The Helvetian Affair Read online

  We pulled into Ocelum during the fifth hour of the sixth day of the march. It wasn’t much of a place, more goats than people. The Seventh and Ninth Legions were already encamped in the valley. The Eleventh and Twelfth were strung out a couple of hours behind us. The Alps stood before us like a wall of snow-covered granite. As we were marching down into the valley where we would dig our marching camp, I shivered as I noticed the looming mountains still covered with snow.

  After we dug our castrum, we spent most of the afternoon on our butts. When Bantus arrived at our tent, we were blissfully racked out, bellies full. He roused us for a quick briefing.

  Things over in Gallia Transalpina were developing quickly. After being repulsed at Gennava by the Eighth Legion, the Helvetii withdrew west, down the Rhodanus through some narrow passes in the Iura mountains. Roman allies in Gallia, tribes called the Sequani and the Aedui, were now directly in the path of the Helvetian horde. That, and the Helvetii being such a threat to the most fertile lands of the Roman provincia just across the river, was unacceptable to Caesar Imperator. Our objective, then, was to stop the Helvetii and force them to return to their homeland, where they would continue to serve as a buffer between Gallia, our provincia, and the German barbarians east of the Rhenus.

  The goal of our march was no longer just to reach Gennava, but our goal was to reach the Helvetii themselves.

  Later that afternoon, Strabo called the centuria together to give us our marching orders. There were only about fifty of us assembled. Many of our immunes soldiers were off on various details around the castrum.

  “The army’ll move out tomorrow morning at the second hour and pass through the Alps in a column of legions,” Strabo began. “Caesar Imperator is interspacing the new legions with the veterans. The Seventh will lead out, followed by the Eleventh . . . then the Ninth, followed by the Twelfth . . . We’ll take up the rear.”

  Strabo paused to see if there were any questions. There were none, so he continued, “The Seventh will move out at the second hour, but the Eleventh won’t follow until the fourth hour . . . Yeah . . . What it is?”

  I heard a voice from the back of the formation ask why the delay for the Eleventh.

  Strabo responded, “The Seventh will have to do most of the route clearance through the passes, and if any of those mountain tribes decide to kick up a fuss, the boys in the Seventh will have that to take care of, too. So, there’ll be delays . . . stop and go . . . especially in the narrow passes . . . The general doesn’t want us to bunch up . . . The Eleventh will probably catch up to the Seventh anyway . . . The general wants them far enough back so both legions won’t be caught in the same ambush, but close enough so they can support each other . . . Besides, the Seventh is marching expediti . . . light and ready for combat . . . Their baggage train’ll be moving with the Eleventh . . . Any other questions?”

  When Strabo mentioned ambushes and marching “combat ready,” I felt a stirring in my belly, almost a weakness in my legs. That was it; we were going into a fight.

  Strabo continued, “After the Eleventh moves out, the rest of the legions will depart at one-hour intervals . . . The Ninth at the fifth hour . . . the Twelfth at the sixth . . . then us at the seventh. The equites, the legionary cavalry, will be positioned between the legions so it can coordinate communication and maintain the marching intervals . . . I doubt those horses’ll be much use in the high passes . . . Their mobility will be limited . . . A real shame, cavalry having to walk . . . We should anticipate delays during the march . . . stop and go as we move through the mountains. The cavalry’s supposed to coordinate our spacing so we don’t bunch up or get too far behind.”

  Strabo repeated that our departure time was the seventh hour the next day. Then, he concluded, “We’ll march in a column of cohorts . . . The first-line cohorts, the First through the Fourth, will be our primum agmen, the vanguard . . . The Fifth and Sixth Cohorts, from the second line, will act as our novissimum agmen, the rear guard. Our cohort is detailed to guard the legion’s baggage train, which’ll follow the Ninth cohort out.”

