Marching With Caesar - Civil War (38 page)

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The Egyptian commander, who I do not believe was Achillas, ordered his men to turn their attention to a postern gate opening onto an alley running between two of the buildings we were defending, and was used to deliver supplies. They had fashioned a crude battering ram, using what looked like a carved column, to which they had attached a series of ropes to act as handles. When the men carrying the ram moved forward, they were surrounded by comrades carrying their shields high above their heads to protect the ram from our men on the roofs of the buildings. Hurrying over to the new point of attack, using the holes in the walls we had opened, I found Salvius in command, meaning that Porcinus was actually in charge. The Optio had two sections bracing against the gate, their bodies shuddering with every impact of the ram, as splinters flew with each blow.

I waited a moment to see if Salvius would do anything, but after a couple of moments where he seemed content to watch his men desperately struggling to brace the gate, I finally spoke. “Salvius,” I snapped. “Don’t stand there with your thumb up your ass. Get some of your men to find something to brace the gate. These men can’t do it alone. Hurry, damn you!”

You would have thought I poked him in the ass with a red-hot javelin, and he scurried off with several sections of his men looking for something suitable, and I wondered if he would be smart enough to bring something that would be of any value. Ordering another two sections to relieve the men at the gate, the relieved men gasped their thanks as the others took their place. The gate seemed to be holding, but there was no telling how long it would last, because now small chunks of wood were starting to come off with every blow from the ram. It seemed we could either hope the gate held, or we could try to do something about the ram, and with that in mind, I went up onto the roof of one of the buildings. Favonius had his Century on the roof, the men standing away from the edge until they were ready to throw a javelin down onto the heads of the Egyptians. The scorpions were useless because we could not depress the angle enough when they were this close. Although the javelins were causing casualties, we needed a more concerted effort, and something more effective, so I told Favonius to start using the combustibles that we had piled there, small pots filled with pitch stoppered with a rag soaked in oil to set alight. It’s a really ugly way to die, but we could not allow the enemy to affect a breach. In a few moments, the men were raining fire down on the heads of the Egyptians, the horrific screams of men set alight and becoming human torches filling the air. It did not take long for the smell of sizzling meat to reach our nostrils, and no matter how many times one smells that odor, it still causes the stomach to turn. Before another few moments passed, the ram was on fire, forcing the Egyptians to drop it and retreat once again, this time leaving scorched, smoking corpses behind. Once they moved back up the avenue, I left the roof, going back down to check the gate, and I was pleased to see that Salvius had managed to find heavy timbers to wedge against it, bracing the timbers with a number of heavy crates. To that point, we had managed to inflict a fair number of losses on the Egyptians and so far had not suffered one man killed, with only a couple of minor wounds. The enemy was forced to regroup again, their commander then apparently deciding a change in tactics was required. Instead of trying to force one point of entry, he sent detachments of a few hundred men ranging around the compound, looking for weak spots in our defensive line. At the sound of a horn, the detachments went rushing at the points they had selected, the air suddenly split by the answering sound of our own
cornicen
from each Century calling the alarm. It was a cacophony of sound, and I was forced to decide very quickly where I was most needed, choosing to go to the southern side of the enclosure to see if there were any problems.

I had put Valens in charge of this sector and found him at the southern gate of the enclosure, where the Egyptians apparently decided on a slightly different approach. Instead of trying to beat down the gate, they constructed about two dozen ladders, and as I trotted up, I saw what looked like Egyptian troops fighting with our men on the parapet. Valens was on the ground directing his men, and I was about to chastise him for not being up on the wall but held my tongue, recognizing that this was one of those times where a Centurion was better off leading from a position where he could more easily see what was going on. The enemy was attempting to scale the wall at several points, and if Valens rushed to one spot that he thought was in trouble, he might not see a more serious breach occur elsewhere. Instead, I told him to continue as he was before, climbing the stairs up to the wall, heading towards a spot where a couple sections of men were trying to stop more of the enemy from adding to a pocket that four or five of them had managed to secure on the parapet. It irritated me that it seemed to be taking my men a long time to dispatch a handful of the enemy, but when I got closer, I saw the cause of the problem. The enemy commander had committed some of those veterans who we had taken to calling ‘Gabinians,’ to this assault, meaning that we were facing men trained in the same manner as we were.

