Arthur Britannicus (28 page)

In meeting after meeting, he used his impressive presence in an orator’s trick, standing suddenly to thunder at his listeners: “We must send them back to Gaul cringing and whimpering, with wounds to lick, and we will be free of their yoke for ever. They will not be able to return, because I will create wooden walls they cannot pass.”  And he dropped his voice in the manner of a bard.  This, he told them, is how we will do it, and this is how we will keep our freedom. And he outlined his plan.

Within a week, the levies began arriving at the coastal forts, columns of long-haired warriors, tramping together, singing and chanting the infectious marching songs that made the miles flow past. The jarls had listened and called on their men.  The proud princes had laid aside their differences, taken Carausius’ warnings to heart and had mustered their spearmen and the specialist equipment he’d urged them to bring. Tent camps sprang up along the springy, sheep-nibbled turf downs of the south coast.

And Carausius’ own officers had been busy. Papinius, charged with overseeing the transport needs of an army, had not rested and had efficiently carried out his mission. Mule trains carrying sacks of grain and great nets of forage for the animals joined convoys of creaking wagons along the roads. They were laden with barrels of salted ham, Spanish olive oil, twice-baked bread, wine and other supplies, all carried from the great granaries and warehouses of the hinterland to be stored at strongpoints and ports all along the coast.

Drovers herded their lowing cattle to the army’s pens, for the soldiers needed their beef, and shepherds from the chalk downs brought in the walking mutton needed to feed the hordes of armed men gathering against the Romans. The supply convoys moved with the heavy wagons that carried military equipment: siege engines, battering rams, dismantled siege towers, ladders, catapults and artillery. Leather-shrouded carriages carried sheaves of arrows,
bundles of javelins, stacked piles of curved shields and sacks and boxes of personal armour from leather, steel or bronze helmets to breastplates and even a few closely-guarded, expensive suits of linked chain mail.  “Looks like someone kicked over a beehive, lord,” Allectus told the emperor as he surveyed the scene unfolding under the walls of Dover’s rebuilt castle.

“Yes, and we’ll sting Maximian’s arse,” growled Carausius, who was watching an armourer sharpening edges on one of the new grindstones he’d had made.

“All working out over there?” He inclined his head towards Gaul. Allectus knew exactly what his emperor meant.

“The minute they sail, beacons will be lit by my spies on their coast. We’ll know, lord,” he asserted.

“Worth every denarius,” said the emperor. A flurry of activity at the gate caught his eye. The tribune Quirinus was back from the Great Port south of Winchester. He saw his emperor and hurried to report, saluting with fist over his heart. Matters were in hand, he’d be returning to the port soon, he said. Carausius grunted approval and the tribune looked out at the open ground below. “Those, Caesar,” he said, pointing. “So many of them?” 

The emperor cracked his face into a rare grimace of pleasure. “Chariots, Quirinus, Chariots. We have a secret weapon and it’s going to give the Romans a real pasting.” The battle jarls of Britain had done as he’d asked. Their emperor had recalled for them the lesson of Boadicea, the warrior queen. She had cut the legions of Rome to pieces with her nimble cavalry and deadly chariots. After three centuries, the British war wagons would roll again and, Carausius hoped, history would be repeated.

“The thing is,” Carausius was in an expansive mood that evening, as he sat with his officers around a chart table in his leather campaign tent, drinking good Rhenish wine from a horn beaker, “the thing is, that chariots are simply two-man mobile missile platforms. The charioteer races in, the warrior at his right hand  launches arrows or javelins and then runs down the pole between the horses like an acrobat to strike down at the enemy. Then the pair move out, fast, or if the warrior wishes, he leaps out to fight on foot. The charioteer waits a short distance away, so the warrior can jump back in the chariot and get out of there if needed. It’s lightning warfare and the enemy footsloggers can’t catch him.”