  Still no questions, so Strabo continued, “Caesar Imperator, will be marching with the point legion, the Seventh, along with most of his party. The primus pilus, Malleus, is commanding our legion on this march. He’ll be with his centuria in the First Cohort. The general hasn’t assigned a legatus legionis, a legionary commander, to us yet, and we won’t be dragging any wet-behind-the-ears, somebody’s-wife’s-cousin, Patrician brats as military tribunes with us.” Some snickers come from the back of the formation. “So, the good news, we don’t have to drag wagons full of their useless shit over the Alps.” Some guffaws this time. “The other news is we can’t help ourselves to their wine and garum supplies.” Some theater groans. “So that’s about it . . . Any questions?”

  There were none, so Strabo dismissed us back to our tents.

  We didn’t have any duties until guard mount that evening. Since we weren’t going to drag any livestock over the Alps with us, except for the contubernium mules and the cavalry horses, Malleus had ordered the cooks to brew up a feast for us. We could smell the aroma of the roasting meat and baking bread wafting over from the cook tents in the middle of the castrum. Meanwhile, in the age-old tradition of the Roman infantry, we decided to crap out until chow time.

  Tulli, our decanus, seemed determined to talk to us, however.

  “We caught a break on this one, guys!” he started.

  “Quo’mo’?” Rufus mumbled, half-asleep.

  “Think about it,” Tulli lectured. “The Seventh has to do all the heavy lifting on this one . . . clearing the passes and taking care of any barbarians stupid enough to get in our way . . . By the time we go through the passes, the route’ll be clear, and there won’t be a single, living podex for miles to mess with us.”

  “Makes sense,” Loquax mumbled from somewhere deep in his woolen cloak.

  “Sure it does,” continued Tulli, not wanting to let go of it. “And, we get to march with the baggage train . . . That means no faster than the slowest cart . . . and we march expediti . . . just swords, shields, and one pilum each . . . The rest of our equipment can go on one of the carts . . . Except for the cold and having to push a cart or two up a steep incline, this’ll be a piece of cake.”

  Tulli was begging Fortuna to screw us. I should have rubbed my amulet and spit, but I decided just to turn over and go to sleep instead.

  The next day, getting the army moving was a complete cluster, and we didn’t cross the line of departure until well into the eighth hour. Tulli’s assessment seemed right, though. We were marching light, with troops in front of us and to our rear. The oxen pulling the supply carts didn’t seem to be in any hurry to get up into the mountain passes. Tulli said when we get over into Gallia, the baggage will move independently of the legions, so we can move quickly. But, if we tried that up in the passes, the mountain tribes would steal the hooves off the horses.

  That first day the climb wasn’t bad, but we only made about ten thousand passus. We camped next to a small mountain river in a narrow, ascending valley. By the time we pulled in with the impedimenta, the camp was already constructed— another benefit, Tulli winked—so all we had to do was settle the baggage in and pull our guard shifts that first night.

  The next morning, the legion was up and moving before the fourth watch was over. We continued to climb. By the fourth hour, we passed through some piss-ant village of stone and lumber huts. It was abandoned. No fires burning.

  Even the livestock was gone. By the sixth hour, we swung west and north, still following a mountain river upwards. Four more hours found us at the junction of two streams: one flowing down from the north; the other, the one we seemed to be following, still led toward the northwest.

  We halted there. When we realized that this wasn’t just a break from the march, our centurio pilus prior, Gelasius, the cohort commander, deployed four of our centuriae on the uphill side of the baggage train, and the remaining two, including us,
on the downhill side. Eventually, the word came down that there was some sort of delay up ahead. After being in position for almost an hour, we even began to imagine that we’d spend the night there. No sooner had we entertained that hope than the column started moving again.

  We continued to climb. The twelfth hour came and went. I estimated we had at least thirty thousand passus under our boots. The sun went down, and we still continued to climb. We stumbled up the incline, starting, stopping, and starting again. Finally, the word came down we were staying put where we were for the night. No camp. Since we were headed uphill, Gelasius deployed two centuries forward, one century to the rear, and split the rest of us equally on both sides of the baggage. He ordered “half and half” for the night—one man slept while the other kept watch. Strabo broke us down into shifts by contubernia.

