On the left wing John deployed the foederati, men armed for hand-to-hand combat with a section of archers, fighters who would work ballistae aided by spear-carrying cavalry. On the right were the bulk of the cavalry and Flavius ensured the Huns and their horses, who were with him, were held well to the rear to keep them out of the battle. It was noticeable that on the other side the Moors were likewise in a disengaged position, behind but not close to the centre of the Vandal lines.
John sought to tempt the Vandals by peppering them with arrows and missiles, to which they responded with not a single spear, a fact the Romans found peculiar. Tzazon would not be drawn; if he attacked to drive these skirmishers off he did not let his men cross the stream. He knew that to be the enemy aim, just as he knew that even if as an obstacle it was small it was enough to disorder his ranks.
The same aim was the tactic of John’s next sally, leading forward the bucellarii. Again Tzazon mounted an attack to throw them back, again his men halted at the water’s edge. Watching from an elevated position Flavius had observed that on each occasion the Vandal wings had not moved to support Tzazon and his Sardinian veterans. Fearing that John, into close proximity, might have failed to observe this he sent a messenger to advise him. But there were no accompanying orders; he had handed over tactical command, to interfere would be wrong.
John needed no instruction, anyway; he had noted that on both occasions there had been no sign of a mounted response to his pinprick attacks. If the Vandals would not move then he must. With that knowledge added to the message from Flavius he brought forward the whole comitatus, the very best troops he commanded, and attacked across the stream himself.
His general was right; the Vandal wings remained static, taking no part in what had become a fight of the centre sections of both armies. Once more it was noticed there were no Vandal spears employed, which meant the Romans got close up to the enemy and began to press them back. As is often the case it was the fall of a leader that decided matters. Tzazon was isolated and cut down, his collapse sending a deep wail of despair through the men he had led both here and in Sardinia.
When they broke so did the Vandal wings and soon it turned into a rout, one in which the Huns spurred forward to take part, cutting down their coreligionists with abandon in a retreat that took the Vandals back inside their fortified camp, one that was too strong to be assaulted by cavalry.
Flavius was harrying his infantry to get to the same spot, and once there he formed them up for an immediate assault, now once more in possession of his standard. It proved a waste; Gelimer knew he was beaten and with a few close followers, relatives and the like, he abandoned his men and fled. It was only moments later that the whole Vandal army did likewise — they would not stand where their usurper king would not — leaving their enemies to plunder their camp. This time it included a great quantity of treasure, including many of the priceless objects looted from Gaul and Hispania, fortunately secured by the more disciplined units.
There was no holding back the men Flavius led. They had found an abundance of wine too, as well as women; and were fired up for rapine, slaughter and plunder. Even if their general had wanted to pursue Gelimer it would have proved impossible. It did not occur to these rampaging fools that the Vandals might re-form and attack. If they had it would have been fatal.
It was daybreak before he could impose some order, halfway through the morning before he got a chance to harangue and curse his own troops for their behaviour, this after he had got John the Armenian away with two hundred cavalry to seek to kill or capture Gelimer. Women and children were rescued from being privately sold into slavery. Vandals who had taken sanctuary in their Arian churches were relieved of their weapons and sent to Carthage.
That done, Flavius formed up his army to engage in his personal pursuit only to come across tragedy. After several days and nights of a hard chase John had got close enough to the rump of Gelimer’s forces to effect a capture or kill him as commanded. One of his bowman, in firing an arrow, let one hand slip as he loosed and the bolt swerved from true aim and hit John in the neck. When Flavius caught up with them it was to find them in mourning for their dead and much revered commander, none more so than the guilty bowman.
Yet on questioning them all it had to be concluded to be an accident, a fluke of battle but not a fitting end for such a fine warrior. The culprit was pardoned and John was buried at the very spot, with Flavius pledging funds to ensure it would be marked by a stone obelisk listing his achievements and offices, all in Latin as befitted a man deserving to be called a true Roman.
Gelimer was still free as well as alive and the pursuit had to continue.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
To get at their quarry became harder than merely catching up with him. Gelimer had allies of which the Romans were unaware and they were now in a land where if the populace were known as Moors, that covered many individual tribes who would not have responded to that folkloric label, people who answered only to their own leaders in an area of Africa riven by fractious infighting. One such occupied an ancient hill fort and city known as Medeus, and it had been fighters from there that had been observed at the recent battle.
Situated on the slopes of a high mountain, the fortress looked unassailable and for one man, however elevated, it was not a place to employ a whole army nor could it occupy a person with a recently reconquered kingdom to run. Flavius entrusted the task of capture, either by negotiation or other means, to Pharas and his Heruls, men who had been staunchly loyal to his banner.
Returning to Hippo Regius, the largest and most wealthy city west of Carthage, from there he began to make certain dispositions. There were Vandal outposts in the region of Mauretania to take possession of, one right opposite the coast of Hispania at the Pillars of Hercules and one in Caesarea, the old Roman capital when Mauretania had been an imperial province, one of which Procopius had a very fixed view.
‘Justinian will wish you to take control of that too.’
‘Then he better send me another army, for by my reading all we really ever held was the coast. The mountain tribes are impossible to subdue, the best that can be hoped for is that they can be kept from too much raiding. We have enough to swallow with the possessions of the Vandals.’
‘I questioned one of Tzazon’s captains, a fellow who was with him in Sardinia. His leader did such a fine job on the island the place is properly cowed. Seems he hung or strangled anyone who looked like a rebel. The locals will not believe he is dead and they will not believe that we have beaten Gelimer.’
Procopius got an expectant look then: Flavius knew such preambles usually led to a solution and he was waiting for one now. ‘So since we have the head of Tzazon, I suggest we send it with whoever is despatched to secure the place.’
‘We best send a strong force,’ Flavius mused. ‘Tzazon would not have left the place without a garrison of some kind who might fight. Whoever we send will have to secure Corsica as well.’
The other problem was the Vandals spread out all over their now defunct kingdom. Flavius was well aware that more than half of his inferior commanders believed they should be rounded up and slaughtered like dogs, Balas of the Huns particularly keen to be allotted the task, no doubt to prove their renewed loyalty.
But the man who had to decide wanted a peaceful province not a troubled one, and to do as was suggested would mean sending out bodies of troops to scour the countryside and root out the perceived enemy. What he had observed in Carthage made that questionable. If the indigenes that the Vandals had subdued hated them, they were yet Christians and would probably not, in many cases, welcome persecution. It was plain that if the Vandal touch had been heavy in the larger concentrations like the capital, out in the country he sensed they had been more benign; logic dictated they would have had to be, for the Vandals were so heavily outnumbered by the local population to be cruel invited assassination.