Caesar Triumphant- Chapter 9 (Cont.)

Entering Caesar's camp, Asinius Pollio's mouth
hung open as he gazed about. Only when he looked to the right side of the forum
did he see anything resembling a Roman camp, except that the usually neatly
ordered streets were now crammed full of men lying in row upon row. Other men,
both uniformed and noncombatant, were moving about, crouching next to a man to
offer a drink of water, ladling it out of a bucket in one spot, while in others
a pair of men would be grabbing the legs and trunk of a Legionary who had
succumbed to his wounds. Treating the now-dead man with a care that Pollio had
seen so many times before, the bearers nevertheless moved swiftly, carefully
stepping over the other wounded as they took the body away to...where, Pollio
wondered? Even as he watched this scene played out on every single Legion
street, sometimes simultaneously, as quickly as the corpse was removed, two
more orderlies would come hurrying up, using the plank stretcher to bring
another wounded man from one of the areas Caesar had designated for his
physicians and the medici, where they
assessed the casualty brought before them. Although this scene wasn't all that
unusual; Caesar had long since perfected the art of rapid restoration of order
and treatment of casualties after battle, Pollio had never seen anything on
this scale before. That was because, he realized, nothing like this had ever
happened to Caesar's army before.

He had since dismounted, leaving his horse
behind to walk on foot, mainly because he had reached the part of the camp
where everything was in such a shambles that it was impossible to even see
where the Via Principalis or Via Praetoria was, let alone follow it. But the
real reason he had chosen to walk, the two Tribunes he had brought with him
trailing behind him, their mental state much the same as his, was that he
needed time to absorb what he was seeing. Also, he had been prepared to tell
Caesar in expansive terms about the hard-fought battle they had endured to hold
the southernmost camp, but all the flowery phrases that he had come up with in
his mind were wilting as rapidly as if they were real blooms suddenly exposed
to a desert sun. For Pollio realized that nothing he and the men of the
southern camp had faced was anything close to what he was seeing happened in
Caesar's camp.

Reaching the far edge of the forum, Pollio's
walk slowed even more, then came to a stop as he stood, open-mouthed and
looking in the direction of the western wall. Normally his eye would be met
with row upon row of ordered tent lines, blocks of them neatly arranged by the
Cohort and Legion that they belonged to, the streets between the blocks as
neatly delineated as the tents. It was a sight that was always pleasing to a
Roman eye, and even more than the sight of the blackened ruins of entire blocks
of tents, most of them still smoking, it was the lack of order that impacted
Pollio most profoundly. He would never have thought that he put so much
importance on seeing what was nothing more than clumps of peaked leather
arranged in regular patterns, but in that moment Pollio realized just how Roman
he was. Now standing there, his eye traveled from the southern wall to the
northern wall, only stopping when he spotted something that was out of place in
what he was now recognizing as a scene of total destruction. Usually it was the
sight of a group of Legionaries, bending over one of the many heaps of bodies
where at some point part of the fight had coalesced at that spot. From his
experience in reading battlefields, Pollio knew that this sudden preponderance
of corpses usually signaled some event that merited an increase in the fury of
the fighting, at least to the men in that area. Usually, Pollio knew, it
involved something like a signifer of
a Cohort, or even an aquilifer
carrying the Legion eagle, either choosing or being forced to make a stand,
which naturally drew the attention and effort of the enemy to take the prized
symbol. Or it could revolve around an individual who attracted the same kind of
attention, usually a Centurion, Tribune, or even Legate. Whatever the cause,
while the piled bodies weren't a new sight to Pollio, the sheer number of such
heaps was, and momentarily forgetting what it was he had come to do, Pollio
stood in place as he surveyed the scene. The ability to read a battlefield only
came with experience, but what Pollio was trying to interpret was on a scale
unlike anything he had seen, hence it took him longer to make sense of what he
was seeing. He could see a number of spots on the western wall where the
palisade stakes were missing, telling him the spots where the barbarians had
come pouring over the wall. Turning to examine the southwest corner, he
understood that this was where the biggest and probably fatal breach had
occurred, as not only the wooden stakes but a great section of the turf wall
had been pulled down.

