“Capsarius!”
Fronto jogged forward to the wounded trooper.
“For Gods’ sake sit down man before you fall.”
“Sir, I need to report…”
Fronto waved the words away.
“You can report while the capsarius looks at you.”
The trooper, dropping painfully and carefully to his knees, shook his head.
“No sir. Won’t wait. There’s around twenty German scouts less than a mile away. I would estimate Ariovistus’ entire army can’t be more than two or three miles. If their scouts know we’re here now sir, we’d best either get out of here fast or get set for battle.”
Fronto sighed.
“You leave that to me.”
A capsarius appeared and knelt next to the trooper. He reached round behind him and gingerly touched the shaft of the arrow. A small trickle of blood came out from below the entry wound. Ingenuus frowned.
“How many in your scouting party?”
“Three sir.”
“And you’re the only one who made it?”
The trooper nodded and then winced at the pain the movement caused.
“Am I going to die?”
The capsarius looked up at the officers from where he knelt behind the man and made ‘unlikely’ motions at them.
“I don’t think so lad. These Gaulish arrows are fairly narrow-bladed, without barbs. There’s not a massive blood flow and your complexion’s good, so I don’t think it pierced an organ. You’re going to be out of action for a while though.”
He turned to the nearest legionary.
“Help me get him in a cart.”
Another soldier brought the nearest baggage cart around and halted the horses near the wounded man. Velius whacked his vine staff on the side of the cart in anger.
“We’ve got too close to them. We should’ve given them a wider berth. Now they know we’re here they might just consider it worth the delay to turn round and do for us.”
Fronto sighed.
“It was my decision, Lucius; my fault. I didn’t think we could spare any more time. We’ve got to get to Vesontio. If we don’t get past the Germans soon, we’ll end up with them between us and the rest of the army. We’ll just have to pick up speed again.”
Velius growled.
“We can’t pick up any more speed. The troops are moving as fast as they can. They’re exhausted. It’s late afternoon and by rights we’d normally be making camp shortly. We can’t do with weeks of three hours rest a night.”
“Lucius, they’re going to have to move faster. Exhausted is better than dead. Ingenuus.”
The cavalry prefect turned to face him.
“Sir?”
“Have one of your decurions take a turma and ride like the wind for Vesontio. See if the rest of the army has reached there yet. If they have, detail our situation to Caesar, Longinus and Priscus, the primus pilus of the Tenth.”
“Yes sir.”
“Oh, and have the scouts pull back in to a visible radius. I don’t want any more losses like that.”
As Ingenuus ran off to take care of the task, Velius turned to his commander.
“Sir, the troops would be able to move faster if they could dispose of their tools and entrenching gear. It’s not like we’re going to have time to build marching camps between here and Vesontio.”
Fronto nodded.
“Have them put the gear in the carts with the rest of the baggage. How far is Vesontio d’you reckon?”
Velius tapped his chin.
“I really don’t know. Too far?”
Fronto looked back at the cavalry scout who was being loaded onto the cart by the capsarius and another soldier.
“How much faster do you think the cavalry are capable of moving than the cohort?”
The trooper winced as he bumped down into the cart.
“At least twice as fast, maybe three times. A lot more if we can change horses, but we don’t have fresh horses here.”
The legate smiled.
“Late afternoon. Making camp.”
Velius raised an eyebrow. He knew that smile all too well.
“What are you thinking?”
“The Germans are only moving as fast as us because they travel very light and don’t have a lot of baggage with them. They’re all warriors, not a tribe like the Helvetii with their women, children, the old and all the baggage. They don’t know there’s Romans ahead of them, so they’re in no hurry, are they? They presumably camp down properly every night.”
Velius shrugged.
“I would have thought so, yes. You’ve got a plan, haven’t you?”
Nodding, Fronto grinned at Velius.
“Is it insane by any chance?”
Another nod.
Velius started to grin back.
“Tell me.”
“The Germans have a fairly strong cavalry arm. They must corral their horses at night. We just have to work out a way to get around three hundred horses out and back to the cohort without getting the whole German nation on our heels.”
Velius nodded.
“Then we might as well let the column rest here for now. No use us getting the horses if we can’t find the cohort afterwards.”
“Agreed. Give the orders and then meet me over by that copse of trees off to the left.”
As Velius walked off to the signifer to give the orders for making camp, Fronto scanned the line for Ingenuus. The prefect was briefing one of his decurions a few yards away.
“Ingenuus!”
The prefect looked round at his name being called and saw Fronto walking towards him.
“Sir?”
“Belay that order.”
He turned to the decurion who was arranging the riders.
“No message needs to be sent right now. Instead I just want a small unit sent out, giving the Germans a suitably wide berth, to ride to Vesontio and see if the army’s there yet. If they are, inform the commanders that we’re on the way, but the Germans will be close behind us, yes?”
The decurion mounted his horse again.
“Yes sir. I’ll do it right away.”
Fronto turned back to Ingenuus.
“I want you to join me and Velius in a touch of planning.”
By the time the two had walked over to the copse, the grizzled centurion was already there, making marks in the earth at the foot of the tree with his vine staff.
“I’ve been giving some thought to the problem. Removing the guards quietly might be a bit of a problem, but the big trouble comes when we try and shift three hundred horses quietly.”
Ingenuus stared at the centurion.
“What?”
Fronto grinned.
“We’re going to get the whole cohort mounted. Put them on German horses and then try to reach Vesontio in less than half the time.”
He smiled at Ingenuus, who continued to stare in stunned amazement at the centurion.
“What we need you to do is figure that problem out. Three hundred horses, quietly and quickly.”
He turned to Velius.
“We’re obviously going to have to be sneaky. No armour or shields. I think the only weapon we should take is a pugio. We can’t afford to get drawn into a proper fight anyway, so just something for a quick, quiet kill.”
Velius nodded.
“We’ve got a few auxiliary archers with us, but they’d make too much noise. I think there’s some Balearic slingers too, though. They’d be useful.”
“Indeed. We don’t want a large group to go in though. I reckon about a dozen. The sneakiest bastards you can find. Sneaky, mind you, not mad. We don’t need the lunatics you like to hang around with; those mad bastards who charged the rocks when the Helvetii were entrenched.”
He was greeted with a warm smile.
“We don’t need Nonus and Curtius, sir. We’ve got plenty of prize sneaky bastards in our cohort. Just give me an hour and I’ll bring ‘em back here dressed just right. You’ll think you’re looking at a bunch of burglars and bandits from the backstreets of the Aventine back in Rome.”