Britannia, page 33
‘Artillery! Prepare to shoot!’
The men eyed him tensely, and Cato was pleased that the firm discipline ensured that no man beat him to the trigger and unleashed a bolt prematurely.
‘Release!’
The legionaries wrenched the trigger levers back, and the throwing arms snapped forward and cracked against the densely stuffed leather buffers. The bolts leapt from their grooves, spinning viciously as they darted towards the enemy in a shallow arc and disappeared into their ranks. The impact of the first volley inspired awe and horror in Cato. There were nearly fifty serviceable bolt-throwers in the line. The rest – those needing repair – had already been broken and burned in camp. The volley descended like a fine veil on the enemy, and then it was as if the natives had run full pelt into an invisible wall. Scores were skewered and hurled back into the mass, and in places it was as if some great beast had ploughed a path through their ranks, striking men down and aside without mercy. The wild war cries died in their throats and the charge stumbled to a halt, those at the rear continuing to surge forward and adding to the confusion.
Cato looked on with grim-faced satisfaction before he turned to the centurion in command of the battery and called out, ‘Shoot at will!’
The crews worked as swiftly as possible and the air was filled with the clatter of ratchets and the sharp thwack of the throwing arms striking the buffers. A near-constant hail of bolts slashed down into the tightly packed mass of enemy warriors halted on the slope, while around them the snow was spattered with crimson, bright as poppies, thought Cato. Already, little heaps of bodies, some still writhing, lined the enemy’s front, and more fell all the time, torn down by the Roman artillery. A Druid ran forward a few paces and turned to cajole his followers, waving his arms frantically and thrusting a spear in the direction of the Roman line. An instant later he was caught squarely in the back and hurled several feet before collapsing in front of the tribesmen. A groan rose from their lips and spread through the throng, and then Cato saw men peeling away, falling back up the slope. Uncertainly at first, but then breaking into a run as they got further from their comrades still trying to move forward in the teeth of the Roman barrage. More turned to flee, and then their resolve broke completely and the entire force was streaming back up the slope, leaving hundreds of their stricken comrades in the bloodied snow.
‘Cease shooting!’ Cato yelled. ‘Cease shooting!’
One by one the bolt-throwers fell silent and still, and then Cato turned to his cohort. ‘Blood Crows, to the front! Form line and prepare to advance!’
The Thracians surged through the gaps between the weapons and jostled into place. As soon as they were ready, Cato drew his sword and pointed the tip at the fleeing enemy. ‘Advance!’
The line edged forward, tackle chinking as the horses’ hooves plunged into the soft snow. More snow fluttered in the cold air, mingling with the breath of men and their mounts. Cato gave the order to increase the pace to a trot, and the line grew slightly more ragged as the Thracians struggled to keep their horses moving at an even speed. Ahead lay the bodies of the enemy, scattered on the ground amid the shafts of the bolts that stuck up at every angle. The Blood Crows slowed as they picked their way through, the riders using their spears to strike down those natives who yet lived. Then they had passed beyond on to open ground and spurred their mounts on. In the last fifty yards, Cato drew a sharp breath and cried out the order to charge, and the Blood Crows galloped after their prey. They caught up with the first of the enemy and the bloodletting began with almost savage abandon as the cavalry stabbed about them with their spears, impaling one man after another.
Cato did his best to stay at the head of his men, hacking with his sword and sharing their wild exhilaration as they shattered the enemy’s will to fight and routed the natives. They had reached the top of the slope before he was aware of it, and at the ridge he looked up and reined in, aghast. On the far side of the hill, no more than a mile away, marched the rest of the enemy’s army. There was no organised column such as the Romans used, but scores of large groups of men, the vast majority on foot. Most carried bulging slings, no doubt filled with their marching rations, Cato thought bitterly, his stomach aching with hunger. The rest of the Blood Crows halted along the ridge, while the surviving natives streamed down the far side of the hill. It was the first time Cato had seen the Druid-led army in its entirety, and he estimated that there were at least fifteen thousand of them in clear view, with more emerging through the distant loom of falling snow. More than enough to chase down and destroy Quintatus and his exhausted and starving men.
Thraxis edged his mount alongside his commander and let out a low whistle as he saw the native horde. ‘Fuck me . . . We’re in deep trouble, sir.’
‘Thank you for your strategic assessment, Trooper,’ Cato remarked. He took a last look and tugged on his reins to turn his horse away. ‘We’ve done all we can here. Let’s go . . . Blood Crows! Fall back!’
The Thracians swung about and formed up in a column of fours. Cato led them back down the slope, around the fallen enemy, to where the legionaries were waiting. Macro greeted him with an expression of warm delight, rubbing his hands together briskly.
‘Fine work! The lads on the bolt-throwers gave them a real drubbing. Pricked their confidence very nicely indeed.’
