Cato 05 - The Eagles Prey (53 page)

‘Stay down!’ Cato called to his men as he dropped back out of line and scrambled along the rampart to where Tullius sheltered behind his shield.

‘Sir!’ Cato called. Tullius glanced round.

‘Sir, shouldn’t we pull the men back on to the reverse slope, out of the line of fire?’

Tullius shook his head. ‘They can take it. Besides, we don’t want the enemy thinking we’ll duck a fight.’

‘This isn’t a fight, sir.’ Cato waved his hand to the growing line of casualties below the rampart. ‘It’s just a waste of good men.’

‘I’ll be the judge of that, Centurion!’ Tullius snapped at him. ‘Now return to your position.’

Cato considered protesting, but the glint in Tullius’ eyes showed that the veteran was in no mood to listen. He’d clearly had enough of Cato’s advice and it would be dangerous to push him any further.

‘Yes, sir.’ Cato saluted and made his way back to his men, still suffering the intense bombardment of slingshot in resigned silence. There was no let-up, no diminishing of the volume of missiles smashing and cracking the palisade and the men who defended it, and Cato wondered how many of them would be left by the time dusk gathered over the marshes. By then, the legate would surely have arrived.

‘There’s movement down the track!’ Septimus called out, and Cato risked a glimpse round the edge of his shield. Behind the slingers, streaming past Caratacus on his chariot, came a dense body of men, many of whom were carrying bundles of wood and crudely constructed ladders.

Cato ducked his head back and shouted to his men, ‘Sixth Century! Draw swords!’

There was a drawn-out chorus of rasping noises as the men drew their weapons, and then the legionaries of the other centuries followed suit. The Romans tensed their muscles, anxiously waiting for the order to rise up and confront the fresh wave of attackers. Cato took another look. A gap had opened up in the enemy shield wall, and beyond that the slingers parted each side of the track as the assault party rushed through, running the remaining distance to the Roman defences. Over their heads the slingers resumed their bombardment of the Third Cohort. There was none of the usual shouting of war cries as the native warriors reached the edge of the ditch and started to pick their way across the bodies of their comrades who had died in the earlier assaults. With Romans waiting ahead of them, and their own men flinging slingshot from behind them, they just wanted to get the attack over with as quickly as possible. The bundles of wood were cast down where the ditch still yawned before the low rampart and the warriors streamed across, throwing themselves up the steep slope on the far side.

‘Stand up!’ Tullius roared out, and the other officers echoed the call along the rampart. The legionaries rose to their feet, moved up to the palisade and raised their blades, ready to meet the attack. The last few slingshot zipped through the air, bringing down one more Roman before the natives were forced to stop their bombardment for fear of hitting their own men. There was almost no interlude between the last of the shot flying overhead and the first clashes of weapons along the rampart. The makeshift ladders were thrust up against the palisade and the Celt warriors swarmed up and attempted to swing themselves over the rampart and engulf the defenders. From the flanking redoubts Cordus and Macro urged their men on, hurling and throwing whatever missiles they had left into the flanks of the attacking force.

Cato tightened his grip on his sword and shield, and pressed forward. The roughly hewn top of a ladder slapped up against the palisade immediately to his left and an instant later a burly warrior clambered up, reached an arm over the palisade and began to pull himself up. Cato thrust the point of his sword at the side of the man’s head and felt the thud and crunch of bone jar down his arm. The man dropped away and Cato turned to the nearest legionary.

‘Here! Help me!’

Pushing the guard of his sword hand against the top of the ladder Cato tried to heave it back on top of the attackers. But there was already a man on the lowest rung, and the Briton swung himself up as fast as he could, meeting Cato’s terrified gaze with a mad glint of triumph in his eyes.

‘No you fucking don’t, mate!’ The legionary cut down with ferocious strength, his sword cleaving the man’s skull and splattering himself and his centurion with blood and brains. As the man fell Cato thrust the ladder away from the palisade and nodded his thanks to the legionary.