The key to the whole thing, he explained, was that the chariot had to be light in weight, because British horses were not large. They could not pull the heavy four horse carriages that the Romans raced around Circus Maximus or other tracks. In any case, four horses would be unmanageable in battle conditions. Equally vital was that the chariots gave the warrior a
stable platform from which to launch his missiles. Boadicea’s charioteers had used wickerwork chariots with an ingenious system of rawhide straps slung from hooped willow branches to suspend the fighting platform above the chassis and soak up the bumps. The concept worked well, but only in the right conditions. The negatives were that chariots were expensive, and couldn’t be used in rough or marshy terrain.

The tales about scythes on the wheel hubs chopping into the legions were mere legends, the emperor said. That wasn’t an effective tactic. You couldn’t drive the lightweight chariots into ranks of armoured soldiers. Anyway, you usually couldn’t even get the chariots to the soldiers, because Roman officers had quickly realized that a few stakes driven into the ground in front of the first ranks of standing infantry were an effective barrier.

The chariots’ main value was to deliver fast volleys of missiles at close range, their velocity boosted when the javelin thrower used the vehicle’s speed to enhance his own arm strength. The warrior didn’t even carry a sword, relying on his spears and, if needed, a blade tucked into a wicker scabbard woven into the chariot wall.  “Fact is,” said the emperor, settling his bulk more comfortably, and resettling his mutilated foot, “heavy cavalry and mounted archers long ago superseded chariots, because the horses, or even mules, are much more flexible and less likely to break down. It’s the shock and fright factor of the chariots that is our best secret weapon”. Carausius took a reflective swig of wine. “I wouldn’t mind having some of those elephants that old Hannibal used,” he murmured. “Five tons of trumpeting, grey fright-mongers.  They terrify the infantry and scare off the horses, they break the enemy ranks as easily as walking.

“That old Carthaginian knew what to do. He gave the tuskers wine; they like alcohol, you know, then the handlers poked them in the ankles and that set them in a huge rage. It was just ‘Hang on’ as the elephants charged. Problem was
, they wanted to trample anyone human, Roman or Carthaginian.  Still, they would be a fine weapon, if you could get some and get them pointed the right way.”  The big general finished his bumper of wine and glanced at the lists of supplies and dispositions in front of him. He grunted. Forget about elephants.  He had chariots. Two men and two ponies per war chariot gave him a highly mobile and effective force for specialized use. And use it, he was determined to do. He also had one or two other surprises up his sleeve for the incoming bastard Romans.

Across the Narrow Sea, the ‘incoming bastard Romans,’ the emperor Maximian and his general Constantius were struggling with the logistics of moving an invasion force 25 miles across a fast-flowing, treacherous strait of the ocean. On a clear day, they could see the white headlands that stood above the naval base at Dover, tantalizingly close, but out of reach without dominant sea power. Maximian had scraped together troops from a handful of legions to bring together the 4,800 men he felt were the minimum he would need to dethrone the usurper Carausius. It was, he knew, only a tenth of the numbers Julius had used when he invaded Britain, but he was confident the squabbling British tribes would be divided against their self-declared overlord. This would be more of a cutting-out expedition than a conqueror’s army.

The two Romans scanned the rolls to see what legions had yielded troops.  Third Gallica, those veterans of campaigns against the bandits in Gaul and Iberia, had provided the most. Then there were a few from the 12th Fulminata and the remnants of the 15th Apollinaris. Those fellows had survived the sack of their fortress by the Persians and, with a fighting retreat, had avoided being enslaved for a life of work building bridges and roads for their new masters. Maximian had used his influence with his fellow Caesar, Diocletian, to siphon off some of the 2nd Parthica, Rome’s own strategic reserve, and now that the Persian campaign was at last going well, had also persuaded his co-emperor to release to him a good portion of the 3rd Augusta, bringing them halfway across the world from Damascus to northern Gaul. The emperor’s eyes lit up as he noted a strong force of Batavians on the army roll. Those soldiers, based on the Rhine estuary, were specialists in making river crossings. He made a mental note to hold them in reserve until they were needed to cross the Medway or Thames to establish a foothold that would let his troops outflank the defenders.
Useful.

