
“Well,” Hirtius commented, “we knew they weren’t going to like it.”
Pollio heaved a sigh, but he nodded in agreement, then turned to more practical matters.
“How certain are you that they’ll be waiting for us at that spot you talked about?” he asked, trying not to let his anxiety show, but Hirtius wasn’t fooled, and he replied positively, “Oh, they’re there, all right. We saw too much smoke for it to be anything other than an armed force of a good size, and it was coming from somewhere beyond that forest.” Shrugging, he added, “We’re going to run into them sometime, and that’s the most obvious place.” Now it was Hirtius’ turn to change the subject, and it was the only one that created a certain level of friction between the two Legates. “Any word?”
He didn’t elaborate, but he didn’t need to; Pollio knew exactly what Hirtius was referring to, and this time, he made no attempt to hide his mood, shaking his head in frustration as he answered, “No. And we should have gotten word days ago as it is.”
What Pollio, as commander of this force, and Caesar were victims of was their unfamiliarity with the land around them. In its simplest terms, both men had underestimated the extra distance of a peninsula that jutted out from the coastline to their southwest that happened to span most of the last part of their march from Pattala. What it meant was that, by the time the small detachment of cavalry Pollio had dispatched to meet the fleet reached the coast, the fleet had already passed that point. Then, compounding the error, the commander of the detachment guessed that they had arrived before the fleet would sail by, but after three days of waiting, he led his party along the coastline to meet the fleet…in the wrong direction. This fundamental mistake wouldn’t be discovered for several days to come, but it accomplished what, to a competent enemy commander would be the ideal situation, the division of a strong military force into two smaller parts. Fortunately for Caesar and the Romans, while Abhiraka was certainly competent, he was making his own errors that would negate his advantage, because it simply never occurred to him that there were two enemy forces approaching from two different directions.
Caesar made it back to the fleet before nightfall, whereupon he immediately gave orders to sail, which his men had expected. What they didn’t expect was that the direction he gave was essentially the opposite of where they were certain they would be going; instead of heading upriver, they rowed across the large bay, a distance of more than twenty miles, a distance far enough that the river’s mouth and the land around it was only a green line on the horizon, and that was only from atop the mast. By the time they arrived, it was before dawn, and it seemed as if Caesar was content to stop and anchor, while Pullus and the rest of the officers were completely mystified as to why. The sun was just rimming the horizon in pink when a courier arrived, rowed over from Caesar’s ship, carrying the orders that at least partially explained matters.
“We’re going to be beaching for today,” Pullus informed Balbus as he read the tablet, his face creasing into a frown as he continued, “because Caesar wants to make some changes to some of the ships.”
“What kind of changes?” Balbus asked, but Pullus shook his head.
“I don’t know; it doesn’t say in this,” he answered, snapping the tablet shut in frustration. “But I suppose we’ll find out soon enough.”
They did; before the sun was fully up, thirty ships had been rowed up onto the beach, which Pullus, and everyone else, instantly saw were exclusively biremes. This didn’t mean that the larger ships weren’t involved, although their role was simply to offload part of their cargo, and it was what that cargo was that told Pullus and the other Centurions more than anything contained in Caesar’s orders. Under the watchful eyes of the men still aboard their vessels, the working parties worked with a haste that, by this point in time, every man under Caesar’s command was accustomed to, which consisted of assembling several pieces of artillery. Once put back together, these ballistae were then fastened to the deck of their respective ships, and before long, most of the men, and all of the Centurions, had a good idea of what was coming.
“It looks like he learned from Pattala,” Balbus observed, and while Pullus agreed, he was also certain there was something more to this, but he held his peace, content to lean on the railing to watch.
The work was only interrupted by the morning rain; by the time the afternoon deluge happened, the task was essentially completed, and the Primi Pili were rowed over to Caesar’s ship, where they spent a third of a watch listening to their general unveil his plan for the assault. As soon as they returned to their respective ships, the fleet departed, rowing back in the direction of the Narmada River. Because they were underway, it meant that the Primi Pili had to wait to brief their Pili Priores on what was facing them and their men until the fleet once more anchored in roughly the same spot they had been in the day before, while at the same time, having their men making their own modifications on items carried in their shipboard inventory. Time, as was the custom with Caesar, was now of the essence, so while the men not involved with this task slept through the final watch before daylight, the Pili Priores were with their Primus Pilus, learning what role they would play in the upcoming assault.
