R. Peake - Marching With Caesar - Conquest of Gaul

“How am I supposed to get from back here,” I motioned to our location while trying to maintain my alignment with the rest of the rank and the cover of my file, “to up there?” I indicated the spot with a jerk of my head.

“You follow the file of men with the ladder, idiot,” was his response. “The Pilus Prior'll be there at the base of the ladder while the ladder is being lifted. Then you follow him.”

“Oh.”

Chagrined that the answer was that simple, when I looked over, I was suddenly not so sure it was indeed that easy because they were three files over, putting men between me and them. I was in too much of a state for me to think it through, so I shrugged my shoulders and turned my attention back to the front. The town was looming larger, but the snapping of the bolts being fired over our heads was an oddly comforting sound. I could clearly see men on the ramparts of the wall now, only in glimpses though, as they were forced to keep their heads down because of the scorpions. Every so often, one of them would risk a quick peek around one of the crenellations to see when we would be in range. Even as I watched, apparently either one of them was a little too regular in deciding when to peek his head out and one of our gunners noticed, or he was just the unluckiest man in the world, because the timing of when he poked his head out and the bolt arriving in the spot his head now occupied, however briefly, could not have been better. In front of my very eyes, I saw the blur of the bolt, then saw the man’s head explode, the top half of his skull shooting off to the right while the continuing blur of the bolt, now with what looked like a fine red mist trailing it, went hurtling further into the town. My eyes were riveted to the sight, and I heard the exclamations of the men around me who saw it happen as well, all of us watching as the torso, with the lower half of the man’s head still attached, totter there for a moment before collapsing back behind the wall.

“Remind me not to ever get in front of one of those things,” Scribonius muttered, and all I could do was nod.

Our front ranks hit an unseen line marking the spot where we now came in range of their slingers. While not of the same renown as the slingers from the Balearic Islands, they were highly skilled nonetheless, and in the space of just a few moments we would learn to respect and fear these weapons almost more than any other that the Lusitani wielded. Dozens of men appeared, whirling their slings above their head, preparing to launch them despite weathering the bolts from a partial volley of scorpions that knocked a couple of the men off the wall.

“ TESTUDO !”

That command was roared simultaneously all along the leading line and it was in this first moment that it became apparent to every new Gregarii that all of the training and the beatings that came with it possessed a value that could not be overestimated. Even before I consciously thought about it, I crouched down and lifted my shield above my head, since the threat was coming from ahead and above us. If we were exposed to enfilading fire from the side, I would have held my shield across my body, while sheltering under Scribonius’ shield. A bare instant later, there was a sound like a sudden hailstorm as the stone shot that the Lusitani used bounced off the surface of our shields, mostly inflicting no damage. Scattered among the rattling sounds indicating no damage done however, there was another, a sickening thud either followed by a grunt, or worse, by a scream of pain that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Although we kept advancing, we could not move as quickly as we normally would in standard formation, so there is a tradeoff of sorts. Despite being more protected, the amount of time we were exposed to the slings was longer. The first volley did not inflict any casualties on our Century, but after the second rattling of shot, and more shouts and screams, there was a ripple in the formation as someone fell to the ground and we automatically compensated, closing up the spot where the man fell. While I could see a prone figure out of the corner of my eye, I could not see who it was, and I realized with a shock that we were now blooded. We had suffered our first casualty, but judging from the ferocity of the volleys that we were absorbing, it was not likely to be our last.

“Jupiter Optimus Maximus, protect this Legion, soldiers all,” someone cried out the Legionary's prayer, and while appreciating the sentiment, I wondered whether or not Jupiter really cared.

Our advance hampered by the use of the testudo , the distance closed agonizingly slowly, and for the first time I began noticing that my arm was getting a little tired from holding my shield above my head. Glancing over at Scribonius, the sweat was pouring from him as if he were standing in a rainstorm, his face red from the exertion. Meanwhile, the smacking and thuds of the shot continued, and more times we had to adjust the formation. Then, a man two ranks ahead of me, his arm obviously tiring from holding the shield, let it slip just a bit, enough so that I noticed the crack of daylight that allowed a beam of pure light to shine through as if shot down from the heavens. A sharp-eyed slinger saw that crack too because just a heartbeat later there was a thwanging sound, slightly different than those I had quickly become accustomed to, and the Legionary dropped to the ground without a sound, not moving. The man in front of me, Papiria was his name, almost stumbled over the body, which would have left several men exposed, but with a curse he managed to maintain his balance and I resolved not to make the same mistake, forcing myself to look down as I came on the body. I wish I had not; he was lying face up, with one eye hanging partially from its socket, a gaping hole showing between the orb and where the bridge of his nose had been, while his heart still pumped blood in a spray, the bone of his nose apparently carried by the shot into his brain. I felt the bile rise as the ghastly sight was burned into my memory forever and even today, I can close my eyes and still see him, alive but not, his heart not yet receiving the message that it was no longer needed. Dragging my eyes away now that I had stepped clear of him, one detail tugged at my mind. The rim of his helmet had a huge dent in it, and for some reason that image occupied my thoughts. Even as we were still moving forward, in formation, I thought about it and finally understood the thwanging sound I heard must have been the shot hitting the rim of the helmet, which in turn deflected it down, into his eye and through his brain. The helmet was not penetrated and when thinking about it later, I realized that if we were facing an enemy on the same level, and not occupying higher ground, the chances were very good that he would have been struck a glancing blow, except the projectile would angle up instead of down, and all he would suffer from it is a headache and ringing ears. Such are the whims of the Fates.

Making it to the base of the hill we started up, with one thing becoming clear immediately. The distance from the bottom of the hill to the base of the wall was deceptive; the Third Maniple would be forced to move higher up the hill to launch their javelins than originally planned. Our Century had shrunk even more, and when I anxiously glanced over to my left my heart sank as I saw that my rank was at least four people narrower than before. Meanwhile, the slingers continued their assault on us, the racket of missiles hitting the shields or occasionally striking something else and scoring a hit almost continuous. I tried to determine how many of the men in my tent section were missing from the back rank simply because they moved up to replace a gap, and how many had gone down themselves. From what I could remember, at least two men in files ahead to my left had fallen, and I thought there might be a third as well, yet that still left one of my tentmates unaccounted for, and my greatest fear was that it was Vibius. What if he were right after all? Trying to shut that out of my mind, I turned my attention back to the task at hand, and in a panic I saw that I had dropped my shield a fraction while thinking about something else. Quickly I readjusted, just in time to feel my arm shudder, hearing the unmistakable strike of a shot as I cursed myself for my inattention and vowed that I would not falter again. We were beyond the base of the hill now, reaching a point where the angle between our testudo and the slingers was such that the only way for a slinger to launch a missile at us was by leaning out over the edge of the wall. A couple of them tried and almost immediately were scoured from the wall by the scorpions. That is when they turned their attention to the Third Maniple, and it was like the hailstorm suddenly stopped now that it was their turn to come under fire. From our spot, the predominant sound was now the whirring sound of the slings circling around the men’s heads, followed by the whistle of the projectiles slicing into men behind us. Reaching the base of the wall, the Legionaries carrying the ladders immediately moved into action as we moved our shields to the side to allow them room.