Cato 02 - The Eagles Conquest (10 page)

‘Something’s wrong.’

‘Sir?’ Macro turned to him.

‘We should have heard the headquarters trumpets by now.’

Then a dreadful thought occurred to Vespasian. Maybe he had missed the signal. Maybe the order had been given already and the men down by the river were desperately searching the ridge for any sign of relief. ‘Did either of you hear anything while I was back at the command post? Any signal?’

‘No, sir,’ Macro replied. ‘Nothing.’

Chapter Twelve

‘Where the hell is the Second?’ Vitellius asked bitterly, not for the first time. Legate Geta exchanged a look with his chief centurion and briefly raised his eyes before drawing closer to the tribune crouching beneath his shield.

‘A quiet word of advice: officers should always consider how their demeanour affects the men around them. If you want to make a career out of the army you must set a good example. So let’s have no more of this nonsense about the Second, all right? Now get off your belly and stand up.’

At first Vitellius was incredulous. Here they were, right in the middle of a first-class military disaster, and Geta was more concerned about etiquette. But the contemptuous looks he was getting from the veterans who made up the command party shamed him. He nodded, swallowed, and rose to his feet, taking his place with the rest or the officers and standard bearers. The fire they had at first attracted from the British slingers had slackened as soon as the cohorts charged the palisade and now only the occasional quick shot could be spared in their direction.

Even so, two of the Ninth’s tribunes had been downed. One lay dead at the foot of the eagle standard, his face shattered by the impact of a lead shot. The other had just been struck on the shin. The bone was smashed. The young officer was white-faced with the effort not to let out a cry as he looked at the bone protruding from his skin. Vitellius was relieved when a burly legionary heaved the tribune up onto his shoulders and headed back across the river.

And there, surging down the slope and into the water came the Fourteenth Legion. For an instant Vitellius’ spirits soared at the prospect of reinforcements, a reeling shared by the rest or the colour party, until they saw how the tide was slowly covering the ford. Vitellius turned back to the legate, unable to conceal his alarm.

‘What’s the general up to?’

‘It’s all in the plan,’ Geta replied calmly. ‘You should know, you were at the briefing.’

‘But the river! We won’t be able to get back across unless we withdraw now, sir.’ Vitellius looked round the colour party despairingly. Surely someone would agree with him, but the contempt in their expressions only deepened. ‘We can’t just sit here, sir. We must do something.. Before it’s too late.’

Geta regarded him silently for a moment, then pursed his lips and nodded. ‘You are right, of course, Vitellius. We must do something.’ Turning to the colour party, he drew his sword. ‘Raise the eagle. We’re going to advance.’

‘What?’ Vitellius stared at him in disbelief, and shook his head, desperately trying to think of a way to talk the legate out of the crazy decision. ‘But, sir. The eagle - what if it’s lost?’

‘It won’t be, once the men see it right at the front. Then they’ll fight to the last drop of blood to follow it to victory, or die in its defence.’ ‘But it’d be safer where it is, sir,’ Vitellius countered.

‘Look here, Tribune,’ Geta said sternly. ‘That’s an eagle up on the standard, not a bloody chicken. It’s supposed to inspire men to valour, not to save their skins. I’ve had just about enough of your whining. You’re supposed to be a hero. I thought you’d saved the Second Legion’s bacon! Now I wonder… But you’re with us right now, and I need every man I can get hold of. So shut your mouth and draw your bloody sword.’

The steel in the legate’s tone was chilling. Without another word Vitellius drew his weapon and fell in behind the colour party. Geta led them at a trot over to where the First Cohort was battling to secure a foothold on the palisade. The wounded and dead carpeted the slope of the earthworks. As the colour party pressed through the throng towards the palisade, the British warriors hacked and slashed at them, their war cries deafening. At last the Ninth’s eagle rose above the crush and the legionaries returned the British cries with a great roar of their own.

‘Up the Hispania!’

The Romans fell upon their enemy with renewed energy and aggression and the flashing blades of the Roman short swords stabbed forward with deadly efficiency as all along the palisade the battle cry was taken up.

‘Up the Hispania!’

