by Peake, R. W.
His reasoning was simple; the northern pass was closest to where he had been told the capital lay to the northwest, and he didn't think that any commander would risk concentrating his forces in such a way that if his opponent stole a march, the capital lay undefended. And he was sure that by this point, the one thing the Wa knew about this "barbarian" was that he and his army were capable of moving very swiftly, indeed. No, he was sure that the north would be where the action was going to be. What was still unclear to him was the Wa commander's intent. Since the Wa possessed no navy to speak of—and what they did have was certainly not strong enough to be of any threat to his own fleet, now riding at anchor just on the other side of this ridge—it didn't really make sense for the Wa to try to force a passage through that northern pass to get to the bay. The only thing their infantry could do in that event was shake their fists at the ships; in fact, some of the ship-borne artillery still hadn't been stripped from the vessels, so if they got too close to the shore, the navy would punish them for that. Furthermore, forcing the pass would effectively put the Roman army at their backs, with the bay on the other side. Despite their numerical superiority, they would be in a tactically inferior position, and the Romans could move down the slope to within artillery range, putting the Wa in a vice. No, Caesar mused, I don't think that's it. That left only one other option, the one that makes the most sense on a number of levels: the Wa commander's intent was to come up this ridge and destroy this army once and for all, in a decisive battle.
The only question was, how? Caesar had spent a sleepless night turning that over in his mind. He had long since learned that while it was of some value to think about what he himself would do in an enemy commander's place, his adversary didn't always make the same decisions as he. In fact, he rarely did, so Caesar turned his prodigious mind to trying to divine what the Wa commander would do. What made this so damnably difficult was Caesar's unfamiliarity with his opponent, both in a general sense, as far as understanding the Wa mind, and in a specific sense, with this particular general. He assumed he had never faced this man, and while there had now been a few engagements with the Wa, they had acted in such unexpected ways that Caesar was very reluctant to draw any firm conclusion. Hence, a lot of tossing and turning. Would the Wa commander just send that large body of men scrambling up the slope, ready to absorb whatever punishment his men must endure, in order to close with the Romans, while using the smaller forces to keep the other Roman camps occupied so that no reinforcements from them could be sent to help the northern camp? On its surface, that would certainly seem the most likely approach, but Caesar had spent enough time in this strange land to understand one very important thing: the people of this entire part of the world didn't think at all like those from the West. It was this thought gnawing at his brain that finally prompted him to summon Zhang. The Han emissary came very quickly, and it was clear he hadn't been sleeping, either.
"It's nice to know I'm not the only one losing sleep," Caesar said in Latin, more as a test than anything else.
"Tomorrow is...important day," Zhang replied haltingly, in Caesar's tongue.
One thing that Caesar was famous for, and if the truth were known, was one of the things of which he was proudest, was his facility for languages. However, this Han had demonstrated to be his clear superior in that regard, as his Latin, just in the weeks since he had first surprised them, was markedly improved. It irritated Caesar quite a bit, in fact; when you have always been considered the best at something, it's always a rude shock to find out you're not. This was something Caesar tried very hard not to show, keeping his countenance and demeanor as close to normal as possible. Achaemenes had been summoned as well, and Caesar turned to him now.
"I want you to stay here, but Zhang and I are going to carry on this conversation. Only step in when it's clear that either of us is having difficulty, is that clear?
After being assured that it was, Caesar turned to Zhang.
"I need to ask you a question, and it's a very, very important one. The reason it's important is that it affects your future, just as much as it does mine and that of this army. So I need you to be completely honest with me. Do you understand?"
Zhang didn't answer immediately, his flat features giving nothing away, but after what seemed to Caesar to be a very long moment, he finally nodded.
"Yes, I understand, and I will be as honest as it is possible to be."
"That's a courtier's answer," Caesar snapped, but Zhang didn't understand the word ‘courtier’, so there was a pause as he and Achaemenes talked in Zhang's native tongue. After a moment, Zhang made a small noise that Caesar took to mean he now understood.
"Forgive me, Caesar," Zhang bowed his head toward the Roman. "That was a poor choice of words. Yes, I will be completely honest with you."
Not completely satisfied, but understanding he would get nothing better, Caesar then posed his question.
