Legatus Legionis: Book Two in the Gaius Claudius Scaevola Trilogy (23 page)

"We were patrolling through the forest ahead of Falco, sir, spreading wide, and we found the ambushing soldiers. I ordered a third of my cavalry to scout wide, and the rest pursued what we could see, and eventually we caught them."

"But left the party you were supposed to be protecting unguarded?"

"Yes sir, but . . ."

"But?"

"There were a very large number of the enemy, sir. If this were real, we had to do something about such a significant force, and at the time, we did not know that we weren't facing an equal force."

"Or a bigger one?" Gaius pointed out.

"No sir, but we still had to find out. If there is a massive force of enemy, we can't just ignore them."

"How did you know you weren't going to be encircled if you chased?"

"I suppose, strictly speaking, we didn't, but I did have the cavalry scouting wide. They should have seen something, so I would get warning."

"Unless the scouts were captured?"

"They scouted in depth," Matius replied, "and I received continual reports. If they ceased from a given direction, I would have warning, and . . ."

"Good!" Gaius nodded. "Again, we can't prevent the enemy from making good moves, and all we can do is take precautions, which you did. Whether you should have pursued for so long is a matter of opinion, but," he continued, looking across the assembly, "I want each of you to have confidence to take action in the field. If you can't get orders, then you have to do what you think is best, and I will back you if you do something that can be construed as reasonable at the time. I do not want my officers in the field to be paralysed into inaction. It is much better to do something that is far from optimal properly than sit on your arse petrified, because that is always wrong. Now, Lupus, your turn to explain what you did, and, more to the point, why you did it. We were supposed to be practising forest skills, but somehow you managed something else."

"Sir, I thought I was supposed to set an ambush . . ."

"You supposed correctly."

"Well, sir, given that Falco knew there was an exercise under way, I felt the forest was obvious, sir, so I left the seventh to divide in the forest, make sure they were seen, and to draw away scouts and if possible capture them, while if Matius came through, they were to draw them away as far as possible, until it was obvious Matius could not rejoin Falco. He may have become over-enthusiastic . . ."

"An interesting move, but it required you to know there was going to be a second cohort group, which is not obvious."

"Well, sir, I knew. There was no point in ignoring that and . . ."

"It was an observation, not a criticism," Gaius interrupted. "Continue."

"My guess was that Falco would know we were going to ambush, so he would have something worked out for when we were in the forest, but I thought he might have got careless when we came out if it, so I had my cohort hide in the village, and . . ."

"What did you do with the villagers?"

"I asked them to cooperate, sir, and promised them we would pay well for supplies, and . . ."

"That's good," Gaius nodded. "I shall ensure reasonable promises are covered."

A look of relief crossed Lupus' face, as he continued, "The rest was a bit risky, but I thought it would be a good exercise to see if I could hide a cohort in what looks like the open. In fact there are plenty of places if the opposition aren't looking too closely, and . . ."

"You did an excellent job," Gaius smiled. "Any problems?"

"Well . . ."

"You might as well come clean," Gaius smiled at the discomfort on his Tribune's face.

"A small number of soldiers protested my orders, sir."

"Oh, they did, did they?" Gaius' look was now harder. "So, what did you do?"

"I ordered them imprisoned in a shed, sir, and told them that any attempt to escape would be treated as mutiny . . ."

"Anything else?"

"I ordered twenty strokes of a cane to each of them, sir," came the hesitant response.

"That seems reasonable," Gaius nodded, "but they can each have four weeks of latrine duties added on. Make sure the centurions know that this caning is to be serious."

"Sir . . ." Lupus was clearly hesitant about the next point.

"Go on."

"One of them is a Centurion, sir. I may have trouble with . . ."

"Was a centurion," Gaius spat. "He is demoted to the ranks, and he gets a double caning, to be applied by a Centurion I brought from the eleventh."

"He may not survive forty strokes, sir," Lupus pointed out.

