‘That would’ve been a very unwise move.’
‘Yes, it would’ve been, and I’m pleased that you can see that.’
‘Brace yourselves, my lovelies,’ Primus Pilus Tatius roared. ‘This won’t hurt — too much.’
The double-strength century slammed their shields down on the deck and crouched behind them; sailors ran forward to man the two corvi. The hollow thwacking of slingshot thumping into the hull from the beach, just over a hundred paces away, started in earnest. The now familiar sight of massed, clay-daubed tribesmen bellowing their defiance and brandishing their weapons to the blaring of carnyxes sent a shiver of fear down Vespasian’s spine; he felt his left hand go clammy as it grasped his shield grip. He offered a silent prayer to his guardian god to spare him this day from falling in a battle that was unnecessary in the short-term but whose long-term political implications he now fully understood.
The hiss of a speeding lead shot passed close to Vespasian’s head and he too knelt down behind his shield. ‘You’d best get below, Verica.’
The King nodded and walked away towards the stern, erect and seemingly oblivious to the stones and lead that now flew all around. Vespasian glanced to either side; the forty ships of his invasion fleet were all in a line, with no more than five-pace gaps between their oars, and would hit the beach simultaneously; behind them on the right flank were six ships in reserve, carrying Paetus’ cavalry.
At a shouted order from the trierarchus the oars were brought rasping in and Vespasian knew that they would hit the beach in a matter of moments. With a sharp cry of pain one of the sailors stumbled back and collapsed at the foot of a corvus, clutching a shattered arm. A roar from the trierarchus sent two more men forward to take his place. Only one man made it to the bow; his mate lay on the deck with blood seeping from his mouth, his forehead shattered by the direct hit of a high-velocity missile.
The hail of shot intensified, ricocheting off shields, the rail and the mast with sharp staccato cracks. Hunched tight behind their leather-clad wooden guards the men of the first cohort grimaced, gritting their teeth as the unrelenting salvo clattered about them and spent shots rolled up and down the heaving deck. Vespasian’s ears sang with the report as his shield jolted back and a rounded stone, half the size of a fist, rebounded off and slammed into the shin of a kneeling legionary, cracking the bone and puckering the flesh. The man screamed and clasped his right hand to the wound but kept his shield up knowing, even in his agony, that to lower it would mean death.
The shots trailed off as the ships neared the beach, making the angle impossible for the slingers but bringing them into the range of hand-hurled weapons; javelins and spears rained down and the legionaries raised their shields into an interconnecting roof, but not before two soldiers fell, pierced and bleeding, to the deck.
With the grating rasp of wood on shingle the trireme ground up the beach, decelerating violently. The impact sent many of the legionaries sprawling forward, dismantling the protective roof with catastrophic consequences. Almost a dozen failed to obey Tatius’ screamed order to stand and move forward as the two corvi arced down, with a rattle of pulleys and a squeal of hinges, onto the shingle, crushing one warrior who was unable, owing to the press of comrades behind, to move out of the way. As the legionaries ran forward to the ramps the javelin barrage was supplemented by renewed efforts from the slingers, who once again had a direct line of sight. Vespasian raised his shield, deflecting a heavy spear, and, drawing his sword, barged his way into the third rank as they began their descent down the right-hand ramp with a volley of pila. With shot pounding in from the front and sharp iron hissing down from above, the first cohort surged down the vibrating wooden planking, front ranks with their shields forward and the rest raising theirs once they had loosed their pila, knowing that the sooner they closed with the enemy the sooner the heavy hail of missiles would lessen as close contact made their usage nigh on impossible.
Down they coursed into the warriors clustered nine or ten deep at the base of each ramp.
‘With me!’ Vespasian shouted over his shoulder to the men in the fourth and fifth ranks as the lead legionaries exploded onto the first of the Britons. He jumped off the side of the corvus, taking the men behind him with him, and hurled himself onto the warriors below, punching his shield down as he landed, knocking the sword from a snarling, naked man’s hand and following through with his shield boss to split open his face and send him crashing to the shingle. Vespasian landed with a heavy jolt on top of the unconscious warrior and rolled to one side, bringing his shield up over his face as the wicked point of a spear thrust down at him. With an arm-juddering impact, the iron tip embedded itself in the solid wood as a couple of the legionaries who had followed him regained their feet. Vespasian felt the pressure on his shield ease and smelt fresh faeces, suddenly, next to his head. He kicked his shield up and twisted around, getting to his knees as the spear-wielding Briton fell forward, shrieking, his belly slashed open, spewing forth its reeking contents. With no time to acknowledge the man’s killer and straining with the added weight, Vespasian forced himself to his feet; he slammed his spearencumbered shield forward, catching the shaft of the weapon on the shoulder of the next warrior as he endeavoured to close the gap. The impact dislodged the spear; it fell at the warrior’s feet, entangling them, and he stumbled, pitching forward onto Vespasian’s sword-weighted fist. Then, with a dull crunch of a shattered jaw and teeth, he slumped back. Vespasian moved forward, giving a lightning jab at the throat of the downed tribesman before joining the comrade who had probably saved his life in close combat sword work as more and more legionaries crashed down onto the beach behind them, forcing the Roman line ever wider. Then came what he had been waiting for: a fletched shaft suddenly materialised in the forehead of a warrior in front of him; the Hamians were now shooting into the enemy’s ranks, sowing terror amongst them and causing the less steady to back off, relieving some of the pressure on Roman shields.
Although he could not see further than the little bubble of death and violence that encompassed him, Vespasian prayed as he worked his blade that the same scene was being played out in front of each of his vessels: if the Hamians were now shooting from the bow that meant all the legionaries were off the ship.
Feeling the weight behind him steadily increase, he disengaged and ducked down to one side allowing the next man to take his place. Pushing his way back, he made his way to the corvus and clambered back up to the deck. Looking up and down along the beach he saw that most of the ships had disgorged their martial cargo and in a few places centuries from neighbouring vessels had linked up, forming the beginnings of one long front. All the Britons were engaged in clumps around the beached ships; now was the time to seize the initiative.
‘Raise the signal flag,’ Vespasian called to the trierarchus.
After a brief scurrying of bare-footed sailors, a large, square black flag was hoisted up the mainmast. Within a few moments the reserve ships responded and set a course to land on the extreme right flank. Praying that Paetus would be able to land his cavalry quickly and unhindered, Vespasian barged his way between two Hamians at the bow and returned his attention to the fighting in front of his ship. The first century had pushed the Britons back a few paces, thanks to the earlier archer support. However, to counter this, the Britons had withdrawn slingers behind their line and they had now entered into a missile duel with the Hamians, two of whom were already sprawled on the deck. Deprived of the limited but crucial archer support the first century was now struggling to make any headway in linking up with the second century on their left and the sixth century to their right; fighting in isolation they ran the serious risk of being swamped.