Now, as Caesar watched matters unfolding, his mind went back to that conversation with Zhang, and despite himself, he clenched a fist in frustration. It had been singularly unsatisfying; the people of this part of the world were worse than Greeks, speaking in riddles that, to a Roman, smacked of sophistry and duplicity. If Zhang didn't know, how hard would it have been to say that? Still, his mind chewed on what little grist the Han had provided, and as he saw the neat, serried ranks of the northernmost Wa force begin to move, he slowly relaxed. They were heading directly for the slope, and gave every indication that they were going to try to overwhelm Pullus and Balbinus' Legions with sheer brute force. His attention was pulled away by the sound of a bucina in his own camp, and he turned to see that the smaller Wa force that had arrayed itself at the foot of the slope below his camp had also begun to move.
Turning to Torquatus, whose Legion was one of the two that held this camp, Caesar said, "Remember what we discussed Torquatus. I want you to wait longer than normal for the Wa to get into range. I want to let them get really close, before we commence firing."
Titus Pullus had seen the same thing as Caesar and had much the same reaction. Standing next to him was Balbus, and Pullus could clearly see that his friend was just as troubled.
"The Legion stores are going to be drained dry of shields by the time we're through," Balbus said, his tone calm, despite the scene before him.
Both of these men were vastly experienced in the art of leading men and knew that the rankers hung on every word uttered by their Centurions and Optios, no matter how hard they tried to look as though they weren't listening, as the men near the pair were doing now. It was essential that the Centurions sound unconcerned, especially at moments like this, Pullus reflected, happy that Balbus was as aware as he was that his tone would do much to keep the men as calm as possible.
"You're right, Balbus, but you know what? I'm not going to let the army cheat my boys just because these Wa bastards are going to poke some holes in their shields. I'll pay for every ruined shield out of my own purse!"
Just as he had hoped, the men within earshot let out a happy shout; the upcoming threat and the fact that it was likely a good number of them wouldn't live through the day was temporarily forgotten, as they rejoiced at the idea that the rankers would put one over on the army. It never failed to amuse Pullus that the entity known as "the army" was universally loathed by the men and that any chance at foiling what they considered the army's never-ending plot to rob them of their hard-earned pay at every turn was a cause for celebration. The Legion, on the other hand? Well, these men would fight and die for the Legion, as they would fight and die for the friends immediately to their left and right, never stopping to think that it was the amalgam of Legions, filled with men just like them, with the exact same viewpoint, that comprised the hated "army". The other thing Pullus knew was that the word of his largesse would fly down the length of the rampart from where he was standing, as the men passed the word to those comrades who wanted to know what the cheering was about. In fact, even as he and Balbus stood there, he could hear the
ripple of shouts making its way down the rampart, where it abruptly stopped, when the last man of the 10th turned to pass the word and saw that it was, in fact, a man from the 12th standing next to him. Although they were not quite as loud, Pullus could hear the groans from the 12th, as they heard of the bounty their comrades in the 10th had been given, cursing the luck that came from being in the wrong Legion. Out of the corner of his eye, Pullus saw Balbus' scarred face grimace in what he knew was his friend’s version of a grin, made sinister-looking by the severed nerves that made his lip permanently droop.
"Balbinus isn't going to thank you for that," he laughed. "Now he's going to have to match you or his men will curse his name every day from here on."
Pullus grinned back at Balbus, giving a shrug. "Not really my problem, is it? And he can always refuse. He's a cheap bastard; he still owes me 50 sesterces from our last dice game. Although," the Primus Pilus finished with a laugh, "I don't know why I care. It's not like I can spend it anywhere."
"It's the principle," Balbus immediately replied, without thinking, and cursed himself as he saw Pullus wince. "Sorry," Balbus said awkwardly, "I didn't mean....."
Pullus waved him off. "I know. Don't worry about it. Well," he abruptly changed the subject, "let's check to make sure every man has his siege spear ready." Without waiting for a reply, Pullus turned toward his own Century, bawling out, "You cunni better have those siege spears ready! I want to see nothing but points sticking out over the wall!"
Balbus, before he turned to his own men, stared at the back of his retreating friend. "When are you going to learn to keep your mouth shut?" he asked, only of himself, since the men around him within earshot wouldn't dare respond. Not if they didn't want to suffer a fate that scared them more than the sight of the Wa marching up the slope.
