I made my way to Primus, who was now lookingat me with a belligerent gaze.
“Why aren’t the men moving? The wall’scollapsed, so what are you waiting for?”
“Praetor, while we have a breach, it’s notsufficient for an assault.”
“What do you mean?” He pointed to the wall.“I see a hole, right there. The gate is gone, and there’s a bigpile of rubble that you can march the men right up. So give theorder now, or I shall!”
Knowing this was not the time to lose mytemper, I maintained my composure. Regardless, I wanted to slap himoff his horse very badly.
“Praetor, the problem is that the pile istoo steep. Not enough rubble fell, and what rubble did fall didn’tdo so far enough down the slope to give us the angle we need to doas you say.”
Pointing first at the pile then to themountain above, I tried to show him what I was talking about.
“As it is right now, it would be likescaling those cliffs up there. We’d almost need ropes to get upthat pile. Even without ropes, the men will need two hands toclimb. While under fire from the archers, and with the gods knowhow many Thracians waiting for them. In other words, we’d beslaughtered.”
I did not mention the other problem of theheight, thinking to save that if he continued to be obstinate andinsist that the attack go ahead.
“So what are you going to do about it?”Primus asked, a fair enough and sensible question.
Rather than repeating Flavianus’ answer, Ireplied, “We’re working on it right now.”
“Then why are you sitting there wastingtime?”
He made one of those shooing motions withhis fat little hands to dismiss me. I did as he indicated, theanger smoldering in me, threatening to burst into open flame at anymoment. When I rode back to Flavianus, I could see by the slump ofhis shoulders that he had not thought of a possible solution.Reaching his side, I dismounted so that I did not present a targettoo tempting to resist, whereupon we both stared glumly at thebreach. Looking carefully, I pointed to what had been the rightside of the gateway, where the wall was still standing, despitehaving jagged pieces ripped loose.
“What if we worked on that spot right there?Couldn’t we knock more of the wall down? It would push all thatrubble down farther, and flatten out the slope.”
My suggestion was based more on desperationthan any real hope, and Flavianus quickly put me out of mymisery.
“If we had more ten-pound ammunition, thenmaybe. But even then it wouldn’t be a sure thing.”
He jabbed a stubby finger at the ruinedgateway.
“See how thick the wall is? We’d have tobring down almost all of that before there would be a collapse ofsufficient size to lower the angle of the slope.”
Even as expected as his words were, I cursedbitterly at the disappointment. As I stared at the pile, hopingthat some idea would spring from the rubble, my mind drew a totalblank.
“Ladders,” Flavianus said abruptly.
“Yes, I suppose so,” I sighed. “We betterget started on them. How high do they need to be, do youthink?”
To my surprise, Flavianus shook hishead.
“I’m not talking about ladders up againstthe wall.” His tone became more excited. “I’m talking about makingladders, but with a special modification.”
He outlined what he was thinking, but I mustsay that I was not convinced.
“You really think that will work?” I askeddubiously when he had finished explaining.
“Do you have a better idea?” he shot back,and I had to admit that I did not.
“All right, let’s try it,” I agreed, butwithout much enthusiasm, it must be said.
One thing that is never lacking in a RomanLegion is manpower; there are always lots of hands to take on ajob. Almost as quickly as Flavianus had drawn up his plans on a waxtablet, scribes made copies to hand out to the working parties, andother men went looking for the materials we would need.Fortunately, despite there not being any old growth forests in thearea, there were a few stands of saplings that would yield wood ofa sufficient height and strength to make what Flavianus’ designcalled for. Essentially, we were building ladders, just withspecial modifications. Instead of the rounded rungs that are theusual crosspieces of a scaling ladder, these rungs would be planedflat, but with the flat side facing out from the ladder when it wasvertical instead of up. That was because the ladder would be lyingat a flatter angle than if it were being placed against the wall.In addition, there were pieces of wood attached to the back side ofthe ladder, with a long spike protruding from each piece of wood.These pieces acted to prop the ladder up off the ground, and thespikes would help anchor the ladders when they were thrown againstthe rubble pile. It was far from a perfect solution; the rubblepile was unevenly distributed, meaning the ladder would not be ineven contact with the pile at every point, making it somewhatunstable. Additionally, the men who would place the ladder wouldhave to choose a spot in between the protruding timbers from thegate, all while under fire from archers placed on the rearmostramparts, tucked safely away from our scorpions. In short, it wasthe best of the bad choices confronting us, yet the men workedquickly, all of them knowing that time was crucial. We had toassume that reinforcements were marching from Serdica, and we couldonly hope that the two Cohorts put in the blocking position wouldmanage to hold them off for as long as needed. No man wanted to beresponsible for the deaths of other Romans, even from otherCohorts, or other Legions, so the men of the 13th hadpitched in to help. Very quickly, before the sun moved more than acouple of fingers width in the sky, more than two dozen of theseladders had been built. Instead of being built to heights of morethan twenty feet, we had built them in much smaller sections,perhaps ten feet in length. The idea would be that the men leadingthe assault could throw down one section, ascend the ladder thatwas more like a set
