He turned to leave, but stopped at the howls of protest, and now I could definitely see that ghost of a smile playing at his mouth.
“How do we find water, Caesar? You said that you'd provide us with water!”
He affected a look of surprise as he said, “Why, you dig for it, of course.”
There was total silence, the men standing in stunned disbelief, and I must confess I was as shocked as the rest of the men. Dig for it? Could it really be that simple? A storm of protest burst forth as the men overcame their shock, their anger at perceiving that they had been tricked by Caesar very real, and very dangerous. However, Caesar was not cowed in the slightest; he merely stood there once again, letting the men spend their fury, waiting for the moment when everyone paused to catch their breath before howling anew.
When it came, he said in his command voice, “Centurions, you will form the men into working parties composed of two sections apiece. Each working party will dig a well, starting in the courtyard of every private residence in our sector. Only the guard Centuries will be relieved of this duty; however, they will stand watch all three night watches while the rest of the men work. No working party will be excused until they have dug a well that produces water. Once they do, they are relieved and can return to their quarters to rest. You have your orders, Centurions. Carry them out.”
He turned to leave, but someone shouted after him, “And if we don’t find any water?”
As he dismounted the stage, he called over his shoulder. “Then we will leave.”
~ ~ ~ ~
At first, the men were not enthused at all about their task, even my men. Walking from one working party to the next, I could hear their bitter complaints about what they viewed as a folly by Caesar.
“He’s just making us sweat as punishment for those cunni in the 28th calling a meeting,” a ranker from the Fifth of the Tenth said, standing waist-deep in a hole and tossing out another shovelful of sandy dirt, his comrades heartily agreeing with him.
This was more or less the tone of every working party as they dug, and these were men of the 6th. I could only imagine what Cartufenus was dealing with from his boys, I thought. I resigned myself to a whole night of complaining, but it was barely a third of a watch into work when I heard a great shout coming a block over from my spot at that moment, where I had sent some men of the 7th to work. Running down the street, I turned the corner to find Valens standing in the middle of the street, but covered in mud from the waist down. He was laughing with some of his men as I ran up, and he managed a salute despite his ear to ear smile.
“We struck water, Primus Pilus. Not more than six feet down.”
“And? Is it potable?” I demanded, my heart racing not just from the run over.
“Sweet as any that I've ever tasted.”
Despite myself, I let out a whoop of joy, clapping Valens and his men on the back.
“Well, you lucky bastards have the rest of the night off,” I said with a smile. “And nobody could deserve it more. Well done.”
Even as I hurried to report to Caesar, I heard first one, then another shout as men struck water. Arriving at headquarters, I learned that so far, barely more than a third of a watch into the endeavor, a total of eight wells had struck water. Cartufenus was there, looking immensely relieved; his men had found five so far, and for a moment, I cursed the idea that he and the 28th had beaten the 6th at anything. Deeper into the night, the number kept going up, until by morning more than 60 wells were dug, and it was only because Caesar determined that our water shortage was at an end that he called off the work. In a stroke, not only was our water shortage ended, but Caesar had nipped a mutiny in the bud before it could really get started. Finding water did not solve all of our problems; we were still surrounded and outnumbered, and there was still considerable tension between the 6th and the 28th, yet somehow knowing that you were not going to die of thirst made those problems seem surmountable.
It seemed that luck was once again returning to Caesar, since two days later, a courier managed to slip through the Egyptian defenses to inform Caesar that the 37th Legion, the Legion, which Cassius was charged with finding and sending to us, had arrived and was just a few miles up the coast. They were not without difficulty themselves however; as the courier explained that their own water situation was perilous, having run out the day that the courier left for Alexandria. Caesar decided to go see for himself, but since he could spare none of us from the defenses, took only a galley with its contingent of oarsmen and marines, leaving from the royal docks, commanding the rest of the fleet to follow once it was ready, which it did.
~ ~ ~ ~
I always found it interesting to see what happened when Caesar left others in command. None of his generals seemed willing to make a decision, despite the fact he was not the type of general to second-guess his subordinates. I think it was more a matter of not wanting to disappoint him than any fear they had of his disapproval. The only one who did not seem to worry about that was Antonius; indeed, he made decisions in Caesar’s name that caused Caesar untold problems, yet there was some bond between him and Caesar that made Caesar forgive Antonius some of his more outrageous actions, or at least so I thought at the time. Caesar had left very loose instructions when he left, saying only that we do nothing precipitate and maintain our normal routine. The 37th was at a spot called Chersonesus, and when Caesar arrived on the scene, he ordered the marines to go foraging for water, except they went too far inland and were captured by Egyptian cavalry. Under torture, they revealed that Caesar was present on one of the ships, and Ganymede was alerted to this fact. Ganymede threw together a scratch fleet of armed merchant vessels and a couple of thirty’s that had been in the Inner Harbor and escaped destruction, then headed after Caesar. Rather, the fleet did; Ganymede was not of the same stripe as Caesar, preferring to pull the strings from afar rather than to get personally involved in the action. Meanwhile, as was his habit, Caesar turned a precarious situation to his advantage. When Caesar arrived on the scene, the men of the 37th and the crews of the Rhodian ships that were carrying them had been without water for two days, meaning in that heat and climate they were in dire straits. Otherwise, everything went Caesar’s way once Ganymede’s fleet closed with his, temporarily succeeding in isolating one of the Rhodian thirty’s that was part of the relief force. However, Caesar turned it to his benefit, inflicting losses on the Egyptians that Ganymede could ill afford. Caesar returned with his fleet, along with the reinforcements, towing the Rhodian ship that was damaged in the fight. And just like that, we were reinforced, our numbers more than doubled.
~ ~ ~ ~
Because of the limited space inside our position, Caesar kept the 37th onboard ship, spreading them around so that every ship of the fleet had at least a Century aboard. Along with what we had brought with us, the ships of the reinforcing fleet, and those that Caesar had captured in his action against Ganymede, our flotilla now consisted of 34 craft of varying size. To protect the more valuable warships, Caesar circled them with the transports, acting as a screen in the event that the Egyptians tried to use their fire boats again. However, Ganymede was not so easily undone. Despite Caesar’s success in destroying the entire fleet residing in the harbor at Alexandria, he had not ended the Egyptian maritime threat. There were Egyptian naval vessels patrolling up and down the Nile, and along the coast, while there were a number of larger vessels, quinqueremes most of them, that were in dry-dock because of the expense of upkeep. Now Ganymede brought them out of storage, summoning the patrol vessels to return to Alexandria at the same time, as the shops around the city were immediately set to work refitting the ships. The biggest deficiency the enemy faced was in having enough oars to power so many vessels; therefore, every scrap of wood was ransacked from the public buildings that had the potential of being turned into oars. Working all day and through the night, day after day and night after night, all we could do was watch and wait for the inevitable. One morning, one of the sentries on the roof sounded the alarm, and I went to see what had alerted him. I was dismayed to see no less than five quinqueremes, 22 quadriremes, and four biremes rowing around the Inner Harbor. While we knew that they were working on rebuilding their fleet, until that moment we had no idea of the size, and it was massive. Word of the fleet leapt through the army, meaning that soon every man not on duty was standing on a roof, watching the Egyptians testing the vessels. Our future was passing before us as we watched; if that massive flotilla defeated ours, we were finished, and we all knew it. Even as grim as the prospect was, that did not stop the men from wagering on the outcome, but I was happy to see that most men were betting on us to win.