At last, Lucius’s century was chosen to confront the stalwart defenders. Lucius was just forming his men for the attack when an ornate galley pulled up to the shore, and the well-dressed soldiers beat an orderly retreat to the waiting vessel. They did so smartly, under the cover of their shields, not losing a single man, the dark-eyed officer the last to step aboard. Lucius and his men pursued, but were driven under cover by a dozen archers perched on the ship’s stern deck.
From the deck of the galley, the dark-eyed officer made eye contact with Lucius who was conspicuous in his cross-plumed helmet. The officer’s thin lips smiled in derision, his hand thumbing a mocking salute much to the amusement of the ship’s archers, before the officer turned away and ordered the vessel to pull for the harbor.
Lucius was normally calm and collected in battle, but the long morning of constant instruction to his ill-disciplined troops, over things he would never have had to even voice had he been with his old Tenth Legion, had put him in a mood. And now this insult from the Alexandrian suddenly turned his mood into a rage. Breaking from cover, he snatched up a javelin and sprinted out to the shallows as the vessel’s oars began to rise and fall. The archers saw him and took aim, but then lowered their bows when the dark-eyed officer said something to them. Presumably, he had ordered them not to shoot, though Lucius could not imagine why. Deprived of their kill, the archers instead resorted to ridicule, making obscene gestures and lifting their tunics to expose their genitals in the direction of the single Roman centurion with the javelin, who was now well out of range.
But the archers did not know who they were dealing with.
Lucius never took his eyes off the galley as he reached for the coil of leather strap that hung loosely from his belt.
One of the archers standing at the galley’s bulwark would have done better not to have laughed when he saw the single Roman in the shallows throw the javelin. The missile looked feeble in the distance as it arched up into the sky and floated in the air for what seemed like ages. The unfortunate man realized too late that it had the distance, that it drew closer by twenty paces every heartbeat, and that the six-foot-long weapon was coming directly at him. At the moment the archer sensed he was in danger, the missile descended like a lightning bolt, its momentum violently driving it through his exposed abdomen, catching him in mid-laugh with tunic raised. The archer’s face registered the shock of what had just happen as his blood poured out onto the deck. The other archers stopped laughing as they watched their comrade crumple to his knees and then fall over the side, the javelin still firmly lodged in his body when both splashed into the harbor.
The dark-eyed officer appeared again at the stern of the retreating galley, the disdainful expression now gone as he stared back at Lucius in utter awe and confusion. And he remained that way as the vessel drew farther and farther away. As far as Lucius could tell, the Alexandrian officer never once stopped staring at him as the galley rowed back across to the south side of the harbor and was eventually lost from view among the myriad of Alexandrian ships moored there.
“That was incredible, Centurion!” A voice said behind him. “I have never seen the like!
Lucius turned to see his signifer along with most of the men from the century all nodding in wide-eyed agreement.
“How did you manage that?” the signifer asked in wonderment.
“While you were all wallowing in Italy with Pompey, pretending to be soldiers, I was with Caesar in Gaul and Germania.” He shot the signifer a scathing look as he rewound the leather strap and returned it to his belt.
“An amentum!” the signifer said, suddenly identifying the strap. “You must teach me someday, Centurion.”
“There are things learned in those lands that cannot be taught elsewhere. They must be experienced. They must be lived.”
The signifer nodded, accepting the answer, his face showing obedient disappointment. Lucius certainly could have taught him how to use the leather strap that had propelled the javelin four times farther than a man could throw it – a skill he had learned from a Gallic skirmisher – but he had no desire to.
Lucius studied the men of his century as they picked over the Alexandrian dead. They had fought fairly well, he supposed, after much goading. But the simple villagers garrisoning the island were not frontline quality, and they had been beaten easily. He wondered how his men might have fared had the Alexandrian officer and his guard made a stand on the beach. That would be the real test of their mettle, when they came up against the Alexandrian regulars, many of whom were themselves former Roman legionaries. The old veterans had retired and settled in Egypt, after subjugating the east under Pompey, more than a decade ago. Now, in a strange twist of fate, they had come out of retirement to defend their new home from soldiers trained by their old general.
The fools, Lucius thought. What idiot would come out of retirement to get a spear in the belly from his own countrymen? The bastards deserved to die.
Two days later, Lucius and the rest of the officers were summoned to Caesar. The general stood on a large rock as he addressed them, a bare-headed figure wrapped in a scarlet cloak that whipped in the stiff breeze. The white-capped waters of the eastern harbor and the outstretched mole lay behind him.
“Friends,” Caesar shouted over the wind, “You have taken Pharos, as I knew you would. Now that we have command of this island, the enemy cannot send their ships beneath this bridge.” He gestured to the bridge over the northern gap in the mole.
Indeed, no Alexandrian ships had attempted it all morning, lest they fall victim to the mass of flaming missiles that would surely come from the Romans controlling the land nearby. Caesar then directed them to look across the harbor, where the long land bridge joined the mainland.
“But our task is not yet finished. As you can see, the enemy still controls the bridge at the other end of the mole.”
Lucius could see the southern bridge far down the causeway, and beyond it, on the shore of the mainland, sat a small fortress commanding the approaches to the bridge.
“As long as the enemy controls that bridge,” Caesar continued. “Our fleet will be in jeopardy. We must finish the job, friends! We must take control of the bridge. Once it is in our hands, the enemy won’t be able to use the water passage beneath it, and we will control both harbors. The fortress beside the mole is the key. At dawn tomorrow, three cohorts will land simultaneously at the southern end of the mole and advance up the beach to take the fort. Three more cohorts will remain in reserve aboard ship, but I do not expect that they should be needed. There are only a few hundred of the enemy entrenched around the fort, no doubt troops of the same quality we encountered when we took this island. I expect the fort to be in our possession within an hour of the landing.” Caesar then paused and his face drew stern. “I want it understood by every one of you, that the fort’s machines are to remain intact. Any man who sets fire to a thrower or damages one in any way will be crucified on the wall. Is that understood? Once we have control of the fort’s engines, the enemy fleet will have to withdraw or risk being put to the flame. Once the fort is in our possession, the engineers will land and set to work filling in the gap beneath the southern bridge. The reserves are not to attack unless I expressly give them direction to do so. They are to remain aboard ship and out of range until called for. Is that clear to all of you?”