Vitellius kept his silence as with gritted teeth he pressed on with the colour party up the slope. Suddenly he found himself hard up against the palisade - a line of rough-hewn posts driven into the ground. Overhead loomed a yelling British warrior, black against the brilliant blue of the sky, axe raised for the kill. Instinctively Vitellius thrust his sword at the man’s face and ducked behind the rim of his shield. There was a sharp scream of agony an instant before the axe cracked into the reinforced trim along the top of the shield. Vitellius’ legs buckled for a moment and then he was up again. A huge centurion was at his side, great arms wrapped round a wooden stake which he was wrestling free of the soil.

‘Pull the palisade down!’ the centurion bellowed, grabbing hold of the next stake. ‘Pull it down!’

Other men followed suit and soon a number of small gaps had been wrenched in the palisade, and the Ninth began to force their way through to the flattened earth rampart beyond. To Vitellius’ left the eagle rose, and Britons swarmed towards it, drawn on by a savage desire to seize the legion’s standard and crush the resolve of their enemy. The fighting round the eagle was conducted with a terrible intensity that Vitellius could not have imagined possible from human beings. He turned away from the ghastly scene and urged the legionaries round him to press on through the palisade, jabbing his sword in the direction of the Britons.

‘On, lads! On! Kill them! Kill them all!’

Hardly a man spared him a glance as they charged through. Only when he was sure that there were enough Romans on the rampart to form a living barrier between himself and the enemy did Vitellius climb through the ruined palisade and onto the rampart. From this height he had a quick chance to survey the immediate battlefield. On both sides the fighting line stretched out along the curved fortifications. Behind the Ninth Legion the First Cohort of the Fourteenth was emerging from the river and would shortly add its weight to the assault. Even now it might not be needed. Geta’s desperate attempt to force the defences was succeeding, and more and more Romans were packing the rampart and pushing the Britons back, down the reverse slope and into their camp. Sensing that victory was at last in their grasp, and driven on by a blood-crazed desire to avenge the torment they had suffered on the killing ground by the river, the men of the Ninth savagely hacked their way forwards.

Vitellius went with them, urging the legionaries on as he sought to rejoin the colour party. He found them in a ring of bodies - Roman and Briton alike sprawled at the foot of the eagle. Most of the officers bore wounds from the desperate fight on the rampart and Vitellius saw that fewer than half of the original party were still on their feet. Geta was busy issuing orders to be carried to the cohort commanders to prevent their units from dispersing in a general pursuit of the enemy. The fresh troops of the Fourteenth would be permitted that duty while the Ninth secured the fortifications they had given so many lives to take.

‘There you are, sir!’ Vitellius called out cheerfully. ‘We did it, sir! We beat ‘em!’

‘We?’ Geta arched an eyebrow but Vitellius ploughed on. Sheathing his bloodied sword he grabbed the legate’s hand and pumped it warmly. ‘A brilliant action, sir. Quite brilliant. Wait until Rome hears about this!’

‘I thought we’d lost you, Tribune,’ Geta said quietly.

‘Got separated in the crush, sir. I helped some lads break onto the rampart over that way.’

‘I see.’

The two men faced each other for a moment, the tribune smiling effusively, the legate’s expression cold and restrained. Vitellius broke the silence.

‘And no sign of the Second Legion! This is the Ninth’s victory alone. Your victory, sir.’

‘It’s not over yet, Tribune. For any of us.’

‘It’s over for them, sir.’ Vitellius waved an arm in the direction of the enemy camp through which the erstwhile defenders were streaming back towards the rear gateways.

‘For them, maybe. Excuse me.’ Geta turned towards his trumpeters. ‘Sound recall and re-form.’

The bucinas each drew in a lungful of air and pursed their lips to the mouthpieces. The brassy notes blasted out a brief melody and then continued repeating it. Slowly the men of the Ninth disengaged and looked for their cohort standards. But before he could give the order for the signal to cease, Geta was aware of a new noise, a rippling roar of war cries welling up from behind the enemy camp. As the other members of the colour party became aware of the sound they looked to the low ridge behind the camp. All along the battle line men stood still and listened, Roman and Briton alike. Then as an icy dread gripped the exhausted Romans, Caratacus’ carefully husbanded reserves burst into the camp.