Their fighting style was the same, but that is about all; pushing my way through the men, I grabbed a shield from one of the boys in the rear as someone yelled, “Make way for the Primus Pilus, boys! He wants a piece of these
cunni
!”

When I got to the front, standing a few feet away from me was a man who at first I would have said was a native Egyptian, judging by the darkness of his skin and style of dress, but he called out to me in perfect Latin, “Primus Pilus, my ass! This boy is barely able to shave!”

It had been a long time since anyone had said that of me, and the flash of anger was immediate. “If you want to try and give me a shave, you prick, come here and see what happens.”

He laughed. “You aren’t a pimple on the ass of some of the men I’ve bested,” and as he said that, he lunged at me.

He was very quick and I barely blocked his thrust, then he bashed me a good lick with his shield that rocked me, wicker though it may have been. My arm ached from the blow, but I was determined to take the offensive, although I had to be wary not to get too involved with this man and not be alert to his comrades on either side.

Without taking my eyes off the man, I whispered to the Gregarius next to me, Papernus, I believe it was, “When I make my move, you take the man to his left.”

I heard him grunt, then made my own move, closing with the man, knocking the breath from him in a great whoosh when I barged into him behind my shield. Sensing Papernus striking immediately after me, I engaged with the man to my undefended side, allowing me to concentrate on my own opponent without worrying about getting stuck, or so I hoped. There was always the possibility that Papernus would be bested by his man but once you start thinking that way, you are already beaten. We pushed against each other and I was grimly pleased to hear him gasping for breath, trying to get the air back into his lungs that I had knocked out. Despite him putting every bit of energy into pushing back against me, my size and strength began to tell, and I felt him start sliding backwards towards the parapet and the ladder. If I could get him all the way back to the parapet, he would be blocking the ladder, thereby keeping any other enemy from ascending. That is the key to defending a wall: not giving your foe enough space where he has any kind of numerical advantage. I looked over the rim and into his eyes. I saw them widen in desperation once his back heel hit the edge. His strength was failing him and in desperation, he made an overhand thrust that almost got me, the point hitting just below my left collarbone but not having enough force behind the thrust to break the links of my mail. It still hurt like the fires of Hades, and I bit my lip to keep from crying out. I quickly let up, pushing against him, and throwing him off balance because he could not compensate for the sudden change quickly enough. He stumbled forward, just a step, but it was enough and we both knew it, my blade immediately flicking out at his exposed throat, the point punching in at the base of his neck, emerging on the other side for an instant before I recovered.

“Not laughing so much now, are we?” I spat as he crumpled to the ground.

His sudden absence immediately exposed the man to his right, who was already being pressed hard, so I ended him quickly. As I had assumed, Papernus had won his own battle, and just that quickly the breach was contained as we pushed the ladder away from the wall, heaving it as hard as we could because there were men on it. They all went tumbling down, the men almost to the top having the worst of it from the combination of the height and falling onto the raised weapons of their own comrades. Turning to look down at Valens, he pointed to another point on the wall where there was a fight, and I ran over to where he directed.