"I know," Gaius replied coldly, "but that's more his problem than mine. Right, so far you've done a good job, so you get the third promotion, but don't let it go to our head, because lots of carelessness can reverse it!"

"Yes, sir!" came the enthusiastic response.

"Your cohorts will witness the caning of your men, but the entire legion will witness the caning of that Centurion. I wish it to be very clear that orders are not items for discussion. I don't care what the men think about orders, but I care very much that they are carried out promptly and fully. The more that man hurts, the more likely orders will be carried out the way I want them carried out, and that means that a number of other men, whose lives depend on those orders being carried out, will live."

"I'll see to it, sir."

"Good. Now, following that, I want you and your Centurions to show the others how you managed to hide so well in what was nominally open terrain," Gaius said. "The punishment is tomorrow morning, the demonstration tomorrow afternoon, then, Matius, you can set off as an ambusher, and now, Lupus, you will be the ambushed, so you set off two days later. Falco, your job is to set off after Lupus and see what you can do to protect him."

* * *

The legion assembled on a small rise and the men were ordered to face towards the post at the bottom of the slope. The orders were simple. Any man who did not watch would be taken down to the post. The once-Centurion was brought out, stripped, and lashed to the post. Gaius calmly announced that this punishment was for wilful disobeying orders. In the future, one person so disobeying could expect worse; a group could expect decimation. Orders were not discussion points. He then stepped back and nodded to a Centurion from the XIth, who stepped forward and lashed with a viciousness previously unseen by any of the men. At the end, the unconscious bloodied body was taken down and carried away, to see whether he lived or died. The legion remained silent throughout this.

* * *

When Lupus' group had been in the next forest for two days, Matius attacked with cavalry. The forest had been particularly heavy, and accordingly Falco's protective force had slipped behind, however they quickly came to the rescue, and on their appearance, Matius' cavalry decided to beat a retreat. Falco pursued, and Lupus sent his cavalry to assist, but after three hours Falco found the forest thinning and Matius' cavalry had somehow eluded them. He turned back. Meanwhile, the main party had marched on, thinking that they had done reasonably well in this exercise.

Accordingly, when they ran onto the second ambush, there was momentary confusion, but this was quickly remedied and a defence organized. Eventually, the raiders withdrew when Lupus' cavalry reappeared from behind, at which point the infantry ambushers turned to restrike. At this point Falco's men reappeared, and Gaius called for a halt to proceedings. The exercises were to practice manoeuvres in forests, not to engage in long-winded games of attrition.

The exercises continued, and at the same time the legion made by far the slowest march towards their destination of the three legions. However, Gaius became more confident; with each exercise, the situation became more complex and more difficult to resolve, but that was because each group was performing so much better. Because the format of proceedings were more or less known to all, it became increasingly difficult for any of them to do anything original, which of course meant that the legion was developing procedures to deal with just about anything. That, of course, did not mean there would be no problems; just because the legion could manoeuvre did not mean the enemy could not fight well. The important point, from Gaius' point of view, was that now the legion had minimized the chances of fighting man on man in single combat. Even small groups of men fighting coherently for each other was a great improvement on single-man combat, as in single combat the Roman soldier had no advantage over his opponent, and in some ways his heavy armour put him at a disadvantage. Even the forming of a small shield wall turned the odds significantly back to the Romans.

* * *

They were almost to the coast when the next mail arrived, and Gaius was pleased to receive a letter from Vipsania.

My Darling Gaius,

Spring is here, the trees are greening nicely and many are in blossom. You will be very pleased to know that the rains were good, so it looks like a promising start to the year.

I am afraid I haven't got any further as regards Quintus, and I don't think I can. Word must have got back from Egypt that I had been asking questions, and Quintus became quite angry. I think the fact that I am a woman has something to do with it, and his attitude was quite overbearing. He did not explain anything, and he seemed to think that any explanation to me was unnecessary. I am sorry, but I think that's as far as I am likely to get.