“Some good troops, some not so good, just damned toy soldiers”, Maximian griped. “There will be hard work for the tribunes to do to shape this lot up, and we don’t have a lot of time.” Both soldiers were aware of the dangers of the Narrow Sea, and knew they had to move the invasion force during the summer’s relative calm.  Maximian was also uncomfortably aware that twice, Roman troops accustomed only to the tranquil waters of Our Sea had mutinied at the thought of taking on the turbulent ‘ocean’ of the straits. He had no inclination to have his name added to those of Claudius and Caligula as being unable to command his own men. He had to move the troop barges over the shortest crossing on the calmest day, and he’d do it after publicly making suitable sacrifices to Jupiter. He simply had to do it soon, as the opportune time and weather to invade were ebbing faster than the surging tides.

Constantius pulled another scroll to him, and examined the admirals’ reports. The invasion fleet he’d had built at Forum Hadriani was about ready, at almost 300 ships. Nearly 200 of them would be crammed with troops, the others would shuttle supplies, horses, mules, siege engines, more men and the impedimenta needed for what they hoped would be a short campaign. “We can live off the land, at this time of year there’s plenty of grain in the place,” Constantius muttered. “We just don’t want a prolonged expedition.” He rolled the scroll shut, the two men nodded at each other. “Let’s move it on,” said Maximian. “Bring the fleet down to Itius Portus and Bononia. We’ll have to do what old Julius did, and use that place. Thank Mithras that Itius hasn’t silted up.”

The emperor knew his military history. He recalled that when Gaius Julius Caesar invaded Britain three centuries before, his huge fleet of small ships could not all be launched from Bononia at one time because the harbour drained dry on the ebb tide. The canny old Roman had found a harbour just up the coast, four miles east of Cape Gris Nez, where he could haul many of the specially-built invasion barges up onto the sand while using the harbour for his bigger warships and transports.

At the right time and tide, Maximian could launch off the beach, then swim out the horses and mules to the ships, hoisting them aboard into stalls. He’d also ferry out the troops he’d not been able to load into the transports that were docked in harbour. The whole fleet could sail from Itius Portus and Bononia to arrive together, not piecemeal, at the chalk cliffs after making the shortest possible crossing. Then they’d turn north to find one of the sloping beaches Caesar had discovered on his first expedition. Julius sent his ships in three widely-spaced waves, which reduced the number of ships needed as he could shuttle across, and the smaller number of men and quantities of material being landed at one time made for easier command and control, too. The general nodded to his emperor. “Yea to that, sir,” he saluted. “I’ll get the staff together. I expect we should have it all in place by the ides. I’ll get the admirals to advise us on the most suitable time and tides around then and, the gods willing, we’ll get fine weather.”

XXXII
. Heslus

Bringing the invasion fleet down from the Rhine and Meuse rivers went well. The ships hugged the shore closely, sailed only in daylight and enjoyed placid summer seas with enough breeze to make it a pleasant voyage. Meanwhile, Constantius split his forces and moved the larger vessels that would take livestock to the deeper harbour at Bononia, where the horse and mule lines created a farmyard smell on the clean ocean breeze. At Itius Portus, the soldiers laboured to drag the pinewood barges up onto the sand and they stocked supplies under cover on the quayside to await loading. On time, mid-month as Constantius promised, Roman efficiency had prevailed and men, beasts, impedimenta and ships were all at their allotted stations. If the weather held, they would soon form an invasion flotilla sailing north to exact the revenge of two emperors. But the gods were fickle, and the weather broke.

