‘General?’
He turned to see Varus looking twitchy and tense. ‘Yes?’
‘I want permission to make a break out from one of the cavalry forts, sir. If I can get round behind them, I can perhaps take the pressure off the ramparts?’
‘Pointless,’ rumbled Antonius, appearing as if from nowhere, swigging from his ubiquitous wine flask and wiping a mix of it and half a pint of arterial spray from his lower face.
‘What?’
‘The cavalry are only the distraction down here. Their infantry are doing all the real damage to the ramparts and if you sally, their cavalry will engage you while their foot continue to rip us apart. You’ll just be throwing away your horse.’
Varus sighed. ‘We have to do something. I have thousands of good men sitting idle.’
Caesar nodded. ‘Their time will come, Varus. And soon, I think. In an hour or so, if things have not eased, I will have to do something drastic to turn the tide, and if that becomes a necessity I will have need of your cavalry. Have them continue to rest and prepare, but have them all filter slowly to the northern end of the defences, towards Mons Rea. Slowly and carefully, mark you. I don’t want the enemy to realise you’ve redeployed the entire horse.’
Varus frowned but nodded.
‘What is the news?’ the general enquired of Antonius as he took another handful of water and rubbed it across his tired face.
‘Brutus is making his way up to Mons Rea with another six cohorts. You know even then we won’t hold there, yes?’
Caesar nodded wearily and stretched, keeping his voice low. ‘I’m having the best part of a legion form up from Labienus’ forces. We’ve almost emptied the eastern arc of our circumvallation now. We can only hope that the entire oppidum has committed, for if they have kept a reserve and discover that we have withdrawn almost all our force to this section, this day could be over very quickly.’
‘But the same holds true of Mons Rea and the plains.’
Caesar nodded. ‘We will continue to feed whatever reserves we can pull together into the Mons Rea camp and hope they can hold while we maintain these ramparts on the plains. We cannot afford a night-time battle, though, Antonius. Our men are spent. If we cannot finish this in the next hour or two, I will have to try something. I’ve already given Labienus the authority to sally if the walls fail.’
‘Let’s hope he doesn’t have to try.’
‘Yes. Cast up your prayers to Mars and Minerva that young Brutus can plug that hole with six more cohorts.’
* * * * *
Brutus gestured to the cornicen he had chosen as chief signaller for the six cohorts. ‘First and Sixth cohort to the east gate. Looks like Fronto’s in deep trouble.’ The signaller nodded and pursed his lips to sound the melody that would send the two freshest and strongest cohorts to support the troubled east wall as Brutus went on. ‘Then sound for the other four to spread out and filter into the northern defences by century. As soon as they’re on the rampart, they are to pay attention to the musicians and signifers already there. They are much more aware of the situation than we.’
Leaving the cornicen to his work, Brutus hurried on ahead of the quick-marching cohorts, running through the centre of the camp, where the only men to be seen were a few supply troops lugging bundles and bags of equipment to some position or other, the critically wounded staring at the stumps of limbs and small makeshift hospitals where occasional medici and, more often, over-stretched capsarii worked tirelessly to save lives and limbs and to close wounds, far too busy to spend time with pain-killers or drugs. Screaming filled the void at the camp’s centre.
Finally, he arrived at the northern defences and he felt his heart catch in his throat.
He had known that the north end of the Mons Rea camp was in trouble — that was no secret anywhere among the circumvallation, for the mass of attacking Gauls swamping it was visible even down on the plain. But the extent of the danger was simply staggering up close. Even as he stumbled to a halt and stared, Caninius, legate of the Twelfth whose camp this was, lurched to a weary halt next to him, hands on his knees and breathing heavily. Brutus looked across at the man. Caninius was a good enough commander, but old-school. He remained at his command post and directed things through tribunes, relying on his centurions to carry out the battle at ground level. And yet the legate was liberally spattered with blood and muddy to the knees, his sword bloodied in his hand and a bandage tightly bound round his upper left arm blossoming pink to show the severity of the wound beneath. For Caninius to be in such a state, things were truly dire.
But then he could see that clearly for himself.
‘What happened to the towers?’
Caninius straightened. ‘You mean why are they empty? Expediency, Brutus. Can’t keep them manned.’
‘But the siege engines…’
‘Were costing us too many men to maintain. The enemy archers just riddle the towers with arrows any time a body appears up there. Didn’t take them long to empty every damn one. And the towers are open structures.’
Brutus peered at them. Each tower stood on four stout legs with a ladder between them reaching to the top platform. He could see the problem instantly from the piles of Roman dead beneath each one. Every man who’d set foot on the ladders had died before reaching the engines. In the end, Caninius had abandoned the artillery in favour of preserving his men. Not a foolish decision, in retrospect.
‘I’ve got four more cohorts coming to support you,’ Brutus said in what he hoped were encouraging tones.
‘Lambs to the slaughter,’ Caninius replied bleakly. ‘Labienus’ five cohorts are already so diminished you can’t tell they ever arrived! The man himself is up on the walls taking his sword and pugio to the enemy. I will be again, when I’ve taken a sip of water.’
It was true. As Brutus looked along the wall, the defenders were all too thin on the ground. It did not look like a position that had been reinforced with two thousand men only half an hour ago.
‘Then let’s not dally and disappoint, Caninius. Take your sip and meet me back on the walls. Time to wet my blade and see how many I can send to their gods before more reinforcements turn up to take all the glory.’
The four cohorts he had brought were here now, filtering into centuries and making for positions on the wall wherever they could. With a roll of his shoulders, Brutus drew his gladius and pugio and ran towards the wall, sending up prayers as he went, nodding to the strangely skeletal, grinning auxiliary who was also moving into position at the rampart.
* * * * *
Fronto turned and shouted to the men behind him. ‘Get that wagon bed over here now!’
The contubernium of legionaries from the Fourteenth who’d so recently arrived courtesy of Brutus struggled with the huge oaken platform, shorn of its axles and wheels and shaft, dragging it towards the barrier and leaving a muddy trench in the turf with its passage. As it closed on the barricade, half a dozen legionaries jabbed at the two-foot hole the enemy had hacked in the upturned cart there, repeatedly stabbing into the gap with their pila, spearing any of the attacking Gauls who dared attempt to widen it any further. Despite their success rate, as attested by the endless screaming and the lake of blood forming around the ruined cart, the enemy were still succeeding, the hole increasing every heartbeat with an axe or sword blow or even the grasping of frenzied, bloodied fingers.
The redoubt was holding better than Fronto could ever have hoped, given the pressure it was under. Yet it still remained in peril every single moment of the long afternoon, and one hiccup would be all it took to lose it all. And if the gate fell then the camp fell, and with it the entire Roman defensive system.
No pressure, then.
Fronto watched the men move the heavy oak bed into place and begin to drag across the adzed logs that had originally been meant for a stockade, piling them behind it to strengthen the newly-repaired barricade. With a sigh of relief, he climbed up to the top and ducked the expected scything blow, stabbing out instinctively with his crimson-slick gladius and half-decapitating the unarmoured Gaul.