Britannia, page 32
He led his men in the direction of the sea, grey and ruffled with streaks of spray as it rolled in and dashed itself against the rocky coast in a dull rhythmic roar. They happened upon the route taken by the rest of the army almost by accident. Snow had covered the tracks of thousands of boots, hooves and wagon wheels, but the uneven surface was just visible, and Cato was able to follow it easily enough as he turned the column and increased the pace of the Blood Crows to a steady trot. The snow kicked up by the hooves was like a swirling cloud along the ground, and the absence of the usual drumming thunder of horsemen on the move added to the sense of unreality that Cato was experiencing. Despite the grave danger faced by him and his comrades, and the soul-numbing cold, his thoughts inevitably returned to Julia.
That she could be dead still seemed impossible. She had been blessed with a divine spark of vivacity that had struck him from the very first. Self-assured, she had taken on every challenge they had faced together with all the courage and endurance of a seasoned veteran. From the siege at Palmyra, the shipwreck off Crete and her subsequent capture and humiliation at the hands of Ajax and his rebel slaves. For a moment, as he sat swaying gently in his saddle, Cato recalled her face. The slightly squared jaw, small nose, grey eyes and dark eyebrows that occasionally rose archly when she was gently mocking him. And then the dark hair sweeping out from her widow’s peak to flow down to her shoulders. He realized how much he missed her, physically just as much as he did emotionally. She was slim, with breasts that he could easily cup, and a flat stomach that gave way to the soft dark tuft of her pubic hair – the sight of which always sparked a fire in his loins. The gentle curves of her buttocks were smooth and flawless. Her legs had been short in proportion to her back, another small deviation from the ideal, one of many, that had defined her perfection to Cato. His heart ached unbearably at the knowledge that she breathed no more. That he would never feel her warmth beside him ever again. She was like the others, those who had been left to the enemy, dead and cold. But where they would be abandoned to the forces of steady corruption, at least Julia would have been spared that when her body was cremated. The brief thought of her beauty being reduced to withered skin stretched over bone and shrunken muscle and organs made Cato feel sick.
He opened his eyes with a start and was furious to see that he had wandered a few paces off the faint path left in the snow. A twitch of his reins brought his mount back on course and he told himself firmly that he must accept the fact of Julia’s death. He knew that she would want him to live on and try to be happy. But Cato knew, as surely as the sun rose with the dawn, that he would forever look back to the time he had shared with Julia, and the present and all prospect of the future would be haunted by her memory. Every spring day, every budding flower, the jade gleam of young leaves and the heady scent of new life would never refresh his soul as they once did. For him, it would be a perpetual winter of the soul, all life shrunk beneath a mantle as white as bone, cold as ice and swept over by a wind filled with the sighs of every lost joy now denied him. And nothing would ever change that.
‘Sir!’
Cato started, and blinked hard. Miro was alongside him, craning his neck as he pointed ahead. A mile away he could make out the end of the Roman column stretched out across the winter landscape. Wagons were interspersed with units of infantry, some of whom toiled at the wheels to budge forward vehicles that had become stuck or were struggling with a steep incline. The cavalry formed an extended picket line to the landward side of the route, while the coast guarded the other flank. More riders were just visible in the distance, scouting the way ahead. Cato strained his eyes to look beyond them, to the east, the direction that held out the prospect of the army’s salvation. And yet in his heart, he felt that he was already dead and merely looking over the thousands of men who would soon share that fate in reality.
‘Keep them going,’ he said to Miro, and steered his mount off the track then turned to look back the way they had come. The cohort had kicked up a clear trail through the snow, and until there was another fall, it would be easy to follow, like a finger pointed directly at the retreating Roman army. The enemy would find it soon enough. And then they would hurl themselves into a savage pursuit of their prey, determined to run them to ground and tear them to pieces.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
There was little sign of the enemy for the first two days, even though their scouts had established contact with the Romans as early as dusk on the first day of the retreat. The native horsemen were first seen in the distance, over two miles to the rear of the column. Having found the Roman army, they galloped forward and were only driven off when Cato and the Blood Crows turned to confront them. No attempt to engage the Romans was made, and the enemy were content to ride up into the hills on the flank and survey them as they kept pace. That was not a hard task for the native warriors due to the army’s difficulties in negotiating the snowdrifts that blocked the way. Each time the wagons had to be halted while the men took up their trenching tools and cleared a path. There was additional trouble once the passage of feet and wheels packed down the snow and compressed it into sheets of ice that made the going difficult for those following on. The only cheering thought for Cato was that the Druids and their followers would be enduring the same conditions, though they would not be burdened by carts and wagons as the Roman army were.
Legate Quintatus drove the men on as far as he could before giving the order to halt for the night. Due to the head start that the Romans had gained, he did not judge it possible for the natives to catch up for at least another day. And so no camp-in-the-face-of-the-enemy was constructed, the soldiers merely setting out a perimeter of field defences using the spiked lengths of wood that slotted together to make barricades. Come the dawn, these were easily broken down and carried on the back of carts or loaded on to mules. As soon as the tents were erected, those off duty scrambled inside to shelter from the wind and cold as best they could and chew disconsolately on their meagre rations.