As he gradually made sense of the scene, he
could see that Caesar had staged a fighting withdrawal, stopping his backward
movement every couple of dozen paces, where the barbarians would renew their
assault on what was essentially a mobile wall composed of wood, flesh and iron.
Satisfied that he had a sense of the flow of the battle, Pollio turned and
continued heading toward the forum, reaching the jumbled mass of equipment,
crates, tables and carts that had formed the makeshift barricade. He was
pleased to see that Caesar had at least organized work parties to clear a path
to the barricade so that Pollio and the Tribunes didn't have to step on the
bodies that literally covered the ground entirely so that the only visible dirt
was this path, cordoned off by a grisly pile of dead barbarians who, Pollio
noted dismally, were already beginning to stink and draw flies. It always
struck him how quickly the human body started to decay after a man's death; he
had heard men claim that they could smell the stench of death even as a man's
body hit the ground. While Pollio doubted that, he did know that it took less
than a watch before the first scent of that sickly sweet smell reached his
nostrils. Following the gory path, he nevertheless had to clamber over the
barricade, thankful that there was a ladder in place to help him. He was no
longer a young man, and he was afraid that he would break something if he had
been forced to climb over the barricade by hand. But it wasn't lost on him that
Caesar hadn't ordered the barricade to be taken down, and he wondered if that
was because Caesar had specific information, or he was just being cautious. If
it was the latter, Pollio thought, that would be a sign that Caesar had been
shaken much more badly than he would want to admit, and he carried this thought
with him as he gazed about at the knots of men, trying to find the general. He
wasn't sure what he had been expecting, but he realized he shouldn't have been
surprised that the space inside the barricade had been cleaned up as much as
the time allowed. There were no bodies, or much debris in the form of pierced
or shattered helmets, damaged shields or spent javelins. But what there was, in
abundance, were dark stains, splotches of dirt that told Pollio of fallen men,
fighting to keep the barbarians out. So many of them it was impossible for him
to even make an estimate of the casualties suffered in this last phase of the battle.
The packed dirt area of the forum, where the wounded had been dragged during
the fight, was completely darkened with the blood of the fallen, to the point
where it was uniform in color. From above it looked like a roughly square shape
of a different type of dirt had been laid over the lighter colored soil that
was a feature of this ridge. Finally, Pollio saw one of the groups of men
suddenly disperse, revealing the sight of his general, who was still seated on
the stool that had been brought to him some time before. Pollio made his way in
that direction noticing that the men who had been gathered with Caesar and were
now heading in different directions, all wore the distinctive transverse crest
of the Centurion. Surely, Pollio thought with dismay, there's more than two
dozen Centurions left out of the 120 that had started the day!

Caesar hadn't seen Pollio yet, concentrating
instead on another tablet, inscribing something in the wax with his stylus, and
it was this sight more than anything that brought home to Pollio exactly how
costly this battle had been. As Pollio thought about it, just as he was
reaching Caesar's side, he couldn't remember the last time he had seen Caesar,
out in public at least, writing his own messages. In private, certainly; Pollio
knew that Caesar had been keeping a journal of this entire campaign, much in
the same way as he had in Gaul, but it wasn't seemly for the general commanding
the army to be forced to write his own dispatches. Caesar, head bent down and
concentrating on the tablet, only became aware of Pollio when the standing
man's presence blocked out the last of the daylight. Obviously irritated,
Caesar looked up with a frown, squinting up at whomever it was that had dared
to throw a shadow over his work. At first he didn't seem to recognize Pollio,
and in the short silence Pollio had the chance to examine this man he had been
following for so much of his life. Just like Carbo, what Pollio saw was a man
who seemed to have aged overnight, but in Pollio's case this was almost
literally true, since it had been just the night before that Pollio had
attended the last briefing Caesar had held. How much had changed in that time,
Pollio thought, only partially thinking of the battle. He was about to open his
mouth when Caesar's expression changed to one of recognition, and the general
waved the tablet wearily at his lieutenant.

"I was about to send you another
dispatch," he said wearily. "I hadn't heard from you and I need to
know if you have any medici you can spare. Mine are almost exhausted; I expect them to drop
any moment. Frankly, I don't know what keeps them going," he muttered.

"Because they're
needed," Pollio told Caesar quietly.

This prompted a laugh
that held no humor whatsoever.

"That they
are," Caesar agreed. Then, he turned his mind to other matters, asking
Pollio, "What's your status? I assume since you're here that your camp
held?"

