Nero objected. “But don’t we want to destroy their fleet anyway?”
Caesar shook his head. “No, we have to think about the days after this is over. If we completely destroy their fleet, Egypt will be vulnerable to depredation by pirates, and their neighbors might be tempted to take advantage of their weakness. Then we'd find ourselves back here fighting all over again. No,” he repeated, “what's necessary here is to neutralize the fleet, not destroy it.”
Even if anyone was disposed to do so, there was really no argument to be made, mainly because what Caesar said made perfect sense. Seeing our acceptance, Caesar turned his attention to his plan for taking the island.
“Pullus,” he said without warning, catching me by surprise. “I'll need you and your men. Can I count on you?”
I snapped to intente. “Absolutely, sir.”
~ ~ ~ ~
The plan, such as it was, called for ten Cohorts, of which the 7th would be one of them and that I would lead. This meant that we would have to make a run from our positions through the streets of Alexandria to join the assault force, a prospect that the men were none too keen on doing. Additionally, we had to do it quickly, when the moment came, and without making any preparations that might alert the Egyptians what we were about, thereby compounding the difficulty. Once at the harbor, we would board a number of open boats that would row us to the island. The rest of the Cohorts were composed of the 37th, along with one Cohort from the 28th, which also did not sit well with the men. The 28th was considered suspect by the men of the 6th, and not a few of Caesar’s staff, if the gossip was any indication. Augmenting the force were a couple Cohorts worth of missile troops that were part of the relief force, along with about a hundred of Caesar’s cavalry that he thought were best suited to fight as infantry for this sortie. The day for the assault was set for three days after the naval battle, and since it only took a few thirds of a watch for the men to make themselves ready, this ultimately meant that we sat and waited. This was incredibly wearing on everyone, because there is nothing quite as maddening as knowing that in some short period of time, one is going to be facing death, yet having nothing to do to occupy the mind during the waiting period. It is also a trial of the patience of the Centurions and Optios, since the men are determined to cram as much debauchery and high living as possible into those days, meaning that we were running from one building to another in the sector that housed our quarters as the inevitable quarrels and fights broke out. Very quickly, I determined that trying to stop the men completely from drinking and whoring for the entire three days would result in exhausted officers, along with half the Cohort up on a charge, so I instructed the Centurions to turn a blind eye towards a certain level of debauchery and carousing while we waited. Of course, if you give a Gregarius an obol, he wants a sesterce; if you give him a slice of bread, he wants the whole loaf. It is their nature, and even relaxing the rules a bit, there are always men who will try to push to get away with more, both with their Centurions and Optios, and their comrades. The only saving grace was that with men as veteran as these, when compared to a Legion composed of younger men, the problems they caused were not of sufficient scale to draw the attention of the senior officers. Still, by the night before the attack, the Centurions and Optios, myself included, had dispensed bathhouse justice on a number of men and I was extremely tired. I hope that it does not surprise you, gentle reader, when I mention that the men were doing as much whoring as drinking and gambling, perhaps more so because of the relative scarcity of wine. As I have mentioned, when we cordoned off our area, we did it so quickly that a large number of civilians were given no opportunity to flee. If I were not a suspicious man, I would simply ascribe the relatively high number of women who made their living on their back to a happy accident, and that we had somehow managed to select the quarter of the city where the whores congregated. But, since we were around the royal enclosure, the resulting neighborhood that sprang up around it was composed of the homes of wealthy government officials and merchants who did business with Pharaoh. In other words, there were no businesses catering to the fleshly desires in this quarter of the city, at least of which I was aware. Somehow, however, a force of a couple hundred whores managed to get themselves trapped inside our redoubt, and in fact one back street had become their own headquarters area, so to speak. The citizens of Alexandria that remained in our area had decided to turn a blind eye to the steady stream of Gregarii who headed for the street the moment they were secured from duty. The only reason that no wine shops had opened on the street, since whores and drinking go hand in hand, was due only to a lack of supply and not any finer distinction. Consequently, it was to this street that the Centurions and Optios found themselves running when some word of a problem reached them, although more than one of them managed to wander over there under their own power a time or two, if my meaning is clear. Another complicating factor was that while the street was actually located in the 28th’s area, there was no way that my men would have sat still if I made the area off-limits to them, meaning that there was ample opportunity for trouble when the men of the two Legions mingled. All in all, it was a touchy situation, and the three-day wait for my men did not make things any easier. By the night before the attack, I was so tired that I slept more soundly than I ever had the night before a battle, and I suspect that the rest of the officers felt the same.
~ ~ ~ ~
The day dawned bright and clear, without a cloud in the sky, promising a day of heat and humidity. In other words, a normal day in Alexandria. By the time of this operation, we had been in Alexandria several months, and by rights, it was getting close to winter, except there are no real seasons there, even more so than my home in Baetica. Fortunately, the men were tough, mostly Spaniards who had lived most of their lives in a climate that was not terribly dissimilar, if not a bit more extreme here in Alexandria, and we no longer had to ration our water so closely, so the heat was not a terrible worry. What was a concern was what we were about to do, as we used the cover provided by our internal passageways to move through the buildings to the point where we were going to leave our lines. By this point in the siege, we had improved our defenses to the degree that we had constructed a number of gates of varying sizes, which of course the Egyptians countered by building towers and strong points immediately opposite, the size of their defenses commensurate with how strategically important they considered the gate. It was with this in mind that we selected one of the smaller gates, in the hope that Ganymede’s men at that point would not be of high quality, or particularly alert. We also decided to launch our sortie in the third of a watch before the Egyptian watch changed, having long since learned each other's habits and knowing exactly when it would occur. Moving the men as much as it was possible inside the buildings, we crammed the entire Cohort into the building directly opposite the gate, located on the other side of a minor street. While I was given very explicit orders about when we would make our break, the location from where we would leave was left to me. One precaution I took was that we left from a gate that was controlled by the 6th, although it meant that we would actually have a few blocks farther to go to the harbor. This was the level of distrust that I held for the 28th, a feeling that I knew was completely shared by my men, and this frame of mind led to the first time that I openly disagreed with Caesar. The original plan called for both my Cohort and the Cohort of the 28th to leave together, moving as one unit down to the docks, but I had flatly refused. The silence, as it is said, was deafening, the members of Caesar’s staff looking at me in absolute shock. To be completely fair, it was not so much that I had objected. Men regularly argued with Caesar when he gave an order, and he would invariably listen. I was present on more than one occasion where he had modified his decision because someone made a compelling argument. What I believe surprised the staff was that this was the first time that it was me who actually disagreed. And perhaps it was the fact that I did not try to couch my refusal in the form of a question or some other gentler declaration as well.