Cato glanced round and saw that so far not one of the enemy had secured a foothold on the rampart. But even as he watched, a short distance to his right a section of the palisade was wrenched away from the rampart, showering the attackers with rubble as the loosened earth behind it collapsed. With a cry, the legionary who had been fighting immediately above them, tumbled forward into the mass of warriors below and was butchered as he sprawled on the slope.

‘Watch it!’ Cato shouted to his men.’They’re pulling up the palisade!’

While their comrades had been keeping the legionaries occupied with their ladder assault, small groups of the enemy had been digging away at the foundations of the palisade and working the timbers loose. Already, as Cato looked along the line of the rampart he saw other sections being pulled away. As soon as a gap had opened up in the palisade Celt warriors swarmed up and heaved themselves on to the rampart.

‘Shit!’ Septimus cried out angrily. ‘We should have dug them in deeper!’

‘Too late for that now.’ Cato turned back to the enemy, and hacked his sword down at a man being hoisted up by his companions. The warrior was armed with a long-handled axe and managed to block the centurion’s blow, but in doing so overbalanced and tumbled back on to the slope.

Elsewhere the Sixth Century was not doing so well. In two places where the palisade had been ripped down a handful of warriors had won a foothold on the rampart and were bodily heaving the defenders back to create more space for their comrades to climb up after them.

‘Septimus!’

‘Sir?’

Cato indicated the nearest breach in the palisade. ‘Take six men. Push them out, before it’s too late. Move!’

The optio recognised the danger at once, and made for the breach, pulling men out of the line as he made his way along the rampart. As the legionaries approached the breach they formed up into a compact battering ram of flesh and metal, and charged home on a two-shield front, all that the narrow walkway permitted. They crashed into the enemy warriors and cut them down before the Celts recovered from the shock of the impact. The dead and injured were thrown down on top of the enemy still struggling to squeeze through the gap and up on to the rampart. Septimus and his men hunched round the crumbling earth and hacked at any enemy foolhardy enough to make another attempt at breaking into the Roman line. But beyond them Cato saw that the situation at the second breach was far more serious. The enemy had won some space on the rampart and were quickly feeding men into the gap. Turning round Cato shouted at the nearest man not engaged in the fight along the palisade.

‘Run round that lot to Centurion Macro. Tell him he needs to drive them off the wall and plug the gap. I can’t spare any men. Go!’

As the legionary half ran, half slithered down the slope Cato felt a dull vibration under his feet and, realising what it must be, he glanced towards the gate. Behind the rampart the reserves were hurrying forward to counter the impact as best as they could. In front of the rampart the enemy warriors had retrieved the battering ram, from where it lay amongst the bodies on the track, and were renewing their attack on the gate.

Cato realised that the cohort was losing control of the fight. The timbers of the gate had been designed to control the movement of natives into and out of the marsh, not to withstand a determined assault. The enemy would burst through them soon enough. If that failed then they must eventually create enough gaps in the palisade that the legionaries couldn’t defend them all. In either event, the cohort was doomed.

Overcome by bloodlust, some of the enemy who had hauled themselves up on to the rampart now spied the line of casualties along the base of the rampart and charged down upon them with whooping cries of triumph. Wounded and almost defenceless, the Roman casualties could do little to protect themselves as the Britons slaughtered them on the ground. But the temptation of an easy kill was their undoing, as it diverted them away from ensuring that they held on to the opening they had torn in the Roman defences. With as loud a roar as they could muster, Macro and half of his men were sweeping along the rampart from the direction of the redoubt, charging down and cutting through the knot of warriors who were desperately trying to hold the way open for the men struggling to feed into the gap. A moment’s delay and the Celts would have had more than enough men through the palisade to hold off Macro’s relief force. As it was, they were steadily killed, or pushed back, until the last of them was ejected from the rampart. Their comrades slaughtering the Roman wounded realised the danger, and struggled up the slope to fight for the precious stretch of bloody earth around the gap in the palisade. But they were too late and too few to make a difference, and they died before they even reached the top of the slope, tumbling back down to sprawl amongst the bodies of the men they had so mercilessly killed only moments earlier.

