Britannia, page 26
Long years of training came into their own as Cato battered his way forward with his shield, pausing to strike and recover and advance again. He could see over the heads of the tribesmen immediately in front of him that some of those at the rear had turned to run and were clambering over the palisade to flee into the space behind the main line of fortifications, where the Fourteenth Legion was battling to break through.
‘Keep going!’ Thraxis yelled from behind Cato’s shoulder. ‘Carve them up, lads!’
Though they still outnumbered the Blood Crows who had made it inside the defences, most of the enemy were only levies – farmers and hunters with little training in the art of war – and now they were paying a high price for choosing to fight the invader. Scores had already been cut down and lay bleeding on the freezing ground. Some were finished off by the auxiliaries, the rest ignored as the slaughter continued, the Blood Crows leaving enemy bodies strewn in their wake.
Cato had just knocked a man cold with the guard of his sword when he next looked up and saw that they were close to the base of the rampart. The slope above was filled by tribesmen desperately attempting to escape the bloodshed. A few had cast aside their weapons and dropped to their knees, begging to be spared, but in the heat of battle there was little mercy. Cato saw a thin older man crying out as he implored an auxiliary to let him live. The response was swift and fatal. The Thracian split the man’s skull with the edge of his blade, the crack of bone clearly audible to Cato’s ears as blood and brains leapt into the air. The sight and sound brought back some semblance of cold reason in his mind, and he stopped in his tracks.
‘Blood Crows! Hold fast! Let ’em go!’
One by one his men halted and stood panting, swords and shields bloodied, glaring after the fleeing enemy. Not even the most stalwart of the warriors had any fight left in them, and all climbed over the palisade and dropped out of sight. As the last of them disappeared, Cato lowered Thraxis’s battered shield and looked round the interior of the redoubt, his chest heaving from his exertions as he exhaled puffs of breath into the cold morning air. Bodies, many still moving, lay all about, and to his grim satisfaction, he saw that very few of them were his men. He caught sight of Decurion Miro entering through one of the narrow breaches and called him over.
‘Detail ten of your squadron to get the wounded out of here and back to the dressing station.’ He turned to the small gate at the rear of the redoubt, its locking beam still securely in place. ‘I want the rest of the men formed up over there at once. Get to it.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Miro saluted and trotted away to carry out his orders. Cato watched him briefly, wondering why it had taken the decurion until now to enter the fortification when he should have been at the head of his men as they attacked. Then he climbed up on to the rampart and cautiously looked over the palisade and down the length of the enemy’s defences.
A ferocious battle was raging along the line of fortifications. It was at its fiercest in the breach that had been opened halfway along, where a dense mass of enemy warriors was managing to hold off the legionaries. In the immediate foreground, Cato saw the natives who had abandoned the fort streaming down towards the shore, where a line of small shallow-bottomed craft had been beached. A handful of men struggled in vain to hold them off as they began to drag the nearest boats out into the channel. A short distance beyond, Cato noticed a small party of cloaked figures on horseback, together with a man in the dark robes of a Druid. They had seen the men fleeing from the redoubt, and already the Druid was giving hurried orders. There was no time to waste in pressing home the opportunity that had been won by the swift fall of the flanking fortification.
Cato turned back and saw that most of his cohort had formed up just below him, the rest still climbing up through the breaches. The first of the casualties, the walking wounded, had to stand to one side as their comrades hurried to join the men gathering for the next action. Scrambling down, Cato pointed towards the gate and called across to Miro, ‘Get that open!’
As the decurion took a section forward to deal with the locking bar, Cato turned to address his men. ‘We’ve done well so far, lads. Already enough to warrant another medal for the standard.’ He pointed to the gilded discs attached to the staff that Thraxis was holding. ‘But let’s seal the deal with the kind of charge that only the Blood Crows can deliver. Outside, there’re thousands of those Celt bastards waiting, but they’re a little distracted by the Fourteenth Legion at the moment. Legate Valens’s boys are making hard work of it, and it’s up to us to help ’em out.’
‘Bloody legionaries!’ a voice cried out from the ranks. ‘You want the job done properly, you call on the Blood Crows!’
The men cheered lustily before Cato could identify the miscreant, and he went along with their hubris and grinned. ‘Quite so! Now is our moment. When I give the order, I want the cohort to double out of the gate and form a line across the enemy’s flank. When we go in, we go in hard and fast. Miro’s squadron will clear the rampart and the rest of us will sweep the ground behind. You hold the line and you stop for nothing. Clear?’
The excited men shouted their assent and punched their swords into the air. Their blood was up and Cato knew he could depend on them to finish the job that Quintatus had assigned the cohort. He turned to the gate and hefted his shield before he noticed that blood had run down the blade of his sword and on to the handle. He paused to bend down and wipe it off on the hem of a dead man’s tunic, then straightened up, ready to do his duty.
‘Blood Crows, advance, at the trot.’
He picked up his feet and broke into a light jog, his scabbard and dagger sheath jostling at either side. The rumble of his men’s boots on the frozen ground sounded at his back, together with their laboured breathing and the clatter of kit against shields.
