Read Online Cato 03 - When the Eagle Hunts by Simon Scarrow - Free Book Online Page A

huge army base constructed the previous summer when the legions had first forced their way across the great river. The base was now garrisoned by four cohorts of Batavian auxiliaries. The Batavian infantry had been left at the base while the cavalry squadrons patrolled up the valley, searching out and chasing off any of Caratacus's raiding parties they might encounter. Within the base, supplies had been stockpiled all winter as the shipping from Gaul continued to cross the channel to Rutupiae whenever the weather permitted. From there, smaller barges carried provisions up the Tamesis estuary to the base that straddled the river. The final link in the supply chain was provided by small columns of wagons which made their way under heavy guard to the advance forts, manned by small detachments of auxiliary troops.
    This line of defence had been erected by General Plautius to keep Caratacus at bay. A futile attempt, it had turned out. Small bodies of enemy troops regularly slipped through, under cover of darkness, to harass the Roman supply lines and wreak havoc on those tribes who had gone over to the invaders. Once in a while a more daring attack was attempted, and a handful of outposts had had their small garrisons slaughtered. Barely a day passed without some distant smudge against the clear winter sky telling of yet another attack on a supply column, native village or Roman outpost. The commanders of the auxiliary cohorts charged with defending the area could only gaze in despair at the evidence of their failure to contain Caratacus and his men. Not until spring arrived, and the weather improved, could the ponderous weight of the Roman legions be thrown at the Britons once again.
    The Second Legion's arrival at the Tamesis camp gave them only a brief respite from the daily grind of constructing a marching camp. The following day, the legate gave the order to cross the bridge to the south bank. Only now did the more strategically minded in the ranks begin to understand what the role of the legion would be in the coming campaign. Once across the river, the legion swung to the west and advanced upriver for two more days along a track that the engineers had crudely surfaced with a mix of tree trunks and thick branches. The track then turned south, and early on the afternoon of the third day the legion arrived in the lee of a long hill. It was from here that the Second Legion would launch their thrust into the territory of the Durotriges once the campaigning season started.
    While the baggage train and the artillery carts were painstakingly manoeuvred up the muddy slope, the main body of the legion was marched up to the broad crest of the hill. The order was given to down packs and begin entrenching. While the men of the Sixth Century started on their section of the defensive ditch, Centurion Macro gazed south.
    'Here, Cato! Isn't that some kind of town over there?'
    His optio joined him and followed his pointing finger. Several miles away some thin trails of smoke eddied up, just visible against the thick gloom of the approaching winter evening. It might be a trick of the light, but Cato thought he could see the faint lines of a substantial native settlement.
    'I'd imagine that's Calleva, sir.'
    'Calleva? Know anything about it?'
    'Got talking to a trader in Camulodunum, sir. He's got a share in a trading post on the south coast. Supplies wine and pottery to the Atrebates. It's their land we're in now. Calleva's their tribal capital, sir. The only place of any size, according to the trader.'
    'So what was he doing in Camulodunum?'
    'Looking for a chance to expand his business. Like the rest of his kind.'
    'Did he tell you anything useful about our friends over there?'
    'Useful, sir?'
    'Like how loyal they are, what they're like in a fight. That kind of useful.'
    'Oh, I see. Only that the Atrebates seemed friendly enough to him and the other traders. And now that the general's reinstalled Verica to their throne, they should be