As the truth of his words was contemplated by his officers the timbre of the drone of the thousands of voices from across the river changed, gradually at first and then quickly, to become another roar of defiance.
Vespasian looked north and smiled grimly as he felt his pulse quicken and a churning in the pit of his stomach. ‘The Batavians have made it; so it begins, gentlemen. Return to your units, have them stop this pointless camp construction and form them up in column. I’ll give the order to move as soon as I think that the Britons have their attention sufficiently engaged elsewhere; the Batavians, Hamians, artillery and the bridge party will go first. I’ll go with them, Mucianus; once we’ve reached the river, move the men out. Dismiss.’
With a jangling of equipment the officers saluted their legate, turned smartly and marched away to rejoin their commands. Vespasian gazed back across the river; the Britannic horde was starting to swarm north with an oddly fluid swirling motion.
‘Just like a flock of starlings changing direction,’ Magnus commented, coming up behind him.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many starlings flocking together.’ Vespasian turned and looked at his friend and started in surprise. ‘What are you doing dressed like that?’
‘Well, I’m wearing this chain mail tunic in order to make it harder for one of them savages to examine my entrails; as for the helmet, that’s quite good for preventing your head being split open, and the shield is a far more effective device for deflecting a sword blow than just your left arm, if you take my meaning?’
‘I do indeed; does that mean you’re determined to fight?’
‘I did contemplate making myself a nice little picnic supper and sitting up here on the grass to watch the whole affair but then I thought that I might get rather chilly, so it would be better to be tucked up nice and snug in the front rank next to you. Oh, and I brought this for you.’ Magnus handed Vespasian his shield.
‘Aren’t you getting a little old for this?’ Vespasian asked, taking the shield with a nod of thanks.
‘I’m fifty-one this year, plenty of fight and fuck left in me; besides, I ain’t never fought a Briton — should be interesting.’
Vespasian shook his head, knowing that he would be unable to talk Magnus out of a fight that, as a civilian, was not his. He realised that he did not want to either; he would feel much better with his friend at his side. He looked back across the river; the Britons were moving north en masse. As he watched the dark shadow of humanity cloud the grassy hillside, a limb of it suddenly split off and headed down towards the river; the XIIII were approaching the broken bridge. Vespasian offered a silent prayer to Sabinus’ god Mithras to hold his hands over his brother as, half a mile to his right, the XX started to move north behind the XIIII in their feint to the Batavians’ crossing point.
‘That’s got them interested,’ Magnus observed as the volume of the Britons’ shouting rose appreciatively at the sight of a new threat on the move.
‘It has indeed, almost all of them are moving away from us; time to go.’ He looked at the duty bucinator waiting by the praetorium. ‘Sound the advance.’
The notes rang out, high and clear, and immediately the throaty rumbling of cornua boomed out. To his left the two bridging centuries began to push their carts down the hill with mounting speed as Paetus’ cavalry galloped away, followed by the Hamian archers at a jog and then the sixty mule carts carrying the legion’s bolt-shooters.
Vespasian took a deep breath and steeled himself for what he knew would be one of the most testing few hours of his life. ‘Let’s get this done, my friend.’
‘I was hoping you’d suggest that.’
Vespasian and Magnus began to walk down the hill in the wake of the carts as, all around, the cohorts of the II Augusta and its auxiliaries prepared for combat against an enemy that far outnumbered them. Vespasian knew that the struggles of that afternoon would seem as nothing compared with what awaited the II Augusta on the far bank of the Afon Cantiacii.
‘Don’t just look at them, float them!’ the centurion of the sixth century of the tenth cohort bawled at four of his men who were momentarily resting after the exertion of lifting a boat from its cart; behind him, men pounded sledgehammers down upon eight thick stakes, ramming them into the drier earth up the bank. The legionaries hurriedly tipped the boat over onto its bottom and manhandled it through the tall reeds on the riverbank and onto the mud beyond. With a real sense of urgency, enhanced by their centurion’s malevolent glare, they untied the two oars secured to the benches inside and then pushed it into the river; all four of them jumped in, with muddied sandals, once it had achieved buoyancy.
Vespasian watched, occasionally glancing nervously north, past the artillery carts forming up in three ranks of twenty behind the Hamians and on to where the Britons were swirling towards their perceived threats; along the bank the unloading procedure was repeated until all the boats were bobbing in the slow-flowing river.
The pounding ceased when the optio in charge of that detail was satisfied that the eight stakes, four for each bridge, were secure enough to begin fastening the four long coils of rope waiting on the ground; beyond them, the boats of the second bridge waited in the water. Slightly further south, on the opposite bank, Vespasian could see the last of Paetus’ men scramble out of the river to join the ala, already forming up in four lines. So far there was no sign of the enemy moving against them.
‘We might just get away with this,’ Vespasian said, looking past Magnus, up the hill to where the II Augusta was doubling down towards them.
Magnus spat and clenched his thumb between his fingers and muttered a prayer, warding off the evil-eye.
‘Sorry.’
‘First boats!’ the centurion roared; his colleague on the second bridge bellowed the same order.
Five boats immediately started rowing into position, fanning out into the river. As the first boat came in line with the stakes two legionaries grabbed it, holding it steady, whilst a couple more passed the coils of rope, each secured to two stakes, to the men not rowing, one in the bow, the other in the stern. They quickly fed the rope through large metal eye-holes screwed into each end of the vessel and secured them before passing them onto their colleagues in the second boat as it came alongside. The oarsmen held the boats together as the ropes were threaded through, knotted and then passed onto the third boat, the outside oarsman always working his blade in the water keeping the line stable, withdrawing it only as the next boat came into position. Beyond them a mirror image of this operation was taking place with the second span.
Vespasian looked back to the hill in the north; a mass of chariots was speeding up the grassy slope towards the Batavians arrayed along its summit. A thin, dark cloud suddenly soared up from the auxiliaries and arced in the sky to descend into the chariots’ midst; any screams resulting from the volley were drowned out by the general background roar of tens of thousands of raised voices, but even at this distance he could make out scores of chariots immobilised on the slope with their ponies lying still before them.