Marching With Caesar: Conquest of Gaul (84 page)

Chapter 12: Gergovia

Caesar split the army in two parts, one under the command of Labienus, with the other under his own. Along with Labienus went the 7th, 12th, 15th and 16th, and the rest of us went with Caesar. Labienus went off to quell the tribes along the Sequana River, while Caesar’s army marched first to Noviodunum, where he installed some of the 10,000 auxiliaries that he requisitioned from the Aedui as a garrison. This put us on the east bank of the Elaver (Allier) River, from where we turned south in pursuit of Vercingetorix. Once he detected our pursuit Vercingetorix, who was on the west, or opposite side of the river, hurried to burn the bridges, although he left the pilings intact. The result was that we marched side by side for three or four days, with Vercingetorix’s advance patrols burning the bridges they found but keeping an armed force of sufficient size at the site of each bridge, telling Caesar that any attempt to repair them would be bloody and risky affairs. Yet Caesar came up with what can only be described as a brilliant solution to the problem. On the march one day, we entered a sizable forest, of sufficient size so that the whole column was hidden from sight from even the most alert of Vercingetorix’s cavalry scouts. Once the whole army was within the screening safety of the woods, the command was given to halt, then very quickly, the 9th and 10th Cohorts from each Legion were ordered out of the formation and told to stand to the side. Once that was done, we reduced the width of our column and put the extra men in the spots where the removed Cohorts had been, to give the appearance that we were the same length as when we entered the woods, knowing that a shorter column would be easier to spot from the vantage point across the river than the width, and before much time elapsed, we were on the march again. Despite there being a slight delay, such stops are very common, and just as Caesar hoped, Vercingetorix suspected nothing. Staying behind with the 12 Cohorts, Caesar ordered the army to resume its march, stop at the normal time and make camp in the usual way. Once he calculated that we had reached the end of our march for that day, Caesar ordered the 12 Cohorts into action, marching the half mile back north to the site of the latest burned bridge. With the pilings still intact, it was not much work to repair the bridge, so by midnight that night, a rider came to camp and ordered us to backtrack and cross the bridge. Leaving the camp more or less intact, we just took our stakes with us but did not burn the towers or fill in the ditch because that would alert the enemy something unusual was happening. Catching Vercingetorix completely by surprise, by the time he recovered, we already had the detached Cohorts on the other side of the river, ready to defend the bridge before anything could be done. To his credit, he reacted quickly; realizing that he could not stop us, he instead decided to put distance on us by marching towards Gergovia at a quicker pace.

Now that we were on the right side of the river, we did not try to close the distance back to the enemy, not wanting to make haste and thereby stumble into an ambush. Despite the fact we had always prevailed to this point, we did have a grudging respect for Vercingetorix, because he was proving to be the one Gallic chieftain who demonstrated that he at least knew the types of tactics that gave his army the best chance of success, even if his men were too undisciplined and untrained to execute them. In fact, that was an ongoing topic of conversation around the fires at night; whether the Gauls were capable of instilling in themselves the kind of discipline that it would take to put their people on a more equal footing with us. From what I could tell, opinion seemed to be almost equally divided.

“Look at how they’ve picked up our siegecraft,” argued Scribonius one night while I was visiting the fire of my old comrades. “And that
cunnus
Vercingetorix almost starved us out at Avaricum. Those are Roman tactics, so how long do you think it’ll be before we’re facing a
testudo
?”

“You can teach a bear to dance, but that doesn’t mean he’ll be able to sing,” Vibius shot back, provoking a hoot of laughter from all of us, even Scribonius.

“True enough, but they’re not bears, they’re men. And they’re smart men,” Scribonius countered. Vibius, and truth be told, Vellusius and Atilius, along with a couple men from another section in the Century who had taken to sitting at our fire, voiced their disagreement.

“They’re not as smart as us,” Vibius said scornfully. “Look at how they fight, Scribonius. Even since Vercingetorix has been in command, they still line up and come running at us, flailing about and howling like Cerberus, even after we cut them down like wheat before the scythe. And that hasn’t changed one bit in the years we’ve been out here.”