Shrieking gales from the Atlantic blasted in unseasonably early, died,
then were replaced by battering winds and rain from the east. The seabirds wheeled far inland, coastal stands of trees bowed submissively and the strait was a sullen heave of frothing grey-green. The invasion force could only watch morosely from their sodden tents as the bad weather kept them ashore, eating their way through the stores. After eleven days, Maximian’s patience broke. “We can’t wait for ever. It’s not that bad, it’s not a long way.”  Constantius looked grave. “Some of the problem, lord,” he said, adding a swift, “as you know,“ at the emperor’s scowling frown, “is landing everybody if there’s a surf.” Maximian unrolled a well-thumbed scroll that charted the waters and shoreline of south eastern Britain.

“I’ve thought of that,” he said. “We’ll land shock troops on this beach a mile or two east of Lympne and send them to seize the port. It’s not huge, but it’s a foothold. We can bring in the troop transporters, disembark the first wave in port and move the perimeter out from the town. We’d have to hold the Britons off overnight,
then land the second part of the force on the next tide. From there, we’ll be strong enough to break out and march east along the coast and we’ll be at Dover. Seize that port and we have the key to Britain in our hands. We can shuttle in auxiliaries at will if we have Dover, because whoever holds the place has the strait under his control.

“We might even be lucky and catch some of the British fleet in there, but we can’t keep delaying. Carausius will have had word of our build-up and he will be moving up soldiers
and supplies from all over the island. The longer we give him to prepare, the harder it gets for us.”

Constantius called in the admirals, who brought some local fishermen familiar with the British waters. They said they’d sometimes run their boats ashore on the island’s south coast. Landing on that shingle and sand was highly feasible, they assured the officers. Around the harbour at Lympne, the coastline had stretches of shingle beach, a shore hard-armoured with small pebbles, some of it backed by marshlands, some with firm turf above the cliffs. No, Caesar, there were no garrisons, no forts there, just a beacon at the southern headland at the foot of the wide bay.

“Then that’s it,” declared Maximian. “Constantius Chlorus will take the first wave of troopships into Lympne after one of the tribunes: that’s you, Heslus. If you can rouse yourself from your usual elegant languor, you will lead the raiding party that will seize the harbour. You’ll probably not be able to sail in, so come ashore just west of the place, and capture it from the landward side. Keep a couple of swift biremes free to bring back situation reports. They’ll also be useful as markers for the crews bringing back the empty barges for the next load. I’ll see to it that the pharos and other signal fires are lit the whole time, day and night, so the returning vessels will have a navigation aid, of smoke or fire.

“I personally will head the second wave of troopships, and we’ll leave from Itius Portus at the same time the cavalry squadrons embark from Bononia, so we’ll arrive more or less together. If we get the wind and tide right, the crossing should take just a few hours, which will give us plenty of time on the second day to disembark, sort things out and move on towards Dover.”

As a gusty, grey dawn broke, Heslus and his marines sailed into the chop of the Narrow Sea, tasked with seizing the harbour at Lympne. Constantius Chlorus gave them four hours’ head start, then sailed for Lympne himself with something more than one-third of the invasion fleet. His flotilla was labouring just over an hour out from Gaul when the wind rose and conditions, already marginal, abruptly worsened.

grey-green
waves rolled in, breaking in towers of white foam over the barges as their captains fought frantically to avoid being swamped. The loaded troopships sat low in the water, under deadly threat from the crashing, steep-sided ranks of saltwater. The gale turned stronger and stronger, hurling itself down-strait with a force that the wide steerboards could not resist. Desperate and seasick, soldiers bailed with their leather helmets to empty over the side the sloshing water that was already knee-deep inside some vessels, and all the while, the sea exploded over the low gunwales. Finally, the armada faced its simple choice: to turn before the wind or founder in mid-strait.

