Work continued; now that the inner trench was finished, completing a circle some 11 miles around the town, we began work on the outer trench and finishing the forts. Before the forts could be completed, Vercingetorix ordered the remainder of his cavalry to break out at night, with each man going back to his own respective country carrying orders to raise whatever force they could to come to the rescue of the army trapped within the walls of Alesia. They broke out with the help of a contingent of infantry who stormed out of their camp, some armed with hooks on long poles that they used to pull part of the turf wall down, with others carrying bundles of wood thrown into the ditch then covered with the dirt that they pulled down to allow the horses to pass over. The whole operation took no more than the time it takes to march a mile, so by the time the alarm sounded and enough troops were rallied to the point of the breakout, the horsemen had long gone, heading in so many directions that any pursuit was pointless. However, it did serve to instill a greater sense of urgency in our work to build the outer trench. On the western side, with about a quarter mile between the inner defense and outer, we began work on the second trench, but this one was large, even by Caesar’s standards, some 20 feet wide and 12 feet deep, and most unusually, made with perpendicular sides to provide the most difficult obstacle. This hopefully would protect us while we fortified properly, with Caesar’s love of engineering fully expressing itself here at Alesia, albeit from the sweat off our brow. These extra works required more wood and since we had denuded the surrounding area of any tree large enough to suit our purpose, working parties had to range farther than before to bring back wood for the extra palisades and towers. Even so, Caesar had even more surprises in mind for the Gauls than our standard fortifications. Once the trench was completed, it was filled with water diverted from the flow of the streams, with yet another trench dug behind the outer one, this one only about five feet deep but lined with green branches, one end sharpened to a point before being hardened in the fire, with the other end buried on the opposite side of the ditch so it was pointed in the direction of attack. A few yards beyond the second trench, small pits were dug where smaller sharpened stakes were placed, then covered over; we called these things “Caesar’s lilies”, though I do not know where the name came from, since they looked nothing like lilies to me. There were eight rows of these. Even further along was another set of small pits, where we placed blocks of wood imbedded with iron hooks sticking up. All in all, these were the most formidable fortifications that we ever constructed, and they would need to be for the coming trial.
The Gauls were busy as well; the cavalry that escaped the town scattered to the four winds going to their respective people to sound the call for reinforcements to hurry to Alesia. In preparation for this, Caesar stepped up the foraging effort, ordering that a reserve of 30 days’ supply be laid on, in the anticipation that we would be cut off from food when the inevitable relief column arrived. Work continued on improving the fortifications, through all watches, towers being erected every 120 yards, while smaller turrets that could house a single scorpion and serve as a shelter for the sentries were set every 80 feet. Several deserters informed us that all the Gallic food was brought into one place, to be rationed by Vercingetorix, and there were barely 30 days’ rations left. This told us that we could expect some sort of relief effort almost any day; everything depended on how quickly the Gauls could gather their forces and set out on the march. Every day we worked on the fortifications, strengthening them in preparation for the coming onslaught, while almost every night the Gauls sent out a sortie from their camp in an attempt to disrupt our work and to affect a breach at some point in our fortifications. It was clear to all of us that Vercingetorix was determined to attempt a breakout of some sort, whether it was on his own or with the assistance of the relieving army. The forces coming to the relief of the Gauls were gathering in the lands of the Aedui, and such was the valor and notoriety of Vercingetorix by this point that of the 45 different tribes that inhabited Gaul, 44 sent contingents of men of varying size, so that the army that gathered numbered 250,000 infantry and 8,000 cavalry. Only the Bellovaci refused to send a contingent of any size, claiming that they preferred to deal with Caesar and his army on their own. But it was who was at the head of this vast army that angered us. Because of the tribal jealousies, the Gallic army had to be led by four different generals, and when we learned their identities it only strengthened our resolve. One of them was Commius, who traveled with us to Britannia; another two were the faithless bastards Eporedorix and Viridomarus. The fourth was the only one that we understood and held no malice towards, and that was the cousin of Vercingetorix, Vercassivellaunus, who was only marching to the aid of his kin, something that we understood and accepted. Despite managing to gather relatively quickly, moving such a vast host takes not only a fair amount of time but a huge amount of food and water, and to administer such a force the Gauls selected tribal elders to oversee the administration of the feeding and care of the army. It was this council with which the generals had to contend on a daily basis, meaning there were disputes almost every day, according to the deserters and scouts we managed to capture. Whatever disputes there may have been, the Gallic army was still approaching.
For once, the situation inside the walls was more desperate than outside; while we were forced to range farther and farther for food, the people stuck in Alesia had no way to resupply and with every day that went by, their plight became more serious. The relief force was moving towards us, their whereabouts easy to track because of the huge size of the army, and it was the topic of conversation around every fire.
“So there’s about 80,000 men on that side,” Atilius mused, looking in the direction of the town. “And there’s, what, 250,000 heading towards us from that direction,” he pointed in what was essentially the opposite direction. “So, that would be………” his face wrinkled up as he tried to work the sum out in his head.
Because Scribonius had helped me learn how to calculate sums I wanted to show off a bit, so before he could answer, I replied, “That’s 330,000 men that we have to kill.”
We sat silent for a moment, I think all of us stunned at the thought of facing an army of such momentous size.
“And what’s our strength, Pullus?”
For a moment I considered the idea of adding to the sum of our forces, but immediately dismissed it. There was no sense lying to my own men, so I replied, “We have ten Legions, but we’re all understrength to one point or another. I can tell you that the 10th can field about 3,800 men; we have more than a hundred out of action for one reason or another. I haven’t heard but I’m guessing that most of the other Legions are in the same shape, so we can probably field about 40,000 Legionaries. We have about 8,000 auxiliaries, and about 3,000 cavalry. So that’s about 51,000 men.”
“To face 330,000?”
Vellusius sat glumly, throwing twigs into the fire as he asked his questions.
“So, that means we have to kill how many of those bastards apiece?”
“About seven,” I said quietly, for I had done the figuring on this the day we heard about the size of the relief column.
“Well, that’s a whole lot of killing to do. I think I’m going to turn in early,” I tried to sound cheerful, waving goodnight to my comrades, eager to be away and free to think my own thoughts.