'What's the matter?' Cato shook himself free of his thoughts. 'Thought I heard trumpets, sir.'
'Trumpets?'
'Yes, sir… There! Hear it?'
Cato heard nothing above the lapping of the water and the splash of paddles from the boats behind them. Then, carried upriver on the warm night air, came the faint sound of brass notes. The melody was quite unmistakable to the ears of any legionary. It was the assembly signal of the Roman army.
'They're our trumpets,' muttered Cato.
'Hear that?' the legionary called out to the other boats. 'It's our side, lads!'
The men of the century cheered the sound and bent themselves to their paddles with renewed strength. Cato knew that he really should order them to still their tongues, for the sake of discipline as much as any danger posed by other craft on the river tonight, but a great weight clamped down on his heart. Macro was dead. He could not stifle his feelings and tears rolled down his cheeks, dripping onto his filthy armour. He turned away to hide his grief from the men.
The Eagles Conquest
Chapter Twenty-Three
The legion slowly reformed during the night as men responded to the trumpet calls. They arrived in small groups, centuries and even complete cohorts led by the few senior centurions who had grasped in time the danger the terrain had posed to unit cohesion. Most of the legionaries were dog-tired and covered in mud. They slumped down and rested in the areas marked out for them by the command party. Vespasian had arrived at the crudely built jetty just after sunset, and his small body of officers and guards had waited anxiously beside a large signal fire. At regular intervals through the night the legion's trumpeters had been blasting out the recall and the strain to lungs and lips told in the signal's gradual deterioration.
Separated from the rest of the army and without any auxiliary support, Vespasian felt terribly exposed. Any sizeable enemy force that emerged from the marsh could easily wipe out the command party and his guard century. Every sound from the skirmishes being fought out in the darkness caused him to dread the worst. Even when the men began to trickle back to the legion, the fear that they might be British warriors ratcheted up the tension until the moment that the official challenge was responded to with the connect password. Slowly the bedraggled legionaries emerged from the night and, having found their harbouring area, dropped where they stood and fell asleep.
There was no question of asking the men to erect a marching camp in their present state of exhaustion, and Vespasian had to satisfy himself with a screen of sentries drawn from the legate's guard. The men had to be permitted to rest if the Second was to go back into action on the morrow. Moreover, they must have food, and be re-armed with javelins and other items lost in bitter fighting in the marsh. The baggage train had been sent for, and a detachment of the legion's cavalry was escorting it along the track. Heading back the other way was a column of prisoners guarded by another cavalry squadron. Vespasian had handed this task to Vitellius with orders to proceed directly from the encampment on the far side of the Mead Way to the headquarters of Aulus Plautius. The general needed to be clearly informed of the situation so that he might rethink the attack planned for the following morning. It was an onerous duty for the tribune and not without danger, but Vitellius had, surprisingly, seemed willing enough when the legate had given him his orders. It crossed Vespasian's mind that his senior tribune might well be pleased to be as far from the front line as possible, whatever discomfort that entailed.
As the moon emerged from a low cloud bank, the landscape was bathed in its baleful glow, revealing to the legate the full extent or the legion's poor condition. The exhausted soldiers asleep on an sides gave the appearance of a vast casualty clearing station rather than a legion. Vespasian was momentarily shocked to recall that this was the same unit that so recently had a sparkling parade ground glean to an its equipment, and an eagerness to get stuck into the enemy radiating from every single man. Though they still numbered in their thousands, it was painful to see how far the ranks of each resting century had been whittled down over the last few weeks of campaigning.
The grinding passage of wagon wheels eventually heralded the arrival of the baggage train, and the headquarters staff moved swiftly into action. The tents of the field hospital were quickly rigged, and the field kitchen set up to make sure that warm food was in the belly of every man as soon as possible. Around Vespasian the clerks hurriedly assembled a headquarters tent, lit numerous oil lamps mounted on great bronze stands, and erected the campaign desks. All the centuries that arrived were ordered to submit strength reports and requests for replacements of expended weapons and lost equipment, before being led to their assigned assembly areas. From his campaign desk the legate watched as the dark files of men slowly passed by. No one saluted, no one looked up. The legion was spent as an offensive formation for the immediate future. The only compensating factor was that the enemy were in no state to counterattack, having been thrown back from the last river and forced to scramble into defensive positions on the other side of the Tamesis. However, the time needed by the legionaries to recover their momentum would be well spent by the Britons in preparing for the next bloody phase of the campaign.
These were factors the legate had no influence over, and the best he could do under the present circumstances was to get the Second rested, fed and re-equipped as soon as possible. The men deserved better from the general after their spectacular performance two days ago. Two days? Vespasian frowned. Was that all? Even the time seemed to have been sucked down into this infernal marsh stretching out around him in the dark…
Vespasian's eyes flickered open just in time as he started to slip from his stool, and he recovered his balance with a cold shock of surprise. Instantly he reproached himself, then glanced about to see if anyone had noticed this all too human failing in their commander. The clerks were bent to their work in the glow of their oil lamps, and his bodyguards stood rigidly to attention. Another instant's slumber and he would have fallen from his stool and ended up sprawled on the ground. The image made him burn with shame, and he forced himself to stand.
'Bring me some food!' he snapped to an orderly. 'And quick about it. '
The orderly saluted and ran off towards the field kitchen. Vespasian turned his mind to another worrying detail of the campaign. One of the centurions emerging from the marsh had presented him with a short sword. Nothing remarkable in that, but the centurion had encountered a large formation of Britons armed with identical swords.
'See there, sir.' The centurion held the blade up so that it was more clearly visible in the moonlight. Vespasian looked closely and saw the manufacturer's stamp.
'Gnaeus Albinus,' he muttered. 'That's a firm in Gaul, I believe. This sword's a long way from home.'
'Yes, sir. That's right.' The centurion nodded politely. 'But that's not all, sir. The Albinus forge is one of the main suppliers to the Rhine legions.'
'And the arms contracts are exclusive. So what is this doing here?' 'And not just this one sword. I saw scores of them back in the marsh, sir. And since we're the first Roman army on these shores since Caesar's day, they can hardly have been captured.'