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That was how the time passed, until the enemy finally had enough and retired, taking their wounded, but leaving their dead behind, to retreat down the avenue one last time. I was too busy to pay any more attention to what was happening down by the docks, but by the time we were done, it was impossible to ignore, since the smoke had now drifted over to cover us in ash, leaving us coughing, with runny eyes and snotty noses. Any exposed skin was covered in soot, the sweat attracting the ash like a moth to a flame, making the men look like Nubians. After making an inspection, I ordered half of them to remain in place while the other half were allowed to get some rest and eat. We dragged the bodies a short distance down the avenue and dumped them, and fortunately, they were gone the next day. Caesar returned at nightfall, and we learned what had taken place at the docks and the immediately surrounding area, which was still burning fiercely. The Egyptian attack on the docks was in fact led by Achillas and had almost been successful, forcing Caesar to take drastic action. In order to avoid the Egyptians capturing, or recapturing as it were, their fleet of more than 70 ships of a number of different classes, he ordered them all fired. Because the wind was blowing stronger than normal from the north, it sent the flames across the water, catching everything flammable on fire. Unfortunately, one of the things that caught was the great library, for which Caesar has been blamed, I suppose with good reason, although it was never his intention to do so. The fire at the library held an unexpected benefit in forcing Achillas to devote a good number of his men to combating the blaze instead of us. Fighting around the docks was fierce, ranging from one street to the next, but from all accounts, the boys of the 28th did a good job, pushing the Egyptians back several blocks from the dock area before they were ordered by Caesar to withdraw with him. When the next day dawned, we now controlled the Royal Quarter of the city, but only from south of the Canopic Way to the southern end of the palace enclosure. Caesar put us to work, creating a series of fortifications linking everything together so that we could move men and supplies from one part to the other. He also ordered us to push our lines out across the road on the southwestern side to give us access to the large marsh that rings the Lake Harbor on that side. The men worked throughout the night, illuminated by the fires that continued to burn, but which also kept the Egyptians occupied so that we were not harassed. The largest building within our position was the royal theater, now designated as our combination hospital and assembly point for our morning briefings. Any building that stood in the way of the fortifications was razed, the stone used for the wall while we extended the work of battering holes in interior walls of buildings so that men could move almost completely under cover from one end of our redoubt to the other. During the battle at the docks, Caesar had ordered a detachment, armed with several artillery pieces, to board a boat that took them to Pharos Island, where they seized the lighthouse. Because of the shoals extending from the lower part of the jaws that guard the harbor entrance, the only clear channel deep enough to allow large ships to enter the harbor passes closer to Pharos Island and the upper part of the jaws. Having artillery emplaced at the lighthouse gave us command over any ships entering the harbor, although I do not know what Caesar was expecting, since we had burned the entire Egyptian fleet. Meanwhile, the Egyptians invested the western side of the city, the eastern side containing a group of people called Jews, who I had only heard mention of before this and who were mainly left alone. As busily as we worked, the Egyptians were just as busy, although they had a great deal more hands to do the work.

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While we worked through the night, another event occurred that would come to cause us grief. Since Caesar could not spare any of my men to guard the royal family, he used his cavalrymen, dismounted, of course, to watch over them. In the confusion of the night, the princess Arsinoe and her tutor Ganymede managed to escape, making their way to Achillas, where she volunteered to be the symbolic leader and focal point of the resistance, an offer that he gladly accepted. With the major part of the fortifications finished by daybreak, the men collapsed the instant they were given permission to put down their tools. There were minor improvements to be made over the next few days, but the major bulk of the work was done, and walking behind Caesar as he inspected the lines, I could see he was pleased. All in all, it was a good position, but still there were more bad things than good about our situation. Despite extending our works so that the canal carrying fresh water to the city was within our lines, we did not control the source, meaning it was only a matter of time before it was cut off. Because of the rapidity of our work in fortifying our area, the people living in the area were unable to flee, giving us more mouths to feed, thereby exposing the biggest weakness of our position. The only way we could be resupplied was by sea. Although Caesar had removed the threat to our resupply being intercepted before reaching Alexandria by destroying the Egyptian navy, even when it did arrive, we would have to march in force down to the dock area, under fire from the rooftops and the towers that the Egyptians were building surrounding our position. It was not a good situation to be in, and on top of these difficulties, Cartufenus and I now had to deal with the men from two different Legions being thrust into close proximity to each other. One would think that the rankers would have more on their minds than getting into quarrels and fights with each other, but that has never been the case and I suspect it never will be. What made these circumstances slightly different was what the men were fighting about, and it was not the usual of whores or gambling. I first became aware that a problem existed when I was told by Diocles that Cartufenus had come to see me. I went out into the outer office, and could tell immediately by the expression on Cartufenus’ face that something had happened.