‘Oh shit!’ Vitellius whispered.

Legate Geta smiled and drew his sword again. ‘I rather think your earlier report of our triumph was greatly exaggerated. If we’re going to make the columns of the Rome gazette, I’m afraid it may be the obituaries. ‘

Chapter Thirteen

Vespasian watched with unabashed anguish as the British reserves rolled forward like a great wave threatening to dash the thin line of the Ninth to pieces. The Fourteenth Legion would not be in a position to lend any support until the fight on the rampart was over, and then it would be their turn to be thrown into the grinder, with no possibility of retreat.

Beside the legate, Cato realised that the fate of the entire army was bound up in what happened in the very next moment. The Britons were on the verge of a decisive victory over the Roman invaders, and the mere thought of such a calamity filled him with bleak despair, as if the world itself was on the brink of extinction. Only the Second Legion stood in the way of disaster now.

Amidst the muffled din of the battle Cato thought he could hear the faint falling note of a trumpet, and he strained his ears to try and pick out the sound again. But whatever the sound may have been, it was lost now. Might it have been some trick of acoustics? he wondered. Or a stray note from a British war horn? Then it came again, more distinctly this time. Cato quickly turned to his legate.

‘Sir! Did you hear it?’

Vespasian raised himself up and listened intently before he shook his head. ‘I can’t hear them. Are you sure? You’d better be sure.’ In a mad instant Cato knew that it was down to him. On him alone hung the fate of the army.

‘It’s trumpets, sir! Ordering us to advance.’

Vespasian exchanged a long look with the optio and then nodded. ‘You’re right. I can hear them. Sound the advance!’ Vespasian bellowed over his shoulder and before the first notes of the following signal had died, the Second Legion were advancing up the slope. Vespasian turned to his messengers. ‘Pass the word, I want us to arrive in formation. If any man feels inclined to grab all the glory for himself and breaks ranks I will personally see to it that he’s crucified. Centurion Macro!’

‘Yes, sir.’ Macro stood to attention now that there was no longer any need for concealment.

‘Get your century formed up and rejoin your cohort.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good luck, Macro.’ The legate nodded grimly. ‘We’ll need all the luck we can get.’

Then he turned and fell in step with the colour party as it crested the ridge and the full scale of the task was revealed to them. Even the veterans sucked in their breath and exchanged surprised looks. It was too late to go back on his decision now, Vespasian reflected. In a short time the Second Legion would earn a footnote in the pages of history for itself, and if the gods were kind this day, the reference would not be posthumous.

The centurions called the pace in steady parade-ground tones and the legion marched down the slope in lines of five cohorts. At the front of the Sixth Century Cato did his best to keep in step with his centurion. Ahead he saw that the British reserves had reached the rampart and were swarming up the reverse slope against the thin wall of shields presented by the men of the Ninth. Down by the river the cohorts of the Fourteenth were hastily re-forming as they reached the bank. But the rising tide made their progress across the ford terribly slow and even now most of them would arrive too late to be of any use.

The sudden threat from the Second Legion on their right flank threw the nearest British warriors into a panic; many just stopped in their tracks to stare at the new danger. The distance closed steadily and Cato began to make out individual features in the men he would soon be fighting hand-to-hand. He could see the lime-washed hair, the elegantly swirling tattoos covering their woad-stained torsos, the brightly dyed woollen breeches and the wicked long blades of their swords and war spears.

‘Steady there!’ Macro bellowed as the uneven slope caused his century to fall out of alignment with the rest of the cohort. ‘Keep to the pace!’

The ranks hurriedly dressed themselves and the Sixth Century continued rolling forwards, less than half a mile from the fortifications now. A small band of sling men ran out of the nearest gateway and moved into range. Then a light but deadly volley of slingshot rattled down on the large rectangular shields of the legionaries. Something whined over Cato’s head and a man at the rear of the century cried out as the shot shattered his collarbone. He fell out and slumped into the long grass, dropping his javelin. But there was no time to spare for the man as a fresh volley clattered down.