"Yes, it did,"
Pollio replied. Not knowing why exactly, he was nonetheless compelled to be
frank as he told Caesar, "I was going to tell you how hard a fight it was,
and how the men fought like Trojans. But now that I've seen all this," he
waved a hand around him, "I realize we had it easy."

Instead of answering
immediately, Caesar looked outward in the direction Pollio had indicated, but
his true gaze was inward. Watching him sit there, Pollio had a thought very
similar to Carbo's earlier, thinking that Caesar looked.....lost. That was it,
Pollio realized, for the first time, if not in this campaign but his entire
life, Caesar doesn't know what to do next. And that thought scared him more
than anything he had seen this day.

 

Even after events that men are sure have never
taken place under the sun before, no matter how cataclysmic or monumental, the
sun still sets, ending the day in which these events occur. Such was the case
on this day, a day that the fate of an army, and the destiny of a people were
forever changed. Normally, the Roman army's activity ceased with the setting of
the sun, save for the obligatory guard watches, while those men not on duty
retired to their respective tent sections to sit with their comrades and
discuss the day or pick up an argument where they had left it off the night
before. Not on this night, however; there was simply too much left to do. In
the northern camp, the acting Primi Pili of the 10th and 12th Legions, Sextus
Scribonius and the Primus Hastatus Posterior of the 12th, Vibius Volusenus, had
ordered that not only torches be lit, but all flammable debris, ruined shields,
broken crates, desks from the Cohort and Legion offices that still survived,
all of it be placed in several piles and set alight. The resulting bonfires
provided a lurid light that allowed the men to continue working on the tasks
they had been assigned by their respective Centurions, small in number as they
may have been.

Standing together in the forum, the two Primi
Pili were discussing the next steps, and they had been joined by the Centurion
who had saved their camp, Felix. The short, stocky Quintus Pilus Prior of the
30th looked as exhausted as the other two men, and in the dancing light
provided by a nearby bonfire, the crevices on his otherwise young face made him
look as ancient as Caesar. Diagonally across one cheek was a hastily stitched
gash, and while the blood that covered the lower half of his face had been
washed off, the cut itself looked black from the dried blood caked in the
wound. He also had a filthy neckerchief tied high on his left shoulder, and
this too was darkened from the blood from a spear thrust that had struck a
glancing blow. In fact, none of the men standing there was unmarked in some
way; Scribonius had undergone the agony of having the bandage covering the
wound on his arm loosened, allowing the feeling to come flooding back, bringing
with it a suffering that far outweighed what should have been the toll of the
injury itself. But Scribonius was lucky; when the orderly carefully unwrapped
the bandage, he had done so with such gentle skill that the wound hadn't
reopened, allowing the medici to
stitch it shut, then rewrap it with a fresh bandage. It was fresh only in the
sense that it was new to Scribonius. In fact the medici had removed it from a man who no longer needed it,
succumbing to other wounds of his body, but he saw no need to tell this
Centurion that he was essentially sporting a dead man's bandage. For his part,
Scribonius was just grateful that the bleeding hadn't begun afresh; knowing
that as lightheaded as he was already, it was likely he would lose
consciousness if he shed any more. If that happened, he knew from bitter
observation that it was unlikely that he would ever wake up.

So he wasn't in a complaining mood, and in fact
was thankful that he had as much of his faculties as he did, because there was
so much that had to be done. Volusenus and he had sent a joint message to
Caesar that, knowing their general as they did, both understood wouldn't meet
his requirement for information. While this hadn't been by accident, it had
only been done because neither Scribonius nor Volusenus had finished tallying
the dead and separating the wounded into the categories that Caesar always
required. The simple truth was that the survivors in the northern camp were so
few in number and so overcome with exhaustion that they were overwhelmed. Along
with the dispatch that said that the camp had held, albeit barely, and an
estimate of effective strength and the supply situation as far as they knew it
since a great deal of the camp, like Caesar's had been burned to the ground,
they unwittingly made the exact same request that Caesar made of Pollio for
more medical help. Now, standing in the forum, the two Primi Pili had been
quietly discussing ideas that would help accomplish some of the things that
needed to be done, when Felix joined them. Neither man spoke directly to Felix
at first, mainly because there weren't words that could adequately express
their gratitude. So instead, Scribonius thrust the skin he had been drinking
from, which Felix took with a lifted eyebrow, in a silent question.

"It's rice
wine," Scribonius told him, laughing at the face the other man made.

