Legatus Legionis: Book Two in the Gaius Claudius Scaevola Trilogy (20 page)

Gaius stared at this in amazement; it was a further confirmation of the prophecy. Athene had told him he would command the most loyal of legions, and his legion had been named
Claudia pia fidelis
. That was too strange to be an accidental coincidence, or a lucky guess. That only made sense if Athene had seen the future, which in turn meant . . . What? He would succeed with his engine, which would make no difference to anybody except himself?

That was possible, in as much as Hero's engine was nothing better than a toy, but his . . . Surely it could be made bigger?

But not in the immediate future. He had clear orders to take command of a legion that would be part of an invasion. Conquest! It was then that he remembered a discussion with Timothy: what right did Rome have to invade other lands? He recalled his own response: whether it was right or wrong, it did no good for a soldier to refuse orders for the invasion would go ahead, with or without him. Then he recalled both Timothy and Rebecca: a soldier had to fight, but it was what he did after the fighting was over that would make the difference. Under his command there would be no rape or pillage, or else. That may not justify the invasion, but it was still better that he was a Legate than somebody else.

There would be plenty of forest fighting in Britain, he realized. He was now very grateful that he was allowed to take some of his best Tribunes and Centurions. Those exercises had not been a waste of time. Lucius Matius might be a little disappointed, because he would have expected his next move would be to advance his career, but he was the most promising Tribune, so he needed him. In any case, if Athene, or whoever she was, had told the truth it may not take Lucius that long to get a legion.

He must call together the men he would take, gauge their reactions, and prepare to move. He must also write and thank Claudius, and give him his timetable. He intended to move very quickly. With a new legion, every day before winter set in would be valuable for carrying out exercises, and he had no intention of wasting a day. The
Valeria
would get a wake-up call very soon.

Chapter 18

Once again, Gaius thought to himself, he was approaching his new command with a small group of soldiers who were escorting a cart with his belongings. Once again it was fall, the leaves were a striking golden brown in the evening sun, there was a major river nearby, but this time there were no barbarian raiders. They had previously crossed a small river and had followed it downstream on its northwest bank, and now the legionary camp could be seen directly ahead. A little to the left there was a small hill. Gaius rode back towards Timothy, who was driving the cart, and told him to take the cart into the camp, together with the ordinary soldiers. He would take the Tribunes with him, together with the Prime Centurion of the first cohort, and he would go to the top of the hill to view his new command. When he, Timothy, arrived in the camp, he was not to let on that their new commander was on the hill, but rather inform them that he was following some distance behind. Timothy nodded, and set the cart off at a rather slow canter towards the camp to the northeast.

Meanwhile, Gaius' party rode promptly around the back of the hill before making the ascent. They reached the top, then scanned the scene below. The scene was very peaceful in the autumnal sun, which was probably just as well, Gaius thought to himself, for the last thing he needed right now, with an invasion of Britain coming up, was a war with the Germans. To the northeast, the camp looked very secure as it was situated on a terrace that was highly suitable for defensive purposes, and just to the south of it, the small river he had been following provided a natural defence as it joined the Rhine. The camp looked orderly enough, but there were no signs of squads exercising or returning from exercise. There was no sign of a squad undergoing fatigues, and while this might mean the discipline was perfect, more likely it meant that discipline was not being imposed very rigorously. That would change!

The scene away from the camp was a little more encouraging. There was plenty of flat and open land to the west of the camp that would be good for exercises. Further away, there was forest to the south and west, which again would be good for exercises, and it contained a good supply of timber necessary for constructing bridges and defensive palisades. The small river he had been following would provide some value for exercises involving river crossings and bridge building, although that might be more limited because it was a small river. On the other hand, he should not use the Rhine, which in any case was somewhat bigger, as he understood it, than any river he was likely to have to cross in Britain.

Yes, overall the site was not entirely ideal for what he had in mind, but it was certainly a lot better than adequate. That legion may be a little out of practice, but there was plenty of scope to correct most of their problems.

"Your thoughts?" Gaius asked, as he turned towards Matius. Gaius smiled inwardly as he noticed the range of emotions cross Matius' face. In this sort of test it was desirable to agree with the commander, but Gaius was not giving many clues.

"I think we have a bit of work to do," Matius replied. He had a clue, in that the Prime Centurion had noticed something, and was scowling.

"Why?"

"When Timothy arrived with the cart, that inspection was fairly perfunctory," Matius replied. "It could have been anybody."

"Perhaps they didn't want to piss off their new legate," Gaius offered.

"Maybe," Matius said, "but . . ."

Gaius smiled inwardly as he recognized that Matius was a little unsure of himself. "Anything other than the cart?"

"I can't see anybody doing any exercises," Matius offered, perhaps a trifle hesitantly. "I would have thought that with an invasion coming, they might want to get into . . ."

"Lucius," Gaius smiled, and patted him on the shoulder, "be more confident. You are perfectly correct, except for the use of the word 'might'. Believe me, I am not impressed, and they will find out what that means starting tomorrow. Now, if you were me, what would you do?"

"I would split them up," Matius replied, more confidently because, from his point of view, his answer was unlikely to be absolutely wrong. "We have already seen a moderate sized river, and some should be practising river crossings. Then, some of the rest would take part in forest exercises that we were practising, and the rest would carry out usual exercises on the open flat land, particularly those involving linking cavalry with infantry."

"You wouldn't have the cavalry exercise in the forest?"

"Not yet, sir."

"Why not?"

"Out in the open, I could keep a good view of them from this hill sir, and I would very quickly learn how good they were. In the forest, it's harder to see, and . . ."