“I’m not saying that it won’t take them time to change,” Scribonius replied, and I could tell he knew how weak that sounded.

“It’s been five years Scribonius,” this from Atilius, his comment being met with a chorus of agreement.

There was a pause; I was staring into the fire, only gradually becoming aware that the silence was drawing out, and when I looked up, I saw all eyes were on me.

“So what do you think, Tit……I mean Optio?” I glared at Vibius; we had talked several times about his habit of forgetting to address me by my rank in the presence of others.

It is not that I cared particularly, but addressing a superior above the rank of Sergeant by their praenomen is technically an offense, and I was worried that someone like Didius would report this to the Pilus Prior if he ever got mad at Vibius, which in turn might force Pulcher to act. Feeling I made my point with a look, I considered the question carefully before answering, realizing that as Optio, no matter what my relationship had been with these men, I was still their superior, and rankers tend to take what their superiors tell them as if it came from the lips of Caesar himself.

“I don’t think the Gauls are as stupid as you think Vibius,” I began, and I could see his eyes narrow a bit, a sure sign that he was close to being angry, so before he could say anything that would put us both in difficulty, I hurriedly continued, “but you can’t deny that no matter what the reason, they’re not picking up our tactics. So maybe it’s not intelligence but some other fault in their character.”

Even as I mentally congratulated myself on such a diplomatic answer, Vibius pressed me further. “So what’s this character flaw, if it’s not that they aren’t as intelligent as we are?”

Now I was on the spot, because truth be told, I had just made this up as a way to avoid an argument, since the truth was that I agreed with Scribonius. My mind raced for an answer as I looked at Vibius, sitting across the fire, his arms folded, giving me what I knew to be his triumphant look at outwitting me. He knows me too well, I thought wryly; he saw through my ruse and was putting me on the spot now.

“Constancy,” I blurted out.

“Constancy? What by Pluto’s thorny cock does that even mean? Is that an officer’s word?” Vibius laughed, pleased at his own wit, and I felt my ears beginning to burn as blood rushed to my face.

“No Vibius, it’s not an officer’s word. Everyone knows what it means.”

“So what does it mean?”

Despite having only a very vague idea, I had long since learned that sounding confident in your answer was half the battle to being believed, so I plunged in.

“It’s the aspect of your character that’ll see you through tough and dangerous times.”

“That’s just bravery,” Vibius countered, and I shook my head, the idea of what I meant taking more substantial form.

“It’s not just bravery though. It’s the part of your character that gets you through difficult but not dangerous tasks as well, like……..our training.”

That was it, I thought, and I could see heads that had been still or even shaking back and forth at what I was saying start to stop. Now to get them to nod up and down, I thought, as I finished my thought.

“The training is tough, but it doesn’t require all that much courage, or bravery, whatever you want to call it. It’s just like at Avaricum. Caesar gave us the opportunity to call off the siege, but to a man, we all refused. It wasn’t bravery, because we’re all veterans and we know that if we aren’t going to fight that day, we’ll be fighting on the next, so bravery played no part in our decision. At least it didn’t in mine. No, it was more about seeing a job through, no matter how hard or unpleasant. That’s constancy.”

Now the heads were nodding, and I saw with some relief that even Vibius seemed to accept that my response made sense. Not wanting to lose the advantage, I finished.

“And that’s what I think is missing from the Gauls. It’s not bravery; we’ve seen enough examples to know that it’s not through a lack of bravery that we defeat them. It’s just when things get tough, or they require a lot of hard work, with little immediate payoff, the Gauls aren’t capable of seeing things through.”

And that is what I believe to this day.

