The scene away from the camp was a little more encouraging. There was plenty of flat and open land to the west of the camp that would be good for exercises. Further away, there was forest to the south and west, which again would be good for exercises, and it contained a good supply of timber necessary for constructing bridges and defensive palisades. The small river he had been following would provide some value for exercises involving river crossings and bridge building, although that might be more limited because it was a small river. On the other hand, he should not use the Rhine, which in any case was somewhat bigger, as he understood it, than any river he was likely to have to cross in Britain.
Yes, overall the site was not entirely ideal for what he had in mind, but it was certainly a lot better than adequate. That legion may be a little out of practice, but there was plenty of scope to correct most of their problems.
"Your thoughts?" Gaius asked, as he turned towards Matius. Gaius smiled inwardly as he noticed the range of emotions cross Matius' face. In this sort of test it was desirable to agree with the commander, but Gaius was not giving many clues.
"I think we have a bit of work to do," Matius replied. He had a clue, in that the Prime Centurion had noticed something, and was scowling.
"Why?"
"When Timothy arrived with the cart, that inspection was fairly perfunctory," Matius replied. "It could have been anybody."
"Perhaps they didn't want to piss off their new legate," Gaius offered.
"Maybe," Matius said, "but. ."
Gaius smiled inwardly as he recognized that Matius was a little unsure of himself. "Anything other than the cart?"
"I can't see anybody doing any exercises," Matius offered, perhaps a trifle hesitantly. "I would have thought that with an invasion coming, they might want to get into. ."
"Lucius," Gaius smiled, and patted him on the shoulder, "be more confident. You are perfectly correct, except for the use of the word 'might'. Believe me, I am not impressed, and they will find out what that means starting tomorrow. Now, if you were me, what would you do?"
"I would split them up," Matius replied, more confidently because, from his point of view, his answer was unlikely to be absolutely wrong. "We have already seen a moderate sized river, and some should be practising river crossings. Then, some of the rest would take part in forest exercises that we were practising, and the rest would carry out usual exercises on the open flat land, particularly those involving linking cavalry with infantry."
"You wouldn't have the cavalry exercise in the forest?"
"Not yet, sir."
"Why not?"
"Out in the open, I could keep a good view of them from this hill sir, and I would very quickly learn how good they were. In the forest, it's harder to see, and. ."
"Exactly so," Gaius smiled. "Since I don't know which Tribunes to send back to the Claudia yet, I'll keep you three just observing what goes on for the next week. You, Lucius, can instruct their cavalry in some of the exercises we practised through the summer and watch from this hill. You other two Tribunes can cast dice to decide which one watches the river crossing exercises and which one the forest ambushes. Centurion, I rather suspect discipline is rather lax down there. You will see that any such laxness ceases, as from tomorrow. Any questions, any of you?"
There were none. The following day, the Valeria would learn they had a new commander.
* * *
At the first meeting of Tribunes and Centurions, he outlined the need for further exercises, and watched carefully the responses. As he explained, the winter was fast approaching, and it was imperative that they took advantage of every good day. Unless everything went supremely well, he would impose winter exercises, so that should persuade the men to perform better. The exercises started the next day, and that evening there was a further meeting of Tribunes and Centurions.
"Overall, that was not good enough," Gaius announced. "Let me start with those involved in river crossings. Three cohorts tried in three places. You all got across readily enough, but there was a problem. What was it?"
There was a puzzled silence.
"Then I'll tell you. What about enemy forces? The seventh did get across and immediately set up defensive positions, but the rest sat around, thinking everything was over. Any comments?"
"There was nobody there," the Tribune assigned to the eighth offered.
"How do you know?" Gaius asked.
"We could see open ground."
"One of the interesting points about an ambush is you can't see the ambushers," Gaius pointed out, "at least without a good exploratory effort. Yes, I know the ground was open, but only for about half a mile. You could end up with a third of your men across, and a large force could appear from the forest. Yes, I know there is some risk, but once over, you must set up some sort of defence as soon as possible, and send out scouts to see what is in the forest. Any comment?"
There was none from the shame-faced Tribune.
"Same applies to the ninth," Gaius said, "and while the seventh did fortify after crossing, the forest was closer to you. You could have checked before crossing."
"I did, sir."
"Well, my observer didn't see anybody do it. You might have thought you did, you might have even given an order, but. ."
"I sent scouts across last night, as soon as I knew the exercise was on," the Tribune protested.
"Your point," Gaius said. "I would like to check what your scouts actually did later. Send them to my tent, please. Now, the cavalry exercises. That was a little chaotic, because basically the cavalry didn't do much at all. I am going to assume this was due to faulty orders, because the infantry didn't do much either. There will be a repeat tomorrow.
"Now, the forest exercises. There were three separate exercises, and apart from the gamma ambushers, basically everybody else is dead. Why?"
There was a stunned silence.
"Because what generally happened was that the ambushers announced their presence and marched forward after having tried to form lines in the forest, and those being ambushed tried to form lines. You fought battles of attrition, and since you are equally skilled, or hopefully so, and because you were in equal numbers, you would basically hack each other to death. The objective of surprise is to gain as much advantage as possible before the opposition can organize a proper defence.
"Now, why were the three squads ambushed? Why should they have been wiped out? And more to the point, what could they have done about it? Yes, we've discussed this already. You've got to send out scouts. Now some did, but the scouts' forest skills were simply inadequate. Now, gamma squad did gain a surprise, and it did take some advantage, however, Tribune, what could you have done better?"
"Found a closer place to hide?"
"Yes, you could, although being that far away wasn't too bad. Anything else?"
There was a silence, then a shrug.
"Firstly, there's the choice of position," Gaius said. "If possible, you want a straight section between two obstructions, such as bends, and you want to send detachments to each of the bends. The straight section is the killing field, but you have to have a means of dealing with escapers. Also, you have to do something with your archers. Yes, I know arrows are a little dangerous to send into our own men, but you could still have archers placed where they would fire, but for the fact they're our men. I can't emphasize enough the need to do as much damage as you can before the opposition gets organized. For the purpose of these exercises, if you give the command we assume the archers can send off three flights of arrows before the opposition gets organized enough to form a shield barrier. You may not send the arrows until we make some with soft furry ends, but the assessors will guess how much damage the volleys would have caused, had you sent them. Finally, while your opposition did not send out scouts, you didn't know they wouldn't. You needed to have sent out scouts to capture their scouts.