What Balbus had said that disrupted the moment suddenly transported Titus Pullus back to the scene of another battle, one from years before this campaign started, on a dusty plain outside a town called Pharsalus. It was there that Titus Pullus and his longest and best friend ,Vibius Domitius, had found themselves on the opposite side, a moment that had severed for all time a friendship that had started when they were 10 years old. In the immediate aftermath of the battle, when Caesar had called on his exhausted men to accompany him in his pursuit of Pompey—who had escaped the battle with barely a Century's worth of men—the 10th, Caesar's favorite and most loyal Legion to that moment, had refused. It had been a huge shock to Caesar, and it was only less of a shock to Pullus, who was the Secundus Pilus Prior, commander of the Second Cohort, because he had gotten a few moments' warning just before it happened. Vibius had been his Optio then, and in the heat of the moment, as he and Vibius stood there, face to face, Pullus had come perilously close to drawing his sword and striking down his best friend. Ironically, that act had done Pullus' career an enormous amount of good, despite the personal pain it caused him, because Caesar had seen it happen, as well.
Knowing in that moment that Pullus' loyalty to his general was unflinching and recognizing that the rankers of the 10th were not likely to forgive the giant Centurion, at least at that moment, Caesar had appointed him as the de facto Primus Pilus of the two Cohorts of the 6th Legion that had been on the field in the ranks of Pompey just a watch earlier. In the resulting rout, these two Cohorts, the 7th and 10th, had been stranded on the wrong side of the river, as the rest of the Legion made its escape, "joining" Caesar's forces somewhat involuntarily, after being made to choose Caesar or death by Marcus Antonius, the commander of that portion of the field. However, these two Cohorts of the 6th had then served Caesar steadfastly and well, no matter how their service started, accompanying him to Alexandria. They were also the part of Caesar's force that had soundly defeated the dreaded Pontic chariots at Zela, the battle that prompted the "I came, I saw, I conquered" dispatch from Caesar that was in many ways more famous than the battle itself.
By the time Caesar and Pullus had returned, a year after Pharsalus, matters had settled and passions had cooled to the point where Pullus had been appointed the official Primus Pilus of the 10th Legion, while Vibius continued to serve out his enlistment as the Optio of what became Scribonius' Century and Cohort. Neither man spoke to the other after that, and when the original men of the 10th saw their enlistment expire, Vibius chose not to re-enlist, instead going home to finally marry his childhood sweetheart Juno. She had once jilted him to marry another man during the Gallic campaign, and he had since had the good grace to die and leave her a widow. It was only through Scribonius, who had managed to maintain his friendship with both men, that Titus learned that the son Juno had borne Vibius was named Titus, just as Titus' dead son had been named Vibius, back when they had been friends and sure that nothing would ever sever that bond.
As Pullus went through the motions of doing a last-minute inspection of the men, his mind was elsewhere, thinking about all that he had lost in his life, balanced against all that he had gained. The words that Balbus had uttered surprised Pullus, because of how much they still hurt to hear them. "It's the principle" had been one of Vibius' favorite phrases when he had found himself in an intractable position. One time it had been over what was essentially just a spoonful of vinegar that he became convinced Vellusius had filched from his flask, until Scribonius had found the small hole near the bottom that allowed the remaining fluid to leak out. Even faced with such evidence, while Vibius had grudgingly apologized to Vellusius, he had insisted that "it was the principle" about which he was arguing, and in that principle he maintained that he was vindicated in his condemnation of Vellusius. It was the kind of incident that was infuriating to all involved in the moment; indeed, Pullus had seen Legionaries kill each other for similar reasons over the years, but years later they provided some of the loudest, longest laughs around the fire at night. And here, on this hill in Wa, with thousands of armed men marching to try to end not just Pullus' life, but the very existence of the 10th and the army in general, this was what occupied Pullus' mind.
