‘You’re probably right. Let’s go get a drink.’
Behind the two officers as they turned to leave, a hundred Menapii were herded off the causeway and roped up for transport.
* * * * *
Lucius Fabius, Tribune of the Tenth Legion, turned to his long-time compatriot, Tullus Furius, and sighed as they watched the legates of both the Tenth and Eighth giving the orders for the disposition of the men.
‘Every time someone shouts ‘Fabius’, I look around. It’s starting to piss me off. I’ll be glad when the Eighth depart.’
Furius grinned. Lucius Fabius: Tribune and son of a grizzled centurion who’d died in the siege of Aesernia and a whore from that same city who’d passed of the flux a few years later. Lucius Fabius: dyed-in-the-wool soldier and rough countryman. And not ten paces from him stood Gaius Fabius Pictor, descendant of one of Rome’s most illustrious lines, former magistrate, patron of many and commander of a legion. The two could hardly be less alike if they tried, and yet any time either of their names were called, they both turned and then shared a despairing glance. It was infuriating for them, for certain, but it gave Furius plenty of laugh-fodder. No one, of course, called the legate ‘Pictor’ — ‘the painter’ hardly did his nobility justice, no matter the name’s illustrious origins.
‘You only half look around,’ Furius grinned, gesturing at the external, painted-clay false eye than never moved or blinked on Fabius’ face. ‘Anyway, perhaps we need to assign you a cognomen? Something truly individual? How about ‘Porculus’?’
He ducked the slap just before it struck, Fabius’ enraged face suddenly distracted as his namesake gave the last command and the standards began to dip and wave, the musicians honking their calls for the men to move. The eagles of the two legions stuttered into life and then bounced along at the front, a few paces from where the two tribunes stood. Crassus had tried to persuade them that the place for tribunes was at the rear with the rest of the command. Such was probably sensible for those tribunes who were still barely in the toga virilis and whose voice had only just broken. For veterans in the most unlikely of roles, Fabius and Furius knew their place was in the thick of it, near the front. Fronto would have been there with them, though the young Crassus was more cautious in his role. Furius laughed at himself. Before associating with Fronto he would have thought such a thing the right and proper way for a legate to conduct himself.
In deference to Carbo’s wishes, they had settled to one side of the column, close to the first century but not quite at the front. The Primus Pilus had his system, and they did not quite figure in it. And despite the senior centurion’s smiling, pink, boyish face, he was a man with an iron will and brooked no argument, even from his supposed superiors, when it came to his command.
As the two legions moved off in columns eight men wide, the Tenth on the left and the Eighth on the right, the two legates, most of their tribunes and the musicians and various hangers-on remained motionless, letting the army progress before falling into position some way back along the line, away from the ‘business end’.
Even over the squelching of thousands of boots and the jingle and rustle of armour and equipment, the pair could just hear all the crashes, thumps, splashes and cursing of the engineers who had tried to transport a ballista and an onager across the causeway and had ended up sinking into the mire near the island-end, damaging the walkway in the process. A tremendous splosh announced the demise of one of the war engines as it disappeared into the swampy fens that formed part of the great Rhenus delta.
Still, two thirds of the two legions had made it across before the pig-headed engineers had blocked the route, and four scorpion bolt throwers had reached the large island.
It would have been nice to be able to name the island. Furius felt curiously lost and disconnected in a place where they didn’t even have the names of most of the settlements, let alone the natural features.
Two weeks into the campaign against the Menapii, captured and enslaved warriors had revealed under ‘coercion’ the location of a particularly large island in one of the most unpleasant swampy areas, where the leaders and the most senior druids had taken shelter. Upon learning of this, Caesar had shifted the focus of his campaign to that area of swamp, ignoring the endless small hideaways and preparing to strike at the heart of the tribe. It had taken four days to build the enormous causeway out across the sucking bogs and squelching fens to the long, low, ship-like island.
The legions had then mustered on the open ground at the causeway’s end. It had seemed odd that no missiles had been cast at them while they built, but the plumes of smoke rising from the forested island centre confirmed that the place was home to a sizeable population, and carefully-placed lookouts and patrols from the First legion kept an eye out for any attempts to flee the island by boat, which had not occurred.
The first scouts sent into the island centre woodlands had not returned, and so second forays had been ordered with heavier-armoured scouts in larger parties. They had also come under attack, but had confirmed that the island’s population were protected by a strange hedge-and-palisade arrangement that would be difficult to assault in force, especially within the trees.
Caesar was in no way deterred, of course. His other two legions were recuperating from the business of constructing the causeway, leaving the Eighth and Tenth to make the main assault. ‘Should be more than enough,’ was the common opinion, shared by both tribunes.
The men squished through the wet grass and silty earth towards the defences within the woods.
‘Feels good to be launching a proper attack again, eh?’
Fabius sucked in moist, fetid air and nodded. ‘Make the most of it, though. I overheard the legates this morning. They reckon Caesar’s thinking of heading south to flatten the Treveri after the Menapii cave in.’
‘So we get to fight endless little actions south of the great forest, then?’
‘Sounds like it.’
‘Then we’d best kick the shit out of this lot quickly, eh?’
A squawk announced the first casualty. As the legions approached the trees an arrow whipped out of the foliage and struck a standard bearer from the Eighth, who fell, clutching his neck, a legionary behind leaping forward and grasping the standard from his falling hand, discarding his own blade in favour of the honour of the legion.
‘That came from the branches,’ Furius said sharply, then turned and raised his voice, bellowing ‘they’re in the trees! Testudo! Testudo!’
Carbo had apparently spotted the same thing, and the front ranks of the Tenth were forming into an armoured box of shields even as the tribune spoke. As the legions reformed for their better protection, more and more arrows and stones whipped and thrummed out of the green canopy and into the advancing army. Here and there a legionary who was too slow to react fell, an arrow jutting from his leg, his arm, or his torso. The sheer number of missiles was staggering, given their source. They must have been putting half the population up in those branches all the time they watched the legions crossing. That, of course, was why they had not been struck on the causeway.
It was horribly effective against a column of men.
Against a testudo of interlocked shields it was about as effective as a hail of beans. The Menapii had never had to field an army against Rome. They had supplied men to various revolts and attacks, but had responded to Roman incursions by simply retreating into their impregnable swamps. And now those swamps were no longer impregnable, and the unprepared Menapii had no idea what to do about it. They had responded with the best, most innovative method of defence they could manage. It would have served them well against a disorganised horde of other Belgae, but they had committed their bulk to the first attack, which had been quickly negated by the shield configuration.