‘Indeed.’ Cato turned in his saddle and pointed towards the centurion commanding the battery. ‘Set them alight. Make sure they burn properly and leave nothing for the enemy, then get your men back to the main column. Macro, same for you. We’re done here. Get moving.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Macro replied with terse formality and strode back towards his colour party, bellowing for the Fourth Cohort to form line of march. The crews of the bolt-throwers scurried over to the braziers to light brands, and returned to their weapons to set the small piles of kindling alight, before feeding more combustibles to the small flames licking up. The pitch smoked before catching, and soon the first of the weapons was blazing, dark acrid smoke curling into the air. Once the last of them was on fire, the centurion gave the order for the men to withdraw, and they marched off with Macro’s cohort in the direction of the main column.
Cato lingered for a short while to make sure that none of the bolt-throwers would escape destruction from the flames and then turned to Decurion Miro.
‘Start sowing the caltrops. No need to concentrate them, just a wide band across the tracks we’ll be leaving.’
As the rest of the Blood Crows pulled back a hundred paces, their comrades began to scatter the iron spikes. Cato looked up at the falling snow. It would soon cover any indents left by the caltrops, though it was not settling fast enough to obscure the route taken by the Romans. Some of the enemy were bound to suffer crippling injuries when they trod on the vicious little spikes. Enough to slow their comrades down and make them proceed very warily. All of which would buy the Romans badly needed time to keep ahead of their pursuers.
Once the final caltrops had been laid, Cato turned the cohort to the east and gave the order to advance. Behind them the hungry flames roared as they eagerly devoured the wooden frames and sinewed springs of the bolt-throwers. Cato glanced at the spectacle with a sense of foreboding. There would be no repeating the ambush when the enemy closed up on them again. Next time it would be down to hand-to-hand fighting, blade against blade, man against man. And for all the fine training and discipline of the Roman army, the men still needed rest and food. Both of which were going to be in increasingly short supply in the days to come.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
‘Poor bastards,’ said Macro as he looked along the long strip of shingle. To his right were the stragglers from the column, the walking wounded, the hungry and the exhausted, plodding along through the snow and ice. A handful of centurions and optios were moving along with them, shouting at them to get moving, and beating those who needed it to stir them into making an effort to pick up the pace. Some, however, had given up and sat where they had slumped to the ground, staring vacantly, too weary to care any more about the authority and threats of their superiors.
But they were not the men to whom Macro was extending his pity. He was looking at the line of corpses stretching along the shingle, amid the flotsam of the wrecked ships that had been carrying the injured to safety. The shattered hull of a warship lay on its side on some rocks a short distance out across the rough grey sea, while sections of other ships rocked in the shallows as they were buffeted by crashing waves.
‘They must have been caught in a storm and driven on to the shore,’ Cato concluded. ‘As you say, poor bastards. The wounded stood no chance. Nor the crews, in all likelihood. But I doubt they’d have been much safer if they had been with the column.’
Two days had passed since they had ambushed their overeager pursuers. The snow had fallen intermittently ever since, creating more drifts that slowed the pace of the march. Fortunately the same snow had hampered the enemy, who had been content to merely keep up with the Romans and made no further attempt to attack, other than the odd harassing sortie carried out by cavalry against individual soldiers or small groups who had ventured too far from the main column as they attempted to forage for food in the villages and farmsteads that the army marched past. There was seldom anything to be had. The inhabitants had disappeared entirely, taking with them their valuables, and their winter provisions. Cato guessed that they had been ordered or coerced to leave nothing for the Romans and their food supplies had either been hidden – easy enough given the snowfall – or simply destroyed. No rations remained and many of the mules had already been slaughtered, and the path of the army was littered with abandoned carts and wagons, discarded kit and those who were too tired to go on and had accepted whatever grim fate the enemy might visit upon them. Of the ten thousand men who had set out on the campaign, Cato doubted that even half remained, thanks to losses in combat and straggling.
The men of the rearguard detachment had held together well during the past two days, mostly down to the iron will of their commander. More than two hundred of Macro’s legionaries were still marching behind the cohort’s standard, while the Blood Crows numbered nearly a hundred still on their mounts and as many marching on foot. Cato had not let them string out along the way, but had kept Macro’s legionaries in column while the Blood Crows led their horses along the flanks to rest the beasts as much as possible and prevent them from developing saddle sores. There was little feed to be had for the horses either, just what could be gleaned from the bottom of the emptied grain pits and barns they passed. Some of them were weakening badly, and two had already been slaughtered after being unable to continue, their flesh shared out amongst the men.
For his part Cato felt the hunger badly enough, but it did not bother him as it did those he commanded, as he was constantly distracted by the need to drive them on. There were times, plenty of them, when he thought again of Julia, and what it was to live in a world without her. It was tempting to let such thoughts deaden his soul and banish any last trace of hope. But instead he fixed his mind on the welfare of his troops. It had been impossible for him to save Julia, but he could save these men: Macro’s bearded, gaunt-faced legionaries, who still carried their marching yokes, much lightened by the discarding of unnecessary kit, and stood stiffly to attention at roll call at dawn and dusk; and the Blood Crows, who looked after their mounts before themselves as far as they could, and chased off enemy raiders who came too close to the tail of Quintatus’s army. But now they were flagging, and Cato feared that soon he would no longer be able to count on their innate pride in their units and their willingness to defend the standards that had led them into so many battles under his command. All men could reach a point where authority mattered no more and simple, raw self-survival reigned supreme in their hearts. Looking at the two units now, drawn up in a line reaching from the shingle to a steep crag-topped slope facing the enemy, Cato wondered how much longer he would be able to hold them together.
