R. Peake - Marching With Caesar - Conquest of Gaul

By this time I was joined by another man, who stood by my side shoulder to shoulder, there being only room for two of us to stand this way on the parapet at this moment with a bit of room to maneuver. There were still a sizable number of Lusitani in our vicinity of the parapet, but they had seen the fate of their two companions and now were not quite as bold. The two of us moved slowly forward, our shields locked together, then I felt someone grasp my harness behind me to brace me in the way we were trained.

“Let’s go get these bastards,” I heard Calienus say, and realizing that he was the one behind me made me feel even more confident. For the first time since I was on the wall, I became aware of the sounds of battle going on around me; the clashing of metal on metal, the roars of men trying to slaughter each other, the cries of the wounded and shrieks of the dying. I was too inexperienced to know how the fight was going by the sound; that would only come after several engagements, so I had no idea how the assault was progressing. Moving forward, we stepped over the bodies of the two men I had slain, taking care not to trip as we tried to close the distance between us and the remaining Lusitani. At first they were content to keep backing up, making half-hearted jabs with their weapons, then one of them looked behind him and saw what we had seen already; they were running out of room. Immediately behind them was a series of large log columns protruding above the parapet, effectively blocking it off from the parapet on the other side. There was a ladder next to the columns but they knew as we did that the moment they tried to climb down we would be on them, and while the wall was only ten feet high on the outside, the actual level of the town was lower by a few feet where they had dug down to create streets and such. This was not a height that would kill them if they jumped, but it would definitely stun or knock the wind out of them, which was just as dangerous. However, this was actually a bad spot for us as well, because now that they knew there was no escape, their only choice was to attack or die. Not that it mattered much in the larger picture; the murder of the Tribune sealed the fate of the defenders of this town, along with the citizens, but first we had to finish what we started. One of the men, a decent-sized warrior a bit older than us, was the first to attack and in doing so, showed us a characteristic of the Lusitani that I have since seen in other Gallic tribes, with whom the Lusitani are distant cousins. Unleashing a war cry, he lunged forward, a whirlwind of ferocious movement as he slashed at us with his long sword. Both the man next to me and I raised our shields as we were buffeted by blow after blow, each of them sending shocks traveling down our arms that were clearly transferred backwards as we recoiled. Keeping our guard up while watching through the crack between the shields, we waited for an opening, and it soon presented itself. For a moment the Lusitani dropped his guard as he panted for breath, both his sword and his shield moving just a bit. Like a snake striking, my comrade, who I recognized as a veteran from my Century that was salted into our ranks, thrust his blade through the gap between us, plunging it into the gut of the Lusitani who let out a gasp of air as if he was punched. Before my mind even registered it happening, the blade was back behind the shield and I looked down to see that fully half of its length was covered in blood. The Lusitani took a step back, began to turn around, then toppled off the parapet, whereupon another man took his place, and it was then that I noticed this strange custom. The Lusitani, much in the same way as the Gallic tribes, have this notion of single combat and whenever possible prefer to attack one at a time. At least, that is how they start out; usually, by the third or fourth time we faced them they learned the folly of their ways, but since this was our first battle with the Lusitani, they still were determined to fight in the manner in which they were accustomed. The next man apparently did not learn anything from watching his comrade, instead coming and swinging wildly at us, making it a matter of a few heartbeats before he was dispatched. It was in this manner that we slowly moved forward, eliminating all of the men on that section of the parapet.

Once our section of the parapet was cleared of the enemy, we turned our attention to the fighting around us. The immediate area was now crowded with Legionaries, yet none of us had made sufficient headway against the Lusitani to enable us to get off the parapet and down onto the ground. While our Century was clearly holding its own, I thought that they would welcome the help of the rest of us in our small group, but I was not sure what to do, so I turned to Calienus for direction and he seemed to weigh the options in his mind. Narrowing his eyes in thought, oblivious to the mayhem that was taking place just feet away from us, he announced, “We’ve cleared our section, so we could go down the ladder and come back up behind them farther down the wall,” and I looked down at the area immediately surrounding us.

It was full of the Lusitani in reserve, and although they obviously did not have the weapons and probably did not have the training of the Lusitani on the wall, they made up for it in numbers, at least as I saw it. However, I would obey my Sergeant no matter what he said.

“But I think that while we could take most of those bastards, there's just too many to make it a sure thing,” and I heaved a sigh of relief at the decision, “so let’s go help the boys over there,” he pointed to where Crastinus was fighting.

Running along the parapet, we were forced to hop over the bodies heaped there, it surprised me how quickly I was becoming inured to the feeling of wanting to throw up whenever I saw a corpse. Less than a full watch ago, I felt like I wanted to vomit when the Tribune was decapitated, but now I hopped over mangled bodies like they were no more than a log. I have always found it interesting how the human mind works that way. Making our way to the rear of the group of men from our Century who were in the assault team with the Pilus Prior, I grabbed the back of the harness of the man in front of me who twisted in surprise, in turn giving me a shock, albeit a happy one. It was Vibius!

He grinned when he saw me and I returned it as he asked, “Well, how many have you done for so far?”

“Three, and helped with a couple of others. You?”

He looked a little embarrassed as he shook his head, then nodded towards the front and replied, “Those bastards up there won’t give me a chance. They won’t rotate through like they’re supposed to.”

Standing on tiptoe I could see that, indeed, the Pilus Prior was still up front, thrusting away with short, brutal strokes and I could see men toppling over in front of him, most of them either falling or being pushed off the parapet to land on the ground. Next to him was one of the veterans of the Century, a Legionary named Figulus, who was doing the same. Looking down at the growing pile of bodies heaped below the parapet, I saw some of them moving and trying to crawl away, with others being completely still. Trying to estimate how many there were, I thought maybe twenty or thirty, but there appeared to be at least that many men left between us and the rest of the Century that had been led by the unfortunate Vinicius, so that pressure was being applied on both sides as the two parts of the Century moved towards each other, making the results inevitable.

After another few moments of fighting, we cleared the area of rampart that we were assigned, whereupon Crastinus pointed down with his sword at the mass of men standing in what passed for a street in towns like this, though was nothing more than a wide expanse of rutted dirt with puddles of mud.