At the end of our fifth day on the march, we came within sight of Gergovia. Hardened veterans we may have been, but the sight of that hilltop town still gave us pause. Like most Gallic forts that grow into towns, it was perched on a hill, except this one was higher and more massive than any we faced before. Approaching from the north, it was easy to see that the slope on that side was almost vertical, immediately telling us that there would be no assault from that direction. Despite it being at the end of our marching day, Caesar pushed us on to swing around to the east, while he and his bodyguard rode around the base of the hill looking for a weak point. It turned out that the east side was just as bad as the north, although we did find a good spot for a camp, southeast of the hill, beginning the process while Caesar continued exploring. The site for our camp was on a low hill, giving a clear view of the town to our northwest, with a small valley perhaps two miles wide between the two points. Caesar returned shortly before dark, calling a meeting of his staff and the Primi Pili of the Legions, leaving the rest of us to sit and speculate about what would happen next.

“No doubt he’ll want to invest the place, but by the gods, that's one big hill,” the Pilus Prior mused as we stared up at its dark bulk, now crowned with lights from the torches the Gauls had placed along the walls of the town.

Sitting around our own fire that night was the Pilus Prior, Scaevola, Calienus and I, while Zeno and the Pilus Prior’s slave, a Thracian named Patroclus I believe, were preparing our meal for the evening. I will say that one of the things I did like about being Optio was not having to worry about cooking meals, the one part of soldiering I always disliked the most, although I have no idea why.

“I wonder how big around that bastard is,” Calienus mused. “Because no doubt Caesar's going to want a circumvallation of it, and that’s going to be a lot of work.”

I could only nod in agreement with his sentiment; we had marched too long with Caesar not to know at least some of his habits, and the one thing the man believed in was the engineering aspect of warfare. This is not to say that we did not complain all the same, but deep down we all knew the truth of the soldier’s saying that was most often repeated while engaged in the use of a pick or shovel.

“The more you sweat now, the less you’ll bleed later.”

But it is a soldier’s right, given to us by Mars and Bellona themselves, to complain, and we took full advantage of that gift. Sitting there that night, I was struck by a thought.

“Do you suppose that there’s some Gauls up there, looking down at us, and they’re complaining about all the work they’re going to have to do to keep us out of that town?”

This drew a hearty laugh from my companions, and I was secretly pleased that they liked my wit.

Once our Primus Pilus was briefed by Caesar, he summoned all of the Centurions and Optios to a meeting in the forum. Gathering around, I found myself standing next to Crastinus, our old Pilus Prior and now the Primus Princeps, the Centurion in charge of the Third Century. Seeing me, he grinned cheerfully, giving me a slap on the back.

“
Salve
Pullus, it looks like this is going to be a right bastard of a job. Did you see the size of that hill? And how many of the bastards that are up there on it that want to keep us from taking it? It’s going to be bloody, that much is sure.”

Before I could respond, the Primus Pilus called for our attention.

“Men, this is going to be a right bastard of a job.”

Both Crastinus and I had trouble suppressing a snicker at his unintentional echo of Crastinus’ words. Fortunately we were quiet enough in our mirth that the Primus Pilus did not hear. Continuing, he jerked his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the hill.

“But you can see that for yourselves. Caesar's done a reconnaissance of the hill, and there’s only one place that we have a chance of cracking this nut. But in order to do that,” now he turned to point at a smaller hill directly south of Gergovia, squatting like a small guardian over the narrow dip between the two hills, “we have to take that first.”

About halfway up the slope of the hill of Gergovia stood an outer wall, constructed as a buffer between it and the walls of the town proper. In the cleared area between the two walls on the slopes was the camp of Vercingetorix's army. The strategic value of the small hill is that it overlooked the stream that fed the river to the south of us that was our water supply. However, that stream was also the water supply for the Gauls in Gergovia, along with their army encampment, so if we could command the heights above the stream we could cut off their water supply, or at least a major source. But Vercingetorix was no fool, and he saw that as well, so in the time he had before we arrived, he put his army to work fortifying the small hill and manning it with warriors. Even from this distance we could see that a wall of some size had been thrown up; our best hope was that it was done hastily, and not constructed like the wall at Avaricum, or we would indeed have our hands full.