The barge captains saved their ships. They were losing the fight to inch their vessels towards the white cliffs they could see to the north, and they turned downwind, and west. His shipmaster saw the others turning, and reported to Constantius. “We’re have to go much more westerly than we want, lord,” the mariner. “If we’re lucky, we’ll make land maybe ten miles further down the coast than we planned.” The general didn’t hesitate. “Just get us ashore without drowning every bastard man and mule, as close as you can to Lympne,” he ordered. “Signal the fleet to follow us. Send one of those biremes back to Bononia to tell the emperor what’s happened.”

The shock troops who had gone ahead of the fleet were hardy veterans from the Third Gallica, men who had spent long years catching and crucifying the rebel peasants, runaway slaves and army deserters who roamed across Spain and Gaul. After setting off four hours ahead of their general, their dozen ships were in formation and within clear sight of the landing beaches. They could see the lit, smoking beacons that warned the enemy west and east along the coast of their arrival, but there was nothing they could do about that. As ordered by their officers, the legionaries were readied for battle, fully armed and armoured, strapped into their mail and segmentata breastplates. A mile or so more, and they’d be wading ashore.

The shipmasters one by one spotted it as they turned their eyes from what lay ahead, and each felt the clutch of fear in his chest. A dark band, blue-black, streaked and ominous, was spreading across the sky to the east. Faster than a galloping horse, the line of squalls battered in from the German Sea. In minutes, the bay’s shallow, shelving waters were whipped into a turbulence of pyramid-shaped waves, cross-currents and vicious eddies.

Three of the loaded galleys foundered within a half mile of shore, taking to the sea bed every man aboard who was weighted by his armour. Two of the other galleys turned and ran before the wind, but likely failed to clear the point. They were never seen again. Fine seamanship by the Greek and Egyptian shipmasters on the other seven vessels got them ashore, foundering and half-swamped, but with a miraculously minimal loss of lives. The tribune Heslus, soaked through and shivering under his sodden red cloak, thought bitterly that right now the Britons wouldn’t think him a very formidable Red Dragon. He shook off the distractions and put the legionaries into military order on the shingly beach before marching them inland, unopposed. The terrain was rolling, with some short hills and some open, sheep-nibbled down land where a peasant’s cottage with smoking chimney showed that bread was being baked. Heslus took stock. He had just more than half the number of troops he’d expected to have for the job, but they were weathered, tough and experienced in the hit and run of guerrilla tactics. They should be enough to drive off a rabble of painted savages, he thought. The carnifex and his crucifix builders would be busy in the coming days.

A rabble of tattooed and painted savages was not what was waiting for the landing party. Before the port of Lympne came in sight the Romans saw the gleam of metal and heard the blare of brass trumpets. As if they were rising out of the ground, a broad line of leather-helmeted, shield-bearing troops tramped towards them, up a small rise. They rose into sight, revealed as not one rank, but
five, and not one file, but 40. Then another phalanx of similar size and order came over the brow of another green hill to the Romans’ right.

Heslus was no coward, but he felt a frisson of fear at the nape of his neck. He knew his soldiers were experienced, but they had never met troops trained and disciplined in the Roman way. The irony didn’t escape him. His soldiers were going to face foreign troops who used Roman tactics, and did it better. The British colonials were more Roman than
his own men. He knew he was viewing Nemesis, the fate that had been ordained for him at birth, and he knew that the spinners who created the thread of his life were about to snip it short.

Coolly, suppressing panic with an almost physical effort, he began issuing orders. The Romans halted, shuffled into close order, dropped their marching packs and stepped forward into line of battle. Heslus looked through the driving rain for any scrap of terrain that might give advantage. At the moment, the numbers were about even, but he knew the Britons would be bringing up more troops. He’d be fighting a defensive battle until Constantius could arrive, and he was probably going to be more than four hours away, as he would have had to contend for longer with the Channel storm. Minerva herself only knew where he’d come ashore. 