The men of the rearguard were not so fortunate. Quintatus had given orders for the Blood Crows to stand watch, and Cato’s men were able to rest for only half the night. Once again, Macro’s cohort was assigned to Cato’s small command, and was to provide the backbone of any stand that had to be made in order to hold the enemy at bay. But at least the legionaries were spared the rigours of mounting a picket on a freezing winter’s night. As the watch changed, Cato rode forward with a small escort, warily picking his way back down the track for a few miles. If the enemy scouts were keeping an eye on the Roman column, they made no attempt to stand their ground and challenge the small party. And then, from the crest of a hill, Cato caught sight of the enemy’s campfires, some eight or so miles behind the Roman column. Less than a day’s march, and much closer than he had anticipated, given the earlier ruse to delay the natives.
The Romans broke camp and marched on at first light. For the first time in days, the sun rose into a clear sky. However, it shed little warmth over the winter landscape, and the mountains and hills cast long shadows across the snow. The rations had been halved the day before, and the first pangs of hunger made themselves felt by the end of the second day. Exhausted by the long hours of marching, the men had worked up a ferocious appetite, which had to be satisfied by the mean allocation of barley and dried meat.
During the afternoon, the enemy horsemen tracking the army had grown significantly in number, and as the column halted, just before dusk, Cato’s scouts reported that a large force of native infantry was no more than four miles away and closing. Just before the last light faded, they appeared along the skyline, silhouetted against the glow of the red sunset. They remained there in silence for a while before falling back out of sight. This time Quintatus had given orders to surround the camp with a ditch and rampart, and the men laboured into the night, struggling to break up the frozen ground, before their commander was satisfied.
Thin clouds were scudding across a starry sky as the tired officers shuffled into the headquarters tent at the first change of watch. Cato and Macro had made a final round of the pickets posted outside the camp and were the last to arrive. As they stood with the other officers, Legate Quintatus cleared his throat and coughed, then took a long look over the faces of his subordinates before he began the evening briefing.
‘Gentlemen, the situation has become somewhat more serious now that the enemy are upon us. We can assume that they will attempt to engage us on the morrow. Tempting as it is to turn about and give ’em some stick, that would only delay us and play into their hands. They will have guessed that we are short of rations and the longer they can keep us in these mountains, the weaker we become and so easier to defeat. We must keep moving. That in itself is going to become an increasing challenge thanks to the weather and the reduction to quarter-rations, effective tomorrow.’
Macro gave a low groan at the words, as did a number of the other officers. But the legate ignored them as he continued. ‘There is no choice in the matter. Quarter-rations will give us two more days. After that, we march on empty stomachs, until we are resupplied. Which is being arranged. I sent Tribune Glaber and a squadron of Dacian horses ahead of the column yesterday. He has orders to organise a supply convoy at Deva and bring it to us along the coastal route. At best it will take four days before we encounter them, which means our men will go hungry for two days.’
‘Hungry?’ Macro muttered. ‘They’ll starve, more like. In this cold, it will hit the men all the harder.’
‘Yes,’ Cato agreed.
‘There has to be something else we can do.’
‘There is.’ Cato stepped forward and raised a hand. ‘Sir, if I may?’
‘What is it, Prefect?’
‘We won’t last long in this weather without finding something for the men to eat. It’s time we slaughtered some of the mules. Enough to give us meat for a few days. Perhaps even enough to see us through until we reach Glaber and his convoy.’
‘And which mules did you have in mind? The gods know we have few enough of them.’
‘We slaughter the animals drawing the artillery train.’
‘To feed the men who will have to step into their traces to replace them?’
Cato shook his head. ‘Not what I was going to suggest, sir. I say we leave the artillery behind.’
Quintatus’s eyebrows rose. ‘Abandon our bolt-throwers and catapults to the enemy? Are you mad? Rome would never forgive me.’
‘With respect, sir. Rome might be even less forgiving if we attempted to save the artillery at the expense of the entire column.’
It was a bold assertion, and the other officers could not hide their surprised expressions as they glanced from Cato to their commander to see how the latter would react. Quintatus shared their consternation, but Cato continued before he could respond. ‘We don’t let the enemy capture our weapons. We burn the lot . . . but only after we give them one last taste of what it feels like to be on the receiving end.’
Quintatus regarded him thoughtfully, torn between admonishing his subordinate and listening to his plan. In the end, the legate sucked his teeth and nodded. ‘Let’s hear it.’
The natives came rushing up to the brow of the hill as the last cohort of the Twentieth Legion was marching out of the camp, just behind the baggage train. The ramparts had been hastily shovelled into the ditch to deny the enemy any shelter, and the outline of the fort was preserved in the dark stain of turned earth against the white of the surrounding winter landscape.
