Marching With Caesar: Conquest of Gaul (22 page)

By this time I was joined by another man, who stood by my side shoulder to shoulder, there being only room for two of us to stand this way on the parapet at this moment with a bit of room to maneuver. There were still a sizable number of Lusitani in our vicinity of the parapet, but they had seen the fate of their two companions and now were not quite as bold. The two of us moved slowly forward, our shields locked together, then I felt someone grasp my harness behind me to brace me in the way we were trained.

“Let’s go get these bastards,” I heard Calienus say, and realizing that he was the one behind me made me feel even more confident. For the first time since I was on the wall, I became aware of the sounds of battle going on around me; the clashing of metal on metal, the roars of men trying to slaughter each other, the cries of the wounded and shrieks of the dying. I was too inexperienced to know how the fight was going by the sound; that would only come after several engagements, so I had no idea how the assault was progressing. Moving forward, we stepped over the bodies of the two men I had slain, taking care not to trip as we tried to close the distance between us and the remaining Lusitani. At first they were content to keep backing up, making half-hearted jabs with their weapons, then one of them looked behind him and saw what we had seen already; they were running out of room. Immediately behind them was a series of large log columns protruding above the parapet, effectively blocking it off from the parapet on the other side. There was a ladder next to the columns but they knew as we did that the moment they tried to climb down we would be on them, and while the wall was only ten feet high on the outside, the actual level of the town was lower by a few feet where they had dug down to create streets and such. This was not a height that would kill them if they jumped, but it would definitely stun or knock the wind out of them, which was just as dangerous. However, this was actually a bad spot for us as well, because now that they knew there was no escape, their only choice was to attack or die. Not that it mattered much in the larger picture; the murder of the Tribune sealed the fate of the defenders of this town, along with the citizens, but first we had to finish what we started. One of the men, a decent-sized warrior a bit older than us, was the first to attack and in doing so, showed us a characteristic of the Lusitani that I have since seen in other Gallic tribes, with whom the Lusitani are distant cousins. Unleashing a war cry, he lunged forward, a whirlwind of ferocious movement as he slashed at us with his long sword. Both the man next to me and I raised our shields as we were buffeted by blow after blow, each of them sending shocks traveling down our arms that were clearly transferred backwards as we recoiled. Keeping our guard up while watching through the crack between the shields, we waited for an opening, and it soon presented itself. For a moment the Lusitani dropped his guard as he panted for breath, both his sword and his shield moving just a bit. Like a snake striking, my comrade, who I recognized as a veteran from my Century that was salted into our ranks, thrust his blade through the gap between us, plunging it into the gut of the Lusitani who let out a gasp of air as if he was punched. Before my mind even registered it happening, the blade was back behind the shield and I looked down to see that fully half of its length was covered in blood. The Lusitani took a step back, began to turn around, then toppled off the parapet, whereupon another man took his place, and it was then that I noticed this strange custom. The Lusitani, much in the same way as the Gallic tribes, have this notion of single combat and whenever possible prefer to attack one at a time. At least, that is how they start out; usually, by the third or fourth time we faced them they learned the folly of their ways, but since this was our first battle with the Lusitani, they still were determined to fight in the manner in which they were accustomed. The next man apparently did not learn anything from watching his comrade, instead coming and swinging wildly at us, making it a matter of a few heartbeats before he was dispatched. It was in this manner that we slowly moved forward, eliminating all of the men on that section of the parapet.

Once our section of the parapet was cleared of the enemy, we turned our attention to the fighting around us. The immediate area was now crowded with Legionaries, yet none of us had made sufficient headway against the Lusitani to enable us to get off the parapet and down onto the ground. While our Century was clearly holding its own, I thought that they would welcome the help of the rest of us in our small group, but I was not sure what to do, so I turned to Calienus for direction and he seemed to weigh the options in his mind. Narrowing his eyes in thought, oblivious to the mayhem that was taking place just feet away from us, he announced, “We’ve cleared our section, so we could go down the ladder and come back up behind them farther down the wall,” and I looked down at the area immediately surrounding us.