I have met another problem. Polybius had been helping me, but it seems he has been mourning a brother (I have no idea how he died) and his work efforts have declined. He requested Claudius to relieve him of his appointment, but Claudius was in no mood to agree. Polybius was told to straighten up, or else; he might have been freed, but he was still in the service of the state. The overall result is that now he cannot help me, which means I cannot see how to make further progress. I am not the only one he cannot help either. Seneca, from exile, wrote to Polybius to console him on his loss, but in reality it seems to have been an attempt to get Polybius to help him get back to Rome. That isn't going to happen, and in his present mood Polybius is not going to help anyone, possibly not himself either.

It appears that kissing shoes might well be a sound strategy after all, since Vitellius has been made Consul. It seems that some of the other courtiers must have guessed or known this was going to happen, because there has been a lot of real grovelling to Vitellius going on for some time. From what I can make out, you got on reasonably well with him while you were in Syria, so his being Consul can't be too bad.

Mind you, being Consul this year may not be all that desirable. The Senate is definitely restless. They seem to be laughing at Claudius, and I think some of them, including Marcus Vinicianus and Valerius Asiaticus, expect Claudius to fail. Poor Claudius has an awful lot riding on this invasion, so it better not fail. Of course I have no doubt that the Valeria will sweep all before it, and believe me, if it does, you will get just about anything you wish. Besides the invasion working, it has to work with soldiers that don't have their own eyes on the Principate, and I know that you are one of the few that Claudius really trusts.

So, our future lies in your hands. Doesn't that make you feel good?

Your loving Vipsania.

Gaius laughed hollowly at the last part. The future would come, irrespective of whether he was there, although he did acknowledge that his actions might well alter it. That Vitellius was Consul was certainly not the worst thing that could happen, although it would make very little difference to him because the position would last for a year, and he would be invading Britain through the whole Consulship.

The reference to Quintus annoyed him. He would write a letter to him, requiring him to produce the documentation Vipsania had requested. Quintus should consider a request from her to be a request from him; if he sent her away, calling her a woman, he was sending him away, calling him a woman, and when he, Gaius, returned to Rome Quintus would answer for any such insults.

Quintus' antics were just what he needed; just when he was to embark on an expedition that would be the height of his career, he had to deal with an arrogant relation.

Chapter 21

Legio IX
Hispana,
having much further to travel, and also requiring a replacement for its duties, would not join the invasion until much later in the season but the three legions that had marched from the Rhine,
Legio II
Augusta
,
Legio XIV
Gemina Martia
and
Legio XX
Valeria
were sufficient for this channel port to be a seething mass of humanity and of chaos. Food and materials had to be acquired, and since the heavy equipment had been brought by boat down the Rhine and along the coast, it had to be reunited with its legion. Everything had to be recorded, particularly the money. There was a huge fortune in coin, more than most tribal kings could ever hope to amass, but with three legions guarding it there was little opportunity for theft.

Clerks were everywhere, recording everything. The power of Rome arose not from the gladius and shield wall, formidable though they may be, nor from the ability of the ordinary Roman soldier to achieve the extraordinary, but rather from the ability to organize and deploy over great distances such a massive disciplined force kept in supply. The ability to bring over twenty thousand well-disciplined troops to a chosen point at a chosen time, then to mount an attack with all units coordinated to preset goals meant that the tribally dependent Celts could not defeat this invasion once it became established.

Just because Rome could do it, however, did not mean there were no slip-ups. Inevitably equipment was mixed up, lost, misplaced, and sorting out the mess was a task for every man who could read. The ability to read led to a safer life; the ability to read and fight led to rapid promotional prospects. A number of soldiers whose reading ability was marginal at best were now helping. If they were lucky, they might get noticed. If they were unlucky, they would get noticed, as someone else would have to deal with the resultant chaos.