Eagle in the Snow: A Novel of General Maximus and Rome's Last Stand

That night I altered my dispositions, moved the main body of my men onto the flanks and left the centre only lightly held. I was determined to try a counter-attack if I could. They came against us for the hundredth time and died horribly between the stakes and the ditches. I waited till I judged that the great mass were pressing in upon the centre where the arrow-fire from the palisade was weaker than formerly—and then struck. The cohorts on the wings, flanked by all the horse I could muster, moved out and swept round to take them on the flanks. We moved in the old formation, shoulder to shoulder, a wave of men throwing javelins and then working in with their swords, to be followed by a succession of waves, as each rank tired and fell back to rest. The snow was packed hard by now, frozen lightly on top and slippery in patches where the dead had left their mark. Everything was in our favour, if we could only keep the pressure up long enough. Their line began to bend and writhe as they tried to contain us, and then it wavered as I threw in the last of my reserves. The noise was deafening and the shouting turned to cries of alarm and rage as they broke and fled. Our trumpets sounded and the cavalry, from the two camps below us, burst from the hurriedly opened gates and rode through the Vandal camp, scattering tents and fires and tossing lighted torches onto the waggons that had come up during the day. It was a more successful repeat of our battle on the east bank and, as before, we came within a dicer’s throw of victory. They were broken and confused and in a panic; and the panic was spreading swiftly as it always did. We herded them back onto the ice, and they withdrew to form a ragged line between the islands. Had we had more men we could have followed them further and swept them back onto the east bank; and, once there, I do not think they would have tried to cross again. But our men were exhausted and their impetus was gone by the time they reached the river bank. They had driven the enemy off but they could do no more, and so the fighting ended without my having achieved the success I dreamed of. I put more men into Moguntiacum, sent a further stiffening of auxiliaries into the camp by the river, told Marius to re-fortify the harbour area, and cleared the enemy from their positions around the broken bridge where Barbatio, bearded and deathly tired, still held out. Then I withdrew the cavalry back to the road.

At least our success gave us some much needed rest. They did not attack again for seven hours and during that time my men slept for the first time since the old year died.

Quintus said, “How much longer can they keep it up? Their losses are tremendous. How much longer can we keep it up? We are still only just holding them.”

“We must hold them,” I said. There was nothing else for me to say.

Just before midday they moved off the ice, pushed my patrols off the bank and assaulted the harbour settlement, coming in upon it fast from three sides in their great wedge shaped formations, like migrating birds driven before a gale. Marius refused to surrender or retreat. The settlement went up in fire and smoke and the legionaries died upon the walls and in the ditch. They fought in the smoke filled streets and in the doorways of burning homes. They fought with broken swords and blunted spears, with stones and bricks and with their bare hands, until all were overwhelmed. By late afternoon the barbarians had re-taken all the ground from which we had driven them with such difficulty; and then, once more, they began to move up the slope.