It was full of the Lusitani in reserve, and although they obviously did not have the weapons and probably did not have the training of the Lusitani on the wall, they made up for it in numbers, at least as I saw it. However, I would obey my Sergeant no matter what he said.

“But I think that while we could take most of those bastards, there's just too many to make it a sure thing,” and I heaved a sigh of relief at the decision, “so let’s go help the boys over there,” he pointed to where Crastinus was fighting.

Running along the parapet, we were forced to hop over the bodies heaped there, it surprised me how quickly I was becoming inured to the feeling of wanting to throw up whenever I saw a corpse. Less than a full watch ago, I felt like I wanted to vomit when the Tribune was decapitated, but now I hopped over mangled bodies like they were no more than a log. I have always found it interesting how the human mind works that way. Making our way to the rear of the group of men from our Century who were in the assault team with the Pilus Prior, I grabbed the back of the harness of the man in front of me who twisted in surprise, in turn giving me a shock, albeit a happy one. It was Vibius!

He grinned when he saw me and I returned it as he asked, “Well, how many have you done for so far?”

“Three, and helped with a couple of others. You?”

He looked a little embarrassed as he shook his head, then nodded towards the front and replied, “Those bastards up there won’t give me a chance. They won’t rotate through like they’re supposed to.”

Standing on tiptoe I could see that, indeed, the Pilus Prior was still up front, thrusting away with short, brutal strokes and I could see men toppling over in front of him, most of them either falling or being pushed off the parapet to land on the ground. Next to him was one of the veterans of the Century, a Legionary named Figulus, who was doing the same. Looking down at the growing pile of bodies heaped below the parapet, I saw some of them moving and trying to crawl away, with others being completely still. Trying to estimate how many there were, I thought maybe twenty or thirty, but there appeared to be at least that many men left between us and the rest of the Century that had been led by the unfortunate Vinicius, so that pressure was being applied on both sides as the two parts of the Century moved towards each other, making the results inevitable.

After another few moments of fighting, we cleared the area of rampart that we were assigned, whereupon Crastinus pointed down with his sword at the mass of men standing in what passed for a street in towns like this, though was nothing more than a wide expanse of rutted dirt with puddles of mud.

“Let’s sort those bastards out,” he yelled so that he could be heard over the noise.

Despite our immediate area being clear, we could see down the length of the parapet to see very fierce fighting still going on, extending all the way to where the wall curved out of sight, following the contour of the hill. There were a couple of spots that looked like the Legionaries were getting the worst of it; whether it was that the Lusitani in command of that local area was made of better stuff, or the men themselves were more organized I could not tell. I wondered briefly if we would go to their aid, except it became clear very quickly that the Pilus Prior was not concerned with them. Turning to us, he scanned our faces, found someone and pointed at him, beckoning him to stand next to the Pilus Prior.

“Rufio, you’re the acting Optio. If you don’t completely fuck things up in the next little while, maybe you’ll be Optio for real,” he said this matter-of-factly, and I was troubled that he did not make any mention of Vinicius. He was the whole reason for Rufio being promoted after all, yet as I was to learn, those emotions that one feels at the loss of a close comrade are to be put away for later, after the battle, and Crastinus was more concerned with keeping the rest of us alive. Rufio joined him then Crastinus turned to the rest of us to give us our orders.

“Half the Century is going to go down that ladder,” he pointed at the one nearest us, “and the other half is going down that ladder.”

He indicated back behind us to the ladder that we were closest to earlier.

“So, Sections One through Five on me, the rest on Rufio. We go when I give the signal. Look around to see if there are any javelins that can be used lying around here. We’ll use them to keep these savages away from the foot of the ladders while the rest of us go down. I go first down my ladder, and Rufio goes first down his. Just make sure you don’t end up like Vinicius.”

The mention of Vinicius affected us, and Crastinus saw it. “Mourn him later, boys. We still have work to do,” he ordered.

