spears. Nothing made sense. Eventually he gave up his pointless brooding and forced himself to focus on the ground beneath his feet and the men to his front.
Frontinus was as good as his word. Rufus had no way of measuring how long they had marched, but at one point he found the auxiliary commander keeping pace beside him. Rufus asked the question that had been gnawing at him. ‘You say we are to close on the enemy? How is that possible when the barrier of a mighty river separates us? Do you have a sorcerer who will lift us over its waters undetected?’
‘Not a sorcerer.’ Frontinus laughed. ‘River rats.’
‘River rats?’
‘That’s right. River rats and an elephant.’
Rufus must still have looked mystified.
The auxiliary commander explained: ‘It is what my men call themselves — river rats from the wetlands between the two great rivers of Germania. Water rules our life from the day we are born. When we take our first breath our father sacrifices to the water gods. One of the great trials of manhood among the Batavi is to swim the Rhenus, a river twice as wide as this rather pitiful thing we approach, and when we die our bodies are consigned to its waters. The rivers provide us with everything: fish and wildfowl for food, driftwood to build our huts, the beaver and otter pelts that clothe us. The only thing they cannot give is gold, and that is why we fight for the Romans. Every family of my tribe supplies a son of military age to serve, and when these men return home they come with bounty and plunder that gives them the pick of the women, and the Roman citizenship which guarantees an honoured place in our society and the patronage of Rome. We are attached to the Fourteenth Gemina, but for this operation General Vespasian has asked for our specialist skills.’
Frontinus’s face mirrored his pride in his men. Rufus realized that, for all his fine manners, he was a barbarian chieftain at heart. The men he commanded were the same warriors he would have led as part of his tribe, if the Empire had not enticed them into its service. There was no need to ask what the specialist skills were that Vespasian believed so important.
‘If your men are so good, why do you need me — and Bersheba?’
Frontinus turned to study Bersheba, who swung out her trunk to take his scent. Some men would have flinched in the face of that mighty implement, five feet of solid muscle that could smash a man to the ground, or lift him from it, but the Batavian commander smiled and allowed her to run her sensitive nostrils over his arm. ‘How deep a river could she cross?’
Rufus frowned. ‘That would depend. Eight feet if the current was not too strong.’
‘And if your life depended upon it?’
Rufus felt a thrill of alarm. ‘Ten,’ he said.
‘Eight will be enough. If the rain doesn’t get any heavier and if we ever find the crossing point.’
‘But what will she have to do? She is not a war elephant. She can’t fight the Britons for you.’
‘She won’t have to.’ Frontinus laughed again. ‘My river rats can cross the Tamesa even with their weapons and equipment.’ He saw the disbelief on Rufus’s face. No man could swim a broad river in full armour, not even if he had webbed feet. ‘Oh, there are ways, have no fear of that. But to achieve what General Vespasian asks of us we must land as a unit, and that is where Bersheba can help.’
By the time they reached the riverbank, there was activity all around them. The men closest to Rufus were working in small groups, each certain of his duty even in the sullen darkness.
Frontinus explained. ‘We constructed the rafts yesterday, and they were carried by the lead group, but the goatskins have to be inflated, tested and properly secured. Then the weapons, clothing and armour are covered by oilskin cloth and loaded. Everything goes on the rafts, everything but the men. They do what they do best. They swim. But tonight they won’t swim on their own. They’ll be towed by Bersheba. Even in a gentle current the rafts would drift downstream, and this current is far from gentle. By the time they reached the far bank my men would be scattered for miles and they’d walk straight out of the river on to the enemy spears. They would have no time to unpack their weapons. It would be a massacre. Worse, it would be a pointless massacre. We are soldiers, and happy enough to die, but none of us wants to be sacrificed in a useless cause. If Bersheba can tow six rafts and four times as many men, six crossings will secure us a bridge-head. We’ll put twenty ropes across and use them to relay the rest of the unit. We can have two thousand on the far side long before daylight.’
‘And then?’
‘And then we do the other thing we do best. We fight.’
While the preparations were going on around him, Rufus took the opportunity to study the river. What he saw knocked all the bravado from him. He estimated they were three miles above the place where Plautius’s main force faced Caratacus. The river was narrower here, but this was no gentle stream. It was a formidable barrier a good two hundred paces across, probably more. The surface was dark and dangerous, full of swirls and eddies that were a sure sign of broken ground on the river bed. That was the key. What was the bottom like where they planned to cross? If it was gravel, hard-packed and solid, he was confident Bersheba could do what he had boasted she could. She had forded deep rivers before, enjoyed nothing better than to frolic in the clean water. But what if the bottom were mud, or, worse, composed of large rocks with gaps between them like mantraps? She would lose her footing, might even break a leg. He reached up to stroke the yellowing lion’s tooth charm and sent up a silent prayer to Fortuna.
When he returned to Bersheba, Frontinus was already at her side. At the Batavian’s instructions he led the elephant through the small groups of soldiers making a final check of their rafts by the river, where the grassy sward shelved steeply into the water. Rufus had a momentary vision of Bersheba stumbling and throwing him into the depths. The fact that he had never learned to swim properly suddenly became very important.
Frontinus appeared beside him. ‘Six, you understand? You are certain she can tow them? Once you are out there it will be too late to turn back.’
Rufus nodded. These men were more important than his fears. ‘Six, and twenty-four men.’
‘Then truly she is the Emperor’s elephant. May the river gods protect you!’
Then Frontinus was gone, replaced by naked Batavian infantrymen who tied the cords of their rafts to Bersheba’s harness with practised fingers. The closest, Taurinus, the centurion whose feet had so concerned his commander, explained what would happen next. ‘Just take it slowly. We’ll carry the rafts down to the river at your pace. Once we’re in the water there’ll be a little confusion at first, there always is, but we’ll soon get it sorted out. Don’t worry about us. Just concentrate on getting this beast to the far side and we’ll be right behind you. When we reach the bank we’ll untie the rafts.’ The tall, heavily muscled soldier patted him on the shoulder. ‘Strength! Never thought I’d say that to a fucking Praetorian.’ He laughed and disappeared towards his men. Rufus climbed on to Bersheba’s knee and up her great slab of a flank.
When he was ready, Frontinus appeared beside the elephant, glancing worriedly back to where his men were completing their preparations. Eventually he was satisfied. ‘Go,’ he hissed.
Rufus urged Bersheba forward into the unknown.
XXV
The first lurch as she hit the slope almost pitched him straight into the river, but his hold on her harness was strong enough to keep him in his seat. Bersheba placed first one mighty pad and then the next into the water with barely a ripple, and Rufus breathed a sigh of relief. There was no steep drop off into the depths. The waters reached just above her knees.
Two more steps and they were on their way, the surface quickly rising until it reached her belly. Behind him, Rufus heard soft splashes and muffled gasps as the rafts and their escorts entered the river. Instantly, the cords tightened as the rafts were pulled downstream by the current. Rufus felt the elephant shift her weight to take the pressure and he heard the centurion cursing as he organized his men. He’d feared Bersheba might be disturbed by this unfamiliar task, but she accepted it in her usual unflustered fashion. When she had gone a dozen feet from the bank, the darkness folded around them like a cloak. At first, Rufus lost all sense of space and time in this impenetrable black prison, but the solid warmth of Bersheba beneath him helped steady his nerves. He could see nothing ahead, but, below him, the eternal, implacable flow of the water restored his sense of direction and he urged the elephant onward.