  It was starting to get cold in the passes. Gelasius forbade the building of fires. He said it would silhouette our positions for any enemies up in the hills. He had a bit of difficulty convincing some of the civilian teamsters. But, after he emphasized his orders with a liberal application of his vitis, the centurion’s vine cudgel, the rest fell quickly into line. Most of us had broken out our bracae trousers and woolen socks. Still, I was shivering so hard, it was difficult getting to sleep. I was almost grateful when I was roused up for guard duty because it gave me a chance to move around and warm up a bit.

  We were moving before sunrise the next morning. When the sun finally came up, I could see we were marching directly up toward a huge mountain. The rising sun behind our backs was changing the snow on the mountain’s flanks from a glowing blue to a pale white.

  Tulli caught up with me. “That’s Alba Magna,” he said. “Don’t look at it. You’ll go blind. Here!” He offered me what seemed to be a burned-out lamp.

  “Rub the soot around your eyes and on your cheekbones . . . It’ll cut down the glare.”

  I had no idea how a snow-covered mountain could make me blind, but I did as Tulli suggested. “If that doesn’t seem to help . . . if you feel your eyes get dry or they start to hurt . . . tie a sudarium around your face like a mask . . . In a couple of hours, we’ll be turning south, so the mountain will be over your shoulder.”

  As we continued to climb toward Alba Magna, the sun rising behind us set the mountain ablaze like a brilliant, white flame. I found that even with the lamp soot around my eyes and the scarf tied up around my face, I couldn’t look at it. I grabbed the tailgate of one of our carts and let it lead me up the pass while I kept my eyes fixed on the ground to keep from tripping.

  Tulli was right about one thing. The legions marching ahead of us had cleared the passes. Our path was free of snow and rubble. We hadn’t seen a native since we left Eporedia.

  By the fifth hour, I thought we had reached the top of the pass at the foot of Alba Magna, but we turned south and continued to climb. The mountain was now on our flank, and the sun was no longer at our backs. I was able to see again. My eyes felt like they were full of sand—a bit achy, but I was able to see.

  The air in the pass was still, but frigid. It was colder up here in Aprilis than it was down in the valley in the middle of winter. My breath steamed out of my mouth and nostrils like mama’s kettle on a cold morning. We were allowed to march without our helmets, so I had the hood of my cloak up over my head and a sudarium wrapped around my ears. I had pulled my woolen socks up and stuffed the bottoms of my leather bracae down into them, so no part of my legs was exposed.

  Still we climbed; still it seemed to get colder.

  We topped the pass by the seventh hour. I could swear we had twenty thousand passus of climbing under our belts since we started out before dawn. But, I was glad to be moving in that cold. Now that we seemed to be on the downhill side and headed into warmer temperatures, I was happy that we were pushing on.

  Bantus, our optio, came down the line of march. “Another ten thousand passus before our day’s done, boys,” he announced. “The valley opens up down below . . . That’s where we’ll spend the night . . . The First Cohort boys should have the camp all set up for us by the time we get there . . . hot chow and a warm tent . . . It’s all downhill . . . so hang in.”

  We made it into camp after nightfall. The little valley seemed more like a hole that the gods had blasted between the mountains. There was high ground all around us. It was warmer than the pass, but not much. Since we were in a fortified camp, we were allowed to build fires. Somehow, the first cohorts in camp had managed some hot chow and warmed posca, which was waiting for us when we corralled the baggage train. I couldn’t remember ever drinking anything as comforting as that steaming cup of posca.

  Later that night, when I took my turn on the ramparts, a cold wind was blowing down out of the pass from the northeast, the frigid breath of Alba Magna. I saw some fires glowing about two thousand paces across the valley to the southwest. When I asked about it, I was told that it was the camp of the Eleventh Legion. Where the rest of the army was that night, we had no idea.

  The next morning, we didn’t move out until the first hour of the day. Malleus had decided to give the Eleventh a head start down the next pass. But soon, we too were descending down the narrow valley behind them. Tulli was still feeling good about the whole thing. A few more zigs and zags, but it was all downhill from here, as far as he was concerned.

