“I would say so, yes. How far would you say that is?”
“About a mile I’d say, sir.”
Sabinus’ smile widened.
“About a mile. Up a gradually steepening hill. And running.”
Galba nodded.
“And apparently carrying piles of kindling.”
“That’ll be the bulk to help fill in the ditches so they can get to us quicker. Sensible idea under most circumstances, but I’m not sure that if I were their leader I would have sent them running up a steep slope carrying them.”
The legate sighed.
“I wish you’d let me use the fire arrows and set fire to them while they’re running. It’d scare the hell out of them.”
“No. They must think we’re leaving and not prepared for this. You warn them while they’re still a mile off and we’ll lose the small chance we have. Besides, we only have a few archers and precious little ammunition, so we can’t waste it. Stick to the plan.”
They returned to looking down the long slope, soldiers and officers of three legions stretched out along the ramparts to either side of them, mostly crouched out of sight, the occasional man standing at the wall, giving the impression of a badly defended palisade. The Unelli would expect the bulk of the Roman force to be at the rear gates, preparing to march.
The Gaulish force, enormous and chaotic, came on at a surprising speed, given the gradient of the approach. The front runners among them carried huge bundles of faggots and wood, those behind ready with their swords and spears, and all ran swift as the wind, desperate to overcome these invading foreigners before they had the chance to join with an even larger army.
The Romans stood silent behind their wall, watching.
“Now?”
“I think so. For the sake of realism.”
Galba turned and shouted along the wall.
“Raise the alarm!”
Buccinas blared and, in a carefully organised manoeuvre, other soldiers appeared at the wall, standing from where they crouched, creating the illusion that the warning of attack had gone up and men were being rushed to a hurried defence.
“I hope this works” Galba grumbled darkly. “One hopeless last stand in defence of a fort is enough in a single year.”
Sabinus nodded.
“It’ll work. So long as the timing’s right.”
Silently they continued to watch, faked commotion all around them, and the confederation of northern tribes, along with their allied refugees, bandits and vagabonds ran ever upwards, bellowing their defiance, their anger and their determination to rid Armorica of the Roman presence. Sabinus’ gaze strayed to the ground before them and he noted carefully the location of the marker. All along the hillside, these markers stood in a line, crimson against the green; small enough to be unnoticed by the attacking mass and just large enough for the men of the legions to locate when concentrating.
Fixing his eyes on the red mark, he nodded with relief as the front ranks of Gauls raced past it, hurrying up the hill. He risked a quick glance up to the faces of the approaching warriors and was gratified to see the heaving, laboured breaths the enemy were now taking as they approached the Roman position, their faces red and sweating with exertion.
For a moment he worried that he had lost the marked position as his eyes wandered back and forth, but it took only a moment to pick it up from the terrain, without being able to see the crimson mark beneath the stomping boots of the Celts. Almost ready… the Gauls were perhaps two hundred yards from the outer ditch.
He watched, tense, as the Gaulish throng passed over the spot he had kept in mind and, finally, squinting, he saw the bright red mark emerge once again between the heads of the charging Gauls, at the back of the mob.
Turning to Galba, he noted relief in the face of the legate.
“First stage: fire!”
At the shout, a dozen archers, part of the small complement of auxiliaries accompanying them, rose above the parapet, the tips of their arrows already flaming, aimed and released in a smooth action before retreating below the palisade once more.
The fiery missiles arced out over the heads of the Gallic army, now so exhausted and obsessed that they hardly paid any heed to the act until the arrows came down behind them, several striking the hillside along the line of crimson markers and only a few going astray.
The swathe of ground where they struck, amid the deep, dry grass, held small pockets of pitch that had been carefully distributed the previous night, small enough to go unnoticed by the Gallic army as they ran past and across them, some inevitably coating the bottom of running boots, but most remaining in place.
In several locations across the slope, pockets of pitch caught, the fire spreading into the dry grass, quickly igniting the next and, within moments, a curtain of flame extended across the hill behind the Gauls, effectively sealing off their retreat.
Largely due to the sheer size of the attacking army and its lack of organisation, most of the enemy failed even to notice the move, the few at the back who did going unheard by the rest. A veritable sea of bodies rushed up toward the ramparts and their encircling ditches. Sabinus watched, his breath held, as the front lines cast their burdens of sticks and brush into the ditches.
“Second stage!”
In a fluid move, a dozen legionaries along the length of the wall reached out and grasped the burning torches that had been used to ignite the arrows and climbed up to the parapet. As they emerged above, the huge Gallic army was already pouring across the filled ditches. Each legionary took careful aim, identifying a spot where a gap opened up and casting their torches almost in unison.
The flaming missiles dropped among the Gauls who were too consumed by a combination of exhaustion and desperate blood lust to pay too much attention to a small number of falling weapons. The flaming torches landed among the dry brush infill beneath their feet and it took only moments for the fire to catch, wood and dried undergrowth spitting into orange life and spreading the fire rapidly. Within moments a swathe in the midst of the huge army was consumed by the roaring inferno, a small number of men trapped between the burning ditches and the rampart.
“Third and Fourth stage! Sally!”
At the command, the crouched legionaries rose up along the wall and began to cast their first pilum down into the ranks of yelling Gauls. In places along the ramparts, pockets of the less exhausted enemy managed to reach the palisade, climbing the slope and thrusting upward with spears or delivering heavy, scything overhead blows with their swords.
The number of men who had reached the wall in any state to commit to action was small, however, and the legionary defenders had little trouble holding them back, pushing them away from the palisade and stabbing at them with their second pila where they could. The massive bulk of the enemy were still contained between the ditches that now roared with deadly fire, and the wall of burning pitch and grass behind them, the narrow causeway across the ditches that led to the north gate filled with howling Gauls trying to reach the Roman palisade without falling into the raging inferno to either side.
Sabinus offered up thanks to the Gods once again that the rain had held off for so many days. What they would have done if this morning had brought a downpour, he couldn’t imagine, but things would likely be looking a great deal bleaker.
The flanks of the Gaulish force were already attempting to separate from the trapped mass, moving around the slope, trying to escape the burning traps afore and aft, and make their way into clear land around the other sides of the hill. At a call from the buccina, however, the east and west gates of the camp opened and the slow, deliberate stomping feet of thousands of legionaries issued forth.
The Twelfth remained at the wall and throughout the rest of the camp, dealing with those men who managed to find their way as far as the walls without burning, while the Ninth and Fourteenth exited the gate and moved in formation, shield walls solid and strong, around the edge of the defences and toward the Gauls as they spilled out from the flaming trap.