Vespasian looked back; the centuries were arriving. ‘Form up on the bank; we must stop them from landing!’
The legionaries funnelled through the gaps between the partially constructed hulks and fanned out two lines deep at the water’s edge.
‘Prepare to release!’ Vespasian shouted as the line was completed. The attacking vessels were barely ten paces out.
Gauging the distance to their target, one hundred and sixty legionaries slung their right arms back, feeling the weight of their pila.
‘And release!’
Black against the glowing background, the sleek, weighted weapons tore towards the oncoming boats and punched into the upper bodies of the men within or ripped through the hide-covered hulls and on into the crews’ legs. Warriors were flung back and overboard, oarsmen were skewered to the backs of the men in front of them; the rapid changing of the weight distribution caused many of the craft to rock violently. Four of the vessels immediately capsized, spilling their screaming crews into the water; but the rest righted themselves and came on with foolhardy valour, their crews intent upon firing the ships that would make Rome masters of the sea in these waters.
‘Hold them off, Placidus,’ Vespasian ordered the centurion nearest him, recognising the man’s face in the increasing glow; out in the estuary a third bireme, adjacent to the other two, now spouted flames from three of its oar-ports. ‘I’ll send you reinforcements as soon as they’re available, in case more boats come.’
With no time to acknowledge his legate, Placidus roared at his men to prepare to receive as Vespasian turned and, with confidence in the men, left the two centuries to beat off half their number.
‘I brought you a horse, sir,’ Magnus shouted, bringing his mount to a halt, ‘but I didn’t have time to saddle it, I just threw a bridle over it.’
‘Thank you, Magnus,’ Vespasian said, raising his voice over the familiar clamour of mortal combat behind him. ‘Ride along the bank to the jetties and start untying the boats.’ Vaulting onto the animal’s bare back, he turned it with a vicious tug of the reins and kicked it away back up the hill as Magnus headed off along the bank.
The Hamians streamed out of the gate in an eight-man-wide column as Vespasian approached; wheeling his mount to the right he accelerated along the formation of bow-armed auxiliaries to their prefect riding at their head. ‘Send a century of your lads down to the jetties and have eight loaded into each of the boats. You know what to do then, Glaucius.’
‘Get as close to the bastards as possible and then do what my boys are best at, sir.’
‘Exactly; and be quick about it.’ He pulled away and headed back towards the gates. Ansigar was waiting for him with ninety of his troopers. ‘I hope these lads can row, Ansigar.’
‘They’re Batavians, sir,’ Ansigar replied with a grin. ‘They swim, row, ride and kill Britons.’
‘Hopefully they won’t need that first talent tonight; follow me.’
Magnus and the Hamian centurion were supervising the archers’ embarkation into ten boats as Vespasian arrived with the Batavians at the jetties. Ansigar needed no orders and, shouting in his guttural language, assigned his men eight to each craft; the remainder he left minding the horses. Along the bank the main body of the Hamians had begun loosing volley after volley towards those attacking boats clear of the biremes; hundreds of shafts hissed into them, annihilating entire crews in moments and churning up the flame-red water around them as if a brutal hail storm had hit.
Jumping into the lead boat as soon as it was loaded, Vespasian grabbed the steering oar. He looked up at Magnus. ‘Coming?’
‘What, get in a boat when I don’t have to? Bollocks!’
Vespasian shrugged and cast off.
The nearside Batavians pushed their oars against the jetty and, once clear, all eight of them pulled a stroke as one without a word of command; the wooden craft surged forward.
Out in the estuary the few surviving Britannic boats were seeking relative safety in the lee of the burning biremes out of sight of the Hamians. Along the bank, Placidus’ men had beaten off the attempt to fire the shipyard; all down their line empty boats bobbed amongst the dark shapes of their former crews floating in the shallows. Just three of the erstwhile attackers’ boats had the manpower remaining to flee back out into the estuary; the Hamians used them for target practice and ceased their volleys as the last one capsized.
Vespasian steered his boat towards the three blazing ships, now consumed with flames and wreathed in smoke; behind him the other crews strained at their sweeps, keeping pace. The heat from the raging infernos scorched his skin as they drew closer; sweat poured down the labouring oarsmen’s faces and into their beards, and noxious fumes ravaged their gasping throats.
‘Ansigar,’ Vespasian shouted over his shoulder, ‘take five of the boats and pass on the other side of the burning ships; we’ll try and cut off the survivors. I want prisoners.’
Ansigar acknowledged the order with a wave and veered his craft away to the left, taking four of the others with him.
Passing the blazing bow of the first stricken bireme, Vespasian looked down the gap between it and the next; through the wafting smoke he could see no sign of the enemy, only bodies floating on the surface. He kept his course straight, passing the next ship and peered left, with stinging eyes, into the thirty-pace-wide lane between it and the final fired vessel. Again there was nothing; through the smoke he could just make out the shadowy form of Ansigar’s boat powering by the other end.
Vespasian’s crew rowed on, eyes squinting against fumes and sweat, past the final burning ship, now listing heavily; beyond it was open water. Vespasian swung the steering oar to the right, slewing his boat in the opposite direction around the doomed vessel as Ansigar appeared around the stern; between them was nothing but smoke and flotsam and jetsam.
‘Shit!’ Vespasian swore as he veered his boat back to its original course; Ansigar did the same coming alongside. The oarsmen kept up their pace, groaning with the effort of each pull and soon they were clear of the smoke; and then he saw them. They were mere outlines a hundred or so paces distant but they were unmistakably boats, six of them, heading down the estuary towards the sea. ‘Put your backs into it, lads, and we’ll have them; they’ll tire before you will.’
The Batavians renewed their efforts in response to his call whilst the archers, seated forward of them, nocked arrows and tried to gauge the distance in the gloom. Behind them the rest of the small flotilla increased their pace at the sight of their quarry.
Then a new sound, shrill and regular, pierced through the grunts of exertion and the creak and splash of oars; Vespasian turned his head. From out of the bank of fire-lit smoke a ship emerged, its blades dipping in time to the stroke-master’s piped beat: Sabinus’ liburnian. Two men pulled on each of the eighteen oars protruding from either side of its streamlined hull forcing the bronze-headed ram extending from its bow through the foaming water at a speed that Vespasian’s craft could not hope to match; but nor could the Britons. Within a few score strokes the ship had drawn level; Sabinus stood in its stern, next to the trierarchus, encouraging the oarsmen in the open rowing deck to greater efforts. On a platform in its bow a party of marines loaded a small carroballista; winching back the torsioned arms of the artillery piece they placed the three-foot-long iron-headed wooden bolt in the shooting-groove before sighting the weapon. Up ahead the Britons had seen the new threat looming dark against the glowing background and their shouts of dismay carried over the water; but their speed did not increase; they were already at the limits of their power.