Speaking of Caesar, he was in an increasingly foul temper, spending a good part of the day down at the docks simply standing there looking out to sea for the rest of the army to arrive. We were still waiting for the rest of the 10th to arrive, as well as the other Spanish Legions, while I was waiting in particular for Diocles to show up. I was getting tired of all the paperwork I was being forced to do, though I pushed as much on Silanus as I could. As Caesar kept vigil over the sea, we kept working. The enemy’s vast superiority in numbers of cavalry meant that we could not venture outside of the camp, instead having to rely on our supply by sea. This in turn meant that we had to deal with constant and chronic shortages of food and materials, as we were still waiting for the shipments from Cercina, Sardinia and other points. Somewhere in that time came further bad news, when word reached Caesar that King Juba of Numidia himself was coming with the rest of the Numidian army that was not already with Scipio and his bunch. He was supposed to be less than a week’s march away when we learned, sending the morale of the army even lower than it had been with news of the elephants. We were even forced to dry out seaweed in a manner similar to what we had done in Alexandria as fodder for the horses, yet unlike the forage from the lake, this had to be rinsed thoroughly of all salt water before it was edible for the animals. The wagering in camp was running very strongly that as soon as Juba joined the Pompeians, they would not waste any time in attacking. I was reminded more and more with each passing day of the conversation I had with Scribonius, and I was beginning to think that perhaps this time the gods had turned away from Caesar for good. Just as suddenly, the gods turned back and, if not smiling at Caesar, at least they were favoring him with their gaze. Finally, Caesar’s forays down to the docks finally paid off, a fleet of ships finally sighted, making their way for Ruspina. The ships carried the 13th and 14th Legions, along with another 800 Gallic cavalry and 1,000 archers. A second convoy arrived at roughly the same time, this one carrying the grain from Cecerna, relieving our supply situation temporarily, as Caesar began making plans to start offensive actions again. While the Legions were occupied in strengthening our defenses, the cavalry had been running regular patrols. There were clashes between our horsemen and the Pompeians on a daily basis, with both sides taking and inflicting casualties. Hopefully our turn would come to get stuck into the enemy, as the men were heartily sick of digging, but as usual, Caesar was not sharing what he had in mind with anyone, because if he had we would have realized that the digging had just begun.
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Now that we had more veterans salting our ranks, Caesar ordered us to prepare to move out and leave this camp behind. All we were told was that we were going to march to the town of Uzita, which was one of Scipio’s main supply bases, with the twin goal of denying Scipio while relieving some of the pressure on our own situation. Scipio was marching his army out of his camp to array for battle every morning, but Caesar was not having any part of it, completely ignoring the challenge. I suspect that Scipio was making this move knowing that Caesar was not likely to give battle, but needed a way to instill in his raw troops a sense of superiority, for that was what the Pompeian force was almost exclusively composed of in the Legions, raw tirones. If the rumors were true, many of them were pressed into service against their will. In fact, the Pompeians had been exceedingly heavy-handed with the local populace, so much so that once the natives finally accepted that it was indeed Caesar who had landed, and not one of his generals, they were coming in increasing numbers to ask for Caesar’s protection from their supposed guardians. Like so many of the upper classes, Scipio, Labienus, and the rest of that lot had assumed that the natives would offer not just obedience but support, thinking that it was nothing more than their due. When it had not been as enthusiastically forthcoming as they thought it should be, these noblemen exacted reprisals against the populace. Now the leading citizens of many of the towns were coming to Caesar in response to the Pompeians’ actions, with one of those delegations coming from the town of Uzita, telling Caesar that if he appeared before their walls, they would throw open the gates to the city. The problem was that we had to get there, despite still being significantly outnumbered, particularly with cavalry. The ground between our camp and Uzita, which lay slightly to the southeast, was an entirely open plain, with no undulations in the terrain if we were to take the most direct route.
With a force of infantry to block our way, Scipio could use his cavalry in the manner that we had encountered during the previous battle that had given us so many problems, thereby whittling us down. We would reach Uzita, but a trail of bodies would be a clear marker of our passage, losses that we could ill afford. Directly south of our camp was a line of low ridges, running roughly from the northeast to the southwest, with Uzita directly west of these hills. We left the camp at Ruspina under the guard of a few Cohorts, then began marching parallel to the coast, using the line of hills to screen our intentions from Scipio, whose own camp was perhaps a mile to the north of Uzita, directly blocking the natural line of approach from Ruspina. Moving south, we marched within sight of the sea. Once the bulk of the army passed the northern-most hill of the ridge, obscuring Scipio’s view of our march, we turned inland. The hills were not much, yet given that the surrounding terrain was as flat as a table, it meant these heights commanded the valley that lay between the ridge and Uzita, so Caesar immediately ordered that we fortify the ridgeline. There was also a series of hilltops running the length of the ridge, which we were ordered to fortify as well. It turned out that there was an enemy outpost on the next to last of the hilltops to the south, a small force of Numidian infantry and cavalry that was scattered quickly. However, now our presence was no longer a secret.
As we worked, we saw the Pompeian force streaming from their camp to array themselves for battle. A large contingent of enemy cavalry detached itself from the main body, then came galloping across the plain towards us, meeting the fleeing Pompeian sentries a few hundred yards out on the plain from the base of the western slope of the ridge. The cavalry stopped briefly as the leader talked to the sentries, obviously asking about the size and composition of our force, then pressed on, heading towards us at a gallop. Caesar immediately saw an opportunity, because the enemy cavalry now at the base of the slope had far outpaced the rest of their army and isolated themselves. He sent our own cavalry, still on the opposite side of the ridge and out of view, circling around the southern end to get in the rear of the enemy cavalry. Helping our cause was a large farm building located at the base of the slope at the southern edge that further shielded our men, allowing them to circle all the way around to fall on the Pompeian rear, just as their horses were ascending the slope, forcing them to slow down. Our force slammed into the rear ranks of the enemy horse, catching them completely by surprise and it was only a matter of moments before a panic ensued as the men further toward the front became aware of the threat to their rear.
As they drew closer, we could see that the enemy force was composed of Numidians, Germans, and Gauls in almost equal proportions. True to their nature and as we had seen before, the Numidians broke contact to go galloping across the face of the slope to escape. The Germans and Gauls chose to stay and fight, where they were quickly surrounded, then cut down to the last man. The sight of this slaughter so infected the advancing infantry with fear that they turned en masse, fleeing back to their camp, running for their lives though nobody pursued. We stopped working to watch the spectacle of an entire army running for their lives without shedding a drop of blood, giving us a lift of spirits to see it.