Arthur Britannicus (25 page)

Maximian’s bigger ships could cope with crossing such powerful elements, but his more fragile, unhandy and flat-bottomed troop barges should never have put out into that rapid-moving mass of water. They simply could not successfully battle across the wind and tide to the Thames. They were forced west with the flow, but fast as they went with the wind and tide, they could not outrun the warnings of the beacons lighted at sight of them all along the Foreland of Kent. The invaders were swept past. There was no place safely to come ashore on this coast, where the British fleet waited to put out of their strongpoint at Dover. The frustrated Romans could see British cavalry archers trotting along the coastal battlements of chalk cliffs, keeping pace as the enemy army was carried along in their unseaworthy barges, helpless on the rapids of the ebb tide.

Maximian viewed the line of smoking beacons that sent their wind-horizontal signals from headland to headland ahead of him, and cursed. He saw answering smoke signals across the strait to the south, where the fleet’s secondary base at Bononia was also alerted. No surprise attack today, he thought bitterly, cursing the incompetence of the Egyptian shipmaster who had overseen the timing of the operation. He’d have him nailed to the prow of his ship for the return journey, he vowed. “We’ll have to find somewhere suitable for landing further west, once we get rid of these horsemen,” he declared. “We can’t have them whistling up troops while we’re still wading ashore.”

He looked at the straggling sails of his flotilla, and ordered his signal officer to flag them to close up, while telling his own shipmaster to slow and wait for them. In the waist of his ship, soldiers were throwing up, already seasick in the jostling, heaving waves. The invasion fleet swept along, the smaller ships and barges powerless against the thrusting tidal race, and the sails of the British fleet could be seen astern as they clawed out of Dover harbour in pursuit. A lookout in the fighting tower already erected in the prow of Maximian’s flagship called out a warning. Sails were putting out from Bononia, too.

With enemies on two sides, Maximian opted to forge ahead. ‘Make for Portus Magnus,” he said, naming the great British harbour that sheltered behind an island off the southern coast. He was gambling that Carausius had gathered most of his fleet at Dover to repel an attack at the south eastern tip of Britain. Now that he’d been carried past the Britons there, his way might be clear to steal into their hopefully less-defended port to the west. He looked around. More of his soldiers were vomiting, the seasickness was worsening. Would his men even be ready to fight if they got ashore?

Astern, the British fleet was standing out into the narrows and angling south of him, and the sails from Bononia were also out into open sea, shepherding him away from their coast. Carausius, he thought, is cutting diagonally across my wake. He’s not heading to intercept me. 

The Roman was correct. The British emperor’s plan was to drive the Roman fleet west and north onto the island’s rock ledges or into the
whirlpools, eddies and pyramid-shaped waves they created. And he knew the exact place to do it. The tide churned, the Romans ran with the millrace of water, butting head-on into green rollers. Explosions of white spume towered over their bows from time to time, and the shallow-keeled barges struggled for a grip on the water so they could claw across the wind. Every seasick soldier hoped for a landfall, their officers looked at the steep chalk cliffs with their footings in narrow strips of shingle and prayed they’d find a beach where they could land troops.

The experienced British sailors herded the invaders like sheepdogs, lying their warships close to the wind, closing in to nip at the heels of the flock, harrying them from east and south until their admiral emperor, who had destroyed many pirates in these very waters, judged the moment right and ordered them to attack. In its first engagement as a national fleet, the British came down like pack wolves on a sheepfold.

Carausius had learned how the Romans fought naval battles, and he knew they were no sailors. Because he had taken the seasoned mariners of their British fleet with him, he guessed that the replacements they’d had to recruit from Greece, Phoenicia and Egypt would likely use the familiar, old tactics which called for them to ram an opponent with the sharp beak at the prow of their warships, to hook onto the enemy and board him or to cripple the opponent by cutting down his sail halyards.