Still, Felix lifted the
skin in a silent thanks before bringing it to his mouth, taking a long, deep
swallow. Coughing, he handed the skin back to Scribonius with an oath, causing
the other men to laugh.

"Granted, it tastes
like horse piss, but it gets the job done," Scribonius said, just before
taking another long pull on the skin himself.

Scribonius and Felix had
already conversed a couple of times by this point, the first concerning what
Pullus had directed his friend to do, and that was keep Felix from taking the
relief force from the northern camp. Fortunately, Felix hadn't put up a fight
at all, instantly seeing the sense.

As he put it,
"Until I get a written order telling me otherwise, my last orders were to
come to your aid. Flaminius didn't specify that it was only fighting."

Truth be known,
Scribonius was hugely relieved at Felix's words, because he didn't relish
imposing his will on others, especially a man who had saved them, the way
Pullus did.

"Do you think
they'll come back?" Felix asked the question that was haunting every man,
regardless of rank, in the northern camp that night.

Scribonius shook his
head, but not in the way Felix might have liked.

"I don't
know," Scribonius said. "I know if I was their general, or if it was
Caesar leading them, we would scrape up every single man we could find and
march up here and finish us. And," he finished grimly, "there's
nothing we could do about it."

The other two men stood
digesting this for a moment, both of them knowing what Scribonius was saying
was true. Finally, Volusenus grunted, which Scribonius was learning was his
prelude to speaking.

"Well, there's not
much we can do about it. Worrying isn't going to help. We just need to do what
we can to get the men rested up."

"As tired as they are, I doubt there's
going to be much sleep tonight," Scribonius replied as he handed the skin
back to Felix, indicating that he should finish it as it was down to the dregs.
Again, silence fell as each man was absorbed in their own morose thoughts. In
the quiet between them was the bond forged by shared loss, each of them
thinking of close friends they had lost today. Scribonius' first thought was of
Balbus, finally coming to grips with his death when he saw the Centurion's
body, his scarred face looking oddly peaceful, despite the puckering hole in
his chest. Immediately on the heels of that was thoughts of another friend, and
it was as if Felix could read his mind, but it took him repeating it twice
before Scribonius was jerked back to the present.

"And Pullus? Is he
still alive?"

Scribonius shook his
head again, but just like the previous time, it wasn't meant in the way that
Felix took it, whose mouth was even then opening to offer his sympathies to
Scribonius on the loss of a man who was a legend.

Before Felix could say
what he wanted to, Scribonius murmured, "I don't know why he's not dead.
But no, he's still alive. And you know what?" Scribonius' expression was
one that Felix, only knowing the other man by sight and reputation, didn't
recognize, but what Scribonius' face said echoed his next words, which was a
message of hope. "I think he's going to survive. I don't know how, and I
surely don't know why. But I think that if he hasn't died by now, I don't think
he's going to."

It was Volusenus who opened his mouth to argue
this, planning to point out that as strong as Pullus was, he was still mortal,
and he had seen the fight, and the blow that had felled him, and his experience
told him that Scribonius' hope was a vain one. And to Volusenus, a foolish one.
But before he uttered the words he was distracted by a sound, and like the
other two he turned to see another Centurion approaching. In the light supplied
by the fires, Volusenus recognized the tall, lean figure before he got a clear
glimpse of the face, and it was enough to tell him that it was Pullus' nephew.
And while Volusenus might have been willing to tell Scribonius the harsh truth,
he wasn't about to be that harsh with a youngster who was blood kin to Pullus.
He didn't need that kind of trouble.

"Porcinus, I thought I told you that you
were supposed to stay with the Primus Pilus!"

Scribonius' sharp tone was a cover for the stab
of fear he experienced when he saw his friend's nephew approach, sure that the
only reason Porcinus would leave Pullus' side was because he was no longer
needed. But nothing in Porcinus' attitude or expression indicated that this was
the case. Instead, he had a look on his face that could best be described as
bemusement, which was explained by what came out of his mouth.

"I know you did
Pilus Prior, but the Primus Pilus outranks you. And he wouldn't let me stay, no
matter what I told him. In fact, he tried to throw a cup at me, and he promised
that as soon as he's recovered, he would thrash me good if I didn't go make
myself useful."

For the first, and one
of the only times that night, roars of laughter could be heard coming from the
northern camp.

 

All posts by R.W. Peake on blog.rwpeake.com are copyrighted by the author, 2012.