Marching With Caesar: Conquest of Gaul (65 page)

“And how could you possibly know this?” demanded Vibius, who apparently was none too pleased that the thunder of his announcement was taken over by speculation about the fate that awaited us. The fact was that we absolutely believed him. All of us were convinced that Caesar was intent on going to Britannia, so we had moved onto the next logical subject, and that was what awaited us when we got there.

“From Gisela,” Calienus said seriously.

Gisela was a girl who had joined the camp followers in the last year. She was a Suessiones, and was much different than most of the other women who were part of the contingent of people following the army. Where they were dark, she was extremely fair, with hair the color of copper and freckles sprinkled across her nose, which unlike our proud Roman noses was more snubbed, although for some strange reason it enhanced her beauty rather than detracted from it. She had a wondrous figure, but her most striking feature were her eyes, a green that was almost as rich and deep as the grass that grew in her country. She was a sensation, and could have had her choice of any man in the Legion, Tribunes included, except for some reasons that none of us could understand, she chose to be Calienus’ woman. We regularly cursed his luck.

“She had a kinsman who married a woman from the Menapii tribe, and they do business with the people on the island. He told her, and she told me. She said that he told her that they’re all huge, and they practice a religion that requires them to sacrifice a human being on special days.” That struck us to silence; although we had heard of peoples who practiced such rituals, we had not heard of what he described next. “After the person is sacrificed, every one of the tribe has to eat a piece of the flesh of the person.”

There were exclamations of disgust at that, and I searched Calienus’ face intently for a clue that he was trying to put one over on us, but his face was deadly serious. With that piece of good news, he bade us goodnight to ponder our fates.

Reaching the coast at a point far to the north of Samarobriva, the army took notice that we were the farthest west and north than we had been in the three almost full years of campaigning in Gaul to that point. I mentioned some time ago that our principal observation was that winter comes earlier the farther north you get, though for what reason I cannot say, and now we had the added element of the wind coming off of the ocean. We were told that this spot we were at was the point closest to Britannia, and we waited there a few days as Caesar sent word to find every available transport ship. At the same time he sent one of his Tribunes, Gaius Volusenus, to reconnoiter the coast of Britannia to find a suitable landing area. Caesar’s fame always preceded him wherever he went, and this time was no exception. The camp was abuzz with the news that a ship arrived, carrying emissaries from the tribes that lived on the island, and we all sought excuses to be near the
Praetorium
when they were presented to Caesar. It should not surprise anyone to know that, with men dropping all pretense of work to come running to examine our guests, there was spirited wagering going on about their appearance. That story of the ten foot tall men was about to be put to the test; surely, men argued, that if there were such specimens of manhood to be found on the island the Britons would send these men as the emissaries to Caesar. There was the usual announcement at the gate that there were visitors on official business, requesting an audience with Caesar, which was promptly granted. The gates swung open, with the men standing on the tips of their toes to be one of the first to glimpse the delegation. After all, there was now money at stake and such is the nature of man that each of us feel we must be the first to know which way the dice falls when we have coin riding on it. The delegation was mounted, if one could call it that, on some of the smallest horses we had ever seen, with great shaggy coats and long unkempt tails. In dress, I could see the similarities between themselves and their Gallic cousins, but that is where the resemblance ended. Meanwhile, the crowd of men alternately let out groans of disappointment or yells of exultation, depending on which way they bet, because they were by all appearances normal-sized men, not a giant in the lot. This racket clearly confused our guests, who peered at us with what looked like mild concern at our behavior. Primus Pilus Favonius started bellowing out orders to disperse, and we quickly returned to our normal duties. What struck me and my friends the most was not so much what they wore in the way of clothes but the way in which they decorated their faces. We would come to know this style very well over the course of the next two seasons, but this was the first time we saw any men who put designs on their face and chests using some sort of blue paint.