The oak-ribbed hulls and oak planking of the heavier British warships were for all practical purposes impervious to any ramming the Romans’ lighter ships could inflict. Additionally, Carausius’ ship’s chandlers and quartermasters had fitted chains to protect the rigging and keep the crossed spars in place if their ropes should be severed.  Against the threat of boarders, or of rigging-cutting blades, they carried long spars to fend off any ship that drew too close. They had also equipped their ships with something else.

Every warship of the British fleet had mounted several great catapults on platforms alongside the collapsible fighting towers that were erected at bow and stern before an engagement. The ballistae were terrible, powerful giant crossbows that could fire either iron bolts or shaped stone balls and were lethal enough to crumble a mortared wall or shatter a ship’s hull.  Carausius had ordered loopholes cut in the gunwales of his warships and solid breastworks fitted above them so the crews of the highly-accurate ballistae could aim and fire their deadly missiles while protected and unimpeded. In long hours of practice, squads had been drilled to operate speedily the winches that drew back the catapults’ animal sinew bowstrings and to reload the heavy iron bolts equally swiftly. 

For their part, in the weeks before the engagement, the tribunes had experimented with different warheads to see which would best penetrate a ship’s hull, and determined that blunt projectiles best shattered pine boards, while bodkin-tipped arrows were the missiles of choice against mail or leather armour.  Supplies of both were piled at intervals near the catapults. Some of the artillerymen had also loaded round stones onto their ships, choosing river stones and some shaped granite as the best projectiles for density and accuracy.  Lastly, a detachment of slingshot men who were trained to hurl lead missiles that were the shape and size of eggs were deployed on each ship, to work with the archers as snipers.

The legion’s officers had seen to it that every infantryman was equipped with five javelins, heavy, iron-pointed weapons that had a round lead ball attached just below the arm-length spike, to add extra impetus at the strike. The spearhead itself was of softer iron, so it would bend on impact and could not easily be pulled out. This had the benefit of impeding the target if that unfortunate to have survived the strike. Neither could the bent javelin be re-used quickly against the thrower. Some of the newer javelins had a wooden pin securing the blade to the shaft. On impact, the pin broke, making the javelin useless to the enemy. All the British sailors needed
was to get close.

As the signals officer waved the red cloak that finally turned the two halves of the British fleet towards the enemy, the Romans were off the indented coast where Carausius’ great palace of Fishbourne stood. The signal beacons had flared and smoked their warnings for hours, and the emperor’s household steward had assembled the house and farm slaves, armed the retainers and taken them all to the headland to watch for invaders. Guinevia, who had formed a friendship with the mosaic artist Claria, looked west across the water at the island of Hayling. “It reminds me greatly of the northland, beyond the Wall,” she said, “I was born there, but I could live in a place like this.”

“Stop the dreaming. Right now, we need all your magic,” said the Ionian. “The emperor has to stop the Roman fleet or we will all be on the auction block. Can you do anything to help?”

Guinevia nodded. “I can do something,” she said simply.

The sorceress looked east to survey the approaching sails, then south, gauging the speed of their approach, the wind and the flow of the speeding tide. Below her feet where she stood at the edge of a bluff, a line of ragged sea foam, swirling currents and clashing waves marked hidden, underwater ledges. They blocked and diverted the great power of the current and created a killing ground for sailors. Long green rollers threw up great pillars of white water as they hit the obstructions, giving more warning that the ledges’ wicked stone teeth would tear out the heart and snap the spine of any ship thrown onto them. Those undersea fangs extended out into the strait for two long miles. “It would be best if the Romans did not see that,” Gunevia murmured to herself. And she closed her eyes to begin her enchantments.

The Romans were being dogged ever more closely, and Maximian was cursing his inexperienced sailors. The invasion fleet was being forced nearer and nearer to the shore, and was straggling. Along the line to the rear three British ships, spray bursting over their bows, had already closed on a trireme that was attempting to shepherd the struggling troop barges. The British sea wolves tore into the rear quarter of the trireme and a volley of iron bolts slammed low into the vessel’s hull. Some hit the oars, throwing the rowers off their benches and causing the ship to slew and roll. An alert artilleryman who had waited his chance, fired his ballista’s great rock at the Roman hull just as the ship rolled away from him, revealing itself below the waterline. The smooth round river rock smashed through the planking, the ship rolled back level and suddenly green seawater was gushing into the vessel’s waist.