Pullus had decided to hold his meeting out on deck; it was simply too stuffy and hot when there were ten men crammed into his cabin. He did so knowing that the men of the First and Second would be avidly listening, but he reasoned that it didn’t really matter; after all, where could they go? Besides, the rising of the sun would set this plan in motion. Aiding him was a crude map, copied from the one that Caesar had drawn from memory, which was hung from the single mast so every Centurion could see it.
“As you’ve all no doubt guessed, Caesar has decided not to wait, and that he’s planning on using those biremes for something special,” he began, and as he expected, everyone nodded their head or murmured their confirmation. “But it’s not for what you think,” he went on, then proceeded to explain about the creation of the canal, and how it was wide enough to fit two biremes side by side, although not with any real room to maneuver. “You may have noticed that half the biremes have only ballistae, the other half only scorpions. The p
lan calls for the ships with the ballistae to be on the side of the canal away from the city, so they can lob their rocks over the ships with the scorpions.” He paused, knowing beforehand that this would be the part that would mean the most to these men, “The scorpions aren’t the only thing the ships are carrying. There will be two Centuries on each ship, and with the scorpions providing support, we’re going to drop ladders from the side of each ship and cross the wall.”
As soon as he said it, Pullus realized his mistake, and Metellus beat the others to it by a heartbeat, “You said ‘we,’ Primus Pilus? As in,” he gestured at his counterparts, “us, the Equestrians?”
“Yes,” Pullus answered tersely, then endured the eruption of protests for a bit before he held up his hand, which had no effect, finally forced to bellow, “Tacete!” Even on the open deck, his volume was so impressive that the men on every ship adjacent to Pullus’ quinquereme turned at the sound. Forcing himself to adopt a patient tone since he recognized that it was a reasonable question, he explained, “Caesar has decided that, after what we did in Pattala, we are the best choice to do something…unusual. Besides,” Pullus grinned, “at least we won’t be climbing those fucking rope ladders.” While he wasn’t surprised to see his jest fall flat, the Pili Priores barely registering a smile among them, he was disappointed, because it told him that this disgruntlement the men had been expressing was shared by their Centurions, at least to a certain extent. Despite this, Pullus continued, “I’m guessing that you heard all the racket overnight, and have seen what Volusenus and his boys came up with for the ladders.” The only response he got was a few nods, which Pullus accepted as the best he would get, but in an attempt to bring up something positive, he said, “At least we won’t have to worry about watching our footing as we cross the ladders, or that they’ll slip once they’re in place.”
This was certainly true; while Volusenus as Praefectus Fabrorum received the credit, it was actually the navarch of his ship who offered knowledge gleaned from his years as a pirate in the Erythraeum Mare. Essentially, the assault ladders that would be used by the Equestrians were converted into narrow gangplanks, with a series of planks nailed to the crosspieces over the space between rungs. As the men who used them would learn, despite the fact that Caesar was more than a half-mile away, his eye was as keen as ever, as was his ability to visualize what the angle would be between the sides of his biremes and the dirt wall. From his perch on the tree, Caesar had determined that, while it would be steep, and the biremes would be required to ship their oars on the ditch side to get close enough to the bank of the canal, the men would be able to negotiate the distance without being forced to cling to the rungs as they ascended, because the slope of the dirt rampart was oriented outward. Caesar was so confident in himself that he was willing to risk the lives of his most valuable Legion, basing it all on what he took in with his eyes, and the calculations he made inside his head. The modifications to the ladders weren’t confined to the planks; at one end, two large spikes were attached that, when the ladder was dropped into place, would bury themselves into the turf of the dirt wall, while at the other, two hooks whose loops were wide enough to slip over the side of the ship, would secure it on the other end. When his immunes dragged the modified ladders onto the deck for the Pili Priores to examine, Pullus was encouraged at the nodding heads and murmurs of admiration, each man easily envisioning how they would work. Of course, that didn’t negate the fact that they would be traversing these gangplanks while being assailed by whatever missiles the Bargosan defenders used, but that was accepted as part of the assault.