Heslus scanned the landscape. To the Romans’ left was a small wooded ravine. At 300 paces distant, it might be attainable, and it could provide some flank protection for his formation.  The tribune turned his men towards it. The oncoming Britons tramped forward, knocking shields together and overlapping the edge of the shield of the next soldier. He would protect his comrade’s side with his shield and be protected in turn by his neighbour. All the while the two British phalanxes were heading steadily towards the invaders in a pincer that would fatally squeeze the Roman ranks.

“Third Gallica!” the tribune’s voice was a bellow as he addressed the invaders. “Stay steady, pay attention to your centurions. We will hold this British rabble here until the general brings us more force, then we’ll cut them down and continue on our way. It will be just a short wait. You’ll have a healthy night in the open air instead of in some fleapit tavern
with poxed-up whores!” Heslus heard not even a single snigger at his joke. The men, he realized, were frightened. This was outside their experience. For most, it was a view of their first and maybe of their last war hedge brought against them by enemies, and the two moving ramparts of elm, leather and bronze were closing from opposite sides. A spatter of arrows came from the Romans’ left, and the shuffling legionaries slung their big shields on that side, for protection. Stay steady, Heslus thought, the ravine and wood is only another 100 paces or so. He was looking to his right, assessing how much time before the first of those Britons would be in bowshot and he could expect to be under real fire.

Ahead of him, without warning, the trees seemed to flicker in the rain and their leaves trembled. Half of his first rank, still stepping out towards the cover of the trees, were thrown back by an unseen hand, a slashing storm; arrows. Men were on their knees, choking and gasping in bloody gouts. Others were tugging at arrow shafts that protruded from their thighs, necks and bellies. They had been marching with shields slung on their left, a cover against missiles from the closer British formation that menaced them there, and they had walked into a concealed battery of enemy archers. A second volley smashed into the struggling column, then the archers were stepping out of the fringe of the trees and nocking for another salvo of triple-bladed death. 

Heslus’ mind reeled at the suddenness of the action. Minutes before, he was marching in an empty land, now, he was beset on three sides and he knew his force was doomed. Better go down fighting. The testudo, he thought; form the armoured turtle of shields above and around his panicked column that would let it survive the arrow storm. He opened his mouth to bellow the command; it never came. An arrow smashed through his front teeth and tongue and into the roof of his mouth. Heslus, scion of a patrician family that claimed descent from Gaius Julius himself, expensively educated and beautifully mannered, died choking on a piece of smelted iron fastened to an arm’s length of poplar. Worse, he died knowing failure, unable to form up his men.

His last thoughts were of his duty. As his life flowed away, his dying mind told him his voice could have saved his command from the irresistible oncoming shield walls. He registered the first screams at the impacts of the battering bronze shield bosses that struck down the fragmenting ranks of Romans, and sank into oblivion before he could feel the impacts of the down-stabbing spears and swords that hacked into his unflinching body.

In the castle at Dover, Carausius heard the horseman’s report. He himself would speak to the handful of prisoners salvaged from the bloodied wreck of the Roman landing party, to see what he could learn of Maximian’s plans and troop dispositions. This was obviously a probing party, or was it? Surely, Maximian wasn’t mad enough to try a beach landing in these conditions? The Romans were heading towards Lympne, maybe that was their idea, but with so few troops? Well, the coastline was alerted, the beacons saw to that, and he could only await reports as his response troops were moving into position. There would be more, and soon, he knew. Maximian would not come unless he came with overwhelming force. Even with Carausius’ best preparations, the Romans would be almost unstoppable. He thought bitterly of the disciplined skills with which 10,000 legionaries of the XIV Gemini, outnumbered twenty to one, had destroyed the rebel Boadicea’s wild British warriors. He stirred uneasily. He was relying on a surprise weapon from the old queen’s day. Would it work? Or would he witness his own troops being butchered, as were hers?  Carausius physically shook himself like a dog shedding water. He had military problems to face, and pessimism and superstition were timewasting luxuries.