Gallia Invicta

“What?”

But instead of explaining, Carbo merely pointed to the lead trireme as it put on an extra burst of speed, bearing down on the escaping Veneti fleet. Fronto turned back to it and peered down.

“I don’t see…”

He fell silent as he watched the trireme meet the submerged rock shelf that surrounded the headland. There was a series of cracks and crunches as the oars hit rocks and shattered, followed by an almighty bang as the hull connected with the undulating shelf beneath the jagged pinnacles.

He watched in horror as the trireme foundered on the rocks, water rushing in through the broken hull. The crew panicked and began to abandon the ship, some diving blindly onto the rocks. Behind them, the rest of the fleet veered away sharply.

Fronto stared. “How is that possible?”

Carbo shrugged.

“It’s all about draft, sir. The hulls of the triremes are too deep beneath the surface to cross these rocks, and the oars are no use there.”

“But how do the Veneti do it then?”

“Their ships must be designed differently. A lower draft so that their ships can cross the rocks in safety. And if you look, sir, they’ve a much wider beam too.”

“Beam?” Fronto began to feel as though he was being toyed with.

“Yes sir. The beam is the width of the ship. Ours are deeper underwater and narrower in the beam. Theirs have a shallow draft, which allows them to approach the coast easily, but that would make them less stable at sea, so they’ve counteracted that with a wide beam so that they remain the right way up even in strong waves. Quite clever really. They’ve adapted their shipbuilding style to the conditions they live in.”

As they watched, the Veneti fleet was already leaving the rocky area beyond the cliffs and making for open sea, their sails billowing.

“It’s not over yet” Caesar noted, watching as the Roman fleet, now carefully avoiding the rocks, began to head out to sea.

Again, Carbo shook his head sadly.

“They’re actually moving faster than our ships at the moment. Once they get out into those heavy waves our triremes will be in extreme danger. They’ll capsize and break up in those conditions. If commander Brutus doesn’t turn them back before they’re half a mile out, we’ll lose the fleet.”

Fronto frowned at his senior centurion.

“You seem to know a lot about this?”

“I wasn’t always a soldier, sir. I grew up in Ancona. My dad was a shipbuilder, sir.”

Fronto raised his eyebrow. This man never failed to surprise him.

“What’s the answer then, Carbo? How do we stop them?”

The primus pilus sighed, his shoulders drooping.

“I’m not entirely sure that we can, sir. Catching them’s possible, but it’s a matter of surprising them and trapping them in a harbour with deep enough water that we can get our own ships to them, while they can’t escape past us.”

Fronto nodded and suddenly became aware that the general was at his shoulder, paying close attention.

“Go on, centurion” the general said. “You say we could catch them, but that is not enough?”

Carbo scratched his head. “I’m not sure, sir. The thing is, even from this far away you can see the difference in size and construction of the ships. Their hulls are much higher and thicker than ours; they have to be to withstand the conditions of the sea here.”

“So?” Fronto prodded.

“Well sir… if their ships are, say, six feet higher at deck level than ours how would we get a boarding ramp across to them? There’s no realistic way of doing it, which renders boarding impossible. That, in turn, means the marines are useless and can’t get aboard the enemy.”

“Then we sink them and pick them out of the water.”

Again, Carbo shook his head.

“Solid oak. Very thick hull. I doubt our rams would go through it. If one of our fleet hit their ships at ramming speed, I would give even chances that it would be our trireme that sank and not them.”

Caesar’s teeth began to grind again.

“Are you suggesting that the fleet is unlikely to catch the enemy and effectively powerless to deal with them even if they did?”

Carbo nodded.

“Unless the commander can come up with something that helps turn the odds his way.”

The three men raised their eyes to the distance once more. The Veneti fleet were already out among the choppy waves and Brutus’ fleet, having begun to buck and roll with the sea, had slowed their pursuit.

Caesar turned his angry gaze to Fronto.

“Get the legions back to the mainland, dismantle the artillery and, when Brutus puts in an appearance, tell him to get out there and track them. I don’t care how he does it, but I want to know where that Veneti fleet goes, so that when they land we can deal with them properly.”

Fronto nodded and turned to Carbo.

“You heard the general. Get the Tenth on the move.”

“Yessir.”

Fronto gazed out once more at the distant, retreating sails of the Veneti. He had engaged defiant people before who had fought until the last man stood, and had dealt with tribes who had surrendered in order to preserve their culture. He’d never dealt with a tribe that refused to engage them and simply slipped out of the back door when the might of Rome came knocking. This was going to be problematical.

Chapter 7

(Maius: Off the coast of Gaul some five miles north of Corsicum)

Brutus pinched the bridge of his nose as the trierarch’s fierce gaze bored into him.

“Just do it.”

“As you say, commander.”

The ship’s captain turned his piercing blue eyes away from the staff officer back to his second on deck, periodically calling out the timing for the oarsmen.

“Signal the fleet to move into bull horns formation and as soon as the ships are in position, give me attack speed.”

“Aye, sir”

The trierarch turned back to Brutus and glared. The young officer had chosen the Aurora as his flagship solely because it had been the first trireme to be completed and the first he had sailed on. He was beginning to regret choosing one with such a headstrong and outspoken captain and, while he knew that he had the authority to shut the man up, remove him from command, or even have him disciplined, he had not the heart, since he knew with every ounce of his being that the man was absolutely right.

“You are aware, commander, that this is inviting disaster?”

Brutus nodded unhappily.

“Sadly, captain, I have my orders and therefore so do you. Whatever else we do and whatever the result, we have to try.”

The comment did nothing to lift the disapproval from the man’s gaze as the other ships in the fleet pulled into a flattened crescent shape some three or four vessels deep.

“Execute the plan.”

Brutus took a deep breath. It was a long shot, for certain. In fact, it was several long shots and made him