Daylight illuminated a scene of gruesome carnage; Caesar’s lilies, along with the other obstacles were highly effective, leaving men impaled and unable to gird themselves sufficiently to pull their bodies off of the stakes. The men who stumbled into Caesar’s lilies had gotten hooked like fish, either in their feet or through their calves, and despite their wounds, still were dangerous to approach. Accordingly, they had to be finished off from a distance, giving men the opportunity to practice their javelin work, wagering on who could kill one of the poor bastards with one throw and the like. Once they were bored with trying to affect single shot kills the wagering then turned to how many throws a man could survive, and shortly, the screams of the Gauls who were the object of this game could be heard ringing up and down the walls. Despite ordering our Century to not participate, of course a few men managed to sneak off to have their fun, Didius among them. My one consolation was that he came back broke, having bet everything on one Gaul who managed to survive three javelins longer than Didius wagered. Finally, the betting stopped as the last Gaul died, some of them looking like blood-soaked porcupines before they were finally finished off. Once it was safe, burial details were sent out to try to clean up the area, and since we were not one of the Cohorts hard pressed the night before but were close to the action, we were one of the lucky ones. It was times like these I was thankful I was Optio, convincing myself that this was the one small reward for all the other onerous duties I had to perform, since I did not have to dig the mass grave, or drag the bodies to throw them in. What I did have to do was walk around to make sure that no Gaul was thrown into the pit still alive; many of my comrades were not very scrupulous about such matters, but because of my fear of enclosed spaces, I could not bring myself to let someone, even an enemy, suffer such a fate. Thinking about it now, it is somewhat peculiar that I tried to avoid digging or dragging, but viewed killing essentially defenseless men as a less onerous task. That is what army life does to you I suppose, hardening your heart. And truth be told, most of the men I dispatched were alive only in the sense that they were still breathing, while those few who still had their wits about them were in such pain that when I stood over them, they looked up at me with thankful eyes, knowing that I was about to end their suffering. That is what I tell myself at least; it helps me sleep better at night, although it does not keep the faces from appearing in my dreams.
The Gauls were down to their last throw of the dice, deciding to try their luck at another spot in our defenses, on the north side of the town. It was on the north side where the terrain was arranged in such a way that there was a hill that we could not completely enclose within our works, so that one of the camps was actually located on the downward slope of the hill, with the bulk of the hill above them. It was at this point that the relieving Gauls would make one final attempt to assault, break through and link up with the besieged force. Vercingetorix’s kinsman Vercassivellaunus would lead 60,000 men in the assault. Realizing that the element of surprise was essential, they crept out of their camp on the hill to the southwest of the town at night, taking a circuitous route, consuming all of the remaining night and part of the next morning before they reached their attack position. At a prearranged time, or signal, we never learned which, the remainder of the Gallic cavalry came thundering out of the internal camp, heading for the western wall once again, with the remaining infantry in the relief camp arraying themselves on the slopes of their hill, preparing to move forward. Simultaneously, Vercingetorix’s army came out of the town, heading for the same spot where they first attempted to cross and some of the ditch was indeed filled in, which we were unable to clear out. Their intent was obvious; they were going to breach the inner wall at the most vulnerable spot, and then in the space between the two, swing up to the northern part of our works, where the assault element of the relieving army was attacking. Their goal was to hit the two Legions, the 8th and 13th, in the left flank while they were engaged to their front. Every redoubt was given a number, with the numbers moving from left to right if one was facing north; the redoubts under assault from the outside force, along with the camp were 21, 22 and 23. My Cohort occupied redoubts Seven, Eight and Nine, with my Century and the Fifth Century manning redoubt number Seven. The spot they chose was relatively close to our redoubt, directly to our left, and it was to this spot that Caesar came to direct the defense of our works, his presence signaled by his red standard, and his paludamentum. We were close enough to see the desperate struggle of Vercingetorix’s men frantically flinging their long hooks up at the wooden palisade, trying to pull it down, the first step in breaching a wall. Our men were just as vigorously knocking them aside, striking down Gauls who were too impatient to wait for the wall to come down and instead were trying to clamber up by hand and foot. The main thrust of the attack of Vercingetorix was focused between redoubts One and Two, yet for the moment our men were holding. A rider came galloping up to Caesar and despite being too far away to hear, by his gestures and posture it was clear that the northern camp was in serious trouble. Labienus was sitting his horse next to Caesar, and we could see Caesar turn to say something to him. Labienus gave a quick salute, then came galloping in our direction but did not stop. A few moments later, men came double timing past us and we saw that the size of the detachment was a number of Cohorts. As they ran by we shouted to them, wishing them good luck, while they called back to us with the usual good-natured taunts about being left behind. A total of six Cohorts, led by Labienus, went running to relieve the camp; three Cohorts from the 10th and three from the 9th, which was positioned next to us and with whom we shared our camp. After they left, we turned our attention back to the fighting, wondering if we would be called to move to where the battle was raging. As it turned out, we did not need to, because the fighting came to us.