Pullus' mind might have been elsewhere, but his body was very much standing on the rampart of the northernmost camp, and the sheer size and bulk of his presence heartened his men more than even Pullus realized. The post of Primus Pilus was almost always filled with only the most exemplary of Centurions, but even among the Primi Pili, Titus Pullus was a legend. He had long since shown that there was more to his prowess in battle than his size and strength; from the age of 12, an outsize 12, it was true, he and Vibius had begun training for the Legions, at the hands of a veteran of Sertorius' Spanish Legions who was Titus' brother-in-law. And from that first day, it was very rare that Pullus didn't spend at least a third of a watch every day working on his skills with the sword. Early on, he had been lulled into a sense of invincibility by the constant praise of his Pilus Prior, the famous Gaius Crastinus, his weapons instructor Aulus Vinicius, and most of his comrades, but in his first campaign he had learned that as talented as he may have been, he could be bested. From that first close call to this day, he never took his skills for granted. His subsequent exploits had built one upon another, until his men held him in an awe that was just slightly below their awe of Caesar, who they were convinced was a god. If Caesar was god, they were sure their Primus Pilus was a demigod, and just having him standing there next to them, waiting for what was to come, gave them enormous comfort and instilled in them a belief that despite the odds, they would be victorious once again.
Only dimly aware of this, Pullus continued walking among the men, putting a hand on the shoulder on one, while sharing a joke with another about some past exploit or error, but his mind still ranged back over the years of his life. He supposed that this was understandable, because although he didn't have the same visceral feeling that Caesar was experiencing, he was aware that this would in all likelihood be the toughest battle he and the 10th had ever faced, and that made the chances very good that he wouldn't live to see another day. After all, he reasoned, everyone's string plays out, and I've had more luck t
han anyone, other than Caesar. Even as this thought, the last of his reverie, ran through his mind, there was a shouted warning that the Wa had halted their progress. Turning to face them, Pullus was just in time to see a rippling movement in the rear ranks, as the massed archers tilted their bows upward with impressive precision—considering their large numbers—each man pulling his other arm backwards, drawing the string up to his cheek, where the taut string was held for an instant, before the short, sharp blast of some sort of horn sounded.
"Shields up!" Pullus' roar mingled with that of the other Centurions and Optios, but he continued, in the same bellowing volume, "Remember boys! I'm paying for the shields!"
Any cheers that came from the men was wiped out by the sudden hollow clatter of arrows striking the wood of shields, punctuated by a number of clanging rings, as some missiles hit metal bosses and, even worse, joined by shouts and cries of men who were struck down. Over the din, Pullus heard the cornu blow the command that told the ballistae, all of which had been positioned off of the rampart about 40 paces from the walls, where their arcing fire would clear the men on the ramparts, to open fire. They would be essentially firing blind, but with their ammunition of rocks, precision wasn't as important as with the scorpions. Those scorpions were arrayed on the walls, and no order had been given to them at this point, although the leading Wa were well within range. Still, this was part of Caesar's plan for each of the forts, to maximize the casualties they inflicted, because he had a real fear that they would run out of bolts well before they ran out of Wa, so every shot had to count. To protect them from the Wa arrow fire, fascines—large wicker baskets filled with dirt—had been placed side by side, with just enough of an opening for each scorpion to have an arc of fire of perhaps 10 degrees; but there were enough of them, so that their fields of fire interlocked, leaving no spot where the Wa would be safe. While Pullus understood and accepted Caesar's reasoning, it was still hard for him to crouch in place without hearing the distinctive twanging report from Caesar's favorite weapon when he knew the Wa were well within scorpion range. But he at least had the comfort of the crashing sound, as the arm of the ballista hit the crossbar, stopping it abruptly while sending the contents of its basket into the ranks of the Wa. Unfortunately, the hail of arrows was too thick to risk peeking out to see what kind of damage was being done. Just as had happened on the beach—and to a lesser extent when their makeshift camp was attacked when the 10th had been out on patrol—the rain of arrows was practically nonstop, the air so thick with feathered missiles that it indeed appeared possible they would blot out the sun. Within the span of perhaps 100 heartbeats, the barrage was so intense that as Pullus looked to each side—still holding the shield he had drawn from stores in front and slightly above his body—he saw that there wasn't a man who didn't already have at least 3 or 4 arrows protruding from his shield, while the ground all around was studded with shafts, some of them still quivering from their impact. Realizing that if this continued, every man's shield would be useless, Pullus made a quick decision.