‘Miro, your section leads the way, then once we’re in the open, get over to the rampart as fast as you can.’
‘Yes, sir.’
With Miro and his men taking their place at the front of the column, the auxiliaries poured out of the redoubt and round the curve of the ditch until the shoreline opened up in front of them. Keen to ensure that the sight of thousands of enemy warriors did not unsettle them, Cato urged his men on with as calm a demeanour as he could muster. To his right he saw several boats heading clumsily across the channel, manned by those who had fled. No doubt they would be given a cold reception by their comrades watching from the island. That was too bad. They should have put up a better fight. Now those tribesmen still defending the beach would pay the price for their lack of nerve.
He chose a point fifty paces from the redoubt, close to the water, and halted and extended his arm towards the rampart.
‘Form line!’
The decurions took up their positions for their squadrons to assume the required formation, while Miro and his men continued across the snowy ground towards the place where the long defence earthwork joined the redoubt. Only a handful of the enemy stood in their immediate path, as most had been drawn into the fight raging around the centre of the line. Miro led his men up the slope and then formed them into a tight column, ready to unleash them along the line of the rampart when Cato’s order came.
As the last of the men fell in, Cato turned to gauge the ground ahead of them. The strip of land between the rampart and the water was narrow, no more than forty paces deep at its widest. The cohort, still some three hundred strong, would be able to bring its weight to bear at the start of the attack, but he had no illusions about how far they would go in rolling up the enemy flank before they ran out of impetus or encountered sufficient resistance to halt them in their tracks. The best he could hope for was to shake the tribesmen badly enough that the alarm spread through their ranks as far as the breach being fiercely contested by Valens’s legionaries. If the Fourteenth broke through in numbers, then the struggle was as good as over, on this side of the channel at least.
He faced front and raised his sword.
‘Blood Crows, forward!’
They set out across the churned snow and shingle, a thin line of oval shields, glinting swords and grim faces, the standard rippling gently above them. Thraxis held it high, where it would be clearly visible to the enemy, so that they would know who it was that was bearing down on them. The party of riders Cato had seen shortly before had dispersed, with several riding along the line to warn of the flank attack. The Druid and a few others remained, trying to rally and cajole the men who had fled from the fort, as well as hurriedly ordering those on the palisade to turn and face the new challenge. But already Miro and his squadron were forcing their way steadily along the rampart, cutting down or thrusting back those who stood in their way, without losing any momentum as they kept up with the rest of the Blood Crows.
They approached the first of the boats drawn up on the shore, and Cato noticed a streak of blood on the ground beside the hull, and more blood staining the bows. As they passed by, he saw a youth, no more than fifteen years old, slumped inside the boat, his arm almost severed at the shoulder. Their eyes met briefly and then Cato marched on. A hundred paces ahead, the Druid and his companions had succeeded in gathering two or three hundred of their followers and were hurriedly jostling them into a makeshift battle line.
‘Keep going!’ Cato urged his men. Glancing to his left, he saw that a large group of warriors had turned to confront Miro’s party, enough of them to stall the Blood Crows’ progress along the line of the rampart. His original intention to keep the cohort together was not going to be possible. All that remained was to keep driving on for as long as they could.
They had halved the distance to the waiting tribesmen when Thraxis shouted a warning. ‘Incoming!’
Cato glimpsed the blur of arrows rising from the enemy ranks, and raised his shield and angled it to protect his head as he shouted the order. ‘Shields up!’
Along the line, the Blood Crows followed suit as the first volley flitted down from the grey sky. Arrowheads rattled loudly off the shields. Some struck home more directly, splintering the wood and lodging in place. There were other impacts, louder, and Cato realised that they were also being targeted with slingshot, often a greater danger than arrows due to the force of the impact. Sure enough, there was a cry from nearby, and he turned to see one of his men stumble, his shin shattered by the crushing impact. The soldier tried to cover his body with his shield as his comrades left him behind.
Cato had to steel himself to maintain a steady pace and not slow down in the face of the steady barrage of missiles, nor increase his speed in an attempt to cover the distance more quickly and make contact with the enemy, at the risk of losing the cohesion of his battle line. So they endured several more casualties before they closed on the tribesmen. At the last instant Cato risked a glance over his shield and saw the fierce expressions of most of the men facing him, and beyond them the Druid screaming encouragement to his followers and no doubt hurling curses at the Romans. Then the two lines came together in an uneven thud of shields and bodies, accompanied by the scrape and ringing clash of blades.
For a moment the opposing sides were pressed together, but then the superior equipment of the auxiliaries shifted the balance of the struggle as they began to cut down their more lightly armoured enemies, many of whom had little more than wicker shields and padded cloaks to protect them. Cato drew a deep breath and shouted, ‘Push and step! One!’
On the count, he punched his shield forward and then stepped in behind it before thrusting with his sword. The other Blood Crows had followed suit, pressing the enemy back, and with Cato calling the time, and the decurions relaying the order, the cohort gained ground, passing over the fallen, who were finished off mercilessly to prevent them from attempting to fight on where they lay.