  That day’s march seemed to prove him right. The passes and gorges were narrow, but the leading legions had done a good job clearing the route of the march. We did over thirty thousand passus and arrived in another little valley at nightfall. There, we got our first indication that things would be different on this side of the Alps. There had been a village near the intersection of two small rivers. What people did to stay alive so far up in the mountains was anybody’s guess, but whatever it was, it was no longer a concern for the people who had lived here. The village was destroyed, burned out. When we arrived, the ashes were cold, but we could still smell the odor of wet, burnt lumber and thatch. There were no bodies. Perhaps whoever had lived here had escaped.

  “My guess is this is the work of the boys in the Seventh,” Tulli said as we marched past.

  “Why’d they do it?” I asked.

  “Who knows?” Tulli answered with a shrug. “Don’t see any bodies, so I guess most of them are up in the hills. They must have done something to piss off the general.”

  The next morning, we followed a river descending toward the northwest. Around the third hour, we passed another burned-out village. Again, the fires were long out and the ashes cold.

  We were about two thousand passus beyond the village when the column came to sudden halt. We didn’t think too much of it until we heard a cornu, a signaling trumpet at the head of our column, calling, “Ad Signa!” I immediately heard Strabo’s voice repeating the call to fall in and spotted our century’s standard raised on the other side of the baggage train. We quickly assembled around the standard, and Strabo called us to attention. We waited, but there were no more trumpet calls. Strabo had us stand easy and check our combat equipment.

  I was just deciding that this was some kind of drill, when Gelasius, our cohort commander, arrived to brief Strabo. After the two centurions finished talking, Strabo came over to talk to us.

  “Seems there’s a roadblock set up in front of the column,” Strabo said. “Must’ve gone up after the Eleventh passed through and before we arrived, so it’s deliberate . . . Not sure what’s going on . . . The natives are probably trying to pick off a wagon or two . . . The valley opens up about two thousand passus farther down the road, so this is their last chance to get to us . . . The First Cohort’s clearing the road, and then we’ll be moving . . . Meanwhile, we’re going to move straight toward that line of spruce and pine trees to see if any of them mentulae are hiding in there . . . The Third Century will stay close to the impedimenta and support us if we need it.”

  We had already assembled in the basic combat formation, a ten-man front at normal intervals with the contubernia in column
, so Strabo marched us straight forward, toward the tree line. I was positioned in the front rank with Minutus behind me as my geminus. The rest of our contubernium was in file behind us. I could see Strabo and our signifer marching on the right flank of our first rank. I knew Bantus and our tesserarius, a legionary everybody called Brevis because he was almost six pedes tall, would be to our rear.

  As we got closer, I noticed that the trees to our immediate front receded a bit and the ground in front of them dipped, creating the semblance of an amphitheater with the evergreen forest on three sides. Strabo halted us before we entered the low ground. There didn’t seem to be any movement in the trees. Despite that, Strabo decided to gain width and sacrifice depth. He ordered us to open our intervals, and he doubled the contubernia front. Now I had Tulli, our decanus, on my left, with Rufus backing him up. The centuria now had a twentyman front, but we were only four men deep.

  Strabo ordered us to stand at ease.

  We waited. Nothing happened. No enemy appeared to our front. No recall back to the line of march sounded.

  I heard someone behind me mutter, “Another goat rope!” A few guys guffawed at that. Strabo must have heard, but he said nothing.

  Suddenly, we heard a cornu at the head of the column signal, “First Cohort,” then, “Advance!”

  Then we heard calls for the Fifth and Sixth Cohorts at the rear of the column.

  Still we waited. But, nothing for us.

  Then, one of our guys near the left flank yelled, “Centurio! Movement in the trees!”

  I looked down the column and saw the man pointing with his pilum. I looked toward where he was pointing. At first I saw nothing. Then, as my eyes adjusted to the gloom under the evergreens, I saw movement. Men. Dozens of them. They began to come out of the forest in front of us. They weren’t armored like us. Most of them seemed wrapped in animal firs. I could see no swords, no spears. I couldn’t understand how such a rabble could be any threat to us.