‘They’re going to get a soaking,’ Cato remarked.
Children chased each other up and down the gentle slope or sat and made daisy chains. It was little different to the crowds that went to see the gladiator games, Cato mused. Only on a vastly different scale. There was one other crucial difference. If the battle went against the Romans, the spectators would be put to the sword alongside the legionaries. He looked at the children again. Many of them would be the offspring of soldiers and he wondered how many would end the day as orphans.
The crack of the catapults drew Cato’s attention back to the river and he watched as the shot flew up in an angled trajectory before seeming to hang motionless for an instant, then plunging down on to the enemy’s defences. It was hard to gauge the impact on the native warriors as they had all gone to ground the moment the Roman artillery went into action. Before that they had lined their defences shouting insults at the legions, waving fists, brandishing weapons, and a handful even baring their buttocks in a crude display of defiance. As soon as the first bolts shot across the river they dived down and the steep slope which had been alive with cavorting warriors suddenly seemed quite lifeless and still. Those behind the second line of defences soon realised they were out of range and safe for the moment and slowly reappeared and gazed down on the scene below. The iron heads of the bolts clattered against the rocks in the barricades and buried themselves in the soil of the hillside. Most of the rocks thrown by the catapults seemed to do just as little damage as they thudded to the ground. A few landed close behind the barricades where the enemy were taking shelter and Cato could well imagine the carnage that would result: skulls and bodies crushed into a bloody pulp by the impact.
However, the main purpose of the barrage was not to batter the enemy defences; a siege train would be required for that. Rather, it was intended to force the warriors to keep their heads down while the legions crossed the river and climbed towards the barricade. Only as they approached the first line of defences would the barrage cease, then a deadly hand-to-hand engagement would follow. Cato raised his gaze and saw the standard of Caratacus flying above the second line of defences and there, standing on a boulder, hands on hips, was a tall warrior with fair hair and beard flowing from beneath his gleaming helmet. Cato pointed him out.
‘Shame we haven’t got the range. One lucky shot and it’d all be over.’
‘You think?’ Macro said doubtfully. ‘Most of the barbarians on this island seem to hate our guts. One more or less isn’t going to make a difference.’
‘That particular Briton is the man who has been fighting us for the best part of a decade. He’s inspired tens of thousands to follow him, even though we have defeated him time and again and driven him back into these mountains. Even here, he has talked the Silurians and Ordovicians into becoming allies under his leadership. If there had been no Caratacus then our problems here would have been over long ago.’
Macro glanced at Cato. ‘There was a time you admired him.’
‘I used to. That was before he came between me and my wife, and the child she is carrying. Now, all I want is for this to be over so I can return to Rome. To the first home of my own.’
‘You’d miss the army. And you’d make a lousy civilian.’
‘You once said I’d never make a decent soldier.’
‘I did?’
Cato nodded.
‘Hmmm.’ Macro raised his eyebrows. ‘Seems I can be wrong about some things.’
A shrill note sounded and the signal was taken up by the horns of the Twentieth Legion. Cato and Macro unconsciously leaned forward slightly as the gleaming helmets and armour of the leading ranks rippled forward, marching towards the fast-racing waters of the ford. The eagle standard and the staff bearing the image of the Emperor advanced side by side above the tips of the javelins. It was a stirring sight, as Cato always found, but he could not put aside his growing sense of anxiety over the wisdom of a frontal attack.
A light pinging noise distracted him, and the breeze suddenly strengthened. He glanced up and blinked as the first drops of rain struck his face and glanced off his helmet and armour. The clouds that had come up from the east now hung over the hill and edged towards the Roman camp, blotting out the sun. A vast shadow crept over the ground before the camp and then engulfed Cato and Macro on the gate tower as the rain started to fall in earnest.
‘It’s a wonder this bloody island manages to stay afloat,’ said Macro as he pulled his cloak about his shoulders.
Cato made no comment as he watched the first wave of legionaries wade out into the river. The pace of the advance slowed to a crawl as the heavily armoured soldiers lifted their shields clear of the water and began to struggle to keep their footing. On the far bank Cato could see the faces of the enemy peering over the barricade as they watched the progress of the Romans. All the while the artillery continued hurling their missiles across the river, pinning the warriors down. The surface of the river was churned into white spray as the legionaries edged towards the far bank. At length, they reached the line of sharpened stakes and slowed down still further as they started to thread their way through the obstacles.
It was then that Caratacus sprang his first trap. The deep blast of a Celtic war horn echoed from the slopes of the hill and figures sprang up from the grass along the bank of the river. At first they seemed poorly armed, half naked with no helmets, shields or spears. Then Cato saw one of them raise his hand and twist it rapidly above his head.
‘Slingers.’
The range was no more that thirty paces and the targets floundering amid the stakes would be impossible to miss. The first shots struck home with a sharp rattle that could be heard even from the gate tower of the camp and Cato and Macro saw the first men go down, crashing into the shallows. Those who had been knocked senseless disappeared beneath the surface of the water, dragged down by the weight of their armour, and creating a fresh obstacle for their comrades. The men of the Twentieth raised their shields to protect themselves and struggled on into the hail of stone and lead shot hurled in their faces.
‘A nasty surprise, that,’ Macro commented. ‘But it won’t hold the lads back for long.’
‘No, but it will shake them. First round to Caratacus, I think.’
As the first legionaries struggled out of the water on to the bank, the slingers began to back off, keeping a safe distance as they continued to pelt their foes. One of the Romans, enraged, surged forward, clambering up the slope a short distance before his centurion bellowed at him and waved him back. But it was too late. His shield could only offer protection to the front and at once he was caught from the sides, the first shot smashing his knee so that he stumbled and fell. Unable to get up, he was struck again and fell, senseless, into the grass.
Macro hissed, ‘Stupid, bloody fool.’
The centurions and optios steadily formed men into their units as they emerged from the stake-strewn shallows and as soon as the three leading cohorts were in line, they began to advance up the slope. The slingers retreated before them, keeping their distance. All at once Cato saw one of them fly backwards a short distance, pinned to the ground by a wooden shaft.
‘They’ve been forced back into the artillery’s killing zone.’
‘Good!’ Macro thumped his right hand into the palm of the other. ‘Let’s see how the bastards like a taste of their own medicine!’
More of the slingers were struck down, some by the catapult shot falling short of the first line of barricades. It was if they had been smashed into the ground by an invisible giant fist, Cato thought; like the wrath of Jupiter, best and greatest.