The legate had been around the walls an hour ago, at sunset, fuming that his foragers were still out there and should have been back before dark. But Primillus had seen the state of the countryside and its native settlements when they first pulled in, and every sensible man knew the forage party would have their work cut out to find much of use without going a good distance. Primillus didn’t expect to see them until the morning at least, but the legate had pushed himself into an unpleasant corner. Tomorrow was when Caesar and the army were set to return, and if the general returned to find only half the legion in residence, there was a general feeling that Cicero’s balls might well end up hanging from the gate top.
His watery, weary gaze strayed back towards the ditches and the tents of the civilian sutlers and merchants who had set up their stores outside the defences. Could he persuade the optio at the gate to let him sneak out? He’d smelled the roasted lamb from their tents at sunset and would give not only every coin in his purse for a plate of it, but probably a limb or two. No. The optio was under orders like the rest of them. No trading with the natives when the forage party would return with extra supplies.
Ha!
Still, his bowels would probably make him regret roasted lamb pretty sharply.
His gaze fell upon the flickering shadows cast by the moon’s light playing among the trees and civilian tents.
Although tents and trees tended not to move. He frowned and turned. Gemellus, ten paces to his right, looked every bit as bored as he.
‘Gaius? Can you see…?’
He blinked, interrupted, as Gaius Gemellus was suddenly lifted from his feet by the force of a spear blow and hurled from the wall down the inner bank, the thrown weapon impaling him and jutting from his chest. Primillus turned, eyes wide, in time to see another spear arcing up towards him and dropped behind the palisade just in time, the shaft passing over him and clattering down inside the camp. He lifted his head so that his gaze peeked through the narrow gap between helmet brim and pointed stake tops.
His wide eyes strained and bulged as he watched the barbarians on their shaggy horses pouring from the forest edge, behind them a sea of men on foot, waving axes, swords and spears. The bulk of the horsemen were making for the decumana gate and its causeway across the ditches, while a few of their confederates rode for the sutlers’ tents.
‘Shit! To arms!’ He cleared his throat and tried to project his voice more. ‘Alarm! To arms!’
It was largely unnecessary. Other men on watch had seen them now, and whistles, horns and shouts rang out across the camp. Primillus stared at the mass of men swarming around the camp in both directions. It was like a nightmare.
The call went up from the decumana gate nearby, and Primillus realised he would be more use there than here. Three ditches stood between the enemy and this rampart, but the cavalry were already making their way across the causeway for the gate, and the duty optio was shouting for support.
Turning, shield and pilum in hand, he ran along the wall top, keeping his head as low as possible, though he took the opportunity to peek out and check what was happening as he moved. The scene was horrific. Whoever the attackers were, they clearly were not Nervii, Eburone or Menapii, as the sutlers who had gathered from those tribes were the first to suffer, the horsemen slashing down at tent ropes and collapsing them, then cutting down anyone who attempted to flee. As the footmen arrived behind them, they took torches from the various cooking fires before the tents and used them to ignite the makeshift trade settlement. Poor bastards. The survivors were fleeing into the ditches and for the gate, but they would find no solace there. The watch guard was hardly going to open up the camp in the face of an enemy force to help a few natives.
Already, as Primillus reached the gate, the attackers were pounding on the timbers with axes and hammers, those with spears jabbing up at the parapet, their horses dancing this way and that, guided with inexpert hands. These men were not the natural horsemen that summed up the spirit of Gaul.
Germans, Primillus decided, looking at them. He’d fought Germans on a few occasions over the army’s time in Gaul. Finding a couple of feet of unoccupied gate top, Primillus took up position and began to jab down with this pilum into the mass of riders milling without, striking flesh and armour repeatedly, though unsure in the press whether it was man or horse he was striking. The effect of either was equally valuable.
As he fought, his suspicions about his state of health reasserted themselves and his bowels gave liquid way into his woollen underwear. He should not have been out of the damned hospital! Ignoring his medical issues, he continued to jab down again and again, watching horses rearing in agony, throwing their riders into the press to be trampled to death. Men were pierced and run through, some wounded and lucky enough to pull back through the mass and into the open ground beyond. The first rider to do so immediately fell foul of a pilum thrown from one side of the gate.
In a matter of twenty heartbeats it was over.
The riders, unable in their initial rush to overcome the gate guard, pulled back out of danger, where the rest of their army, still arriving from the forest, were spreading out to surround the large, poorly-defended camp. The last few to leave the causeway suffered for their tardiness, pila cast by panicked and angry legionaries taking them in their retreating backs. In fact, pila were being cast with gay abandon. Unlike food, they were one thing the camp had in almost infinite supply!
The churned turf and mud of the causeway beneath the gate thronged with bodies writhing in pain, both men and horses, the screams and cries echoing out through the night. The ditches to either side were filled with enemy men and horses who had toppled in and with native traders, some dead, others wounded, a few still hale and pleading desperately for the legionaries to haul them up onto the walls. Even as Primillus felt the familiar post-fight leaden heaviness settle into his limbs, he watched those poor souls crying for help as they fell one by one to thrown German spears or loosed arrows and sling stones.
‘Jove, what happened to you?’ the optio hissed as he moved along the gate checking his men and reached Primillus.
‘Bowel rot, sir. Brought from hospital for wall duty.’
‘For the love of Venus get away from my gate and wash yourself down!’
‘Sir,’ Primillus sighed with relief, but the officer grasped his shoulder. ‘Are you empty now?’
‘Damn well hope so, sir.’
‘Then as soon as you’re washed and stink-free, get to the supply wagons and oversee the distribution of extra pila around the walls.’
Primillus sagged. A momentary image of his sick bed had floated tantalisingly in front of him before being whipped away again.
‘And try not to shit yourself on duty again, soldier, or I might decide to plug your arse shut with a hob-nailed boot.’
Primillus saluted and scurried off towards the latrines with their buckets of cleansing water and the sponge sticks. It very much appeared, given the Germanic voices raised around the camp’s periphery, that this evening’s fight was far from over.
* * * * *
Baculus stomped around the hospital ward angrily.
‘Orderly? Where is my vine staff?’
‘I’ve no idea, sir.’
‘When I find it I’m going to use it to teach you wastrels a lesson in looking after important property. I left it with the rest of my gear. Help me get this bloody harness on.’