As soon as the rampart was secured Cato looked round to see what progress the enemy warriors were making on the gate. The slow pounding rhythm continued relentlessly, and then there was a splintering crash as the first of the timbers gave way. That was it then, Cato decided, with a heavy sinking feeling in his chest. A few more blows, then the gate would be shattered enough for the attackers to wrench the remnants aside, pour through the opening and tear the surviving men of the Third Cohort to pieces.

Then he was aware that the pounding had stopped, and looking both ways along the rampart he saw that more and more of his men were standing back, disengaged. They lowered their shields and leaned on the rims, exhausted and gasping for breath. Before them the Celts were falling back from the ramparts, streaming away towards Caratacus, still standing, feet astride, atop his chariot. Only, now, he was looking down the track, in the opposite direction to the Third Cohort.

‘Sir!’ Septimus pushed his way through the defenders towards Cato. ‘Can you hear it?’

‘Hear what?’

‘Listen.’

Cato strained his ears, but all he could hear, above the pounding of blood through his weary body, was the panicked cries of the enemy warriors retreating from the ramparts, and jamming into a dense, immovable mass around their commander’s chariot. Cato shook his head and Septimus thumped his fist down on the palisade.

‘Just listen, sir!’

Cato tried again, and this time, there was something else, over and above the rising cries of despair and panic from the enemy: a distant clash and clatter of weapons and the thin tinny blare of a trumpet. And only one army on this island used trumpets that sounded like that. Cato grinned as a wave of pure relief washed over him and filled his heart with joy.

‘It’s the legate. It has to be.’

‘Of course it bloody is, sir!’ the optio laughed, and slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Bastard had to leave it until the last moment, didn’t he?’

As more of the legionaries became aware of the noise they looked round at each other in delight, and then started cheering and making obscene gestures at the fleeing enemy. The ferocious arrogance with which the native warriors had attacked the cohort earlier in the afternoon had evaporated the moment word spread through their ranks that a powerful enemy force had appeared behind them. Now their only thought was for escape and survival. Only Caratacus’ bodyguard held firm - a small tight-knit unit of aristocrats and elite warriors that struggled to maintain a tight cordon around their king, contemptuously thrusting aside the frightened masses that streamed past them. Already, some of the enemy had realised that the marsh was their only hope of salvation, and they struck out from the track, wading out amongst the rushes, and struggling when they reached the expanse of mud beyond, stumbling through the ooze that clung to their legs and made every pace a test of strength and ultimately endurance.

‘Not a pretty sight, is it?’

Cato turned to see Macro at his shoulder. The older centurion was staring sadly at the spectacle on the track. ‘A broken army is a bloody pitiful thing.’

‘As sights go, that one will do me nicely.’

‘Heads up,’ Macro said quietly, looking past Cato’s shoulder. ‘Here’s Tullius . . .Congratulations, sir!’

‘Eh?’ Tullius looked anything but pleased, and Cato saw that his stare was fixed beyond the broken native force, towards the distant standards of the Second Legion, twinkling in the late afternoon sunlight. ‘I wonder if Vespasian will be so quick to offer his congratulations.’

Tullius gave Macro and Cato a meaningful look before he turned towards the nearest troops. ‘Get out of here!’

As soon as the legionaries had shuffled out of earshot Centurion Tullius faced his subordinates and spoke in a low, urgent tone.

‘What are we going to tell the legate?’

Cato raised his eyebrows. ‘Tell him? Sorry, sir, I don’t understand.’

Tullius leaned closer and stabbed Cato’s chest with his finger. ‘Don’t be fucking cute with me, lad. I’m talking about Maximius. How are we going to explain that one away?’

‘Pardon me, sir, but there’s nothing to explain away, provided we stick to our story. With Antonius dead, there’s only you, Macro, me and Nepos who know what really happened.’