Адриан Голдсуорти - The Fort

Hadrian turned to the tribune following three paces behind.

‘How many carts are ready to move by dawn?’

‘Tomorrow, sir?’

‘Of course, tomorrow! What did you think, at the Saturnalia?’

The tribune balked at the anger. ‘I, um, I think…’ he stammered.

‘Twenty two-wheeled carts drawn each by a pair of mules or horses,’ the centurion snapped the report, trying to shield the senior officer. ‘Twelve four-wheeled waggons with teams of four. Then twenty-seven carts carrying scorpiones and their ammunition and other equipment.’

Hadrian made up his mind. ‘Men to carry four days rations in their packs. Then empty all the artillery carts and strip them clean of anything that weighs. I want them packed with sacks of biscuit, grain and dried bacon.’

‘Sir?’

‘Do it. We carry food, only food, and men will fight with the weapons they carry.’ The power of the bolt shooters was terrifying, but Dacians were less impressed than barbarians who did not understand such things, so this time they would do without artillery support. ‘Half galearii to remain behind and senior officers may take one boy to serve them, but no more. That includes the legatus, so no one can complain that I deny others while enjoying my own comforts. Anyone disobeying will be flogged out of the camp, whatever their rank.’

The centurion’s eyes widened a little, although he said nothing.

‘When do we move, sir?’ the tribune had managed to control his stammer.

‘Form up at the start of the last watch of the night and march an hour before dawn. You’d better send a note to your wife that you will be going away for some time. There’ll be no time to spare any of us from work tonight. You, man!’ He pointed at one of the mounted soldiers. ‘Give me your horse.’ The man dismounted and Hadrian sprang into the saddle with his accustomed grace. He wished that there was time to unbuckle the girth and take the saddle off, for he felt like galloping bareback, but there was no time.

‘Hurry everyone. We go before dawn.’

‘Sir, what garrison do we leave here?’

‘Five hundred men and no more. Drawn from all the infantry in proportion. Tell them to select the oldest and least fit for marching hard and fast until we have enough.’

‘Sir?’ The centurion dared to hint at his doubts, but the legatus was not listening for he was already clattering away.

Hadrian felt the thrill before a hunt and urged the horse into a gallop, hoofs pounding on the planks of the bridge. The cavalryman was already yards behind him, struggling to keep up. This was a moment to cherish, as doubts faded and he faced the challenge of a hard task, but one that he knew would succeed. This was the moment. All of his stars were aligned in a way he had seen only two or three times before and always at a time when his life changed drastically for the better. He did not need a professional astrologer to tell him that the next nine days were his moment and that after that the heavenly bodies would move and all become uncertain again. He must win and he must win now.

The horse raced along, and Hadrian laughed with sheer joy as the wind rushed through his hair.

THEY HELD OFF one more big attack, and Ferox never understood how they had managed it, shooting away the last bolts and stones for the artillery, the last arrows for the handful of archers still on their feet, and all the stones and javelins. The Dacians gave way before the Romans, and just maybe they were almost as tired. Enica led a charge along the top of one of the ramparts, the vexillum of the goddess behind her, and the enemy gave way. Even Piso fought well, clumping along on his bandaged leg and bawling out encouragement. Yet by the end they were almost spent, with about a hundred more men dead or too injured to fight anymore. As Ferox chivvied the men to gather whatever weapons they could find and to tip the enemy corpses over the walls, the men moved like sleepwalkers, unseeing, emotionless, and if ever a man stopped for a moment his eyes shut and he passed out.

The next attack came at night, as Ferox had feared, and for the first time in many days the mist rose again in the early hours, so that the attackers were very close before they were seen and the alarm sounded. All that meant was that the enemy swarmed up and over the walls even faster than they might have done if there had been men waiting to do their feeble best in repelling them.

Ephippus was dead, but his acropolis was finished in spite of Piso’s scorn.

‘If we can’t stop them with high walls and ramparts,’ he had said many times, ‘how will low barricades help us? You cannot show fear to these people. If you do, they’ll walk all over you. That’s what Longinus let happen at Sarmizegethusa – only found his courage when it was too late, the silly old sod.’

The last stronghold was ready, even if it was no more than low barricades and the single tower joining up the praetorium, principia, hospital, a storeroom and barrack block. Ferox had wanted to move all the civilians and wounded inside days ago, along with as many of the men as could be bedded down within the compound. Piso refused, and as the days passed, he grew more and more assertive of his rights as senior officer. Fighting on the walls had invigorated him, so that he almost seemed to grow taller and bolder before their eyes.

‘If we pull back it will tell everyone – including our men – that the fight is hopeless and they will give in. For all we know a relief column is on its way. That is what we must give the men – hope! Hope that after all this we will prevail. For the few hours, or if the gods love someone here a few days, longer we might last, it is not worth snatching that hope from them.’

Vindex suggested hitting the tribune on the head again, but Ferox was too accustomed to obey and was not sure whether the tribune was right or wrong. He drove himself hard, but he was so weary that he no longer had the energy to think about such big questions. There was just the next step and the next moment, trying to do each little thing to keep them in the fight.

Shrouded in mist, the Dacians crept up to the walls, newly made ladders at the ready. They came past the stinking corpses, many with bellies burst open, and most with eyes pecked away by the carrion fowl who never left the fort these days, growing fat on the flesh of men.

Sentries were tired, slow to see and slower still to react, and so the fort fell. The west gate was opened first, and hundreds of warriors poured inside, led by Bastarnae with falxes. Ferox, having taken a rare snatch of sleep wrapped in his cloak in the courtyard of the principia, woke to screaming and shouts of triumph and to Sulpicia Lepidina shaking him awake.

‘They are coming,’ she said.

There was little he could do except make sure that the acropolis held and that all those able to reach it were let inside. There were twenty or so men who had been sleeping in the courtyard and as many more of the wounded able to fight if not required to move too much, so he shouted orders and sent them to the weak spots. Fugitives were coming in already; Sosius was one of the first to slide over the improvised wall. About half the soldiers and even more of the few families, slaves and galearii made it in time, while all the rest died, for the Dacians were in no mood to take prisoners.

Piso again came to new life. He had been at the porta praetoria and he gathered as many men as he could and led then in a knot back towards the acropolis. He had almost fifty men when he rallied them near the gate, thirty by the time he reached the junction of the roads, and sixteen were left to run in through the small gap in the barricades. They were the last big group to make it through and they had drawn many of the enemies to them, giving others a chance to escape.