The emissaries had gotten wind of Caesar’s intentions, via traders and I suspect spies among the Gallic tribes along the coast who had developed a lucrative partnership with the Britons on the island and did not want to see it disrupted. These Britons offered their obedience to Rome, which Caesar accepted, while in order to assure their good faith, he sent back with them to Britannia a Gaul named Commius. Caesar had selected Commius as king of the Atrebates and considered the man a friend who supposedly carried some influence with the tribes of Britannia. Also working in our favor was the submission of the Morini, the tribe in whose lands we were camped, and who fought us the year before. They were now coming as supplicants begging forgiveness, claiming that they were led astray by the firebrands and hotheads in their tribe. This was a welcome development, since it did not make any of us sleep easier knowing that we were surrounded by a tribe that had been our bitter enemy not so long ago. While these diplomatic events were taking place, the shipping that Caesar needed to accomplish his goal was being assembled, except it was not of sufficient numbers to carry the whole army, in one trip anyway. Five days after he departed, Volusenus’ ship sailed back up the estuary and into the harbor that our camp overlooked, reporting to Caesar that he had found a suitable landing for the Legions that Caesar would bring with him. There was much speculation, and much wagering, on which Legions would be asked to accompany Caesar on this momentous event, and it is fair to say that the 10th considered their inclusion to be as close to certain as possible. This did not make us any more popular with the rest of the army, yet they were forced to accept, however grudgingly, that Caesar trusted us above all others in his army, a fact that we were always quick to point out whenever we had the opportunity. Many a brawl was started in this manner during the winter months.

The most Caesar could muster was 80 transports for a total of two Legions, with ourselves and the 7th being selected. The 7th had acquitted themselves with distinction under young Crassus down south, so their reward for their valor was to be included in this historic event. I cannot lie; there were considerably mixed feelings about being selected to accompany Caesar. On the one hand, we were aware it was a tremendous honor. On the other, our fear and superstitions were given free rein, and I believe it was with some malice that the men of the other Legions did what they could to fan the flames of our doubt. As was his habit, Caesar did not tarry; Volusenus was back in port less than a full day when he gave the order that we would be embarking during the next night. We were told not to pack like we were going to be gone long, and it was with some trepidation that we left non-essential items behind with the invalids and shirkers who would be staying behind to guard our gear. What the army deemed non-essential items tended to be things that we valued and cherished the most, for a variety of reasons, thereby making them more valuable to our fellow Legionaries. Packed up, we marched down to the harbor to begin the process of loading onto the transports. Caesar was also bringing a few hundred cavalry, although they were destined to never show up on the island, thanks to storms that drove them further down the coast to seek shelter. Loading the transports was an irksome and boring process, with each transport only carrying at the most two Centuries. Each Century had to troop up the gangplank onto the ship then arrange themselves according to the wishes of the master of the ship before it moved out into the harbor to await the others. Fortunately, or so we thought at the time, we loaded by Cohort, so that the Second was early in the loading process. What we did not take into account was the fact that until everyone was aboard we would have to wait, the only difference being whether it was onboard ship or not, and we gave the men who crewed our vessel great cause for amusement as most of us began to get sick almost immediately.

“If your stomach can’t handle the harbor, we’re going to have our hands full when we put out into the channel,” laughed the senior man of the ship, whose title I do not know.

His jest we did not find amusing in the slightest, although he was right. Once we reached the open sea, which the crew of the ship took great delight in telling us was really just a relatively protected channel, we were even sicker than in the harbor, something I did not think possible. This was far worse than our experience on the barges during the campaign in Lusitania, we unanimously agreed, with men continually running to the side to empty the contents of their stomach. It was in this state that we began our great adventure.