"Exactly so," Gaius smiled. "Since I don't know which Tribunes to send back to the Claudia yet, I'll keep you three just observing what goes on for the next week. You, Lucius, can instruct their cavalry in some of the exercises we practised through the summer and watch from this hill. You other two Tribunes can cast dice to decide which one watches the river crossing exercises and which one the forest ambushes. Centurion, I rather suspect discipline is rather lax down there. You will see that any such laxness ceases, as from tomorrow. Any questions, any of you?"

There were none. The following day, the
Valeria
would learn they had a new commander.

* * *

At the first meeting of Tribunes and Centurions, he outlined the need for further exercises, and watched carefully the responses. As he explained, the winter was fast approaching, and it was imperative that they took advantage of every good day. Unless everything went supremely well, he would impose winter exercises, so that should persuade the men to perform better. The exercises started the next day, and that evening there was a further meeting of Tribunes and Centurions.

"Overall, that was not good enough," Gaius announced. "Let me start with those involved in river crossings. Three cohorts tried in three places. You all got across readily enough, but there was a problem. What was it?"

There was a puzzled silence.

"Then I'll tell you. What about enemy forces? The seventh did get across and immediately set up defensive positions, but the rest sat around, thinking everything was over. Any comments?"

"There was nobody there," the Tribune assigned to the eighth offered.

"How do you know?" Gaius asked.

"We could see open ground."

"One of the interesting points about an ambush is you can't see the ambushers," Gaius pointed out, "at least without a good exploratory effort. Yes, I know the ground was open, but only for about half a mile. You could end up with a third of your men across, and a large force could appear from the forest. Yes, I know there is some risk, but once over, you must set up some sort of defence as soon as possible, and send out scouts to see what is in the forest. Any comment?"

There was none from the shame-faced Tribune.

"Same applies to the ninth," Gaius said, "and while the seventh did fortify after crossing, the forest was closer to you. You could have checked before crossing."

"I did, sir."

"Well, my observer didn't see anybody do it. You might have thought you did, you might have even given an order, but . . ."

"I sent scouts across last night, as soon as I knew the exercise was on," the Tribune protested.

"Your point," Gaius said. "I would like to check what your scouts actually did later. Send them to my tent, please. Now, the cavalry exercises. That was a little chaotic, because basically the cavalry didn't do much at all. I am going to assume this was due to faulty orders, because the infantry didn't do much either. There will be a repeat tomorrow.

"Now, the forest exercises. There were three separate exercises, and apart from the gamma ambushers, basically everybody else is dead. Why?"

There was a stunned silence.

"Because what generally happened was that the ambushers announced their presence and marched forward after having tried to form lines in the forest, and those being ambushed tried to form lines. You fought battles of attrition, and since you are equally skilled, or hopefully so, and because you were in equal numbers, you would basically hack each other to death. The objective of surprise is to gain as much advantage as possible before the opposition can organize a proper defence.

"Now, why were the three squads ambushed? Why should they have been wiped out? And more to the point, what could they have done about it? Yes, we've discussed this already. You've got to send out scouts. Now some did, but the scouts' forest skills were simply inadequate. Now, gamma squad did gain a surprise, and it did take some advantage, however, Tribune, what could you have done better?"

"Found a closer place to hide?"

"Yes, you could, although being that far away wasn't too bad. Anything else?"

There was a silence, then a shrug.

"Firstly, there's the choice of position," Gaius said. "If possible, you want a straight section between two obstructions, such as bends, and you want to send detachments to each of the bends. The straight section is the killing field, but you have to have a means of dealing with escapers. Also, you have to do something with your archers. Yes, I know arrows are a little dangerous to send into our own men, but you could still have archers placed where they would fire, but for the fact they're our men. I can't emphasize enough the need to do as much damage as you can before the opposition gets organized. For the purpose of these exercises, if you give the command we assume the archers can send off three flights of arrows before the opposition gets organized enough to form a shield barrier. You may not send the arrows until we make some with soft furry ends, but the assessors will guess how much damage the volleys would have caused, had you sent them. Finally, while your opposition did not send out scouts, you didn't know they wouldn't. You needed to have sent out scouts to capture their scouts.

"All of which gets me to the next point. Each cohort needs scouts specially trained in forest skills, to move without being detected, and to kill any of the opposition that it comes into contact with. I want each of you to find men who have had experience in forests who would be willing to learn these skills. Right, we start again tomorrow morning. Same exercises, same people! Hopefully, better performances!

The somewhat anxious scouts from the ninth turned up and explained what they had done, which was basically to cross the previous evening, do a basic search of the closer forest in the moonlight, then, at sunrise, they did a deeper forest search, all the time trying to remain out of sight. In that they were successful, for Gaius' observers had completely missed them. Gaius congratulated them, then told them that things would get harder, but he expected them also to become harder to find.

* * *

Exercises were carried out for the next few days without revision meetings, as Gaius wanted to see who would take the hints and improve. As expected, some units performed better than others, however it was also clear that some cohorts had been kept in better order than others. Four of the poorer cohorts had two Tribunes who appeared to be out of their depth, so Gaius made an effort to find out why. The answer for one was quite simply he had never commanded at this level before, while the other one was having difficulty in imposing discipline. Gaius decide to personally help the first one, in the hope he could teach him enough, and for the second he gave him the services of the Prime Centurion he had brought with him, together with a very generous supply of canes.

The news that the legion would take part in an invasion did, however, lead to an increase in morale. Marching around, digging ditches and getting soaked in winter streams was simply tedious; however taking part in a conquest was another matter. That they might lose never occurred to the soldiers.