Cato considered protesting, but the glint in Tullius’ eyes showed that the veteran was in no mood to listen. He’d clearly had enough of Cato’s advice and it would be dangerous to push him any further.

‘Yes, sir.’ Cato saluted and made his way back to his men, still suffering the intense bombardment of slingshot in resigned silence. There was no let-up, no diminishing of the volume of missiles smashing and cracking the palisade and the men who defended it, and Cato wondered how many of them would be left by the time dusk gathered over the marshes. By then, the legate would surely have arrived.

‘There’s movement down the track!’ Septimus called out, and Cato risked a glimpse round the edge of his shield. Behind the slingers, streaming past Caratacus on his chariot, came a dense body of men, many of whom were carrying bundles of wood and crudely constructed ladders.

Cato ducked his head back and shouted to his men, ‘Sixth Century! Draw swords!’

There was a drawn-out chorus of rasping noises as the men drew their weapons, and then the legionaries of the other centuries followed suit. The Romans tensed their muscles, anxiously waiting for the order to rise up and confront the fresh wave of attackers. Cato took another look. A gap had opened up in the enemy shield wall, and beyond that the slingers parted each side of the track as the assault party rushed through, running the remaining distance to the Roman defences. Over their heads the slingers resumed their bombardment of the Third Cohort. There was none of the usual shouting of war cries as the native warriors reached the edge of the ditch and started to pick their way across the bodies of their comrades who had died in the earlier assaults. With Romans waiting ahead of them, and their own men flinging slingshot from behind them, they just wanted to get the attack over with as quickly as possible. The bundles of wood were cast down where the ditch still yawned before the low rampart and the warriors streamed across, throwing themselves up the steep slope on the far side.