Splashing sounded close by and Cato saw three men edging out into the water to try and get round the end of the Roman line. He called over his shoulder to the nearest men in the second rank. ‘You two. Cover the flank!’
The pair rushed past into the shallows, surging calf-deep through the icy water as they moved to counter the enemy, and Cato continued calling the advance. At the next push he felt his shield lurch to one side and glanced down to see fingers clamped round the left side, attempting to wrench it aside. As the shield moved, exposing some of Cato’s body, he saw a spear head thrusting at his midriff. Only a frantic last-moment jerk of his sword arm deflected the blow. He tried to regain control of his shield but could not break his opponent’s grip. He lunged forward and sank his teeth into the fingers just below the knuckle, biting hard. He felt the skin give way, and blood coursed over his lips and on to his tongue. The man gave a sharp cry and instantly released his grip, and Cato quickly covered his body again and slammed the shield forward, driving it hard into the face and body of the tribesman he had just bitten. A vicious, tearing stab with the point of his sword put the man out of action, and he fell clutching the rent in his guts, through which blood and intestines began to spill.
Already Cato could see men breaking from the rear of the enemy line, backing away with frightened expressions, some turning and making for the nearest boats. The Druid and the other mounted men attempted to block their path and drive them back into the fight with angry shouts and blows from the flats of their swords. But most of the tribesmen managed to dodge past and run for their lives. Then panic rippled through the ranks and suddenly the entire line was crumbling, flowing away from the Blood Crows, until the last of them broke contact, backed off and turned away to escape.
The auxiliaries, exhausted and bloodied, halted and let out a gasped victory cry, shouting insults at the backs of their fleeing enemy. The Druid and the other riders gave up their fruitless attempt to stem the tide of their followers and glared at the Blood Crows. Then Cato saw the Druid gather in his reins and raise his sword as he turned his mount towards the standard. Before he could charge, one of his companions steered his horse in front of him, blocking his path, and angrily gestured at him to turn aside. After a final bitter stare at his enemy, the Druid gritted his teeth, swung his horse around and spurred it away from the Roman line, making for the greatest concentration of warriors further along the shore.
The men who were fleeing were already running past groups of their comrades who were still formed up, and the latter at once began to waver, then follow their example, as the enemy’s left flank continued to collapse.
‘Onwards!’ Cato swung his sword after the enemy. ‘Keep at ’em!’
Tired as they were, his men had the taste of victory in their mouths and were keen to feed their appetite. They needed no further encouragement as the line resumed its advance. Up on the rampart, the example of their comrades had broken the will of the men confronting Miro, and they too retreated. While some of the tribesmen strove to escape to the safety of the far end of the defences, those with more wits about them made for the boats, dragging them into the water and piling aboard, to be joined by yet more of their comrades in a desperate bid for self-preservation. A routing enemy was only ever a briefly delighting prospect, Cato decided. Very quickly the sense of gleeful triumph gave way to a feeling of disgust at the naked selfishness of men willing to trample over their comrades to save their own skins.
The rising panic spreading down the enemy line had reached those fighting to keep the Fourteenth Legion out of the main breach, and they too began to give way, until the shore seemed alive with tribesmen hurrying to evade the closing trap. A short distance further on, the shoreline ran closer in towards the rampart, and Cato halted the Blood Crows at the narrowest point and re-formed his remaining men into three ranks in close formation. With their shields overlapping, the front line presented an impenetrable obstacle to the enemy, and all that remained was for Legate Valens and his men to seal the victory. Already those warriors still fighting in the breach were being pushed back by the weight of numbers before them, and then Cato glimpsed the dull glint of an eagle standard as the helmets of the legionaries surged into view and they began to fight their way into the open breach behind the defences.
Miro came striding up to Cato, a look of naked elation on his face. ‘We’ve done it, sir! By the gods, we’ve done it!’
‘Not just us.’ Cato pointed with his sword to the legionaries pouring through the breach, and others climbing on to the rampart as the enemy gave way. All resistance seemed to have collapsed, and the shallows of the channel were filled with men splashing through the freezing water to try and fight their way on to the boats to make good their escape to Mona. Hundreds of others were climbing over the palisade at the far end of the line of earthworks and fleeing along the shore then inland for the safety of the snow-laden pine forests.
‘It’s a fine victory, sir.’ Miro beamed deliriously. ‘We’ve crushed the bastards. Completely crushed them.’
‘Yes, we have,’ the prefect agreed in a measured tone. ‘Fine work to be sure. Bloody fine work. But it’s only half the job.’
He turned to survey the even more formidable defences along the shore of Mona, and the silent ranks of warriors and Druids who had been watching the struggle on the mainland. It stood to reason that they would not run like their comrades. There would be nowhere to run to. Their choice was simple. They must hold Mona, or die. He felt a feather-light touch of something cold on the back of his hand and looked down to see a snowflake melting against his skin. More flakes drifted down as he looked at the sky, now a dark grey. Within moments they gave way to a steady fall, settling over the shore and the bodies scattered along its length. Cato cleared his throat and spat.
