Chapter III #2
I guessed there would be trouble from the others. I knew that if I had to fight, it would be best to do it quickly, and better to take on my tormentors singly rather than all at once. That evening, as we queued to collect our meal from the cooks, I heard the familiar jeering behind my back.
Agrippa, Agrippa, mother-killer …
I spun round and threw my hot food into the face of the nearest man.
While he was blinded, I followed it with a punch to his jaw, hard enough to break it.
Back in the schoolyard it would have been sufficient to finish the matter.
But this man, a hefty brute named Marco, had spent weeks training out on the Field of Mars.
He barely flinched. Soon we were crouched and circling one another, trading blows.
Soldiers came running from across the camp to watch and formed a circle around us.
Eventually some officers arrived to break it up.
They set about us with heavy sticks, and we were dragged away to separate cages.
Tormented by the soreness of my body and by the fear that I had thrown away my career before it even started, I passed a sleepless night.
The next morning, I was taken before Salvidienus to learn my fate.
Knowing Old Big Nose’s reputation, I was expecting at the least a public flogging, perhaps even a dishonourable discharge and a prison sentence.
I am sure that is what he would have liked to impose, for I could tell he already disliked me because of my closeness to the dictator’s nephew.
Instead, he was forced to report that Caesar himself had been told of the incident and had ordered that I should resume my training on condition I learned to curb my temper.
– If it had been left to me, it would have been the end of you as a soldier. But it seems you have a powerful protector. Now get out of my sight.
And so I went back to my tent, as did my opponent, who gave me no further trouble, and indeed became my friend.
I still had hopes that Octavius would recover in time to rejoin the legion. But on the eve of our departure, the doctors insisted he was not yet well enough, and Atia sent a message asking me to come and say goodbye.
I found him seated in the garden, wrapped in blankets against the autumn chill. Only his face was visible, dead white after a treatment of constant bleeding.
He was furious with everyone – his doctors, his mother, his body for betraying him, but mostly at that moment with me, for going on a campaign he had so much wanted to join himself.
He made no attempt to hide his resentment.
I let his bitterness wash over me. I knew that in his place I would have felt the same.
When I said farewell, he turned his head away without reply.
I was shaken by the force of his anger, but not for long. When one is young one does not brood on such things. The next day, we struck camp on the Field of Mars and marched to the docks at Ostia to begin our voyage to Spain.
More than thirty years have passed since that campaign. There are not many of us left who can boast that we fought with Caesar.
He had assembled a fleet of a hundred ships to carry his army of fifteen thousand men and a force of cavalry across the Mediterranean.
Every legionary was expected to take a turn at the oars for a few hours a day.
It was dark, cramped and stinking below decks.
The effort of rowing was back-breaking. At night, exhausted, I preferred to go above and sleep out on deck under the stars.
I talked to the captain, watched the sailors and gradually learned the operation of the ship: its rigging, the deployment of its sails to catch the shifting winds, the methods of navigation, how to get the best out of the oarsmen – skills that were to prove of great use later in my life.
Although we stayed close to the coast, we encountered several bad storms, and I discovered another gift from the gods that has stood me in good stead ever since – a strong stomach for rough weather.
After a month at sea, during which we put into port three times for food and fresh water, we disembarked at the Spanish port of Calpe, within sight of the Pillars of Hercules.
Caesar sent part of his force to relieve the garrison at Ulia.
The rest of us he led towards Corduba at a relentless pace.
We marched for ten or even sometimes twelve hours a day, often late into the night.
If one of our comrades seemed on the point of collapse, the men on either side of him would shoulder his kit and support him until he had recovered.
Oddly enough, we revelled in proving our strength.
There was no hardship we would not endure for Caesar.
One afternoon we halted on a mountain track, and a rumour reached us from up ahead that the enemy had destroyed the only bridge.
Caesar would not allow it to deter him. He ordered hundreds of wicker baskets to be filled with rocks, had them lowered into the fast-flowing water and then had planks laid over them. We crossed the river the following day.
The forces of the Pompey brothers were now alerted to our presence.
There were skirmishes all around us. I was sent out on a night patrol.
In the darkness we came upon a group of twenty enemy legionaries gathered around a campfire.
We crept up and took them unawares. I slit a soldier’s throat from behind while he was still seated on the ground.
He was the first man I ever killed. We cut off their ears and took them back with us – not as trophies, for these were fellow Romans, but as proof of what we had done.
I shall not describe the details of what became a savage campaign, fought amid the high barren mountains and deep gorges of that rugged part of Spain.
I prefer to forget them. Prisoners were tortured for intelligence and then crucified.
Much cruelty was inflicted by both sides, as Caesar sought to bring the enemy’s main force to battle.
It dragged on for months into the winter, until at last he finally trapped them near the Pompeian stronghold of Munda.
It was mid March. The Pompey brothers had all the advantages – greater numbers, higher ground, a fortified town to fall back on.
But we had Caesar.
He positioned the Tenth Legion on the right flank, and I took my place in the front line.
The morning dawned clear and sunny. Across the plain I could make out the thirteen eagles of the enemy’s legions drawn up on the slopes of the distant hill – sixty thousand infantry in all, and many thousands of cavalry.
After two hours, this great mass still showed no inclination to come down and fight, so Caesar issued the order to advance.
A wide stream ran across the centre of the plain.
We had been warned by our scouts that the ground would be marshy.
Sweating in the sun, with sodden, mud-caked boots, we struggled onwards.
It was only when we had begun wading across the stream that we heard the enemy’s trumpets.
The ground shook as their left wing, yelling war cries, poured down the hill to attack us.
We formed a line. As soon as they came within range, we unleashed our arrows and javelins.
They did the same. The man beside me – Marco, my new friend, whom I had fought on the Field of Mars – was struck in the throat and fell mortally wounded.
Another man took his place. Then the lines crashed together and we fought hand-to-hand.
The blood and noise and slaughter were terrific.
I laid about me, slashing and thrusting.
Again and again I saved the oppo to my left, and the oppo to my right saved me.
It seemed to go on for hours. But gradually I realised that we were stepping over their dead and beginning to climb.
Now came one of those curious lulls that often occur in battle, akin to the intervals between rounds in a boxing match.
The enemy withdrew, yet we were ordered not to pursue them.
Only when the fighting ceased and I stretched out on the ground did I become aware of a deep slash in my left arm that was bleeding badly, and another wound in my right thigh. Yet I had no memory of sustaining them.
I looked around at the mounds of dead, the quietly groaning wounded.
In the near silence, birds sang. Then once again came the sound of the enemy’s trumpets.
I looked up and saw their entire right wing beginning to move across the hill ready to descend upon us – an avalanche of death.
For the first time in my life, I felt fear.
Our officers moved among us, getting us to our feet, pushing us back into line, even though our overwhelming instinct was to turn and run.
Had we done so, there would have been a massacre.
The first rule in battle is to hold the line, whatever the cost. A fleeing army is defenceless.
As we were retrieving the fallen javelins and re-forming, I heard our trumpets sound behind us.
Caesar had ordered his left wing to advance up the slope and attack the enemy’s now-depleted right.
The entire battlefield was pivoting, and the Tenth Legion was the fulcrum.
Once again the enemy crashed into us. But they were fresh, while we were exhausted, and already badly cut up. We held our positions for as long as we could, then started to fall back. Some men turned and ran.