The ships carrying us sailed through the night, while some of the warships holding not only Caesar but the contingent of archers and the artillery that we were taking pulled far ahead. These artillery pieces carried by the warships were mounted so that they could fire from the ships. To the galleys went the honor of being the first to sight the isle of which we had heard so much yet knew so little. Meanwhile, behind them sloshed the transports, bucking and pitching as they fought through the current that seemed to be conspiring against us. With the dawn approaching, we roused ourselves from our stupor to gather along the sides of the boat to peer anxiously towards the west, wagers being made about who would be the first to sight land. Finally, about the first part of the watch after dawn, a shout arose as the sharpest eye among us pointed to his find, and money or markers changed hands. Naturally, we all strained our eyes and could just make out what appeared to be a…….white line? In our limited experience, land would show up as a black or perhaps green line on the horizon, except Britannia was different. We could make out a white line that we were sure were not the whitecaps of waves and immediately wagering began on whether what we were seeing was snow. While we could not credit the idea that snow would be falling this early in the year, there was no denying what we were seeing, and I was among those who were sure that this Britannia was a land that was perhaps encased in perpetual ice and snow. How else could one explain why so few people had visited?

Ever so slowly, the truth was revealed to us and perhaps a third of a watch or so after we got our first view of land, we drew close enough to determine what we were looking at with such eagerness. An almost universal groan escaped from the two Centuries on the boat; very few men, if any, had wagered that we were seeing some form of white rock, yet that is exactly what it was. Sheer white cliffs as it turned out, once we finally caught up with the galleys. By the time we actually joined them, because of the tide running against us, a good part of the day had passed by, and we anxiously watched the sun dropping inexorably towards the horizon. Although the dangers ashore concerned us, what was of more pressing urgency was the idea that we would have to spend another night on this boat, so we were happy to see when Caesar summoned all the officers to his flagship. As they were rowed across to meet with the general, it was right about then that someone noticed something was amiss.

“How do we get off this damned thing?” Vibius mused as he stared down at the solid wooden side of the boat that came up to above his waist.

At first I did not understand what he was saying, thinking of course we would get off the same way we got on. That is when the realization of what he was saying hit me. I began looking around at the boat; no, the sides of the boat were smooth and of one piece, and there was no obvious place where somehow the side would magically lower so we could walk down a gangplank. Instantly after this idea hit me was the understanding that there would be no gangplank, since I thought it highly unlikely that the Britons, who we could now see standing on the cliffs watching us, would offer us assistance of any kind. Despite the diplomatic words of their envoys, what we saw arrayed on the cliff looked anything but peaceful.

“Are those….chariots?” This was gasped by Scribonius, and a moan of apprehension rippled through the rest of the men, a feeling that I must say I shared. We had never faced chariots before, although every Roman child has grown up on stories about their use in war. Our experience with chariots was confined to the races in Rome between the various teams, the Reds, Greens, Blues and whatnot. Even as we watched, with almost contemptuous ease, the men driving the chariots wheeled them back and forth along the cliff, in the same manner as a restless beast of prey paces when put in a cage. This would be what was waiting for us when we got ashore, I thought, as soon as we figure out how to get off the damned boat.

Sometimes the answer to a problem lies in its simplest form and such was the case here. Once the fleet gathered in the shadow of the white cliffs, shortly after the officers were rowed back to their respective ships from Caesar’s flagship, the current suddenly and mysteriously, at least to us, changed direction to begin pushing us farther north along the coast. The Britons on the cliff saw us leaving, and wheeling their chariots around, darted out of sight, the men on foot with them trailing behind, presumably to move to a different vantage point. Sailing for about another third of a watch before there was a signal that a suitable landing place was spotted, without hesitation the signal to land came from Caesar’s ship, with the transports immediately turning to head straight for the shore. The sight of the island drawing inexorably closer brought us all to our feet, as orders were shouted to make ready. Looking nervously about for some sort of indication that might give us an idea of what was about to happen, to our inexperienced eyes it looked very much as if the plan was just to run these ships straight onto the beach. One of the men in the other Century walked over to ask the man steering the ship, and we could see his face turn white at the answer he was given, although it was drowned out by the sound of the wind whistling past the sail and the water slapping the sides of the boat.