The Druids had halted their force half a mile behind the rearguard some while ago and had remained there since. Just as they had the last two times Cato had been forced to turn and make a stand to allow the stragglers and some of the slower vehicles to catch up with the rest of the column. Their refusal to attack was perplexing him. In their place he would have harried the Roman troops every step of the way and given them no respite. Eventually, hunger and exhaustion would have broken them and all that would remain was to mop up the survivors. So why were the Druids seemingly content merely to follow Quintatus and his force?
‘I’m getting a little tired of this,’ said Macro, as if reading Cato’s thoughts. ‘Why aren’t those bastards getting stuck in? They know we have no bolt-throwers left. They could sweep us aside just like that.’ He snapped his fingers to emphasise the point and then cupped his hands together and breathed hard into them a few times. ‘It’s getting colder still, isn’t it?’
Cato nodded. ‘Much colder.’
The night before had been the worst so far. A blizzard had closed in round the army, the wind howling over the tents and stretching and straining the guy ropes. Several of the Blood Crows’ tents had been blown down and it had been impossible to erect them again, forcing the men to crowd in with their comrades to see out the night. The dawn had revealed the army almost snowed in, the long tent lines weighted down by snow that had also drifted up against the sides. It had taken hours for the men to dig themselves free, and get the column on the move. Any water that had been left out overnight had frozen solid, and even the water in buckets inside the tents was iced over. Nor had the temperature lifted much during the day, the sun remaining invisible behind a dull overcast.
Macro cracked his knuckles and stared towards the enemy. ‘This has got to be as difficult for them as it is for us, surely?’ he hissed.
Cato thought a moment. ‘Maybe. But they have food, and they are used to the mountains and know how to shelter in them. They’re hardier, too. Most of our lads come from Italia, Gaul and the provinces around the Mediterranean. They won’t be as used to this as the enemy. I’d say the natives are coping with it better than us. They are defending their homeland. That always lends heart to a cause.’
‘Not to mention that they’ve got us on the run and can scent blood. That also helps.’
‘Very true.’
Both were silent for a while before Macro began to punch his fist into the other hand. ‘Now they’re taking the piss . . . Speaking of which.’
He strode out in front of the line, his gait still a little stiff from the wound. He continued for a hundred paces across the well-trodden snow and then stopped and planted his vine cane in the ground. Reaching under his tunic, he fumbled for his cock and waited a moment before unleashing a stream of urine in the direction of the enemy.
‘Useless shower of piss!’ he bellowed across the open ground. ‘That’s all you lot are! Fucking Druids! I eat ’em for breakfast and shit out the remains!’ The men of the rearguard roared with laughter at his crude challenge and joined in with their own mockery and jeering.
At first there was no response from the enemy. Then one of the Druids stepped forward a short distance in front of his men and reached into a bag at his side. A moment later he raised something in his hand and held it out for all to see. Cato did not have to squint hard to realise what it was. A severed head. To remind the Romans what fate awaited them.
Macro, having emptied the last drops from his bladder, tucked his cock away and turned and strode casually back towards his men. They chanted his name in a rising tone, ending in a rousing final cheer and then some laughter, which gradually faded away. Macro reached down to cup snow to rub between his hands, then grinned at Cato.
Cato smiled. ‘Nice try, Macro. But I doubt they’re going to take the bait. Whatever it is they are planning, they’ll do it when they are good and ready. I just wish I knew what it was.’
‘Maybe they’re just scared witless by the thought of taking on our boys in a stand-up fight.’
Cato gave him a look. ‘I don’t think for an instant that is a serious suggestion.’
‘If not that, sir, then what?’
Cato shrugged. ‘We’ll find out soon enough, I fear.’
He waited until the last of the stragglers still walking had disappeared over the brow of the next rise, and then dismissed Macro and his cohort. He allowed them a half-mile head start before the Blood Crows followed on. They approached a man hunched in his cloak beside the route. He had abandoned his marching yoke and his helmet, but still wore the heavy lorica armour favoured by the legionaries, and Cato drew aside, waving his men on.
‘Soldier!’
There was no response from the man, who just stared blankly out along the shingle at the bodies and the remains of the ships that had been wrecked there.
‘On your feet!’ Cato said loudly. When there was no response, he slipped down from his saddle and stood directly in front of the man, blocking his line of sight. The legionary blinked and then looked at Cato with a surprised expression. He was an older man, with thick dark hair and a straggly beard. There was grey at his temples, crow’s feet around his eyes and white scar tissue across his brow and on to his cheek. A veteran, then. Someone who had served many years on the frontiers of the empire and taken part in numerous battles and skirmishes in the name of Rome. A man who should know better than to give up and accept death at the hands of his enemies without a murmur.