One group of sailors tried to fother the stove-in planking by bandaging the hull with a sail. They draped the canvas over the bow,
then dragged both ends along opposite sides of the ship, wrapping it right around the hull. They used the power of the inrushing seawater to push a plug of bundled woollen cloaks into the shattered planking. One brave mariner was hanging upside down over the ship’s side adjusting the plug, when an iron bolt fired at 30 yards’ range went straight through his body and pinned him to the pine boards. The shipmate holding him by the legs vomited in shock and fell backwards. The plug slipped out, the saltwater gushed in, and the trireme fell away, sluggish as it started to settle, its fate sealed. The British ships turned and, like wolves among sheep, began carving into the smaller, fragile troop carriers.

Aboard his flagship Minerva, Carausius grabbed the arm of the shipmaster and pointed a mile ahead of the struggling Roman squadron. “Where has that come from?” he demanded. A dense sea fog was creeping across the water, promising concealment for the west-fleeing Romans who were still running with the racing tide. “How can that be?” he swore. He’d managed to trap the Romans between his warships, the shore and the teeth of the deadly Bill that lay in their path, and now a fog might let them escape him. “Where in the name of Manannan did that come from?” he asked the sky.

On the shore, Claria knew. She had watched in awe as the black-robed Druid priestess of the witch goddess of the Wild Hunt worked her spells.  The slaves were huddled away in fear, the palace steward, pale faced, had waved the retainers back to a safe place but the pagan priestess was oblivious to it all.  Almost unseeing, she stooped and took up a handful of sandy soil from the cliff top. She stepped forward towards the edge, and threw it high into the wind, causing a small haziness as it was snatched away. Her eyes were rolled back in her head, perspiration stood out on her forehead, a low ululation came from her mouth and her body shuddered with effort. Finally, eyes closed, she threw both her hands forward, opening her fingers as she released her two-fisted spell. The silver pentagram ring of Myrddin seemed to pulse and glow in the misted light and the slaves later swore to each other that sparks had crackled from her fingertips. Guinevia slumped over, hands on knees, exhausted. She remained still for minutes, eyes closed, breathing hard, before she finally straightened her back.  Her eyes were unfocused and it took minutes more before she could view the result, and success, of her enchantments.

The sea fog she had conjured rose out of the depths ruled by Manannan mac Lir. Spreading like thick smoke, it cloaked the ocean around the claw-like promontory whose tailings stretched far into the strait. Inside the cold, near-impenetrable fog, the waters of the strait clashed in a thrashing maelstrom that told of the furious power of the tide. Above the heaving turbulence of the water, the fog by contrast held an eerie stillness, and no current of air seemed to move. Water droplets waited to bead and condense on the rigging and spars of the ships that entered the enveloping gloom, and the churning white and green waves thrashed above rocky underwater teeth that were waiting to snatch the lives of mariners driven by the tide into the confusing, concealing dimness.

Carausius punched his fist into his opposite, open palm. “Got the bastards,” he exulted. “That sea fog is exactly what we want. They’re caught, they have no local pilots, they don’t know and they can’t see. They’re going onto that promontory blind. It’s happened to me like this once before. We trapped pirates on a bill just like this years ago, on this very coast.”

He assessed matters. The triremes still outside the fog bank were trying to fight off the British sea wolves while the barges scurried past, but the warships were being frustrated by the skilled British crews. Their vessels were relatively undamaged from the occasional ramming and the crews had successfully fended off all the Romans’ boarding attempts with their long poles. The frustrated fighting parties that crowded the invaders’ decks were paying a price, They were
under  bombardment from the Britons’ heavy javelins, arrows and egg-sized, leaden slingshot missiles, and the dead, dying and wounded were piling up, clogging the open ships and hampering the crews who worked them. The British orders to kill officers and steersmen with the accurate ballistae was effective too, evidenced by the erratic wakes left by some warships and the bloodied steerboards at their sterns.