Vespasian jumped to his feet, still gasping for breath, and, dodging an onrushing chariot team, looked around in the deepening gloom for a loose horse in amongst the chaos. Thrusting his sword into the back of a Briton hacking into a trooper’s throat he grabbed the reins of the dead cavalryman’s mount and, using the corpse as a step, hauled himself into the saddle. Knowing that the objective had been realised with Togodumnus’ death and with night falling fast he reared his mount up. ‘Break off! Break off!’
The troopers nearest him heard the cry and those who could began to disengage, passing the command on to their comrades further along the line. With most of the Britannic infantry now safely behind the chariots, the fresh warriors found themselves outnumbered and had already begun to seek the safety of their vehicles. It was almost by common consent that the combatants gradually parted, pulling back wearily, dragging their wounded with them, until the field was still and the two sides faced each other in the fading light. From the far side of the river came the sound of thousands of marching feet. The XX Legion had doubled back.
‘I can see that you’ve had a hard time of it, Vespasian,’ Gnaeus Hosidius Geta acknowledged, slipping from his horse as the cohorts of the XX marched over the bridge. ‘You’ve done well to hold a bridgehead against such numbers, even if they are barbarian savages.’
Vespasian managed to conceal his surprise at being complimented by a man who was normally antagonistic to him, if not openly hostile. ‘Thank you, Geta; the lads have fought well all day.’ He looked back over to the Britons’ lines; they had disengaged from the Batavians, leaving them in possession of the hill, and had pulled back from the ruined bridge now that the XIIII Gemina had retired. The whole army seemed to be concentrated upon lighting fires, thousands of which flickered golden in the half-light, and were paying no attention to the XX crossing the river. ‘It looks like they’re more interested in cooking their supper rather than trying to stop you crossing.’
Geta waved a hand dismissively. ‘Rabble, that’s all they are; brave enough but no discipline and badly led.’
‘They’ve got one leader less now; I killed Togodumnus earlier. Or rather my horse did by dying on him; crushed him to death.’
Geta looked at Vespasian, concerned; behind him his legion marched past and on up the hill. ‘That might not have been such a good thing to do.’
‘Why not? One less chieftain is one less point of focus for resistance.’
‘Granted, but today we’ve been helped by the fact that the brothers have seemed incapable of working together — they split their forces this morning and again this afternoon. If there had been one overall commander don’t you think that he would have left a holding force in front of the Batavians, ignored the Fourteenth and thrown everything he had against you and pushed you back over the river?’
Vespasian frowned. ‘Yes, you could be right, I suppose.’
‘I know I am; and tomorrow they’ll have just one commander, so we’ll have a harder time of it. Perhaps you should have thought of that before allowing your horse to kill Togodumnus.’ Geta turned and led his mount away, following his command up the hill.
Vespasian watched him go, his expression strained, as he contemplated his words and then dismissed them: although he conceded that Geta had a point, both Caratacus and Togodumnus would have to die or surrender for Rome to triumph and he felt sure that his actions that day had helped to hasten that event.
By the time night had fallen and a near-full moon shone over the field, the XX Legion had taken their position on the II Augusta’s left flank. Lines and lines of soldiers of Rome stretched from the river to the summit, preparing to stand to for the night; the moonlight played on their helmets, which glowed like regimented ranks of pearls. The last of the baggage crossed the bridge and then came the sound of the engineers splashing in the water, attaching ropes to the structure, ready to haul it north once the moon had set. Vespasian offered a prayer to Mars, knowing that tomorrow there could be no retreat back across the river.
CHAPTER XVIII
The first glow of dawn touched the eastern horizon to the sporadic accompaniment of birdsong. Vespasian was just finishing a tour of the five cohorts standing to, praising the men for their gallantry the previous day and encouraging them to face the perils of this new one with the same resolution. Maximus had rotated the ten cohorts allowing each four hours’ sleep under the clear sky that had burst forth with stars once the bright moon had set. Supper had been bread and salted pork eaten standing in formation; no fires had been lit so as not to provide light for the Britannic slingers and few archers to aim by. The slingers had come on a couple of occasions, unnoticed in the dark until their deadly shot clattered into the unsuspecting ranks, felling a few in the moments before shields were raised properly. After the first such attack only the very weary or reckless allowed their shields to drop, earning a sharp, hissed tirade from their centurions.
The II Augusta suffered no other attacks during the long night; however, the prolonged noise of battle from over the hill in the early hours implied that the XX Legion’s auxiliaries had encountered a night outflanking move by the Britons. The fact that no alarm had been raised had led Vespasian to conclude that they had been successfully repelled and a messenger from Geta had confirmed this shortly before he had begun his tour of inspection.
Vespasian drew a deep breath of fresh, early summer dawn air as he surveyed the spectral ranks of legionaries; he wondered how many, that day, he would be sending either to their deaths or to lives of limbless misery relying upon the charity of strangers. He knew that it was a morbid subject to contemplate but the weight of command lay heavy upon him after the battles of the previous day. Although he thought that he had acquitted himself well — the praise, albeit double-edged, from the far more experienced Geta had confirmed that — he was well aware of just what a close-run thing the securing of the bridgehead had been. The margin between victory and defeat had been fine, to say the least, and the thought of failure in front of the whole army had gnawed at him ever since his public dressing-down by Aulus Plautius for his neglecting to advance quickly enough to Cantiacum. Even though it had not had disastrous consequences it had been a salutary lesson to him and he now knew that a cautious general could be as much of a liability to the army as a rash one. Sometimes it was essential to make a decision without knowing all the facts; therefore the key to a successful decision was sound judgement. But that could only be gained by experience; and experience was something he was lacking.
As the other five cohorts, recently woken from their brief sleep, marched smartly back into position in the second line, he looked at the centurions’ weathered and hardened faces. He could see that each one had far more experience than he with his four years’ service as a military tribune and two years, so far, as a legate; and yet he was their superior by chance of birth. What did they think of him for his delay at Cantiacum? Did they trust him with their lives now after yesterday’s action when his timely reinforcement of the left flank narrowly saved the legion from being surrounded; or did they consider him to be another inexperienced commander placed over them because that was how the system worked and they were forced to make the legion function in spite of him? He did not know and he could not ask anyone. He smiled ruefully and reflected that this was the lot of a commander: loneliness. There was no one with whom he could share his thoughts and doubts, not even Magnus, because doing so would make him appear weak, and that was a quality that was universally despised in every soldier from the newest recruit to the most seasoned general.