This was a long defile, with towering walls of red sandstone — open-ended, wide at the mouth, narrowing in the centre to a neck just broad enough to be spanned by three ranks of soldiers — a disposition which accounted for the unit’s entire strength, barring archers and a small force of cavalry, both stationed elsewhere.
Carrying oval shields of laminated wood and wearing scale-armour hauberks and traditional Attic helmets, the
‘Remind you of anything, sir?’ Victor asked the general in breezy tones, in an attempt to break the tension, building as the minutes bled away. He waved towards the silent ranks behind them.
‘Should it?’
‘The three hundred Spartans at Thermopylae, sir — surely you’ve heard of them?’
‘You’re forgetting, Victor — your commanding officer is just an ignorant barbarian. Enlighten me.’
‘Well, sir, in order to buy time for the main Greek army to come up, an advance force of three hundred Spartans under their king, Leonidas, volunteered to block a narrow pass against an invading Persian army, numbering three hundred thousand. Odds of a thousand to one.’ He grinned. ‘With us, they’re only ten to one; should be a walkover.’
‘What happened to those Spartans?’
‘Another time, sir — listen!’
A faint susurration, like wind in a cornfield, could just be heard in the distance. This grew steadily to a pattering, then to a muted, rumbling roar. While the van of their army was yet invisible, a small advance party of Persian infantry preceded by a mounted herald came into sight round a bend in the canyon, some five hundred yards ahead. The foremost soldiers held aloft the
‘You may tell your master this,’ responded Roderic in mild tones. ‘Provided he undertakes to remove himself and his troops from the Diocese of Oriens and return forthwith beyond the Euphrates, then Rome is prepared, this once, to overlook such unwarranted and unprovoked invasion of her territory. If not, we will find ourselves compelled to deal with him severely.’
For a few moments, the herald stared at Roderic. Then, finding his voice, he snarled, ‘On your head be it, Roman. Learn then, the fate of any of your men unlucky enough to survive the coming battle — a reckoning you will have brought upon yourselves.’ And, wheeling his mount, he spurred back to his party.
Carried by several soldiers, a large wooden cross, to which was bound the Roman prisoner taken earlier, was swiftly erected before the Persian group, its base slotting into a massive timber support. Bundless of brush-wood were piled around the shaft, and — before any of the horrified Romans could intervene, ignited. Laughing, the Persians withdrew, while Roderic, Victor, and a detachment of his comrades raced to rescue the victim. Too late. A roaring column of fire shot upwards, enveloping the prisoner, who shrieked and writhed against his bonds — before a well-aimed arrow mercifully cut short his agony. As the Romans returned to their position, Victor noted that fury and grim determination had replaced earlier expressions of apprehension on the men’s faces. ‘If that was supposed to be an object lesson intended to intimidate us,’ he observed to Roderic, ‘I rather think it may have backfired.’
The ground began to tremble as, round the bend in the defile, the Persian van appeared, fronted by a dense mass of elephants — enormous beasts, with wrinkled grey hides and formidable-looking tusks.
‘Africans, I’m afraid, sir,’ said the
‘Thank you, Victor; just what I wanted to hear. Well, we can only hope that our men keep their nerve and remember the drill we’ve tried to teach them.’ Aware that horses were panicked by the smell of elephants, the two men dismounted and had their steeds taken behind the lines.
A brazen clang of trumpets rang out and the elephants advanced, gradually picking up speed. Faster and faster they moved, trumpeting wildly, huge ears spread like sails, as they rolled towards the Romans like a vast grey billow. Surmounting each animal, and secured by chains, was a squat crenellated turret in which stood two mahouts. ‘That Polybius fellow had better be right,’ muttered Roderic grimly, then gave a sharp nod to Victor. The
Striding among the men, the
Elephants, like horses, are motivated by self-preservation. Unwilling to face those screens of wicked blades, they thundered down the escape routes provided by the corridors between the files, and out into the empty gorge beyond. Archers, positioned on the canyon’s lips or on ledges in its walls, now loosed off a deadly sleet of shafts — skewering the mahouts in their turrets, thus annulling any attempt to reverse the elephants’ headlong charge. To make sure they kept moving, groups of soldiers followed, shouting and banging pots and pans from the field kitchen. Returning, as an extra precaution they sowed the ground with caltrops* in accordance with orders from the
Once more the Persian trumpets sounded. The
Then, at a signal from Roderic, Victor again blew his whistle; the
A charge by massed cataphracts should have proved irresistible. Protected by stout armour, both horses and riders were invulnerable to spears, and the massive weight of a cataphract formation was virtually guaranteed to smash through any line of infantry rash enough to stand against it. However, borrowing a tactic employed with tremendous success by Alexander in his Persian campaigns — the phalanx — the Romans had hit upon the one stratagem that could provide an effective counter.
Like a wave breaking against a cliff face, the cataphracts crashed against the wall of pikes — a wall in which the weapon of every man in the triple line was brought to bear. The Roman infantry, each soldier gripping his pike- shaft several yards behind the point of impact, experienced a collective jarring shock, but to their enormous relief (not unmixed with surprise) their ranks held firm. If presented as separated units, the pikes would have shattered, but opposed to the enemy as a solid mass, their effect was to diffuse the force of impact by spreading it over a wide area. Again and again the cataphracts re-formed, to hurl themselves against the hedge of blades — to no avail. At last a trumpet blew recall and the cataphracts withdrew to make way for the Persian infantry.
Where heavy shock troops had proved unable to break the Roman front, it was hardly likely that foot-soldiers