Only the rearguard remained to defy the enemy, drawn up in a thin line across the route taken by the column the evening before. Cato had reversed the usual deployment by placing his mounted Thracians in the centre and the auxiliary infantry and Macro’s legionaries on either flank. The cavalry were in close order, with the narrowest of gaps between each rider. This served to screen the line of bolt-throwers just to their rear. Snow had been heaped in front of the stands to help conceal them from the enemy, and dry feed and pails of pitch were packed about the base of each weapon, ready to be set alight. The legionary crews stood by with wicker baskets containing the last of the army’s supply of bolts. Four braziers glowed some ten paces behind the line, and thin wisps of smoke eddied a short distance into the sharp dawn air before the light breeze dispersed them. All along the line the men breathed faint puffs of steam, while plumes jetted from the nostrils of the horses.
‘Noisy bastards, aren’t they?’ Macro opined as he settled his helmet on to his padded skullcap and fastened the ties securely under his chin.
On the ridge, the Druids were pacing along the front of the native horde, arms raised, working their followers up into a battle frenzy. Cato had witnessed it many times before, but even so, he felt a shiver trace its way down his spine at the terrifying din rising from the dense ranks of the enemy. He swallowed and did his best not to seem perturbed in front of Macro and the other men.
‘I hope our little surprise puts a dent in their hubris.’
‘Dent? Fuck that. I want it to tear a bloody great hole through their hubris, and their hearts whilst we’re at it.’
Cato could not help a wry smile. Nothing ever seemed to disturb his friend’s equanimity in the face of imminent battle. Then his expression hardened as he considered Macro’s hot-headedness when his blood was up. ‘Keep in mind that this is just a delaying action. The point of the exercise is to give them a hiding and make them pause for thought while we pull back in good order.’
‘That will rather depend on the enemy, sir. They might want to get stuck in all the same, despite our plans. That’s one thing life in the army teaches you early on: the other side doesn’t always play along with the plan.’
‘Yes, well thank you for that pearl of wisdom.’
‘No need to get shirty with me, sir. Just saying. Besides, once they see the bolt-throwers going up in smoke, they might feel emboldened to go for us again.’
‘They might,’ Cato conceded. ‘That’s why my lads have been issued with caltrops.’
He gestured towards one of the nearest of the Thracians, who had a thick leather bag hanging from his saddle. ‘They’ll sow those across the ground behind the bolt-throwers after we fall back. If the natives recover their nerve enough to come after us, they’ll soon have a new reason to think twice about it.’
Macro pursed his lips and looked at his friend admiringly. ‘Seems you have thought of everything.’
‘Hardly. But I do try to cover the possibilities as far as I can. It helps to keep me alive.’
‘Which is always a good thing . . .’
‘Quite.’
The Druids had finished working up their followers, and war horns brayed from the top of the hill. A moment later, the warriors launched themselves down the slope towards the thin line of Romans waiting for them. The air filled with the sound of their war cries, invocations to their gods and the insults they screamed at those who had the temerity to invade their mountainous lands. Cato looked along the line and noted with satisfaction that the men under his command showed no reaction, but stood their ground and watched in silence. Such silence could be just as intimidating as the raucous din of a Celtic rush, speaking eloquently as it did of hard discipline and ruthless training.
‘I’ll see you afterwards, sir.’
‘Look forward to it.’
They exchanged a salute before Macro strode back to his position at the right flank of his cohort, hiding the discomfort in his leg as best he could. Cato heaved himself up into the saddle, not without some difficulty given his tiredness and the weight of his scale vest and equipment. Once settled, he adjusted his grip on the reins and eased his mount to the centre of the line, taking up position behind the concealed bolt-throwers. He nodded to the centurion in command of the battery, and the latter cupped a hand to his mouth.
‘Bolt-thrower crews . . . load!’
The legionaries who had been standing ready by the windlasses now threw their weight into cranking back the torsion arms with a steady clacking of the ratchets, the rhythm slowing as the strain increased, then stopping as the cords, tense as lengths of iron, were held in place by the trigger mechanism. Finally, shafts were plucked from the ammunition baskets and carefully placed in the channel running down the length of the beam that passed between the thick twisted cords that powered the throwing arms. The telltale noise of the ratchets was lost amid the din of the charging warriors, and Cato could see no slowing or hesitation in those careering down the slope towards him, half a mile away.
As they approached, the first flakes of the day began to fall, drifting down from a dark sky. So much the better, thought Cato. The snow would help to reduce visibility so that there was less chance of the ruse being exposed and the charge halted before it entered the range of the Roman weapons. Timing was everything. If Cato gave the order too soon, the Blood Crows would reveal the ambush prematurely and the Druids might have time to call off all but the most headstrong warriors. If he gave the order too late, the bolt-thrower crews might only get off a few shots before the charge crashed home and shattered the Roman line. He waited as long as he dared and then barked the order.
‘Blood Crows! To the rear!’
Alternate riders walked their horses forward a length to allow space for their comrades to turn, before turning themselves and filing back between the bolt-throwers to form up and wait for fresh orders. Now that their target was clearly in view, the artillery crews hurriedly made last-minute adjustments to elevation pegs and aim, and then stood back as the team leaders stepped up ready to pull on the trigger pins. Now, at last, the enemy divined the nature of the threat that faced them. The men in the forefront of the charge slowed their pace, and there were pockets of confusion as those following on ploughed blindly into their backs. Cato raised his hand and shouted a fresh order.