“What are the other Legions going to be doing while we’re assaulting the dirt wall?”
Scribonius, as Pullus had requested, asked this, both because it was standard practice to inform the Centurions of the roles other Legions were playing, and Pullus wanted to get the subject of conversation off of the reason Caesar had chosen the 10th for the second time in a row.
“The 3rd is going to be assaulting from the river side,” Pullus didn’t betray that this had been prearranged. “There’s a wharf, like Pattala, but Caesar said it’s much larger and extends for several stadia along the riverbank. Since the new Legions are still understrength while they wait for the men who took sick to catch up with us, Caesar has combined them. They’re going to be landed upriver, but on other side of the canal.”
Scribonius had been watching Pullus talk, but now he looked at the map, his neutral expression turning into a frown, and he pointed at the map, asking, “Wouldn’t it make sense for them to be landed on the city side of the canal if they’re going to be assaulting the western wall?”
“Yes,” Pullus seemingly agreed, but he added, “except that’s not what they’re going to be doing. Instead,” he turned to the map himself, and using his finger, indicated a line that was just north of the canal, “Caesar is having them line up here.” He paused then, and as he was certain would happen, Scribonius’ expression changed to one of dawning recognition, but when he said nothing and simply nodded, Pullus could see by the puzzled expressions on the other men’s faces that more was needed. “Scribonius,” he prodded, adopting a tone that he knew his friend would interpret correctly, “do you have any idea why Caesar is going to be having the 25th and 30th positioned there?”
Pullus was rewarded by Scribonius’ expression of chagrin, but he didn’t hesitate, saying, “Ah, yes. My apologies, Primus Pilus.” Turning slightly to address his counterparts, Scribonius explained, “Caesar is putting those two Legions there to watch our rear.”
“Our rear?” This came from Gnaeus Nasica, the Decimus Pilus Prior and, in Pullus’ view, the weakest Pilus Prior under his command. And here he was, wearing a bewildered expression that, given where this meeting was taking place, meant that the rankers of the First and Second Century would be wasting no time in sharing with their comrades in the Tenth that their Pilus Prior looked lost. “What do you mean our rear? We’re facing the city!”
Pullus was about to open his mouth, but Scribonius caught his eye and gave a barely perceptible shake of his head, and it was Scribonius who explained, “We have to assume that at least part of their army is somewhere north of the city, because Pollio and his boys are out there…somewhere.” He gave an expansive wave in that general direction. “And since we haven’t heard from them, I’m sure Caesar is just preparing for the worst.”
Pullus watched Nasica’s face, and he could see by the man’s expression that he had forgotten all about the existence of Pollio and his half of the army, and he wondered for the hundredth time what had possessed him to think that Nasica was a good choice for Pilus Prior.
With that explained, Pullus continued, “As far as the western wall, the 28th will be assaulting from that direction. They’re going to be landing on this strip of land.” He pointed to a section of the map between the wharves and the canal, then his finger moved to the opposite side. “Mus and his 7th are going to be landing upriver, but as you can see, the strip of land between the canal and the wharves isn’t as wide, so it will likely take them longer to land.” Returning to the 10th and their role, he continued, “Once we take the dirt wall, Caesar has left it up to me as to whether we push on to assault the northern city wall, or wait for the others to do their part, but we’re getting a quarter of the city no matter what. Then,” he finished with a wolfish smile, “we’re going to pick that city clean.”
While Pullus didn’t expect a rousing cheer at this, he did expect at the very least some sort of sign that indicated his Centurions were mollified by the idea of sacking a city that was supposed to be one of the wealthiest in the known world. Instead, he received nothing but impassive demeanors, the Pili Priores gazing at him without the slightest indication that this was welcome news.