Then he sent us on our way, and as we went back the way we came, we looked around the parapet for any javelin whose pin had not sheared. One of the things that make our javelin so fearsome is its design. It has two pins affixing the iron shaft to the wooden one, with one pin made of iron, while the one closest to the head is made of wood, and is designed to shear off on impact. Also, although the tip of the javelin is tempered and hardened, the metal shaft is not, making it bend easily. Combined with the wooden pin, it makes the javelin a weapon such that once it strikes something substantial, like flesh, bone or even the wood of a shield, the iron shaft bends and partially detaches from the wooden shaft at the spot where the wooden pin shears off at impact, making the weapon unusable to throw back at us. The other advantage is that if it strikes the enemy’s shield, once again it will bend, the weight of the javelin making the shield basically useless after that. Managing to scrounge up about two dozen that were sufficiently undamaged to use to keep the Lusitani at bay while we descended the ladder, it also did not appear that they were overly anxious to meet us. Perhaps it was the nature of the men held in reserve that they were not as aggressive as the warriors who occupied the walls. I think it was just as much that they had experienced a taste of Roman fighting and found it not to their liking. Whatever the case, we gathered quickly as Rufio, still unaccustomed to his new status, tried to decide how we would descend the ladder. Looking around, his eyes caught mine, and with a sinking feeling, I realized what he was thinking.

“Pullus, you were second up, you may as well be second down,” he commanded.

At first I felt inclined to argue but felt the eyes of my comrades on me, so instead I simply nodded, not willing to trust myself to say anything. Rufio turned his attention to the others, quickly counting out the order that we would line up and designating six men to remain behind to provide support with their javelins while we established a presence on the ground, men who had proven to be accurate with the javelins in training. The Lusitani, guessing our intentions, started to surge forward but even to my inexperienced eye I could see that it was more for show than anything. Even so, there were still a couple hundred of them. They stayed just out of range of our javelins, except there was no way to be sure that they would not charge us when we started down the ladder, and there was only one way to find out.

Rufio took a breath before calling to the men providing support, “Watch our backs on our way down.”

Immediately he began descending, back to the Lusitani who, seeing us start down started their chanting and bashing of their shields all over again. Then on a signal by a man who apparently was their leader, the enemy began rushing towards us. I was not about to repeat the mistake I made on the way up the wall, so the instant Rufio cleared the first couple of rungs, I started following him down. There is no real way to describe what it is like turning your back on a large group of men who want to kill you, and I tried to ignore the shaking of my knees as I made my way down. Rufio made it to the bottom, as did I an instant later, then the man behind me, followed by another, whereupon we took a few steps forward to make room for the rest of our group, standing shoulder to shoulder as the horde approached. Hearing Calienus give the command to ready the javelins, followed immediately after that by the order to release, we sensed them flying towards the men, now not more than 20 paces away. There were only six of us throwing, so it did not come close to stopping their charge, yet every one hit its mark and the men who went down caused others to stumble, checking their wild advance for just a moment. Then, just as they started their charge again, the command to release was repeated, with more men going down. In the intervening time, another half-dozen of us made it down and I glanced over to see Vibius step into place to my left, where we had just enough time to grin at each other before the mob closed the remaining distance to slam into us. The collision was terrific, and I recoiled backwards from the mass of men who were the first to meet our fragile wall of shields. Feeling my feet skidding backwards, I strained forward, putting all of my weight against the Lusitani screaming just inches from us, so close I could smell their stinking breath. Peeking over the edge of the shield I locked eyes with a man who appeared to be several years older, with his hair worn long in their manner, pulled back into a knot at the back of his head. His face was decorated with some sort of patterns made with what looked like paint, which combined with his wild eyes and shouting chilled my blood. Desperately I looked for an opening for a thrust to his face or body because it was impossible to use my shield in any offensive manner, then I felt a hand grab my harness to start pushing against me, least stopping my backward slide. There was one small advantage in the sudden and surprising fervor of the enemy; in their haste to destroy us they ran headlong into our shield wall, the back ranks pushing their leading warriors up against our line, crushing them against us so tightly they could not wield their weapons with any effectiveness. However neither could we strike back, forcing something of a stalemate, yet it was one that we would inevitably lose because of the numbers we faced, unless something happened in our favor. Glancing at Vibius, his face contorted with the effort of maintaining the integrity of the formation, and I could tell that he was rapidly weakening. Something had to be done or we would be overwhelmed, even with the rest of our group now on the ground with us, and it had to be done quickly.